Million dollar questions

You only have to stroll around a garden center looking disinterested or preoccupied to hear them, don't you? I'm talking about customers asking each other (or themselves) the kind of questions to which you could fire off a response in your sleep. "How big does it get?" … "Does it need sun?" … "Where do they keep the soil?" … "Will it last through winter?" … "How big a bag do I need, do you think?" … and, of course, the ever-popular "Is there anyone here to help?"

Obviously, retail staff members are constantly on patrol (hopefully) looking for people with a question and supplying answers that lead to a successful shopping expedition. But just think of all those questions you don't hear, questions that don't even get past shopper's lips because customers are too scared, intimidated, confused or frustrated.

If you have spent the past 20 years selling to Baby Boomers who seek you out and demand an answer (even if it wasn't their turn), you might not think there is an issue here. But I am talking about the younger, possibly first-time garden shopper, who may have never set foot in a garden center before—those who think "home improvement" stores are the local gardening centers. To those people, an independent garden center might be as foreign as the Apple store is to some older Boomers.

Like some of the older generations surfing the web for "Apps," these Gen X and Y customers simply don't know what they don't know. They don't even know how to phrase a question without feeling clueless—and that is something that the "cool" generations do NOT want to seem to peers.

I know of one young high-earning couple who is prepared to do nothing to the garden in their newly acquired home rather than be seen to fail. They are educated, smart and so successful in their work life they don't want to fail at anything in public, not even in the eyes of their neighbors.

Incidentally, I saw a survey earlier this year stating the four greatest fears of wanna-be garden shoppers, and I suspect you can take a pretty good guess at the answers.

The four fears were:

• Fear of killing the plants
• Fear of asking stupid questions
• Fear of returning a failed product and looking (or being judged as) stupid, and
• Fear of neighbors and friends seeing their failure

Address those fears, and you have a sure recipe for retail success.

Makeovers make money. This country has millions of educated, professional homeowners under 45 living in homes built in the past two decades. These people are replacing 20-year-old kitchens and bathrooms, importing granite counters and cool appliances—but the garden is their no-go area. Just think of the millions of homes with tired, overgrown, un-inspiring landscapes installed by the original contractor. Imagine the pent-up business for this industry—if only they knew what and how.

Try to visualize their first foray into a garden center; they're intimidated but excited, confused but intrigued. Walk and think like that customer as you put yourself in their shoes in your department or company.

Somewhere in the deep recesses of my Baby Boomer mind a song chorus keeps playing, "… there are more questions than answers," and in the garden business it is the questions that create business opportunities. I am thinking of the masses of garden shoppers and would-be shoppers who don't ask questions for fear of looking "stupid."
 

Collect the clues. Owners/managers should create a mechanism to "collect" common questions heard every day from customers. This can be a priceless resource for an attentive company as long as there is a sense of perspective. In other words, if one person asks, in the busiest week of the year, where the roses are, it is not a big deal. But if you get that question 10 times a day, it is time to consider a solution.

Given a mechanism or process to collect even what seem to us be the most naïve questions, such as "Do I need to feed my lawn?," you can also begin to imagine what is not being said. It might not be uttered, but I can assure you as we see more and more first-time homeowners in ours stores, those questions are being considered.
 

Questions will create sales. Questions can be easily predicted depending on the season ("When do I plant petunias?") or the weather ("Will frost kill a palm tree?") or pests ("What are these huge worms on my tomatoes?").

Over the year, smart garden-center managers use a checklist of the top 5 to 10 predictable questions each week as the subject for daily huddles and suggested selling topics. In winter they sit down and create a training booklet or online reference guide to the top 100 questions employees will hear from customers, together with the company's suggested answers. This document becomes an excellent training tool for spring readiness for returning employees and new hires.

By giving the team advanced warning of the likely questions and the recommended answers, the company gives an instant boost to the team's confidence. One of the more common reasons that employees avoid eye contact and don't engage customers is the fear of not being able to answer a question.

So instead of having to remember an endless amount of product knowledge (PK), a new or returning employee simply has to master replies to the predictable questions they are going to be asked each week. A daily huddle or weekly PK session can now be a reminder to the staff "not to worry about crabgrass anymore—we're past that—now you'll be asked about their grass looking rusty colored."

Don't think like a garden retailer! To predict what questions you will face in the next generation's shopping trenches, you can either ask a non-gardening friend to walk the store with you, or put your mind into non-nursery veteran mode. Remember the next generations of customers are not poor, nor stupid. They have quick-paced lives and strong expectations. But with regard to our industry many of them simply don't know what they don't know.

To "Think Like a Customer" and relate to their information needs, you have to stop thinking like a garden center person! So let's get ready for questions, whatever the season. If employees know what's coming, they will be looking and listening for clues from customers and much more sensitive to those awkward moments when a shopper says, "Hi, this might sound stupid, but…"

Contributing editor Ian Baldwin offers other useful ideas in his "TLC … Think Like Customers" sales training program, available at www.ianbaldwin.com.