Internship
Gabriella Ferguson
Shuyang Qu
AGED’S 412
8 November 2020
Internship Objective
Cargill has been serving customers for more than 150 years. They have stayed true to their vision which is, “Helping farmers prosper, connecting markets and bringing consumers the products they’re seeking.” They believe they were able to do all things up to this point is because they have been goal oriented from the beginning. Cargill’s mission is “Our vision is intended to unite, challenge, and inspire everything we do. By embracing and acting on the following ideas, we will drive Cargill to achieve its vision for the future. Our purpose is to be the global leader in nourishing people. Our mission is to create distinctive value.” Cargill started in 1865 when William Wallace Cargill became the proprietor of a grain warehouse in Conover, Iowa, at the end of the McGregor & Western Railroad line. Among many things Cargill is proud to bring to their customers in the last 10 years they grew their animal nutrition side of the business, which is where I had the pleasure to intern. Cargill’s goal is to target as many people and to help them all along the way. Cargill continues to help people and thrive.
There are many different ways Cargill uses agriculture communications. I was able to use it in all parts of my internship. I was able to connect with customers and even see the marketing side of Cargill. Everyone within Cargill is always communicating with customers and employees about what is going on as well as what they should be doing. Cargill showed me that it really does take a village to get things done but, when you all work together you get to that goal that much quicker. Cargill is larger but they connect world wide different jobs that need done.
One communication objective that I was apart of during my time at Cargill was when I was getting information from customers. I continued to reach out to customers for information to help better their websites and even where there was no response I would have to keep asking. I loved being able to connect one on one with customer and help answer any questions that they had. I later found out that to solve this problem all that I needed to do was to cc someone into my email that worked at Cargill then they realize I needed the information. This was an easy communication task to take care of.
When I was interviewing for my internship at Cargill everyone told me it was like a family. I expected everyone to respond to all of the emails, calls, and requests that I had. Little did I know when people have no idea who you are they are not as good about responding to things. It is a huge part of the job that I am able to get the information and talk to these people. This is because these are the people that help me get bag images, posters and many other things that I need to get out to the customers. The more I talked to people and connected over short 30 minute calls the more my name got out. I was lucky enough to have a great supervisor as well as a mentor. They helped me with many things as well as helping, me to connect with people that were outside of the sales side of Cargill which was my favorite.
Throughout my time at Cargill this summer, I was able to update customer websites, consult Cargill’s pricing team and create a price comparison to share with their team to help them better their prices in stores. I connected one on one with many different people within Cargill to learn all about the sales side of things. One thing I learned that was so valuable was making sure to take the time and learn about yourself. Setting a SMART goal and watch it evolve over the internship. I was skeptical to do this, until my mentor told me how much it would benefit me now and down the road! I went for it and I am so glad I did, I was able to have many goals about connecting with different people and how I needed to finish each project. It helps me greatly and it was awesome to look back at it every so often and see how I was doing. If it was not for the communication and marketing in the agriculture industry, the agriculture industry would not be where it is today. There are so many different things that go into each piece of it. Things that I never knew went into it like the people who are creating bag images for feed, I would have never thought of until this summer. Throughout the summer I worked on many different communication and marketing projects that will be helpful and beneficial in the near future.
Literature Review
By working as a Sonya Sales intern for Cargill which is better understood at retail sales intern. I worked to provide information to my co-workers, as well as the customers in which we serve at Cargill. In in order to provide them with the most accurate and clear information I had to look more in depth. Cargill’s objective can be defined as helping their people thrive. There was a variety of different communication and marketing approaches that take place to get the attention of their customers and audience. They highlight the most effective way to get their information to the customers and to the end user.
There is a large portion of Cargill’s feed side of the business that all play a role in everything that goes on within the sales side of things. They often use marketing tactics such as in store events or using on line forums to get the word out about sales when things like COVID hit and there is nothing else for them to use. PETA is one example of an issue area that is highlighted within the company and making sure you are looking at all side of the spectrum. Cargill says “Today’s animal lovers want the best for their pets – the finest quality, nutrition and food safety.” This helps them to show how much they care for the animals. This is highlighted because there are always different ways to look at something and there is always someone looking at the bad side of it.
There is a very important component that sometimes gets over looked. “Communication about sustainable agriculture, which creates political-economic and social environments that promote development of sustainable systems, must more clearly define sustainability and what is to be sustained and must help producers and the public “think agroecologically.”( Communication and Sustainable Agriculture: Building Agendas for Research and Practice.) Sometimes it is forgotten to think about.
