That was on everyone's mind last week as we converged upon Columbus, OH for Cultivate'21... the very first industry trade show since early last year. And it was GREAT in many ways!
If you were with us last Thursday during the final GROUPtalk LIVE Series session, you heard Ken Gronbach say these words, "If you want me to tell bad news for the garden industry, I'll have to make up something, because there just isn't any." This session was a followup to his keynote presentation last August as we began our series.
Ken is a demographer and his studies analyze world populations, growth, shifts, and trends. Ken's message reinforced what our Centers have experienced the past 16 months – countless new customers, many of them young, and all wanting more gardening and plant experiences.
The Love of Plants can be a powerful thing. It's powerful in many ways. If you consider the simple relationship we humans have with plants... we breath oxygen they give off and they need the carbon dioxide we exhale. That's about as close as a relationship gets - the very definition of symbiotic.
While you might not consider that to be a form of love, how we see people interact with plants can truly be expressed as a form of love. And, they will certainly say how much they love to garden, how they love their flowers, trees, and plants and how they love how the activity of gardening or being around all these plants makes them feel.
Relationships. It is the lifeblood of a successful career or business. It spans all aspects of your operation... Your customers. Your staff and management team. Your growers and hardline vendors. Other relationships you have are here within The Group. The relationships built with The Group's team of Service Providers and your peer Centers is something that is very unique today.
One day, I stopped by a job site of a landscape client of mine. The two crew members were sitting on the client’s patio furniture taking a break (Bad Start!). One was smoking (he quickly tried to hide his poor judgement). I sat at the table with them and asked to have some" fun with numbers" (a hint of sarcasm floated over the wrought iron table…)
Let's face it. Things tend to get more and more complicated. Every time we add a new program or product, does it replace an existing one or just increase your the list of "things-to-do" and multiply your weekly, daily (or even hourly) challenges? With where your Center has been the last 15+ months, it's time to focus on simplifying your operation. You can begin at The Fall Event 2021.
As a Client of The Garden Center Group, you and your staff are encouraged to become active in our eLists (i.e., e-mail listserves). Save time by starting a discussion and quickly receive responses from peer centers. These lists are not moderated to facilitate quick responses. You may subscribe to available eLists through The Group WebSystem. These eLists are exclusive services of The Garden Center Group and use is strictly limited to Garden Center Group Clients and Service Providers. Any replies to a new message are redistributed to the entire list of current eList subscribers. If you would rather send a reply only to the original sender, be sure to redirect (forward) your email reply. Once subscribed you will receive a confirmation email with instructions on how to participate.
That's what I see ahead for Garden Retailing and the Horticulture Industry as a whole. We have several both direct and indirect evidence to support this vision for what's beyond the horizon. First, let's consider what almost every Garden Center has experienced the past 15+ months. Reports of seeing 20-25% new customers and a high percentage of them were young. And by the questions they asked, they are new to gardening. We have wondered if they would return this spring and most indicators point to YES, they have. These new plant and gardening enthusiasts are finding their own joy and passion in their garden activities. If we can continue to help them be successful and build upon this new-found relationship with plants and their garden, this may very well be the much needed bridge of transition between boomers and the next generation. These new young customers are one of the best pieces of evidence to support the vision of "A Bright Future."
Additional evidence to support a vision for "A Bright Future" can be seen in this year's nominees for Green Profit Magazine Young Retailer of the Year Award. In the December 14th edition of GROUPtalk, we announced a new Group effort to co-sponsor and promote Green Profit Magazine Young Retailer of the Year Award for 2021. The Garden Center Group, with support from our Partners for Success, are official sponsors of the 16th annual award, along with AmericanHort.
This past week, Green Profit announced the three finalists for this year's awards. They are:
Let's face it, with what you have been through the past 14 months, this should really get your attention.
“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” Jonathan Swift
NOTE: Some of you are near peak of the season while others have moved on through, but all of you should be in “Management Mode”. This means you’re operating rather routinely on a daily basis at a high level of volume and personnel. The routine becomes a sort of paralysis by default where things are happening without much question, as “the way it needs to be” to get things done, or status quo. There are a few problems with this mode and reading about them will make your time here worthwhile.
This Large Format Greenhouse Covering at Skinner Garden Store is a sight to behold.
When Skinner Garden Store’s Cameron Rees had the idea to utilize a blank space to connect with drivers on the 4-lane divided highway adjacent to his location, he truly decided to ‘go big or go home’!
You are in HIGH TERRAIN today. You are and we all know it. The image above might be a micro respite from today's hectic pace, but what I am referring to is the HIGH TERRAIN of the new levels of your Garden Center sales during the Spring of 2021. This in on top of the mountain of sales most Centers developed in 2020.
With 2020 in the rear-view mirror, we were wondering if you could even match, not to mention build upon last year's performance. Seeing Week 18 (May 3-9, 2021) results just in last Friday provides a very positive outlook for surpassing 2020. Let's compare a few figures against this time last year and now.
As we continue the theme of Alignment in 2021, here are a few more thoughts I would like to add to the discussion in the month of May.
Let’s consider the big three pillars of any retail shop—average transaction, number of transactions, and customer experience rating. Studies show that there is a direct correlation (read alignment) from the customer satisfaction metrics and the average transaction metrics.
“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” Jonathan Swift
NOTE: (This is a less than 3-minute read).
At this time of year, this is an important question - in many ways. I am sure during these extremely busy weeks, such as this one (Mother's Day Week), exhaustion kicks in and you are wondering "Why do I do this?" or "Why do WE do this?"
To maintain a sense of balance during these wild weeks, taking a few minutes each day to take a few deep breaths and remember the "Why" can help.
At first glance, this title could represent all of our Group Service Providers and our Staff and our role in serving you, our Garden Center Clients. We are certainly here to serve you. But for this conversation I want it to represent the role you have in serving your Garden Center customers. Your Garden Center serves a very important role in your community. In fact, in the past year I have described you (our Garden Center Clients) as servants to your communities. This was never more evident than what you provided in 2020.
In order to really serve your customers in the very best way possible, you must know your customers. This is definitely a challenge... Just how well do you know your customers? Is it simply by studying their purchase history, what sells and who bought it? It is more than just having their mailing address and email addresses? It is certainly more complex than the data you can access from your POS system.
Raising the bar… In the 2019 P&L study the top line comparison was changed from the High Achievers and Best Practices Group to only the Best Practices Group. We wanted to show a standard above what had been presented in the past. Not only did this give everyone a higher standard to aim for, it gave those who were profitable, but wanted more, a chance to raise their own standards.
Well, 2020 blew that out of the water! We had more than half of the reporting centers achieve Best Practices and a whopping 82% report above High Achievers status. Once again, the need to keep raising the bar arose thus, The Best of the Best Group was born. In looking into this group, we will find out what it takes to capitalize on the opportunity in 2020. What did the KPI’s tell us about how they realized the highest level of profitability (18% to 25%)? As we crunch those numbers, we will compile a new report that allows those who reported to compare their performance to this group. This will be available during The Fall Event 2021 in Wilmington, DE.
Inventory turns, GMROII and the Best Practices Group all go together like rice and Gumbo! You hit your goals for those first two, you are almost always in the last one. The largest Best Practices group in the P&L Study history with 44 Garden Centers increased their Inventory Turns and GMROII, but was it what we thought it would be? We will visit this topic during The Fall Event 2021 in Wilmington!
