The New Year is fast approaching and right now you are immersed in Holiday. Yep, you are busy. But what about the days after all the trees and wreaths have come down? What about your green plant and maintenance sales

Plant The Seed
If you haven’t planted the seeds in November and December there will be no harvest in January or February and that is a shame. The lifeblood of every interiorscaper is the monthly recurring revenue, not one time Holiday Sales. Holiday is just the icing on the cake and not the cake itself. That is why it is imperative that even while you are hanging that wreath or making that bow you must also be tilling the soil for regular plantscape jobs. Keep in mind that, on average, it takes approximately 90 days from first appointment thru proposal, to install. And also keep in mind that it takes XXXXcontacts to get XXX appointments to generate XX proposals to get X contracts

 Put it on Paper
 I start helping my consulting clients and InnerCircle members by devising a Plan. I recommend you start one too. Make so many calls a day, so many appointments a week. Don’t keep the client waiting for that proposal. Get it to them ASAP. Set your goals and fill the squares. It’s important or otherwise all the pluses of November and December will be canceled out by January. And, since we are coming up on Year End, take some time now to review this year’s Sales Record. How much did you sell in Plants and Planters? How much in Guaranteed Maintenance Annualized? How much Holiday? Who didyou sell it to?   By teasing out the dollars generated by sales to the different market segments you’ll get an interesting snapshot of your company and, possibly, a map of where you want to concentrate efforts in the coming year. For example are you strong in building lobby sales? You might want to offer exterior blooming as well. Or, are you a giant with corporate offices? You might want to concentrate on this segment. This kind of information gives you a compass and is a powerful ,powerful tool. Take the time now and I promise you’ll be enlightened.

I was watching the home shopping channels recently and I was amazed at how much Holday Product they were selling to their viewers.

On the Tube
There they were. Beautifully decorated. Artificial trees, prelit, and with not only the ubiquitous minis but fiber-optics as well. Pricing? Very user friendly. Next they showed special electrical boxes that accommodate eight plug ins of four light strands each and buttons that made the light show blink, sequence or stay on. In short, the Holiday products that you sell are now available to the consumer and are getting better and more sophisticated every year. In fact, some of the same suppliers we buy from are selling on TV under a different brand name.

What Does This Mean for the Commercial Holiday ‘Scaper?
It means that you, too, have to keep moving forward and continually update your skills and Holiday designs. What was once out of scope for most consumers is now available at every Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Home Shopping Channel, www.qvc.com. To stay one ornament covered branch ahead of the pack you have to do your homework. Homework like going to market, visiting local floral product wholesalers, and talking to company reps.

 Large or Small
If you are relatively small in Holiday work a visit to your local floral product wholesaler or regional gift mart show may suffice. However, companies doing larger amounts of Holiday work may opt for attending the large Mart Shows such as the ones in Dallas, Atlanta, New York, Chicago and Las Vegas. These all take place in January and often conflict with parts of TPIE so some companies attend one or the other or, bite the bullet and have someone attend one show and another person attend the other. Depends on how big your business is and what you can afford. Some companies attend the Mart Shows every other year instead of every year. Let your size, budget, and needs dictate your decisions.

Green Is Gold
Don’t forget green plant sales just because you are up to your aspidistra in poinsettia. Guaranteed Maintenance is still your bread and butter so make sure you keep calling on potential ’scaper clients. Otherwise, come January you will compromise all those Holiday profits. Word to the wise. Keep that pipeline filled!

Factoid #1
America’s first enclosed shopping Mall opened in 1956 in Minneapolis.

Factoid #2
At last count, there are 1,175 enclosed malls in the U.S.

Factoid #3
In the early 70’s a poll by U.S. News and World Report found that the average American spent more time in Malls than anywhere else than home or work.

Source: Call of the Mall, Paco Underhill

Once the Holy Grail for interiorscapers, today the Mall has fallen on hard times. In the beginning, the basic design was to simulate Main Street, USA. Shoppers strolled under large ficus trees or palms, in ground planters were loaded with greenery and color and individual containerized plants accented seating areas, retail stores, and food court entrances.

Today, many center’s specimen plant material has been replaced with silk or preserved, replaced with kiosks, or just removed entirely.

Does This Mean You Don’t Want the Work?
Of course not. Just be aware that as malls lost tenants, the national commercial real estate companies that own them have become firmly fixed on two things-generating the most revenue per square foot and aggressive cost cutting. You, as the intriorscape salesperson, have to look to value engineering to maximize profits and sharpen your pencil to get and keep the job.

The New Shopping Destination
The post mall version of a pre mall suburban fixture, the strip shopping center is the newest design. According to Paco Underhill, today’s version is what is called an “affinity center”. Bigger than their predecessors, more sophisticated in design and layout, these venues usually have five or six national chain stores, so called “category killers”. Roofless, these spaces do not offer much opportunity for the interiorscaper although containerized exterior plays a big part.

A second innovation and one with more openings for interiorscapers, is the “neo village”. These are attempts to recreate urbanesque shopping with lots of stores housed in “old time” replica shops. Underhill refers to them as “charmingly artificial…almost like movie sets. Again the opportunity for exterior containerized.

The Once Great Opportunity
Just a good example of how we have to keep on top of design and architectural trends and changes and adapt to them with innovation and flexibility. How are you keeping up?

