Knowledge by Knumbers

by Danny Summers

OK, my spellcheck is not disabled. I wanted to intentionally misspell Numbers in order to grab your attention. If you are reading this now I guess it worked. ;-)

In general, Numbers is a big part of The Group Experience. Just from a "people point of view" when you consider our largest eList, GroupEs, has over 580 people subscribed to share all types of information. That's Numbers.

And at the heart of The Group Experience are two industry-exclusive programs that share Numbers – lots of Numbers. Both the Weekly Department Review (WDR) and the Annual P&L Study compile and share an amazing level of Numbers. By the way, you only have 10 more days before the deadline (February 15) for the 2023 P&L Study reporting. Don't miss your chance to be in the study and gain valuable insight from these Numbers!

Another important Numbers program begins this Friday, February 9th:

The 2024 Financial Basics of Garden Center Retailing Series

This February to October Series is starting its 9th year and believe me... it truly is Knowledge by Knumbers!

Are You All-In?

by Danny Summers

It's only the 3rd week of January but still a busy time of the year with a lot going on. Group Centers are well underway with spring preparations. At the same time, several important programs are getting underway within The Group. The first two are included with your annual retainer.

Weekly Department Review for 2024
While the WDR is now more than 20 years in the making, last year was the very first year it became an online, live system. Group Centers accepted and embraced the new experience by uploading 5,506 weekly reports! That represented an amazing 97.3% reporting rate! The 5,506 uploads created a tremendous amount of data that is now available for comparison in 2024 and beyond. Tim Quebedeaux has been working on formatting the reporting so that the 100% reporting Centers don't even need to include any of their 2023 data this year... we already have it, saving them more time each week. We encourage you to report every week and save time the following year!

Numbers Tell a Story

by Danny Summers

Last week I shared the message What a Story to Tell and focused on the stories of how plants were found or developed and by whom. I believe the more background information about our plants the better our Centers can connect plants to people. But this week, the Numbers Tell a Story.

Last Thursday, our final GROUPtalk LIVE Series session for 2023 featured Tim Quebedeaux walking Centers through the reporting process for The Group's Annual P&L Study for 2023. Watching Tim and our Centers in attendance interact gave me the idea for this message.

A Season for Tropicals?

by Danny Summers

With the most recent week of the Weekly Department Review (WDR), Week 45, ending on November 12th, we see the expected seasonal surge of Christmas categories now at 17.5% of total sales. At the same time, we see the Standard Greengoods categories experiencing the seasonal shift downward, now down to just 31.9% of total sales.

At the same time the Christmas categories are gaining there is one more category gaining in its position, Topical Plants Indoor/Out. This observation presents us with the question...

For Busy Times – New WDR Online Quick Views

By Danny Summers

The Weekly Department Review, known by all of The Group as WDR, has seen great change and development over the 20+ years since its beginning. First beginning as a fax-based composite report, then moving to an email and spreadsheet-based program, it has become a unique tool for knowing the pulse of business activity. It began with only a handful of Centers participating to well over a hundred reporting today and has seen much growth, further development, and acceptance through the years. Since its beginning, the WDR's most unique feature is that it is fully open (not blind) and you can see each Center's name.

Just as the jump from fax to email meant a major milestone, so has another been set beginning this year as the WDR moved to a web-based system. This move has changed the WDR from a static report, a snapshot at a particular point in time, to a position of LIVE DATA with tremendous data mining capabilities. In January, as we introduced the new WDR Online, we did so with over 9 different views for comparing, filtering, and analyzing many points of data. And now we have added even more.

How Will You Measure Up?

by Danny Summers

The clock is ticking and every day you inch closer to the Spring Season. So much effort has already been invested in preparations, but it is natural to still be thinking...
Have we done enough?

What have we missed?

What more can we do?

We have three major programs going on within The Group that can help you answer the question... How Will You Measure Up?

History of the P&L Study - Part 4

by Tim Quebedeaux

Last time we finished talking about Average Inventory and how it is key to inventory management which is graded by two KPI’s: Turns and GMROIIs.  Historically The Group has not done well with these two metrics.

History of the P&L Study - Part 3

by Tim Quebedeaux

Last time we left off with the premise that we can avoid the wearing of the red if we manage our inventory better. Inventory management can be “graded” by two important KPI’s: Turns and GMROII (Gross Margin Return on Inventory Management). Those two KPI’s are driven by three metrics, COGS, Margin Dollars, and Average Inventory. Average Inventory is a key component when analyzing these KPI’s.

Let’s start with reviewing what happened with Cost of Goods Sold and how that is related to Margin.

History of the P&L Study - Part 2

by Tim Quebedeaux

Last time we left off, seeing that it took 5 years to go from 0.7% profitability to 5.3%, high achiever status, while in one year we went from 5.3% to an amazing 14.9%.  Let’s dig into the three KPI’s in the Simple Income Statement to try to gain clarity on how we accomplished both feats.

The smallest piece of the pie is Operating Expenses.  These expenses can be described as the other expenses section of the P&L Statement.  Any expenses that are spent on things OTHER than people (W&WB) and product (COGS).  This section is the lowest as a percentage of revenues, but the largest listing of accounts.  Let’s look at the historical trend of our target centers in the P&L Study.

History of the P&L Study - Part 1

by Tim Quebedeaux... and a little help from Steve Bailey!

