Humans have been farming for hundreds of thousands of years. Since the earliest farms were planted in Turkey and the Middle East, the process hasn’t changed much: prepare the land, plant seeds, nurture their growth, harvest then sell at market. Sure, there have been improvements to farming tools and the introduction of chemicals and pesticides, but in reality, not much changes on a yearly basis in the farming industry.

Enter SFP (formally known as Specialty Fertilizer Products), the 11-year-old company founded by Dr. J. Larry Sanders. The company’s mission is to produce fertilizer additives that are both safer for the environment and consumers while promoting more crop growth. SFP is a success story not only because of its products’ efficacy, but also because SFP has been able to recruit, sell to and keep customers in an industry that’s dominated by a few, large companies.

“With fertilizer, there’s hardly been anything new in the last 50 years,” Sanders said. “We think we’re able to bring farmers more efficiencies, bring them more profits, have them use less fertilizer and achieve higher yields.”

Getting Started

Sanders’ road to entrepreneurship isn’t a straight path. He’s been in agriculture all his life, starting with growing up farming on the Louisiana/Texas border. Before founding SFP, however, he didn’t have any manufacturing or business experience.

After graduating from college with a doctorate in soil fertility-plant nutrition, Sanders worked for organizations such as American Plant Food and the Potash & Phosphate Institute. He was involved in research, development, education and some marketing and sales.

Through his work, he began developing what would be the core of SFP’s product offerings: AVAIL, a phosphorus fertilizer enhancer and NutriSphere-N, a nitrogen fertilizer manager.

Early on the company had another product as well, one working with micronutrients. But in one of his early, tough business decisions, Sanders said, he jettisoned the micronutrients business.

“It didn’t bring the financial rewards of the polymers,” he said. “We only had so much money to spend (on product development) and had to put it where it would do the most.”

SFP’s products are designed to counter problems with traditional fertilizers that are both harmful to the environment and inhibit plant growth.

“Nitrogens are typically 50 percent inefficient,” Sanders said. “Fifty percent of the product goes into the air or is leached into the groundwater. With phosphorous, it’s about 25 percent effective, but the rest is lost in the soil, where it’s difficult for the plant to get it.”

The environmental impact of fertilizers is huge, Sanders said. Product that leaches into the groundwater finds its way to rivers and streams and beyond, causing problems for fish and wildlife. It eventually can end up having to be treated in consumer water systems.

SFP products use a formula that inhibits the chemicals’ ability to leach into the water and the ground, he said. Plus, the products increase the crop yields.

“We wanted to bring value to the agricultural industry, leave less of a footprint and bring value to farmers,” he said.

Marketing Makes It

When SFP started, Sanders knew he had good products. His challenges were going to be money and marketing.

To help with the money end of things, Sanders found an investor who wasn’t just about the money; he was a soil chemist, so he truly understood the product he was backing.

“Still, it was a huge leap of faith,” Sanders said. Particularly since Sanders was starting from scratch without a background in the business world.

The marketing challenge would prove to be more formidable than the money.

Because there hadn’t been an alternative to using the excessive amounts of fertilizers before, capturing the attention of farmers and product dealers was difficult.

American farmers feed the world, Sanders said, and based on that demand, governmental policies about food production and cost, the traditional fertilizers had made sense. What he had to do was convince the industry that there was a better, smarter, more environmentally friendly way to produce food—with perhaps even bigger yields than before.

To overcome objections to the products and make inroads with the agricultural community, Sanders embarked on a grassroots marketing campaign. He took his message and products directly to the farmers, putting together all of the data he could about how the product would work for them and enhance their bottom lines.

“There was a big education scale,” he said. “We didn’t try to get farmers to put it on every acre all at once. We tried to get them to try it on one field or split one between our product and what they were using. We didn’t try a hard sell.”

But it wasn’t until he was able to sell the product through the distribution system of agriculture conglomerate J.R. Simplot Company that things really began to take off.

The Simplot relationship took more than six months to cultivate into a partnership. Sanders never wanted to have a distribution system where his products were sold through any and all outlets or by every fertilizer salesperson in the country.

“We limit the distribution,” he said. “We wanted only selected distributors so that it brings a real value to the farmers who use it.”

Sanders admits that using just certified distribution channels isn’t popular with everyone, but he thinks it’s important to protecting his company’s brand and product integrity and eliminating any price erosion that would take place if the products were available everywhere.

The strategy of a soft sell to farmers and using a limited, certified distribution route has worked, Sanders said. Most farmers who use the product are repeat customers.

“It’s been farmers telling farmers,” he said. “Which was good, because we didn’t have the money to do advertising.”

Start Your Engines

Knowing he didn’t have a lot of money for marketing and advertising, Sanders has been careful to strategically spend the dollars he does have for promotions. A large portion of SFP’s marketing/advertising budget is spent sponsoring a car in NASCAR’s Nationwide Series. This is the second year the company has been a major sponsor for NASCAR driver, Peyton Sellers.

A NASCAR sponsorship fits well with SFP’s mission, Sanders said. Farmers like machinery and motors and it’s a great way for the company to entertain good customers and dealers.

“Regionally, it gives us really good exposure,” he said. “Our driver is a genuine guy that everyone likes. NASCAR is a family organization and has the kind of people we like to associate with.”

Protect Yourself

Aside from having a good marketing strategy, Sanders has learned several other lessons that have enabled him to continue growing SFP.

One is the importance of patents.

“Patents are everything,” he said. “If you can get them, they are very useful for protecting, growing and maintaining profits.”

In addition to protecting his work with patents, Sanders has learned the importance of protecting his business by hiring the right people, and then treating them right. The company strives to treat employees fairly—like family—and provide opportunities for them in terms of benefits, such as insurance and profit-sharing.

Moving Forward

Sanders received the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award from Vice President Al Gore in 1996 and the company was ranked No. 450 on Inc. magazine’s “500 Fastest Growing Private Companies in America” in 2008. But Sanders has no patience for resting on his laurels, or his awards. SFP has plans to expand both its product lines and its reach in the coming years.

Already, the company has been aggressively marketing itself overseas. Other countries have more stringent rules about the amount of fertilizer that can be used in fields, so SFP’s products make good economic sense for farmers there.

Its products are sold in Europe, New Zealand, Australia and the Philippines today. Just recently, Simplot and SFP signed a joint marketing agreement to seek more global customers. An agreement has been reached to sell in Ukraine and Sanders hopes to break into India this year.

As for new-product development, Sanders wants to use SFP’s chemistry for detergents and other household goods, and for medical applications.

Focus Remains Priority           

One thing Sanders and SFP won’t do is lose focus—on their mission, their bottom line or what comes next, he said.

With resources continuing to be tight, Sanders said that focus is a key element to success, now and in the future. It was the reason he knew that losing the micronutrients product early on, while painful at the time, was the right decision to focus the company on products that could add to the bottom line.

Kate Leibsle is managing editor of KC Small Business. (913) 432-6690 // This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it