Agronomic service is still a push-pull offering for dealers. Some have proactively embraced and invested in providing robust support options to customers that include soil sampling, data analysis and field prescriptions.

The more things change, the more they stay the same, at least in terms of how dealers are selling and servicing precision farming products. While strides have been made establishing precision as a standalone business, dealerships continue to seek a better balance between revenue generated by hardware sales and service.

Despite the downturn in the ag economy, precision farming dealers have largely maintained an ambitious sales outlook, banking on their ability to increase billable service and capture ROI-based revenue from new products.

The market share realities and logistical hurdles a single-store mainline farm equipment dealership must clear to compete in an era of consolidation are real.

Succeeding in the digital ag space requires precision farming dealers to have an understanding of the benefits of the technology without forgetting the core reason for doing business in the first place.

As the digital tools of precision farming have helped growers better manage ever-smaller portions of their fields on an individual basis, the successful selling of those tools has opened up profitable new opportunities based on selling “solutions” rather than just selling products.

Building the next generation of leaders is the key to any successful dealership. That leadership journey can start during a recruit’s education as an internship opportunity. More and more dealerships are offering precision farming internships to both high school and/or college students to give them a taste for what working at a dealership entails.

Engineers with 68 different ISOBUS components — from virtual terminals to a programmable tractor chair — were scattered across nearly 35 tables during the 3-day Agricultural Electronics Foundation (AEF) Plugfest, May 7-9 in Lincoln, Neb.