#18 CONVERSATIONS* part five (revised 6/10) "just dumb luck"

There was much she learned that afternoon along the gulf coast. They traded stories back and forth; Sarah and her sprint through the corporate maze, her success with Harley-Davidson, her moves from city to city, and her yearning for the peace that comes with being an artist and a gardener. Nick talked of his unending struggle to be the perfect plantsman in his chosen lot in life.

As the evening drew near and the warm breeze lifted Sarah’s red hair brushing back and forth across her eyes, she began to close in on important questions for Nick that may, at long last, lead her to or away from this crazy thought. She had been told by others that he had prepared himself many years ago for this same journey. She had been told about the notebook.

Sarah

Is it possible to bring back the small garden store to the industry? Is it also possible to duplicate this garden store all over the United States? They would be garden stores, like Jiffy-lubes or Starbucks, where gardeners, who re-locate to other towns and cities, can identify with them, their offerings and service? There would be no question where they shopped. It would be these same stores that would satisfy their needs in gardening wherever they land in America. Can this be done?

Nick

I am convinced that it is possible to do this; build a business and be profitable with a group of small garden stores, nearly identical in size, presentation, products, and operation.

Nick reached for the notebook. He thumbed through the worn pages and moved closer to Sarah as he continued. It was filled with scribbled notes, old photos, diagrams and torn out pages from magazines,

Nick

There was a time when I believed so much that it was possible that I prepared a plan to do just that. Gosh, he smiled broadly, I was a crazy man for this dream. I started from the beginning and built the whole thing in this notebook. Times have changed and some of my ideas won’t work anymore, but the core, the foundation of this plan still remains the same. Once, this notebook was going to be my next adventure, but I just could not keep all the balls in the air with what I had. I put it away from another day and that day just never got there.

This idea of a large group of garden centers has been tried before. Some are still operating and are successful. Many have failed. Often, they fail because the garden center owners who built them just did not understand how to do it. One owner thought that because she had a successful garden store, she could just build others the same way and they too would be just as successful. That was about all the planning and preparation she put into it.

Other chain garden centers failed because the investors believed that bigger is better. Those stores fell under their own weight of being too large and expansive, trying to be all things to all people. They had to “feed the bulldog” everyday, pushing money at all those expenses with the big stores and a big staffs. There are a lot of reasons why they failed and I talk about these failures in my notebook.

Sarah thumbed through the pages as Nick got up to make another pot of coffee. It was all here, she thought. Nick has taken this idea she had from the concept, to the operational philosophy, the building, the products offered for sale and the daily challenges of the stores. It was all here.

Sarah

As you built these stores in your notebook, what do you think is the most important secret for success?

Nick

There is no question about what is most important. It is the vision, determination, and sacrifice of the owners. I believe that the success of the garden store business and in fact any business depends on two things. First, half of it is pure dumb luck; being in the right place and the right time. I know a guy in North Carolina who has a large garden center in a city that has a population of about 200,000 people. He prides himself in making the right choices for his garden center that gives him profits year after year. He sits on garden center advisory boards and writes a column about his business. There is no doubt that he made a lot of good decisions along the way. But, the real truth is that half of his prosperity is because he is really the only game in town. Just by simple dumb luck, he ended up having it all by himself. He can make stupid mistakes and he still makes money. This guy can spend his day kicking customers out the front door and just as many will sneak in the back door to buy stuff from him. It isn’t his genius. It is mostly no brainer luck.

The other half of success falls directly on the owner. It is seeing the direction clearly, gutting it out day after day, and giving up short term needs for the payoff in the long run. Very few people are willing to do this. Once the owner takes his eye off this ball, the place is cooked.

If the goal is to build the national group of garden stores, the owners must make this commitment and with some plain dumb luck, it will work. Get the right people, stick to the plan, keep the eyes open to the luck that comes your way and use this luck as the gift it is.

Then hunker down and gut it out.