Once upon a time a friend of mine had a boyfriend and they were very serious about each other. Two or three nights a week he’d come over for dinner. She’d set the table with her finest linens, candles, the works!

Time Went By
She was a very busy lady and, over time, the fine linens became paper napkins (the really good ones though), and then, over still more time they became the paper napkins from the local Wendy’s. Not long after this, my friend discovered that her boyfriend was seeing someone else. She was devastated. As she told me her sad story she said through her tears, “It’s the napkins isn’t it?”

I Understood What She Mean’t
In the beginning she had pampered and spoiled and paid lots of attention to her beau but, over time, she took him for granted. The napkins went from linen to good paper to really bad paper. She just stopped paying attention to the details and took the easiest, quickest way out.
A Lesson for the Wise
Now our relationships with our clients are much like my friend’s. In the beginning we make sure that all the plants are perfect, our service is exemplary, our response to calls, immediate. But over time we fall into what I now call, “the napkin trap”. We’ll replace that plant next month not next week, we’ll just splash and dash this visit.  As for cleaning the containers?  Well, that can wait, heck we did that couple of months ago.  Then, when we hear that our client (our beau) is accepting bids from other companies we’re absolutely outraged. We remember the cloth napkins while the client just remembers the one’s that say “Wendy’s”.

You Can Take This to the Bank
Write this on the wall in letters 5 feet high. Client Retention is absolutely your Number 1 Job. What good is a bucket for New Sales if the Old pour out of a hole in the side? Look over your client list and ask yourself honestly, “Are we pleasing this client now, not last year, but now?” Are you setting the most beautiful table? Is the client getting the cloth napkins or the paper? ‘Nuf said.

My Interiorscape company, Something Different, was originally founded with myself and two other partners. Now ninety-nine percent of the time we got along great but every once in a while we would disagree. I’d fuss and fume and vent to a dear friend. Each time he would look across the dinner table and when I had calmed down he’d quietly ask, “And what does it say in the Company Manual?”

I’d continue to humph and phumph and go on venting. A few weeks later the same thing would happen and so on and so on and this went on for five or six years. I’d get upset and he would listen and then ask, “What does it say in the Company Manual?”

I Finally Got it.
Then one day it dawned on me that my friend was absolutely right. We needed a COmpany Manual. A book that had all the rules, expectations, human resource information, in short, all the stuff that owners and employees alike could reference.

My Mission
I begged, borrowed and stole Company Manuals from other ’scaper friends in other cities and used their Manuals as templates and after a few long weekends we had the first of many Company Manuals.

A Work In Progress
Today you can find on the web templates for everything from wills, to divorce decrees to Company Manuals (www.employeemanual.com). If you don’t have one, you need to put this on your to do list. In fact, I don’t see how you can operate without one particularly one that addresses employee issues.

Just remember that every so often you’ll need to update your Manual. There will always be items to add and items to change or delete. It is a living document that defines your company from Mission Statement to Employee Termination guidelines and it is always changing.

Start Small
Pull up a template from the web and start filling things in. Before long you will have the foundation and can add sections at a realistic pace. Before you know it, you will have a Company Manual and, I guarantee you, you will sleep better at night.

Go Joe!
Everyone loved our new salesperson, Joe. Tall, blonde, great smile – everybody agreed he was sure to be successful, so we hired Joe. Timed passed and Joe became everyone’s buddy. He could talk sports with the guys and go to lunch with the girls. Everyone loved Joe. Just one itty-bitty problem. He wasn’t selling much. Oh, he always had something in the works, something on the horizon. In fact, several potential jobs had been on his sales board for months, eleven months to be precise, but very few materialized. I thought about letting Joe go but each time I did, I backed down. Heck, everyone loved Joe! Such a great smile and well, I hated confrontation. Holiday came and went and Joe sold a couple of jobs but still way below his quota. Yet, it was nice to have an extra pair of hands to carry wreaths and trees, I reasoned. Once a week Joe and I would meet to review his sales efforts. I learned to hate those meetings.

 All Talk No Action
Joe would flash that great smile and he’d tell me about the rotten economy, the corporate cut backs, the lousy weather. We even grieved over the the local football team’s defeat. Still – few sales so while I sold at one end, Joe cost the company money and time and sold—very little. Finally, after almost two years I mustered up every bit of moxie I had and told Joe – “GO!” The company threw him a big going away party and wished him luck,‘cause, heck, everyone loved Joe.

The Moral To The Story
Now, friends, there is a moral to this sad tale of Joe. In every company there is a “Joe” or a “Joan”. They may be in sales or be the company account person. They may be a supervisor or a tech. They may even be a relative. Whatever their position, their charisma and personality mask deficiencies. Deficiencies that suck the soul out of a small, entrepreneurial business. If you have a "Joe” currently on your payroll, I want you to stop reading this blog and go over to a mirror.

 Be Honest With Yourself
Look yourself square in the eye and repeat after me, “I am not in business to care for someone else’s child. My business is my baby and I have to protect it. Joe must go!”
 If necessary repeat the above and then, let Joe go! In a couple of months after Joe’s replacement sells that huge job (funny how the economy got better so fast), call me and let me know how it’s going – after Joe goes. Now go out there and get ‘em Tiger!