Feature Story
You've read the headlines. But the impact of the economic downturn is not just limited to the nightly news. Real people, running real businesses are facing the impact on their profits, their operations and their teams. Hard decisions are getting them through, but even in the toughest of markets, we find a light at the end of the tunnel. Changing times. Changing models.
| REEL LIFE: What is the real impact of the economic downturn on real businesses? |
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The economic downturn is impacting average sales, consumer and business spending, and forcing dramatic changes in the strategies owners and**MORE**
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| REEL LIFE: Shrinking sales, smaller staffs, stimulating solutions. |
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Maintaining profitability without undermining your brand takes innovation and requires hard choices. Learn how these garden retail owners are acheiving**MORE**
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| REEL LIFE: Survival strategies for the hardest hit sector of our industry. |
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The landscape market has declined dramatically, impacted by a dramatic drop in home sales and record unemployment. However, innovative
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| REEL LIFE: Owners share their perspectives on hope and the future. |
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Most business owners predict that 2010 will bring equal or greater challenges to 2009. But there is hope. Whether your**MORE**
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Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes!
The rules have changed. For a year now, the downturn in the economy quickly and dramatically shrunk customer counts, reduced the volume of landscape work and cut the demand for plant material. With shrinking revenue, the number of jobs in the nursery landscape and greenhouse industry has fallen leaving fewer people to manage a less profitable but often more complex environment. How are you managing the change?
| STRATEGY:Just hanging on is not a strategy for success. Face the future or end up stuck in the past. |
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Jim Carroll discusses how we should be planning and acting in order to innovate ahead of fast-paced events.
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| STRATEGY: You can't do it all! Success means focusing on what is really important. |
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Recommendations for simplifying your business and focusing on the most important components.
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More Customers, Smaller Sales (and Staff):
Your resources are stretched! Customer counts got bigger, average sales got smaller and you've cut your staff. How do you handle increased traffic with fewer sales staff, and how do you combat shrinking sales. From making your store more self-service friendly, to increasing your focus on new product lines, this is the time to do less with more.
| DIVERSIFY: When your average sale drops, new categories can help rebuild. |
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Discover how Nicholson-Hardie more than doubled their garden center's gift and décor sales in two years.
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| TRAIN: When your team is stretched training is key to success. |
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Waterloo Gardens (Exton, PA) offers its employees 180 different training modules, covering tips and best practices for job functions as**MORE**
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| SELF-SERVICE: Teach a customer to shop and they can help themselves. |
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From ANLA's award-winning Retail Recipes, a collection of great signage ideas to drive impulse sells and help make your store self-service friendly.
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Take a Job, Any Job
Landscapers, you have a strategy and a niche. You only take large commercial work. Your team operates best in the $7500 - $15,000 residential range. In the last year, the pool of potential work has gotten smaller. You are stepping (sometimes far!) outside your comfort zone. With an increased number of smaller jobs, or just fewer jobs altogether, what systems and solutions are you using to manage the details?
| MANAGE: More smaller jobs mean more moving pieces to track. Systems are the solution. |
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Adopting a strategic management system (OPM) for landscape and other business operations.
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| MANAGE: Owners with smaller teams are wearing more hats. Systems can help bridge a period when you have less time for oversight. |
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Systems allow owners to maintain control and oversight of operations as their business grow and become more complex.
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| DIVERSIFY: Maintenance is getting many through. Contracts ensure clear expectations and payment. |
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This form lays out a boilerplate contract for formalizing maintenance work.
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| DIVERSIFY: Maintenance is harder to measure than installation. Reporting helps measure performance. |
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Track your teams' productivity with this easy to understand and use form.
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Smaller Orders, Smaller Team
Large orders with plenty of lead time make your life easy! However, garden centers are ordering smaller quantities, more often, and landscape firms with lighter schedules often start a job only days after selling it. You've cut staff, your turn around time has decreased and your daily work flow has gotten less predictable. How do growers and distributors deal with these new challenges?
| PRICING: Discounts don't equal dollars if they are unprofitable. |
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A strategic approach to retaining profitability when discounting.
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| STRATEGY: Hands-on equals well informed when it comes to management. Well informed equals success amidst change. |
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Case history of a successful growingand distribution bousiness dealing in tough times.
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| STRATEGY: Expand during the contraction? Only with careful financial planning and measurement. |
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Growth and expansion may lead to success, but only with sound strategy.
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Feature Webinar
| When Business is Slow… Sharpen the Tools! |
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Tuesday December 15th 3pm - 4pm Open to all!
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| Got Recovery? |
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Wednesday December 16th 3pm - 4pm Open to all!
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Further Reading
You always ignored this section in your textbooks, or at the end of serious business articles. But this is good stuff! Our industry’s trade press provides more great ideas, and further exploration of the what’s and how-to’s.
| FURTHER READING: Habersham Gardens in Atlanta is a testament to the old saying, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. |
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| FURTHER READING: The trends, legislation and regulation and strategies that will shape 2010. |
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| FURTHER READING: Financial ratios measure performance and direct strategy. |
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ANLA Premier Partners
Through their exceptional commitment to ANLA’s educational programming, two companies have become founding members of ANLA’s Premier Partner’s Circle. Novalis and AM Leonard believe that providing you access to education and knowledge makes you a stronger company and therefore a better customer, and builds a solid future for our industry. ANLA encourages you to support those companies who underwrite your success. Take a moment to find out more about our
Premier Partners.
