#73 CHOOSING A MANAGER// (revised 6/3) "sarah's questions"

Sarah Lindsey-Banks, in her job re-organizing and bringing Harley-Davidson stores into the world of modern retailing, developed a formula for choosing qualities most needed for the position of a store manager.

1. Will the prospect be a good shopkeeper?

She discovered that good managers were truly small store shopkeepers. Often, she found, career oriented corporate trained men and women saw this position only as a temporary assignment on the way to the corner office of the big mother ship of headquarters. Yes, they would be accountable. Yes, their stores would make progress and yes, they would be acceptable managers . But what was not there was the light in their eyes, the excitement and spirit of ownership that successful small store shopkeepers carry with them each and every day. For some, managing a store is only a step along the way. For the best managers, they are shopkeepers who are proud of who they are and what their store provides for the local gardeners. They like their little store. They enjoy the business.

2. Does the candidate have a “warm heart?”

The most important trait of a manager is that he or she is “human” and not a corporate machine. Each day, experiences with customers, suppliers, and employees require that the manager understands and solves issues from, above all, a human perspective. Most of the solutions are not found in any company manual. They are found with a coming to terms with face to face understanding and empathy. The candidate must use good judgment in balancing the business perspective of green garden gates with the human perspective of the people who are connected with us.

There is a 5 ½ inch by 7 ½ inch card, The Nordstrom Employee Handbook, which says “Our only rule…Use Good Judgment in All Situations”

New employee orientation

“The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence”

By Robert Spector and Patrick McCarthy

3. Will the candidate learn, teach and delegate?

The world is full of managers who fall into their desks in the morning and follow the same old patterns. They stopped learning a long time ago. They open the faded moth eaten pages of their minds and do it all over again. Green garden gates is a fast moving ever changing palette of colors. Is the candidate ready and eager to learn? Does the life of the candidate indicate that learning is of absolute importance? And with this learning, can the candidate freely teach others to be as good as or more effective as he or she? Or is the candidate afraid to teach and to share knowledge, fearing the lost of power, position or worth? After the teaching, can this person delegate the task or does he or she hold the task not allowing the student to put this knowledge to good use for green garden gates?

"Develop your people to do their job better than you can. Transfer your skills to them. This is an exciting goal, but it can be threatening to a manager who worries that he is training his replacement. If you are concerned, ask your boss: "If I develop somebody who can do my job super well, does the company have some other challenge for me or not?' Many smart managers like to see their employees increase their responsibilities because it frees the managers to tackle new or undone tasks. There is no shortage of jobs for good managers. The world has an infinite amount of work to be done."

Bill Gates

Microsoft

4. Is the candidate an adventurer?

This journey is full of adventure and excitement. Does the professional and personal history of the candidate point to an adventurer of life or an observer of life? Where have they traveled? Has the candidate been involved in exciting groundbreaking projects? Has the candidate’s life been a squiggly line of discovery or has he or she followed a gradual arc of safety on the journey?

5. Is there energy there?

Green garden gates is all about energy and enthusiasm. Is the candidate a postal carrier for the government, who does the route and goes home to sleep or is the candidate the person who has been humping up and down a UPS truck in the middle of the night? What does the candidate do during the after work and weekends? What projects does the candidate work on?

6. Does the candidate watch the pennies?

The financial health of green garden gates depends largely on the ability of the manager to watch the money entering and leaving the business. Is the candidate fiscally responsible? How does this person manage his own checkbook? Can the candidate determine if an expense is profitable to green garden gates or a silly outlay of money that just causes a drop in the bottom line?

7. Can the candidate sell and close?

This is our business, moving products and services to the customers. Do we have a manager who sells or a manager who observes? Can the candidate close the deal? Do we have a candidate with a job history of boxing up the perfume or someone who sells the perfume? If there is no ability to sell effectively, there is no room for this person as a manager.

8. Does the candidate have “pride in ownership”?

Green garden gates is a place of beauty. Will this person manage the business with a pride or beauty and orderliness? Or is this store just “good enough”. How does the candidate take care of his personal possessions? How does he or she present themselves in day to day living?

9. Is this person a “problem solver?” Does the candidate do what it takes to finish the job?

Can the candidate see the problem, find a solution and pull the trigger to solve the issue quickly and efficiently? Or does the person need endless time to make the choice allowing the problem fester and grow worse?

"Don't make the same decision twice. Spend the time and thought to make a solid decision the first time so that you do not revisit the issue unnecessarily. If you are too willing to reopen issues, if interferes not only with your execution but also with your motivation to make a decision in the first place. People hate indecisive leadership; However, that does not mean you have to decide everything the moment is comes to your attention. Nor that you can't ever reconsider a decision."

