The following footnotes have been collected by Danny Summers from The Group during discussions on this subject at the time of developing this story. We plan to add additional ideas from others over time. These notes provide important additional Group guidance in developing or evaluating your program(s).
Something really backwards happened when the industry created so called “loyalty” programs. Instead of garden centers creating programs that would actually show gratitude for their loyal customers’ support, most created kick-back programs with rebates in an attempt to “reward” people already shopping with them. The behind closed doors intent was to create a process that would surely make shoppers loyal to the company by offering them financial “bribes”.
[Footnotes have been collected by Danny Summers from The Group during discussions on this subject at the time of developing this story and are located at the end of this article. These notes provide important additional Group guidance in developing or evaluating your program(s).]
On Wednesday, November 7th, Seawright & Associates' Jean Martin presented a GROUPtalk-Live webinar for Group Clients titled "Winter is Coming... Prepare for ICE!" This was one of the largest attendance for any GROUPtalk-Live sessions and for obvious reasons. This is a very important subject and it also underscores the importance of having the talents and resources of Seawright & Associates for our Group Centers (a huge benefit of being in The Group). Prior to the session, Jean had supplied both the current I-9 Paper Version Form and Instructions for each participant for note taking.
Undeniably, the best part of The Group is YOU, when connected with other members. At Fall Event 2018 I shared with the group a presentation on connecting with each other at a deeper level in order to achieve the full benefit of this best part of The Group. Please read the rest of this, then review the presentation slides at the link provided below, before acting on the ideas I’m asking you to implement today and tomorrow.
Robert Hendrickson has pushed The Group for years now on some of the very best ways to tell your story and build that unique, emotional connection with the customer. This is the extreme opposite of selling by price and certainly much more effective than selling by the old standard of "feature and benefit" marketing.
[Danny] During The Fall Event 2018, Bill Calkins of Ball Seed shared a link to a podcast/blog he is producing. He said, "I have a new podcast called STEM: Insider Tips for Greenhouse Pros that covers greenhouse Production but it also has plenty of RETAIL TOPICS." He has produced a number of STEM podcasts this year and this one is an excellent message to our Group Centers! Here's a text from this edition of STEM podcast:
At the federal level, things have been relatively quiet on the regulatory front with the exception of one agency, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Affectionately known as ICE, this federal agency has an annual budget of approximately $6 billion and employs more than 20,000 employees in over 400 offices in the United Stated and 46 foreign countries. ICE's mission is to "protect America from the cross-border crime and illegal immigration that threaten national security and public safety."
It's been over one year since the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) solicited written comments from the public about potential changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) White Collar overtime exemptions for administrative, executive, and professional workers. One year and no action . . . until this month that is.
Employers are finally getting a reprieve after a series of restrictive employee handbook policy decisions and guidances issued by the prior Administration's democratic majority of the five-member National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
“Business is really quite simple,”he would say… over and over and over.
Laura and her husband, Aaron, started Garden Answer, a YouTube how-to gardening channel filled with style, expertise and helpful gardening knowledge, in 2014. Today, they attract over 300,000 YouTube channel subscribers and have generated over 25 million views of their YouTube gardening videos. Garden Answer has 2.2 million followers and over 450 million video views. Garden Answer has become quite a sensation in just a short time, and the numbers are continually growing!
Their tremendous popularity has prompted industry brands like Proven Winners, Espoma, Gardener's Supply, and others, to partner with Garden Answer to reach consumers.
Greetings to all Clients of the Garden Center Group.
Go ahead, admit it, the title including ‘gold’ sucked you right in, didn’t it? Maybe the thought of a gold expedition at The Fall Event (gold is indeed mined a couple of hours west of Salt Lake City) or some other promise of riches pulled you into reading this article.
We all want to be happy. Why wouldn’t we? Happiness is a wonderful feeling of well-being and contentment. Over the courses of our lives, we set our sights on happiness. As Abraham Lincoln said, “Folks are usually about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
As a Certified Financial Planner, I help people recognize and work towards achieving their financial goals. I help them with allocating their investments, charting their retirement income streams, and I teach them about the various ins-and-outs of financial planning. I love it. This is the nuts-and-bolts stuff we should all think about when trying to accomplish our financial goals.
I’m saying this without the support of statistical evidence to support the claim. As you know, statistical evidence can be unreliable and where pricing is concerned this is no less true. You probably learned in about fifth grade that great success can come from lower the price so you can make it up on volume. Or maybe you’re an admirer of high priced luxury goods and imagine that those businesses are making money hand over fist?
I come to you bearing the wisdom and insight that comes from extensive experience helping many companies work on the business side of the business. I’ve read the books on pricing, attended seminars, symposiums and workshops that are dedicated solely to the subject of the art and science of pricing. It ain’t braggin’ if it’s true.
There will be a new named fund announced on Saturday, July 14th, during the Annual HRI Reception, held in conjunction with Cultivate'18. This one will honor someone who has been very close to many of you and very supportive of The Garden Center Group - Ernest Wertheim. Several of our Group have served on the HRI boards and committees. Currently, Steve Mostardi is on the HRI Executive Committee. The fund will honor both Ernest and his long-time partner Jack Klemeyer. HRI has received initial seed monies, reportedly close to $20,000 currently, in order to establish the fund and make the official announcement. The fund will be called the Wertheim, van der Ploeg & Klemeyer Fund and will support general HRI Research efforts. HRI's Administrator, Jennifer Gray, shared the following with us:
"We are excited about the establishment of this fund to honor both Ernest and Jack. We have several ways to give:
This past week GreenProfit published an article as titled above. They posed the question: "How can you attract non-gardeners as new customers" to the three finalists in the 2018 Green Profit/Dümmen Orange Young Retailer Award competition, sponsored by Dümmen Orange and AmericanHort!
We have the schedule set, speakers and sessions are in place, our hotel is ready for your reservations, and we have our registration now open and ready for you!
New for 2018: We have taken what we learned the last several years about Group peer-sharing and combined it with each presentation. We are calling it Peer-to-Peer (P2P). Each major session will follow this pattern. First the featured speaker will share his or her presentation. Then, we will have P2P Tabletalks on the subject, followed with the best ideas of P2P as well as Q&A with the speaker for collaboration and inspiration.
Several weeks ago you may remember I asked these questions:
The reason I asked was because I was reading comments from owners or managers who were having issues with seemingly unreasonable customers and it sounded like they were ready to say "Good Bye" to the customer(s). Before you ever get to the point of "firing a customer," I believe you need to have at least an idea of your answers to the above two questions. I understand sometimes you just can't please everyone and the answers to these questions can vary greatly, but this is a fundamental idea.