It is easy to make light of or dismiss a single idea, no matter how small it may seem at the time. What we most likely don't see at the time is the potential impact of that idea.
It could appear just to be a SPARK of an Idea. And, if we are not paying attention, we may miss opportunities.
You may remember in the July 8th GROUPtalk; I shared a message titled...
Drilling Down for Higher Performance
In recent weeks, I was asked to share with the Ball Horticulture Team during one of their monthly meetings. My part was virtual with many gathered at the Ball Headquarters in West Chicago, with hundreds more from their locations around the world.
The request was (1) to give a brief overview of what The Group does, (2) to provide highlights of how the 2024 year is shaping up, and (3) any possible glimpse into 2025.
When I first started working with The Group in 2012, I remember hearing from a number of our Owners this comment, "I just can't take on anything new. My plate is full."
It didn't take long for me to realize these were the same Owners who only had one person connected to all of The Group programs. You probably already know where I am headed with this...
If you have been into the flow of information within The Group this year, you know, overall sales year-to-date have been tracking about -5% down from 2023. While early weeks teased us with solid increases, some of the biggest spring weeks just did not keep pace with those same weeks of 2023, and that created the overall deficit we see today. By the way, those same big spring weeks where we fell short, we saw our Weather Rating reflecting downturns. Remember, we have always blamed the weather, but with our new Weather Rating we now have actual data to back it up.
But the sales at -5% is Total Group Average. All the Group Centers that participate in the Weekly Department Review (WDR) can login to The Group WebSystem and begin to explore in greater detail how the average develops, and much more importantly, who is well above the average!
This past week, I have been working on the newest addition to our Group Educational Training content coming from The Fall Event 2024. Two weeks ago, I shared the compiled recording of Katie Tamony's "The Evolving Customer" presentation. It was added to our Group WebSystem for all Group Centers to experience.
This week, we have added Tim Quebedeaux's presentation "Big Profits: Aim Big, Don't Shoot for Average." During this 45-minute presentation, Tim highlighted the 2023 P&L Study and then drilled down into the Top 8 Product Categories.
Media Going Wrong
In the bigger picture marketing is much more than advertising. It is more than social media. What is it? Marketing is communication with a specific chosen group of people in language they understand and empowering them to act to support their interests, not ours.
The Marketplace Mantra: “It is the marketer’s responsibility to communicate to our marketplace information to make them want to buy.”
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?
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?
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?
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.
Marketing Degradation - Marketing has become degraded to an undisciplined practice of rapid-fire social media posts with messages covering dozens if not hundreds of topics to the point that - there is no real net message, or benefit of creating them.
Let’s begin with the end in mind. The end in marketing is a purchase. I will come back to that notion.
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.
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.
If you have been receiving GROUPtalk for some time now, the image above and the title of this message may seem vaguely familiar, and you are correct. I first used this in August of 2021 with a slightly different title, "The Train of Garden Retailing." At the time, we had already been through the spring seasons of 2020 and 2021. I know you remember what that was like. It was a time of great change for all Garden Centers, adapting to new ways to do many things, in order to serve your growing customer audience.
In the August 2021 message, I began by saying, "At first glance this might appear as a strange combination...Train verses Garden Retailing? But bear with me as I share some thoughts I have had in recent months. This idea came to me as I was talking with prospective Centers who asked about what we do in The Group and why they should consider joining. Basically, "Why The Group?"
[Continued from Part 1 - Click to review from Group Blog]
The Garden Center Group’s 2023 P&L Study shows a continued trend of flatness of the three top KPI’s with nearly flat revenue, transaction counts, and average dollars per transaction (barely keeping with inflation). Of course there are the above average performing companies who lift this average, along with the corresponding below average performers. No matter which side of average a garden center is, this is an alarming trend. The most alarming thing is the slide, which began in 2008 at the start of the Great Recession and continued to 2019 (after a brief COVID relief in 2020 and 2021), has returned and it is sticking. The reason - Baby Boomers are aging out. The real reason? We as an industry are failing at replacing revenue from Baby Boomers.
If you have been in the BWI (Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport) and in the A/B Terminal Food Court area, most likely you have seen the round coffee stand in the center of the area. It is Mayorga Coffee, a local coffee roaster in Rockville, MD (about 6 miles northwest of the Washington, DC beltway).
Having enjoyed my first cup of what I call Mayorga's flagship dark-roast, Cafe Cubano, I was determined to find where we could get more for our everyday java-fix.
I’m writing this fully knowing that some of you are going to be mildly irritated and full blown mad at me about it. But I will speak the truth as I see it and will ask you to either deny it at your own risk, or deal with it as effectively as possible. This isn’t only to define the reality of the problems we face, it is to offer a simple solution. The challenge isn’t having a solution. The challenge is to convince enough people to embrace the opportunity to accept it and to step forward decisively and boldly. It is also to ignore the naysayers and those who will stand in your way - our way.
Over 215 million Americans across three generations (Gen X, Gen Y aka Millennials, and Gen Z) now understand the critical importance of plants and pollinators for life and sustainability. They seek knowledge beyond what previous generations did, recognizing that neither big-box stores nor online searches can fully satisfy their quest. This awareness presents an unprecedented opportunity for the garden industry. If we keenly observe market trends and respond smartly, we can achieve our industry's highest aspirations. For those who might not find inspiration in this vision, it's a cue to step aside and watch as proactive leaders make impactful strides putting preparation for opportunity well ahead of hoping and wishing and blind luck.
Sometimes things just don't work out the way you first thought they might. That is most often the case When the Press Calls. About 2 weeks ago I was contacted by email by a writer with Associated Press (AP). The conversation began with...
"Hi, I cover small business for the AP, is there someone at The Garden Center Group that could speak to me about what challenges the industry is facing these days, i.e. high labor costs, volatile weather, etc. and what are some bright spots?"
Just the idea of a simmering hot cup of Tea... in The Garden creates an ideal vision for how to begin the day. Maybe we should pause here for 15-20 minutes, grab a cup of Tea (or coffee), and step out to the Garden (or the most peaceful area of the Garden Center will do). Use the time to relax, breathe deeply, perhaps pray, and think about all the wonderful natural world around us. Then, return to this message when finished...
