Have you noticed the Phases of Spring that occur as we approach, endure, and emerge from the annual 100 Days of Horticulture Hell crisis?
There is a naturally occurring progression of events and associated emotions during the early spring through until the summer seasons.
We’re all busy. I’ll get straight to the point.
What’s different this year? What isn’t different but could be or should be, and what impact would that have? Do you even know? Read on.
Will this year be another 2022, yet another spring of about the same as the year before, if we’re lucky?
Note: Spring is about to take off (for some of you now, and later for others), this is for your winter-like weather morning cup of coffee thinking time. Since it’s the slower time of year, I’ve added several rabbit hole links to go down for more depth on the SHIFTing.
Focus on executing your Spring plan now, while allowing this article to wash over you so you can recognize signs of change in the coming months, and come back to it in Summer to allow it to influence your decisions about your future so you’ll be able to get to work on them before Spring 2024.
Part 6 of a Series with the Theme “A Better _______ = Better Marketing”
Marketing is an important part of the job of everyone in a company. It’s everything a company and everyone in it does within, outside, around, and beyond. In this series of articles, we’ll be discussing how different views of marketing make a huge difference in choosing, taking, and owning our position now and in the future.
Part 5 of a Series with the Theme “A Better _______ = Better Marketing”
[Go to Part 6 "A Better Brand Execution = Better Marketing" - HERE]
Part 4 of a Series with the Theme “A Better _______ = Better Marketing”
[Go to Part 5 "A Better Recession Effort = Better Marketing" - HERE]
Marketing is an important part of the job of everyone in a company. It’s everything a company and everyone in it does within, outside, around, and beyond. In this series of articles, we’ll be discussing how different views of marketing make a huge difference in choosing, taking, and owning our position now and in the future.
Part 3 of a Series with the Theme “A Better _______ = Better Marketing”
[Go to Part 4 - A Better Pricing Effort = Better Marketing" - HERE]
Marketing is an important part of the job of everyone in a company. It’s everything a company and everyone in it does within, outside, around, and beyond. In this series of articles we’ll be discussing how different views of marketing make a huge difference in choosing, taking, and owning our position now and in the future.
Part 2 of a Series with the Theme “A Better _______ = Better Marketing”
[Go to Part 3 "A Better Traffic Flow = Better Marketing - HERE]
Part 1 of a Series with the Theme “A Better _______ = Better Marketing”
[Go to Part 2 "A Better Merchandise Selection = Better Marketing - HERE]
A Better Facility = Better Marketing - Architectural Word of Mouth
“It’s the ECONOMY!”
Once in a while there’s a phrase that’s quoted and wins an election as this one did. Similarly we are running for election by our customers and other constituents (all the people in our audience) to support if not come into our store every day they go to a store, or could (including online store).
“Is this about me?” This is a common question as most things I write about are common among garden retailers. No, you’re not alone in this weird business. (Other article writers tell me this also happens to them.)
Weird is as weird does. Everyone is weird in some way. Some of us are weirder than others, some are weird in a weird way, and some are really weird in every way. Nobody escapes, not even you or me. Outside of our weirdness, we have many things in common with each other.
(You don’t have time to NOT read this right now because you have customers deciding whether you’re too expensive, or they spent too much in your store and if they’ll never be back.)
What is “buyer’s remorse”? In a word, buyer’s remorse is regret. There are two main sources of buyer’s remorse. One is a cognitive dissonance, where the investment in the purchase consumes the financial resource that could have alternatively been invested in something else of near equal desire. Another is a fear that the purchased item or service isn’t worth the amount it cost. There is some lag time between the customers decision to purchase and the questioning of that decision and in that gap of time is precisely where an appropriate and intelligent effort to counteract the emotion is necessary.
“Oh, I didn’t think it was going to be THAT much!”
(You don’t have time to NOT read this right now because you have customers thinking, if not saying that very thing in your store.)
Let’s get right to the point. Inflation is emerging as a crisis just in time for our peak of spring business.
I’m hearing talk of Group clients who are thinking of lowering their margin expectations by passing along only their cost increases in some price increases, especially on higher cost items, but also on lower price high volume items. This notion is primarily in fear that customers will not have as much disposable income to pay so much more. This thinking is based on what I believe to be incomplete if not faulty logic. Before it goes further it is important to carefully consider all sides of the sentiment.
The historical supply chain shortage of 2020 and 2021 has made the work of acquiring plants from growers more difficult than any time in the past that I can recall. Yes, it was difficult, and a lot of extra work compared to years past, but you survived what is likely an anomaly of a historic and catastrophic, but episodic event. The dust will clear and our vision will clear again. The question is, will it ever be that difficult again? More importantly, will you do yourself more harm than good if you start the also very difficult process of growing?
A favorite and universal definition of Success is whatever we define it to be for ourselves, should we decide to define it. It is always better and more likely that we’ll achieve the success we ourselves define. Celebrating success is encouraging to ourselves and others and an important part of belonging to groups, whether they be our family group, a company, or The Garden Center Group. It is even more important to understand the success we’re celebrating.
We’re in a group. We might be subject to Groupthink.
From Wikipedia:
Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Cohesiveness, or the desire for cohesiveness, in a group may produce a tendency among its members to agree at all costs.[1] This causes the group to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation.[2][3]
New customers have been a boon of 2020 in 2021. There are clear signs that the gain is slipping, and we need to take fast action to secure the customer. The first rule to building our business is to keep your customers (including the new ones) or it will take even more new ones to make up for those we don’t keep. By my definition, a new customer isn’t yet a real customer until they come back. They are a distinct possibility of becoming one if we handle their experience well.
Let’s pause a moment and ask ourselves, “Where have these new customers been?” That’s an important question, but one for another day. They’re here, and now we get to welcome them, integrate them, and keep their interest. Exactly how are we going to do those things? What is the plan?
The thrill of being a kid within local broadcast range of the Cincinnati Reds in the 60’s, and then The Big Red Machine in the 70’s creates lasting memories and impressions. It was all so incredible from the point of view of a kid in a small town an hour away like I was back in the day. I’m not much of a fan since then but I can tell you that back then you didn’t need to be a sports fan to be a fan of the Reds. It was infectious. It was contagious. And that’s enough of that talk.
Reminiscing is nice, and yes, this does have something to do with the garden center business. Quite possibly as big as the Big Red Machine itself was the sound of the games as broadcast by Joe Nuxhall if you were in range of The Big One - 700WLW radio. You just never forget Nuxy’s voice, and trademark closing to every game, "rounding third and heading for home" which is memorialized in a sign between 3rd and home bases high on the outside of the Great American Ballpark and visible as you drive along Interstate 71. Usually, Joe added, “and this one belongs to the Reds!
[If you missed Part 1 of this series you can read it HERE.]
Part 2 – Get By or Get Away
RE-setting Your Value Proposition Post COVID-19
With 79 years to go this may be the biggest consumer con-job of the century, and you are involved.
It’s not a joke that COVID-19 became a convenient excuse, a crisis not going to waste, a cop-out, as well as a likely inconvenient trap for companies to find themselves in. Time will tell, and time is growing short as people are adjusting to the NOT return to normal.