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Fall Traditions & Group Synergies

by: Danny Summers
Category: Danny's Blog
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Oct
18

Fall Traditions & Group Synergies

by Danny Summers

Having the opportunity to see many of our Garden Centers' messaging throughout the year offers a chance to see unique local and regional differences (as well as similarities) across the country. What I see in Spring seems to be more similarities with only differences in timing based on your location... Southern-most Centers getting kicked off earlier, and other markets follow as spring rolls out. But overall, the message of a beautiful spring ahead seems pretty consistent. And especially with The Group Centers where we have been sharing ideas on the benefits of plants and gardening.

Fall seems to have some differences or at least some areas of uniqueness. Here are some examples...

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What Matters Most...

by: Danny Summers
Category: Danny's Blog
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Oct
14

What Matters Most...

by Danny Summers

What Matters Most... are people. Our families, friends, co-workers, and neighbors. At times like the past two weeks, we quickly realize What Matters Most! Yes, our properties and businesses are important to us all, but most can be replaced. Our people cannot.

I wish to begin this message with a word of thanks and to say we all are extremely grateful to hear from all the Group Centers who have dealt with both Hurricane Helene and Milton over the past 2 weeks. We are grateful to hear their families and staffs were safe and most did not have extensive damage to major structures. While we are hearing them say clean-up and being back to normalcy may take quite some time, all know What Matters Most.

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Group CEU's?

by: Danny Summers
Category: Danny's Blog
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Oct
04

Group CEU's?

by Danny Summers

The Horticulture Industry is certainly one where we are accustomed to promoting Certification Programs and earning credentials for you and your staff at retail. Most of our state associations have a program you can and should participate in, and being a Certified Nursery or Horticulture Professional designation can be an important part of building customer confidence. I know you are wondering where I am going with this...

I am not announcing a new Retailer Certification Program.

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Synergies = More Power

by: Danny Summers
Category: Danny's Blog
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Sep
29

Synergies = More Power

by Danny Summers

In the world of science, there are a lot of studies and documentation for combining two or more items to create what is called Synergistic Effect. I guess most simply the results of the combination create MORE than the original parts. Most basic descriptions are something like this:

Synergistic Effect means when two or more items are combined, their overall effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.

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Connecting for a Cause

by: Danny Summers
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Sep
14

Connecting for a Cause

by Danny Summers

One of the major messages we learned at The Fall Event 2022 in Kansas City when Hallmark's Darren Abbott presented to The Group was how important it is to create an emotional connection with your audience. Studying Hallmark's patterns for leveraging emotions gave us ideas on how Garden Centers can create an emotional connection with their audience, not just for plants and gardening, but also for the Garden Center itself.

Consistently sharing the values of the Garden Center throughout its messaging can certainly help. You may remember back in April I shared a blog message titled "Founded with a Purpose" where I told the story of Mayorga Coffee, and supported the message with details of Mostardi Nursery, and Meadows Farms, as well as Renee's Garden, one of our new Fall Event Sponsors this year.

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A Surprise Inside!

by: Danny Summers
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Sep
07

A Surprise Inside!

by Danny Summers

Growing up as a kid, one of my favorite treats was Cracker Jack. That savory combination of caramel-coated popcorn and peanuts was certainly the draw, but there was something more... A Surprise Inside!

A Surprise Inside was never anything really valuable. It wasn't like finding a winning lottery ticket inside or even a coupon for a free box of Cracker Jack. More importantly for me, it had something inside to make me read and think. Often it was something that sparked curiosity and rallied my imagination.

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A Feeling of Fall

by: Danny Summers
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Aug
25

A Feeling of Fall

by Danny Summers

We all live in different parts of the country, and I know for some, there may be one season that is dominant over the others. Areas in the farther parts of either north or south, you certainly can have much more extremes in either winter or summer months.

Karen and I have lived in North Georgia since the Fall of 1989. We moved from Central Florida and even today, we can remember so vividly our trip to Atlanta to look for a home. It was October, and what we were about to see was so different than what we were used to.

