#29 TRAIL BLAZES* (revised 6/29) "plow the fields we know"

Old Joe Albertson sat in his board room chair that afternoon.

He had something to say.


He had been watching his giant grocery store chain that he once started on a small corner in Boise, Idaho. He was worried. It was not just groceries anymore, no way. The senior management had been on a buying spree, acquiring businesses with products he knew nothing about. And judging from the failures of those businesses, he was certain they also knew nothing about those businesses. The once flourishing Albertson's was bleeding and slowly sinking

Joe slowly rose from the table with the help of his grandchildren by his side. "Boys, we are going to start again and plow the fields we know, the fields that made this company great. We are a grocery store and we will be a grocery store again".

Albertson's dumped all those businesses. Again, Albertson's flourished.

"Charlie Don't Surf!!"

Charlie Don't Surf is a famous line from the film Apocalypse Now, spoken by Colonel Kilgore as justification for taking a beach at the Mekong Delta so the American Soldiers could go surfing.

We know the gardening business. We are going to take the beach. The others can fool around plants but we are the experts.

“Charlie don’t surf”. We can!

green garden gates.......
We are a business for gardeners.
We are not an outdoor leisure store.
We are not a craft store.

We offer the finest plants and plant care products available in the marketplace. We don't have any sterling silver place mat rings, We don't sell sofa sets. We don't have any paint supplies or antique picture frames.

We turn our attention and keep our attention focused on the American gardener.

So many garden stores have failed because they got away from gardening. The logic was that if the gardeners who blasted through their doors in May for plants, they would buy lots of other stuff not even close to gardening. For some, it worked. For most garden stores who filled up their ceilings with the world’s supply of wind chimes, all that made a sound was the thud of a dust covered trinket crashing to the floor. After all, how are you going to fill up that big building and those empty shelves when the bug sprays are gone, the daffodil bulbs are planted and the gardeners go home? The buyers you hired have to buy, don't they? The cashiers have to punch those keys.

What most garden store owners fail to understand is that most gardeners forget about their stores after the planting season. They are frankly surprised that garden stores are even open after the spring and early summer.

No, our business stays focused on plants and plant care. Products are purchased and offered with the following rules;

Is the product a plant?
Is the product related to plant care?

Of course, there will be exceptions at green garden gates. Some products will enhance the joy of gardening and will be considered for our offerings. However, those products will be minimal to our focus;

plants and plant care.

A word about "plowing our fields that we know". We are committed to conducting our business only as far as our arms can reach, "inside our gates." We believe that there is plenty in our horizon for us to grow and prosper other than reaching out into other worlds. We do not have landscaping crews, We don't install, we don't have elaborate delivery services. First, they are businesses we know nothing about. Second, we don't want to worry about employees and services performed under our name when we can't observe the work in some far away place. We, of course, will arrange for those services by others, if a sale of our products depends on outside services.

We just want to pay attention to the life "inside our gates".

We know our products.

We will be experts with them

“If you want lumber for a deck, if you want drywall, then you go to Home Depot. But if your toilet malfunctions, your toilet breaks, your lights don’t work, you go to Frager’s. Sometimes in hardware, people ask the wrong thing. When it doesn’t ring true, you ask additional questions. What’s your project? What are you trying to do? You can solve their problem. When you walk into Frager’s, an employee will actually talk to you. We have people here who are capable of answering questions, having an intelligent conversation and getting you to where the merchandise is. You can buy it and get out without spending twenty minutes roaming cavernous aisles. That is the heart of our business. If you sit in the office and stare out the window, it doesn’t work”

John Weintraub

Discussing his business, Frager’s Hardware

From The "Mom and Pop Store"

By Robert Spector

Another part of “plowing the fields we know” is our commitment to products and services that work and have always worked in our industry. We are wary of the latest gadget, the new tool, the new procedure that heralds the final answer.

Our local McDonald’s is a brand new restaurant, bright and shiny with all the whistles and bells. In the pictures are two napkin dispensers, a traditional model, below, that has stood the test of time and a new model, on the top, a little more sleek and slick.

The new model is always jammed. Customers are never able to get the napkins out. The employees are constantly running over there and working on the darned thing. The opening size and the narrowness of the slot is so tight, it is impossible for a clean pull. The old standby with a wide opening just keeps delivering those single sheets without a hitch.

We stay with what has worked in our garden industry, even to the smallest detail. Let someone else spend their day unclogging the napkins!