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I’m sure all you plant geeks out there have played or heard of the game Plants vs. Zombies. What? You haven’t? Really? Where have you been? It was the hottest download last year. People who know nothing about gardening are planting sunflowers to gain power from the sun to then grow other plants to keep zombies off their lawns and away from eating their brains. It’s totally wicked! My favorite plants are the magic mushrooms. They start off spitting spores that infect the zombies, and, as you go up in levels, they develop super powers, eventually becoming a zombie-killing fungi of doom that can save your lawn. Sadly in our industry, there are no magic mushrooms. Beware the Pollyanna. When industry experts tell us to look on the bright side or, worse, that there is a magic mushroom that can fix it all (a.k.a. social media), you need to run the other way. I’m a firm believer that plants and the people who grow and love them are magical, but if I’ve learned anything through all of this, it’s that there’s no one “magic anything” that will bring customers through your door. If you are not ready to fix what’s not working, and all you want to do is focus on what you’ve done right, do you really think that’s good in the long term? It might be good advice if you’re eight years-old and you just lost a soccer game, but come on, people—grow up and face reality. Your entire business needs looking at, or there is not going to be a future for any of you. I hear garden center owners complaining about there not being any customers. Why not? Where did they all go? People are flooding the malls, and there’s still a 45-minute wait to get into family restaurants each Saturday night. People ARE spending money. How do we entice them to spend their money in a garden center? A lesson in demographics. The fact is, the population has changed, and isn’t going to be the same for a long time. Baby boomers had fewer kids, and those adult kids will soon be your best customers. You need to reach out to them. Plus, this generation isn’t having very many kids, either, so that means populations of customers will be dipping down to lifetime lows for the next 10+ years. Scary, I know. Consider something even scarier: IF you don’t change the way you currently do business… IF you are not adapting to the changing population… IF you think you can sit back and rest on your laurels without future innovation… IF you think the economy is the only one to blame… There’s no hope. Looking on the bright side and keeping your chin up—a.k.a. doing the same thing and hoping things get better—won’t work. But there is a way to address the situation. Start off by asking ask yourself and your team these questions: •Who is our best customer now, and who will be our best customer for the next 10 years? •What do these new customers want to buy? •Do we know their habits? Do we know what they want from life and what they expect from a retail store? Do we have a new marketing plan for selling plants to people who may not have a house or a yard? You can’t just emphasize the positive. You must be willing to also accept what’s not working and try to fix it. Your business must keep evolving and testing new ideas. Don’t just hope for that magic mushroom to come and keep the zombies from eating your brains. Angela Treadwell-Palmer owns Plants Nouveau, a company on the cutting edge of plant introductions. Learn more about the company and sign up for Treadwell-Palmer’s edgy “Weeding Gnome” e-newsletter at www.plantsnouveau.com. |
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