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What You Know Can Be Priceless

by: Danny Summers
Category: Danny's Blog
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Aug
16

What You Know Can Be Priceless

by Danny Summers

If you saw John Kennedy's blog message* last week here in GROUPtalk (Delivering an Exceptional Customer Experience - Part 6), and if you followed the link to the full blog story version and watched John share his thoughts, you saw him refer to "Keeping Your Customer." He actually had details relating to each of the 4 letters in the word Keep.

His idea around the first letter "K" was about "Knowing Your Customer." This got me thinking... how much do Garden Centers know about the customer?

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I Can Only Imagine...

by: Danny Summers
Category: Danny's Blog
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Aug
10

I Can Only Imagine...

by Danny Summers

It is not easy to envision how a garden may develop or how a group of plants should be planted, and ultimately how they will look in a couple of years. A common example is seeing how many plants are installed too close to the house, only to be moved or even removed entirely just a few years later.

We can Imagine what many, if not most, consumers stress about when making these decisions. And if we think of our newest audiences, those younger with even less experience in plants and working in their gardens, there may even be increased stress levels. Most importantly, this stress can lead to not buying and planting at all!

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An Observer & Difference Maker

by: Danny Summers
Category: Danny's Blog
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Aug
02

An Observer & Difference Maker

by Danny Summers

We have talked before about how important it is to keep an attitude of Lifelong Learning and what we can call being An Observer. I often think about long-time Group friend and mentor, Ernest Wertheim and how he exemplified this idea. Even into his 80's and 90's Ernest was always An Observer to what was around him and what could be learned and improved upon. He was also one of the most positive and objective people I have ever met and he challenged us to think in new ways during every conversation.

Being forever a student or An Observer should apply to just about everything in our lives. I see it beginning as we first awake in the morning. Whether we are observing our health, the weather, our garden, or all the people and circumstances we experience throughout the day, each can provide an opportunity to be An Observer. And from this, we should consider ways we can be a positive influence.

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A Pattern of Five

by: Danny Summers
Category: Danny's Blog
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Jul
26

A Pattern of Five

by Danny Summers

Over the past week or so, a pattern has been emerging... A Pattern of Five!

Seeing the first major patterns then gave me the idea for this message to share today. But before I highlight the major ones that gave me this idea, I will first step back to some basic thoughts.

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Retailers' Choice Awards at Cultivate'24

by: Danny Summers
Category: Danny's Blog
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Jul
22

Retailers' Choice Awards at Cultivate'24

by Danny Summers

If you have ever been part of our Retailers' Choice Awards or Cool Product Awards, you know it is a wonderful hybrid of both fun and productivity. Meeting peer Centers at the end of the day to share what each has found and nominating products for awards can be like opening presents at Christmas... OK, maybe not quite that exciting, but close!

All the interactions surrounding each new plant or product help define why each should be considered the best for making the winning impressions. There is laughter, intrigue, and some great surprises along the way.

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Monitoring Your Audience

by: Danny Summers
Category: Danny's Blog
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Jul
12

Monitoring Your Audience

by Danny Summers

As a Garden Center Owner or Manager, you are constantly in what we might call "observation mode" as you go through each week, watching in-store traffic, as plants and products move through. And all this is parallel to also studying your POS data, Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Year-to-Date against your budget and plans.

Group Owners and Managers have another important level of observation advantage, what is happening across The Group in peer Centers. The benefit of seeing peer Centers in the same region as well as regions that might be ahead of your area in the seasonal cycles, is a unique position. When are certain categories surging or falling off? When are traffic levels changing? And how does this all compare to or point to what you can watch for just a few weeks ahead in your Center?