In addition to these, communication issues have evolved in the past few years and blogging has started. There are always pros and cons to these and blogs tend to get a lot of traffic and can sometimes be misleading to the customer because of what has been posted in them. They are great for companies because they get more interests, but it also takes a lot of time. Cargill is great about getting information out to their customers and promoting products via blogs, social media, and instore events which is effective when it comes to customer interaction.
There are many different types of communication, and advertising is one of them. There is an approach called an empathetic approach in which the sender sends the information to the receiver only, giving them information that the receiver wants to know. The sender gives information and hopes that the receiver will make right decision over it.
It is often that people tend to make topics around what is happening in the world right at that moment. Which is great but it can make for a very controversial topic and end with things that should not be said. For example, if Cargill were to start talking about Politics, it can end up back firing as everyone has different thoughts and politics are not a good subject to bring up. It is huge to look at all sides of the messages before you get led down the wrong path. It is important to make sure the topic is still interesting so that you audience comes willing to learn and wanting to know more about it.
There are always certain people that advocated for different aspects than what you will be communicating and you have to be willing to tailor your response and help your message get to those people as well. There is huge importance of focusing on providing accurate information, rather than the way the information is stated. The audience should be respected and trusted. These people should be able to make their own decision as well as using their manners to get there. By giving them all of the facts straight forward they are more willing to listen to you and respect your facts, versus giving someone the complicated information to get to the end result if you give the information right away and in a simple form they are much more likely to follow along with you, versus not listening to you.
There is also practical communication that takes place. There are a few basic steps to help get through it. You should define the goal, who you are talking to, or getting the information out to should be defined. You should make sure it is specific and that the message is easily able to be communicated to each of them individually to match their needs. You need to make sure to see the pros and con of each responses and consider what you will say back whether it is planned or unplanned. The original goal should be re-stated to make sure it has been accomplished.
Sales, marketing and communication should not be limited to online, or only written communication. It is suggested that there should be many different ways to get the information out. Examples of this are through social media, flyers, websites, blogs and many other things as well. It is important that information is displayed correctly by the sales person and their company. There can be misleading information within a graphic and it is important to make sure that information is clear. (Cairo, 2016)
Overall there are many things that need to go into consideration when attempting to provide clear and accurate information about marketing and sales. Trusting that your sales person is knowledgeable with the information they are giving you is valuable in the company. Making sure that yours sales person is helping you to make the best decisions possible for you company and your own customers is important. Together, making sure the information that is given out through authority, reporting, advising and advocating can help build that trust and be accurate information.
When communicating information about Cargill Feeds, the above points should be considered. It is very important to the business and the customer that the message is accurate and clear for the audience members to read. The models and theories presented in this literature review allow direction to creating successful sales and communication in this space.
“Animal Food.” Cargill, www.cargill.com/food-beverage/market/animal-food.
Aiken, W.., et al. “Communication and Sustainable Agriculture: Building Agendas for Research and Practice.” Agriculture and Human Values, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1 Jan. 1982, link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02217624.
Bojko, Ivan. “Pros and Cons of Blogging for Business.” ContentAdore, 22 Oct. 2020, contentadore.com/pros-cons-blogging/.
Cairo, Alberto. “3. The Truth Continuum.” The Truthful Art: Data, Charts, and Maps for Communication, New Riders, 2016.
“Successful Sales Communication Strategy in Six Steps.” Highspot, 15 Feb. 2020, www.highspot.com/blog/successful-sales-communication-strategy-in-six-steps/.
“Communication - Importance of Good Communication Skills.” Corporate Finance Institute, 30 Oct. 2019, corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/careers/soft-skills/communication/.
Parigot, Pierrick Dridhamati. “Professional and Personal Development.” Life At Work - Communication – Empathic Communication, www.lifeatwork.co.uk/communication/empathic.html.
My Strategies and Implementation
There are a few different strategies that I used when it came to my internship. The first strategy was making sure I was focused on what I was doing. Although the projects I worked on were relatively easy there was still a lot of focus that went into each project. Everyday when I started working I would make a list of what I knew I had to get done for the day and check it off as I went. I would go through all of my emails and answer them, and then start my work day. I focused on putting all of the product information into a spreadsheet that was easily accessible and easy to use. This way when I would send it to the customer they were able to update the information on their website with little to no questions. The information I was updating for them was the name of the product, brand, codes, ingredients, descriptions and bag images. This information would help the customer to update their website. It helped me become more familiar with the products and helped me communicate with the customers easier. The product bag images are updated and usually the information never gets sent to the customer or the customer never takes the time to update it when the information is sent to them. I went through a database within Cargill to receive all of this information. When the information is put into a spread sheet and sent to them they are much more likely to update their website. This was my main thing that I worked on everyday and my strategy was to focus and make sure that I had goals so that I could get the project finished in a timely manner and get it sent out to the customer. My goals were to depending on each customer and their product list. If it was a small list I would give myself a day or a little more to complete and set up a time to communicate with the customer. If I was working with a larger customer I gave myself two days or maybe more and then I set up time to communicate with them and explain everything for them. My goal with each customer was to make them familiar with the excel sheet and gain a relationship with them, which in turn made it easier for them to ask questions.
