Saturday morning. 6:30 am. Hot bagel and a cup of coffee.

Thumbing through the Sept/Oct issue of Green Profit Magazine. There's a lot of information about the OFA Short Course and Trade Show in this issue, and rightfully so. It was a great show and learning experience.

My friend Bill Calkins gives his farewell salute to us as he is moving up the chain of command at Ball Horticulture. Bill is taking on the position of Manager of Independent Garden Centers. If you are an independent garden center, keep an eye on Bill. He gets around and is very observant of things that can really work for garden centers. . . and he doesn't necessarily get his ideas from garden centers.

The Consumer Buzz Live event is covered pretty well. Kerry Herndon, a grower of Bromeliads and Orchids in Florida, wrote a column about the event and how the Internet was the underlying theme of the CBL event (p. 42). The panelists of 40 year olds said they wanted the garden centers to help them, get to know them, and maintain a relationship. They want to hear from the garden center every month about what they should be doing, whether it is with new things for gardening, or whether is has to do with the things they bought there.

These panelists also reenforced the data that says consumers go to the web to do research first, then go to the store to buy.

My friend Pete Bottomley wrote an article about how garden centers can succeed with customer seminars.

Bottom line take away this morning: We (consumer focused green industry businesses) need to do a better job of developing relationships with our customers, and find ways to establish the relationship that find them where they are.

Sun's up. Time to get moving.

Steve

I have had the pleasure recently of speaking to green industry folk about Search Engine Marketing, better known as SEO.

One lady sent me a note later, "I wish I could have picked your brain for another couple hours."  I was really glad to hear that.

I struggle with the reality that our green industry is not getting the information necessary to keep up with the SEO opportunity. There is so much going on with the web, but we are still taking a "wait and see" attitude. So to hear someone say they want more, more, more information, I say "finally", people are starting to get it.

And get it they should:

~ The majority of homes in the US are connected to the Internet with a broadband connection. Yep, the Internet is always on in their house, and possibly at mutliple locations. Just belly-up to the 'puter and start surfing.

~ US households now watch more hours of Internet than they do of television.

~ 2 out of 3 consumers do reasearch on the web before making a purchase.

If you are in business,  you need to be on the web. Period.

Steve C

I've had the pleasure of reading a number of blogs in the blogshere, and now look. I've got one with my mug on it.

I'm going to try to use this space as a place for thoughts about the green industry,technology, marketing, rants and raves, and oddities that are on my mind. 

We, as an industry, can certainly benefit by the integration of technological efficiencies, so I hope to spend most of my time there.

No need to ramble any longer.

Let's kick it off.

Steve C