Deb Anderson started her business from the ground up. Twenty-six years ago, she was a young mom working full-time on the farm. That was when she decided to try something new. She sent in a card from a magazine to become a DEKALB® seed dealer, and Deb’s Seed Sales was born.
“At that time, there was no brand recognition. No one recognized the DEKALB brand at all.” Anderson recalls. “I started selling something that people were unfamiliar with. There were also hardly any women in ag at all, so I studied harder, learned more about the products."
"I felt like when I showed up at the door, people would think, ‘What does this gal know about what she’s trying to sell?’ I tried to get every detail correct so I could do a really good job and make a good first impression.”
Deb’s Seed Sales was a family affair from the beginning, with Anderson’s young daughters assisting how they could. Even if that just meant taking out the garbage and sweeping the floors.
“When the kids were little, my youngest daughter was only two when I started selling seeds, so they grew up helping me. It was second nature to them,” Anderson says.
As the business grew, so did Anderson’s ambitions. She soon started selling other brands of seeds, including Asgrow® brand soybeans and then WestBred® brand wheat.
“When I added WestBred, that was the start,” explains Anderson. “It actually performs so well that if I get it on one farm, then it's not long before their neighbors are asking for it. It stands nicely, combines easily, and yields really well. It speaks volumes about the product.”
Over the years, her daughters continued to help with Deb’s Seed Sales. Today, her daughter Kellie Wettstein helps Anderson run the shop. Wettstein studied plant science, agronomy and communications in college and brought that knowledge back to the family business. Wettstein says she’s learned so much from her mother’s example.
“There’s not a day that she just punches the clock 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and goes home,” Wettstein says of her mom. “The gears are always turning. She never clocks out or turns it off. … Truly being a student of the product. She takes the time to educate herself and have confidence in the product. … She also has the best customer service; it’s something she instilled in me."
"Without our growers, we don’t have a job, and we don’t have a business. Our family depends on their families to keep going.”
Family is important to Anderson, who loves seeing how well Wettstein has taken to the business and their customers.
“Now it’s to the point where other dealers will contact us to request products, and Kellie knows more than I do now, especially on corn. They’ve come to trust Kellie.”
Wettstein, now with kids of her own, agrees with her mother's sentiment of passing down the values of hard work.
“It’s been fantastic for me to be able to have them involved,” Wettstein says. “The best way to learn is by doing. Immerse them in it. They don’t have to farm or be a seed person, but the lessons they learn here are invaluable. They need to work hard and be a kind human. Those are the goals for my kids.”
“You want to see that succession,” Anderson says. “Our business is like a farm. I started it, but I’d like to see it continue when I’m not around anymore. So that’s the nice part, that it will be carried on and kept in the family."