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Drilling Down for Higher Performance

by: Danny Summers
Category: Danny's Blog
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Jul
05

Drilling Down for Higher Performance

by Danny Summers

We are excited to announce a whole new level of Awards that we will present at The Fall Event 2024. They have been developed through collaboration within The Group Team, particularly Tim Quebedeaux and Sid Raisch. In the last 3 years, the level of benchmarking through The Group's Annual P&L Study has become more detailed. For years, Group Centers were comparing themselves to Total Group Averages and then against the Best Practices Group Averages.

But, as the terms apply, these are Averages and within each of these groups, there are Centers that are higher and lower to produce the Average. But what about the best-performing Centers? Who is performing best?

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Knowledge, Perspectives and Ideas!

by: Danny Summers
Category: Danny's Blog
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Jun
28

Knowledge, Perspectives and Ideas!

by Danny Summers

The search for knowledge is as old as time itself. Mankind's earliest wonder was on things like how fire worked and how they could use it for their advantage. It is beyond comprehension how the quest for knowledge and level of learning over centuries has brought us to where we are today.

Just considering our industry and the study of Horticulture is a small example. And really, all the knowledge gained about the Plant Kingdom is no minor matter. And the search continues.

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Studying Your Audience

by: Danny Summers
Category: Danny's Blog
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Jun
14

Studying Your Audience

by Danny Summers

As we have wrapped up spring in most regions the last few weeks, you now have the majority of your Spring 2024 Customer Data available to study. We can see in Week 22 of the WDR, year-to-date Average Sale remains virtually flat with this same week last year. But Transaction Counts year-to-date are down about -5%.

These compare to Average Sale being flat and Transaction Counts being +2.6% as of this week last year. And then end-of-year for 2023 being virtually even with Average Sale & Transaction Counts resulting in near-even sales against 2022.

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Crafting Opportunities

by: Danny Summers
Category: Danny's Blog
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Jun
07

Crafting Opportunities

by Danny Summers

One of the earliest forms of what we might call a craft today is Paper Mache. The image of the bee above is an example. A quick search reveals Paper Mache's beginning can be traced back to the 1300's. Today, we could quickly envision a piñata to represent Paper Mache, or an elementary school project. I can remember our girls using Paper Mache to building a volcano for one of their projects (and no kitchen or dining room tables were damaged by eruptions).

I am thinking for Garden Retailing, the idea for Crafting Opportunities could be focused toward both plants and product categories as well as activities outside of the typical spring season.

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Creative Juices

by: Danny Summers
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May
15

Creative Juices

by Danny Summers

Real creativity, what we may call Creative Juices, must take a special kind of focus and attention. It may require quiet space to really unplug and block out all the typical hustle and bustle you normally experience in the work setting. I decided to ask Tom Kegley what he does to be in the best position for his most creative work. Here's what Tom said:

"In my work, CREATIVITY is equal parts INSPIRATION (concept) and PERSPIRATION (execution). Given this notion of Applied Creativity, I’ll focus on the front end. How does something intangible as INSPIRATION happen?

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Focus on the Customer!

by: Danny Summers
Category: Danny's Blog
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May
10

Focus on the Customer!

by Danny Summers

This story begins as a little coffee shop opened in 1971 in Seattle's Pike Place Market. The story actually began when three students met a few years earlier at the University of San Francisco. The three classmates were Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowker. They were all interested in the coffee business. Maybe it had something to do with long hours studying and coffee helping to keep their eyes open. Following their common interest, they visited a little coffee shop across the bay in Berkley which had opened a few years before.

The Berkley shop the three students visited was owned by Alfred Peet, born in the Netherlands, who "cut his teeth" in the coffee industry in his homeland, caring for the roasting and grinding machinery at the small coffee company his father owned, the B. Koorn & Company, located in Alkmaar, Holland.

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Observations

by: Danny Summers
Category: Danny's Blog
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May
03

Observations

by Danny Summers

During your busiest times, I understand how difficult it is to step back to make observations to develop important perspectives. But for Owners and Managers, stepping back during these fast-paced days can be critical and provide the best insights for making important changes.

This is like a major league baseball manager viewing from the dugout, he is reading every move the opposing pitcher is making and directing adjustments for his team.

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