I was able to work closely with the pricing team at Cargill on one of my projects. This project included communicating and setting up a meeting with the pricing team to make sure the outcome they wanted from this was the same one I was working towards. I was not familiar with the pricing side of things, so to make this project successful I used listening as my strategy because I needed to learn a lot of information from them in a short amount of time to be able to complete this project. I worked with 3 different team members getting all of the information they needed from me and putting it into a spreadsheet that was easy to read and understand before presenting it to them. The pricing came from the sales team. Each time the sales team makes a store visit they enter in the competitor pricing and it is all averaged out into an excel sheet.
I worked on a team of 2 other people that was called the corn trading challenge where we were given the opportunity, to trade corn on the board. This was an awesome opportunity but it also was something I had to focus on as well. I used communication as my strategy in this situation and task. Everyday we would talk morning, night and sometimes during the day. Trading corn on the board is something that is always changing and making sure that we are on the same page and always communicating is very valuable. My communication strategy was also used everyday for talking with my supervisor. I would check-in with her just so she was informed of what I was doing. I wanted to make sure that the work I was doing was exactly what they wanted so that in the end we got the right result.
Results and Reflection
Price Comparison Project:
After sharing my findings of the pricing of Cargill pet feed versus their competitor and told them the story they were sold on the information I gave them. I was able to give them thoughts on what I thought should be done and they took it into consideration and it helped with changing their pricing.
I was able to take excel sheets that they sent me as well as look through competitor pricing on their website to put all of the information in to one excel sheet. I am unable to show the exact growth that each Cargill product had but also sent to me was growth charts and I was able to show the growth of the product compared to what it was priced at to show the pricing team.
Corn Trading Challenge:
CME was the website I was able to use and interact with before starting the trading challenge and get a grasp of what we would be doing while trading December corn.
Above is a screenshot of AgMobile December corn. AgMobile was used daily as a resource to see what the markets were doing if they were going up or down. This helped my team and I decide what we wanted to do with our trades. We were able to make money throughout the corn trading challenge and come out on top by quite a bit, I am unable to remember the amount.
Lastly I was able to create spreadsheets with each feed product that had the specs on the spreadsheet as well. This included weight, dimensions, descriptions, and products codes. Each customers spreadsheet was different that I sent because they each had different products as well as some had private labels. Due to Cargill’s privacy policy I am unable to share a screenshot of it.
Reflection:
My goal of developing Cargill sales through listening, focusing, and communicatig was achieved during my internship in multiple ways as shown above throughout my projects. I have learned how much by what other people have to say just by listening to them. It helps you to utilize the communication with customers, and coworkers in different ways that I didn’t think I would originally. There was a lot of communication via websites, calls, texts, emails, zoom and many more. Some advice that I have is to focus on what you are doing to get your projects done but make sure you give yourself time during the day to check your emails and check in with other co workers just to say hi. Communicate with everyone, get involved in the book clubs, coffee and lunch chats! It helps you the gain relationships you never knew you needed! It is challenging to work somewhere that you don’t know anything about, while being virtual, but ask the questions, and make a to-do list and it will be great!
I think there are a few things that could be done to extend my work:
More communication with the marketing team to be on the same page with the sales team and keep everything up to date in the Cargill database as well as the customer websites.
Following up with customers after they have updated their website to see if they need help with anything else.
Continue to build relationships and reach out for help more, everyone is willing to help.
Growing the communication on the Cargill database as many customers do not utilize it, so making it easily accessible would be great.
The best advice I have for communicator in agriculture is to always communicate with people in your industry and work environment. Those people are willing to teach you new things all the time and willing to give you all of the information that you need. Never stop asking questions, you aren’t learning if you aren’t asking. Have fun while you work, and be serious at the same time! Create the relationship with your connections because you never know when you will need to reach out to them.
After going back through all four sections, I went through and changed all of the grammar that Macy and Dr. Qu highlighted. I also changed and reworded sentences to change them and make them sound better thanks to their help. There were many sentences that I changed after rereading that were too wordy that Macy pointed out. I added in an in-text citation that I had forgot previous that is very important to give the author credit. There were different sentences throughout my papers that needed more information to them that I add to. I fixed and add to each comment that I was given throughout my papers and it was very helpful. Thank you to both of them for all of their help.