Elle Vance relishes selling John Deere tractors for AFGRI Equipment

The first was winning AFGRI Equipment's Small Ag Salesperson of the Year award at the group's July 31 gala awards night at Crown Perth, with about 170 guests attending.

One of three finalists from AFGRI's 19 dealerships, it had been suggested to Ms Vance when she originally enquired about the award that she could not win because she had not been long enough in a sales role.

She took her mum along as her guest on the night and was surprised when her name was read out as winner.

"That was a shock, but a very pleasant one," said Ms Vance of her win.

The other highlight, less than two months later, was driving the John Deere X9 1100 Signature Edition combine harvester, the first and only Class 11 combine in WA at the time and one of only three in Australia, off the truck at AFGRI's South Guildford headquarters, watched by colleagues.

"We were all out there when it (X9) arrived," she said.

"But I'm friends with the transport company (as her sales role involves new tractor deliveries to clients, she has a relationship with the transport company) so the truck driver said to me 'do you want to drive it off?'

"I said 'alright', jumped up there into the seat as the only girl, started it up and drove it off the truck in front of all our sales people.

"It was awesome, I was like a happy kid really."

Her current role as a sales representative at AFGRI headquarters sees her selling 60-150 kilowatt (80-200 horsepower) tractors, along with hay, seeding and tillage equipment and sprayers.

Her role requires a working knowledge of and an ability to explain the easy-to-operate but sometimes complex systems and electronics on modern tractors, plus be able to proffer advice on maintenance and what operators should watch for - sometimes to clients who were driving tractors decades before she was born.

"It's a bit intimidating sometimes because a farmer will ring up wanting to talk tractors with somebody and I say 'that's me'," she said.

"I'm 22 and a girl and I'm telling someone who is 65 and has been driving tractors since not long after they could crawl, the best way to operate it and look after it.

"I was told by a customer once that I'm very disarming in a good way.

"I don't like being pushy - I'm here to help."

Ms Vance said she spends about four hours a week doing some form of training module or reading refresher notes.

"Technology is constantly changing, there's software updates, new models have new buttons in the cab that do something fancy," she said.

"Everyday I get asked questions about the technology and I want to be able to answer them.

"I'm quite lucky, the John Deere University has a lot of online instruction manuals and material on how to use their equipment.

"But the best way to learn is still to go out and sit in a machine and push buttons until it beeps at you.

"Last year (during harvest), I sat on a header for six weeks for some time back onfarm, getting my hands dirty and reacquainting myself with how the guidance and the different systems work and the maintenance routine.

"I'd rather quote from experience, than from a manual, when I'm talking to a client."

Ms Vance said she enjoys field days where she helps demonstrate tractors and machinery, but the best part of her job is delivering a new tractor to a client.

"When it gets there on the tilt-tray, I have to start it up and drive it off then explain to the owner or operator 'here's how you run it, here's how to look after it'.

"I don't like leaving if they still have 'how to' questions," she said.

While she admits to being a tomboy growing up, her background was originally not in agriculture and certainly not with tractors and machinery.

"My family wasn't involved in agriculture, dad grew up near the beach and mum grew up with horses," she explained.

She grew up in Jane Brook and attended Swan Christian College to year 10 before, through family connections, she visited a Wongan Hills farm and fell in love with the lifestyle.

"I was about 12 maybe, I went up for the weekend and kind of just fell in love with the wide open spaces," Ms Vance said.

She enrolled herself for the following year at WA College of Agriculture, Cunderdin, without telling her parents.

"I filled out all the application documents online and mum and dad got a phone call on Monday morning from the college wanting to interview the potential boarder and they had no idea," she said.

She completed years 11 and 12 at Cunderdin, graduating in 2017 and considers attending agriculture college one of the best things she has done.

"It set me up for any direction I wanted to go in," she said.

Back in Wongan Hills she saw an advertisement on Facebook for a parts traineeship at the busy Wongan Hills AFGRI dealership and thought she might try for it.

"I think the ad was 15-minutes-old when I applied for the position," Ms Vance said.

"I did a bit of quick research on the parts interpreter role and put my name down - apparently I was one of the first to apply."

She got a call from then branch manager Brenton Reed and started in February, 2018.

Ms Vance was in the first cohort of trainees to complete AFGRI's two-year parts traineeship, working and learning on the job at the Wongan Hills dealership and attending Central Regional TAFE, Moora, to complete formal training elements of a certificate III in automotive parts sales.

"I learnt a lot really quickly, especially about how seasonal the industry can be and it was really good to learn what makes the machines go together and to run and work," she said.

"Besides the wear parts and consumables, you learn a lot about the diagnostics and running around with the technicians, you get a bit more of a hands-on experience."

Apart from the John Deere range, the Wongan Hills and other AFGRI dealerships are also franchises for other brands, including Kuhn, Manitou, Bourgault, Equalizer, Horsch, Croplands, Grainking, MacDon, Midwest, Fieldquip and Agrowplow.

For John Deere equipment AFGRI sells John Deere genuine parts and John Deere remanufactured parts, supplies genuine parts for all of the brands it sells and offers more than 176,000 generic parts for all makes, so its parts interpreters have a lot to deal with.

After two years selling parts at Wongan Hills, Ms Vance transitioned to selling machinery - initially mowers, small tractors and implements for the lawn and garden, landscaping and grounds care and golf and sports turf divisions.

She had come to Perth hoping to do further AMS (Ag Management Solutions - essentially precision ag) training when she learned of a vacancy at AFGRI headquarters.

The position, a customer sales representative (CSR), involved selling small ag parts, but also included a sales component which she enjoyed.

She is still not quite sure how her transition from the lawn and garden, landscaping and grounds care and golf and sports turf role to selling utility tractors and larger equipment came about.

"Matt Utley, my boss, was the sales person in the role at the time and I spent some time with him on the road - I became a sort of little offsider," Ms Vance said.

"I got a feel for the tractors and for handovers, I really liked it, so when Matt was offered a chance to move up, I put my hand up for his former role."

Ms Vance is not daunted by technology in agriculture and sees it as offering an efficiency bonus for those looking for it.

"You can still get a tractor that is completely mechanical and some people like that," she pointed out.

"But when you are running high output grains, livestock or hay operations, the more electronics, often the more efficient the operation is.

"The machines are recording data that you can share directly to your phone - if you have an operator in the machine you can see the output, the ground speed, where the machine is in the paddock and if an engine code pops up you can see it.

"It's being able to keep an eye on it while you are off doing something else that makes technology so much more time efficient - it's the pathway to the future."

From her experiences so far, Ms Vance encouraged others who are thinking about getting into the industry, specifically on the sales side, that it is something worth considering.

"It feels fantastic to be a part of this industry and working on the sales side of things," she said.

"I would encourage any girls who are thinking about it but not sure if it would work, just to give it a red-hot go and see what happens."

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