Going Beyond Average

by Danny Summers

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.

The Best of the Best Awards for 2023 were announced and presented following this session. These Centers were the Top 10 Profit Performing Centers for 2023 in the study. (listed A-Z):



And while we are talking about the Best of the Best Centers, they will be with us on November 14th for our next GROUPtalk LIVE. We will be quizzing them on how they reach their heights in performance!

Tim then presented a totally new set of graphs for each of the 8 Product Categories, showing the GMROII for all reporting Centers, the total Group Average (Red Line), and the Group's Best Practices Average (Green Line).

Then he proceeded to discuss the number of Centers reporting higher results than even the Best Practice Average. Here's an example of the Annuals Category. Keep in mind each line is a reporting Garden Center's GMROII for this category.

As Tim said in his presentation, just trying to be at the Best Practices average (Green Line in chart) is not realizing how much higher results can be reached. Consider all the Centers results that are well above the average.

This is central to the new emphasis to go beyond the normal P&L Study awards. Of course, we are recognizing the overall top-performing Centers by Best of Best, Best Practices and High Achievers Awards. But we want to explore beyond this to study these top 8 categories and who are the top performers in each of these top categories:

Annuals - Perennials - Shrubs - Trees - Tropicals
Landscape Non-Plant - Hardgoods - Pottery

Our goal in this new effort is to identify any Centers who are performing best in a key category, but are not recognized by our normal awards. What can we learn? How can this help other Centers to gain more success in these categories.

The following are the Top Three Performers (Gold-Silver and Bronze) in each of these categories:





Following the Best of Categories Award Presentations, Tim moderated a panel discussion of those winners who were present. There was an active Q&A time when everyone was able to challenge the winners on how they did it!

I encourage each Center to watch the presentation recording, make notes on both the Total Group Average and Best Practices data positions, and compare those to your Center. And then, see what the Top Three Centers in each Category are doing (the whole purpose of this effort). They are the top three lines on the graph.

If you did not report in the 2023 P&L Study and need help in determining your category GMROII, contact Tim Quebedeaux. Also, a big advantage of being part of The Group is connecting and interacting with the award winners above. Someone said during the Q&A session... "I am going to be stalking your Center to learn as much as possible... how you do it!"

A big CONGRATULATIONS to all of our Awarding Centers!

To view the presentation, login into The Group WebSystem. There on your landing page, you will see the link to "Big Profits: Aim Big, Don't Shoot for Average." The Awards and Best of Categories Panel Discussion Session will be coming soon.

Sharing is at the heart of The Group and your ideas are very important. If you have any trouble logging into The Group WebSystem, please let me know. Are you and your staff all subscribed to our eLists such as GroupEs, Retail-Grower, Retail-Landscape, Owners-Only, and a number of others including one for Marketing and even Tropicals? Need help subscribing? Let me know so I can show you how you can sign up.

Thanks for sharing!

Danny Summers
[email protected]
Tel: 678-909-7770
Cell: 678-761-7145

REMEMBER: Your interaction (by phone and email) with Group Service Providers such as Tim Quebedeaux, Sid Raisch, John Kennedy, Jean Seawright, and of course Danny Summers are included in your retainer!