Grapefruits and Cactus

by John Kennedy

It’s that time of year again!

Yup! You guessed it… Baseball is back!

Opening day is March 27th, 2025. And us Orioles fans will once again be hopeful for another pennant race and playoff run. And the boys of Summer are currently in Spring training right now, ensuring they have the best chance at an even deeper season than last year’s 91-71 record.

And it’s a long season ahead…162 games. You can afford to lose 71 times and still be in post-season play. Kind of like the weather person on your local TV station—you can be wrong half the time and still keep your job!

Unfortunately, in business, different than in baseball, we can’t afford to lose half the time (as evidenced last year with rained out weekends in many areas of the country). 

There are 27 weekend days between March 1 and May 31, 2025. Not a big margin for error when a fair portion of your revenue for the year is earned during those 27 days. Lose a few of those weekend days, and it will be difficult to put together a winning season.

Having every team member focused on every opportunity and converting every opportunity into a sale will be the difference in ending up like the Dodgers or the White Sox in 2024 (Sorry Chicago Fans!)

I believe that getting back to the basics of business is going to be vital for your success in 2025. Just like baseball, it’s all a numbers game.

    •    Units Per Transaction
    •    Revenue Per Labor Hour
    •    Number of Transactions
    •    Sales/Labor Ratio
    •    Average Transaction
    •    Profitability
    •    Gross Margin

These are the scorecards for success and your teams should know them, and the owners should share them on a weekly (if not daily) basis.

Could you imagine a baseball game without a scoreboard? Could you imagine players not knowing their batting averages? RBI’s? Runs scored? (If you have ever done an old-fashioned baseball scorebook, there is nothing better on a sunny afternoon at Camden Yards— (Miss you, Dad!)

If you want to win in 2025, there would be wisdom in sharing with your team some of your benchmarking numbers & scores that are entered into the WDR.

If we want your team to “get into the game,” maybe we should teach them how the game is played and share the score as they win…or as they lose. Just like my dad taught me…

There are a few IGC’s within The Garden Center Group that do an exceptional job at this…and have found that OBM (Open Book Management) is the key to a successful season.

Rex Andersen, from Town & Country Gardens, did a terrific job sharing his numbers during a recent Proven Winners Webinar. Having his team understand the expenses side of the business makes them better understand the revenue side of the business—as Steve Bailey stated, it’s not what you make…it’s what you get to keep! Great job, Rex!

Employees want to play for a winning team. They want to know that what they are doing is moving the needle...making a difference…affecting the score.

They want to be part of something bigger than just themselves.

Feel free to leverage the Owners Only eList and ask The Group who is using OBM as their model for building a winning team. Ask how they share the numbers and ask the outcomes based on that level of transparency. My hope is that you will learn how this approach can be a game-changer in your business…and set you up for success…and succession.

The old adage is “we can’t fix what we don’t know”. How can we expect a team to improve if they don’t have the data to make better and more informed decisions?

Getting ready for the season just around the corner, creating a winning team, and showing them what success looks like will require a commitment to getting back to the financial basics, having your team know the score, and then playing to win---batter up!