The Annual Profit & Loss Study has been an industry exclusive since 2004 and is the most comprehensive P&L study of its kind.  It started with 40 centers reporting in 2004 and has grown to a high of 78 centers in 2018 and 2021.  The Study made a big step in 2006 when it started measuring Average Inventory, allowing us to measure Turns and Gross Margin Return On Inventory Investment (GMROII).  After only 9 centers started reporting the new metrics in 2006, it quickly gained in popularity as it ramped up to 40 centers in 2009 and increased to 60 by 2021!

Annual P&L Study 2021 – Being the Best!

by Tim Quebedeaux

From Raising the Bar to Pushing the Boundaries!  In the 2019 P&L Study the top line comparison was changed from the High Achiever and Best Practices group, to only the Best Practices Group.  Well, that changed in 2020, in creating the Best of the Best Group, which in 2021’s P&L Study, took the place of the Best Practices group as the lop line in the Study to compare against.

Like in marksmanship, we want everyone to aim small, miss small. This small group of Best of the Best (BOTB) had 9 of the 10 Garden Centers repeat in 2021.  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 gives the Best Practices Group (largest number ever at 48) a chance to raise their own standards.

Thank You Steve & Bonnie Bailey

April 1, 2022

Steve Bailey's blog message Thank You (and more, there's always more!) provides a story of their journey and how he (and Bonnie) became the craftsman behind all of The Group's Financial Sharing Programs over the past 20+ years. Steve's observations and teachings have helped so many Garden Centers set their path for success and has laid the foundation for more to come through Tim Quebedeaux.

On Friday, April 1, 2022, The Group gathered in a GROUPtalk LIVE Session to salute Steve and Bonnie Bailey and say THANK YOU for all you have brought to The Group, our Centers, and the industry! Even on an extremely busy Friday morning, in the beginning of spring, many took the time to honor Steve and Bonnie Bailey for all they have done for their Garden Center. In the words you hear in this session, you can get a clear feeling of what the work Steve and Bonnie have done for each Garden Center, The Garden Center Group, and the Industry as a whole.

Growing Numbers

by Danny Summers

We are in a world of Growing Numbers. This beautiful spring photo from Longwood Gardens exemplifies where we are in Garden Retailing today. Each beautiful flower in this photo could easily represent your guests (customers). If we take a minute to think back over the last two years it will reveal this title.

In 2020 Group Centers recorded their largest single-year gains in Total Sales with over +20%, created by a 60/40 split of Transaction Counts and Average Sale. Centers reported seeing upwards of +25% new guests with many or most being young, first-timers to gardening. Overall, the 2020 Annual P&L Study results posted new levels of performance in almost all areas of benchmarking since the P&L Study began in 2004.

WDR 2022 - Weekly Department Review

by Tim Quebedeaux

This weekly snapshot into what is happening during any given year has proved itself very worthy in the last two years.  During the start of the Pandemic in the spring of 2020, it gave hope and direction to those centers whose seasons occurred later.  They could see the South and Southeast Regions sales and customer traffic not only happening, but increasing over the last year.  The WDR does this every year, but during that spring it was reassurance to those centers who could see what was coming and make decisions based on that.

A repeat performance in 2021? Almost.  We didn’t know what the revenue levels would be, but with the pandemic still having a grip, centers were once again able to see what was coming.  Being better prepared for it than they were in 2020, they were able to take advantage of the opportunity.

Success... by the Trailer Load!

by Danny Summers

For everyone who has attended The Fall Event, you know one thing you can count on is recognizing the most successful performing Garden Centers from our two financial sharing programs, the Weekly Department Review (WDR) and the Annual P&L Study. During the first day of The Fall Event 2021, we did just that. In fact, this year we handed out more awards than ever before!

When Steve and Tim sent me the reports for both the WDR and the P&L Study, I knew there would be a lot of awards this year. But it was when I picked up all of the plaques at our trophy supplier that it really hit me just how many more there were this year. In fact, we had to rent a U-Haul trailer for the trip to Wilmington – for the first time ever!

Annual P&L Study 2020 - Best Practices

by Tim Quebedeaux

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!

Setting New Levels of Benchmarks

by Danny Summers

The results are in from The Group's Annual P&L Study for 2020. And we all agree... the bar has certainly been raised!

I must admit when we first created the "Raising the Bar" theme for what was then to be our 2020 Fall Event, we had no idea how relative this theme would be in representing the year's total results.

Annual P&L Study 2020 - It was a WOW Year!

by Tim Quebedeaux

For the P&L Study 2020, one word is being used to describe it… WOW! Even with our expectations of a great year, we were still amazed at what was reported.

Let’s start with how revenues increased year over year. The previous year revenues increased 2019 over 2018 at 2.2% compared to 25.1% increase for 2019 over 2020. Amazing! This graphic below illustrates how the 5 year trend of a typical Center with $1 million in sales has grown over the period and the dramatic affects of the 2020 year results.

Finger on the Pulse!

by Danny Summers

This is a very important function of managing your Garden Center today. One of the major benefits of Group participation was most evident in the spring of last year. I remember it very well, just like it was yesterday.

It was Monday, March 23rd, the beginning of Week 13 and that was when we saw the first of our centers being forced to close due to state mandates. Fortunately that Center was in the middle part of the country where spring had not really began yet. Over the next few weeks, most all centers began to deal with new issues, whether business restrictions, new safety protocols and of course staffing issues.  Many Centers had to quickly assess their position with large portions of in-bound orders scheduled for delivery and how they would be able to serve their customers in the coming weeks. In addition, they were wondering what the reaction to stay-at-home orders would be in the minds of the customer. One very important Group connection point was the ability for Centers in the middle to northern portions of the country to watch what was happening down south. Let's look at a few figures from the Weekly Department Review (WDR) from a few of those weeks.