FOR SALE – garden centers, nurseries, greenhouses, landscape operations

Do you know of garden centers, nurseries, greenhouses, or landscape operations that are listed FOR SALE?

Listings are scattered across the Internet but there is no other central location where they are consolidated. We have established a page where links to listings of garden centers, nurseries, greenhouses, and landscape operations are offered for sale. Links may be provided to Realtors, Multiple Listing Services, magazine and newspaper online classified ads, Craig’s List, eBay, BizBuySell, BizZilla, BusinessBroker.net, local newspapers, trade magazine websites, trade associations, and For Sale By Owner listings (if there is a website that can be linked to) etc.

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Roll Your Sleeves Up – Higher

"Let's Roll"

Are You Guys Ready? Let’s Roll

If you are waiting for the economy to improve for your company to do better stop waiting now.

The phrase “Let’s Roll” was made famous when it was spoken by Todd Beamer, passenger on flight 93 over an in-flight phone before the fatal crash in a Pennsylvania field on September 11, 2001. “Let’s Roll” can also serve as the battle cry of your company to overcome the market forces, excusitis, or whatever resistance you’re dealing with to make 2011 the best year it possibly can be.

It’s Never Too Late to Look Back

Friends,

Someone recently said something to me that makes complete sense.

“You’re not marketing for business today or tomorrow.  You did that months and years ago. You’re marketing today for business months and years from now.”

Didn’t we leave a generation or two of potential gardeners out of our current picture?

There are a vast number of people who grew up in suburbia, or disengaged from gardening. Most of us got an interest in gardening from a parent, grandparent, or other relative. (Some of you ended up with the whole business from them!)

But most of our non garden industry friends were left behind and in turn their offshoots have also been left behind because their parents and grandparents didn’t turn them on to gardening.

Why not go to WORK while you’re going to work?

Don Eaton, guest blogger

“Hey, you’re going to work anyway,

why not ‘go to work’ while you’re there?”

Try this approach to work for the next 30-days

Guest Blogger – Don Eaton

The difficulty you and I face every day in running our businesses during these worrisome times can be overwhelming to say the least.  In many instances it seems as though we have little control over what actions we take or directions we head. This may be true in many areas of our businesses, where we are forced into reaction in place of action. If your anything like me, this becomes very tiring and can wear you down especially when we give in to foolish worry about what is to come, next year or even years after that, foolish worry about things out of our control or our ability to effect change.

Don’t Wait – Investigate

I can't remember who gave me this car!

From the Unbelievable file comes a laughable story of the short memory of the North Miami Mayor Andre Pierre about exactly who loaned him a Porsche reported in the Miami Herald.

But not so laughable is the story about a former buyer for The Home Depot sentenced to 2 years 3 months in prison for accepting kickbacks.

Other than fueling some much needed laughing these stories inspired me to remind you that its a good time to take note of situations in your company that just don’t seem, feel, or look right, and to carefully dig into them. Get some help from your friendly local prosecutor’s office.

Yes, I AM definitely talking TO YOU.

Yes, as a matter of fact, I AM definitely talking TO YOU.

When I see clients and readers of my magazine articles, blog, email news, and other printed words people often tell me that what I write makes them feel like I’m talking directly to them. I hope that is true for you. If it is you’re right.

No, YOU may not actually be THE client I’m talking about in any specific article or discussion, but believe it or not, all the mistakes you have made have most likely been made by others before you.I write to the situations I see other clients get into that I wish for you to avoid or take supreme advantage of, depending on the situation.

Don’t Follow Them, They’re Lost Too

  

 

Don't follow me, I'm lost too!

 

“Don’t follow me, I’m lost too.” 

It’s more than a bumper sticker. But not everyone who doesn’t know where they are going wears this bumper sticker. Think about it. 

We tend to assume that the ideas and trends others are following are the right direction. They and their ideas are talked about in the media, at conferences, and by salespeople who sell the stuff they sell. Sometimes those folks are just doing something they didn’t really think about, or that makes no good sense, financially or otherwise. But it is something different to talk about, write about, and follow.

New Garden Centers in THIS Day and Age?

You’ve got to be crazy! Who, in their right mind would dare start a garden center now?

Well there are some people who are. Read about them in the Garden Center Birth & Re-birth room.

It is in the nature of our business that we’re approached by wanna-be garden center owners. The reasons for starting a garden center now are many, but these five are the most popular.

“Be so good they can’t ignore you.”

In a competitive world you must stand for something and stand out.You must, as Steve Martin said, “Be so good they can’t ignore you.”

Most small businesses have a difficult enough time figuring out what to sell. They often become a “wandering generality” of their business type. They by default become “A jack of all trades and master of none”. To the general public they are second citizens to the predictable although not perfect national brand experiences whether carpet cleaner, lawn care operator, security alarm system, garden center, restaurant, etc. Don’t you also find it to be  easier, faster, and “safer” to choose the national brand over the mom & pop motel? One of the reasons the general pull of national brands is true is that the better brands re-invent themselves the way Holiday Inn has been doing.

How do you rise to the top in the customers mind?”

Steve Martin achieved outrageous success by developing a unique method to his apparent madness, which led to his becoming “so good that the entertainment world couldn’t ignore him”. And, as they say, the rest is history.

The same wisdom applies to steady growth, taking a step to the elusive “next level”, or catapulting to even higher levels.

The Steve Martin Method

STAY OUT of the Garden Center Graveyard

Graveyard of Defunct Aircraft

Why do they not ask for help?

The grave yard of garden centers is growing like the Arizona graveyard of defunct aircraft. Contraction of the airline industry has caused many older, inefficient and costly to maintain aircraft to be retired permanently. It used to be the case that new upstart competitors would buy older aircraft to start their companies, but it is actually less expensive to make the payments on newer machines that use less fuel, require less labor to operate, and require less repair and maintenance.

It saddens me to learn of such things as the pending closure of Porter’s Home & Garden Center near Ocala Florida. Ocala.com reported that liquidation of inventory has begun. The loan in default is backed by the business and the private homes of three of the Porter family owners.