Bill Gates

Microsoft

The Blab Off

My grandmother and grandfather got their first television set in the 1950’s. They bought the television trays and ate their dinner in front of the set each evening laughing at “I love Lucy”. Soon they grew tired and annoyed at all those commercials.

Grandma called Johnny, the repair guy to our house. He connected a long electrical cord to the back of the set, put a light switch on the end of it and ran it over to her chair. One flick of the switch and the sound was muted. No more commercials! She called it her "blab off".

It wasn’t some fancy engineer that invented the first remote. It was my grandmother sitting in her living room in her Nebraska home, switching off and on her “blab off”. She solved the problem and got the job done!

We found this "country gate in rural Vermont. No need to buy a gate, just drag a wrecked car over there.

That's getting the job done!! I think that we will invest in a gate lol

10. Is the candidate an artist with a creative soul?

A monkey can be trained to put together a “plan o gram” from the head office. It is the artist, the creative person who can embellish the product, make it more appealing, giving light to the feature. Do we have just a bean counter as a manager or do we have an artist?

11. Does the candidate have flexibility and patience? Is the person a good listener?

There are twists and turns in the excitement of green garden gates. Changes of tasks occur sometimes hourly. But it is important to be flexible with this team of employees, giving them the ability to decide what is best to execute the task and the patience to allow the job to get done successfully. Will the candidate take the attitude that he or she is the boss and only knows the right answers or will this person be flexible and patient?

12. Will the candidate break the rules?

Funny Question right?

The answer the candidate gives has profound impact on how every employee in our store will conduct themselves and how every customer is handled in the sale. If a manager follows THE RULES, blindly and rigidly, we are in big trouble.

“Gordon Bethune became Chairman and CEO of Continental Airlines in 1994. He soon discovered that the Continental employee manual was a compilation of maddingly specific rules and regulations that ranged from the shade of a pencil that had to be used to mark boarding passes to the type of meals that could be served to delayed passengers.

The manual also specifically described job responsibilities that employees were unable to deviate from them for fear of punishment. The gate agent was forbidden from clearing up problems because the previous management preferred that agents just stand there and feel the wrath of frustrated customers.

To dramatically make the point that things were going to be different from now on, Bethune needed to come up with a sensational symbol of changing times. One day he assembled a number of employees, gave them copies of the manual and led them on a parade out to the parking lot. There, the employees summarily set the manuals on fire, a task they thoroughly enjoyed!

And he sent word into the field that henceforth we wanted our employees to use their judgment, to consider the interests of both the company and the customer.”

From “The Nordstrom Way”

By Spector and McCarthy

13. Is this person honest and forthright?

Honest with him or herself, honest with his or her capabilities and honest with his or her personal shortcomings? We, at green garden gates, have no tolerance for shading of the truth. We want to hear the bad news now, unvarnished and raw and we want to hear it the first of a conversation, not the last of the discussion.

"Mr. Corleone is a man who insists on hearing bad new immediately"

Tom Hagen to Woltz

The Godfather

#14. Does the candidate have a “mentor” in his or her personal and professional life?

“After twenty-five years in the garden store business, I wish I would have had a me around when I was young and just starting”

Brad Teeform

Garden store owner

Nevada

This is question that gives real insight into the candidate. Does the person place great value in the lesson learned from someone who has been down the path before. That trial and error history can save countless hours of problem solving and tons of money. Often, young managers are so determined to blaze the trail themselves that they resent the opinions and conclusions of others who have been there. What are some specific examples where the mentor has helped with the success of a problem or project?

When I was a young guy, I worked in San Francisco for a man who sold used refrigeration display cases for those tiny corner grocery stores all over the city. One day we got a call to delivery a large case. As we were unloading this big hulky thing off the truck, I saw an old man and woman inside the store holding on to each other tightly and weeping. A young man opened the door for us and ordered us to place the case in the center of the store between the narrow aisles. It seems that this young man was the son of the old couple and was taking over the store from his parents.

We set the case down, straightened and leveled it. The large case had completely blocked the only two aisles in the store. No one could get past the case on either side to shop. The mother started crying and the father started yelling. The young man just stood there. He refused our offer to take it back. He was going to show his father that he knew better. He was smarter. He was in charge now. The case was his with no place to put it except right there blocking the aisles. That case was destined to ruin this old family business.

Don’t you think that over fifty years of walking up and down that store, the couple did not think about a larger case to increase their business? Don’t you think that they had measured that space many many times trying to think of ways to fit a new case there and that they told their son over and over that it would not work? The son didn’t care what they thought. He just wanted that new case and he was going to fit the thing in there.

We drove off that day with everybody yelling at each other. The old couple watched their customers now unable to get even a loaf of bread at the back of their store!

Listen to Experience. Listen to others who have walked that path before you. Understand that experience matters.

Shut up and listen!

#15. Does the candidate see the vision and have the perseverance to move toward success no matter what obstacles are in the path?

It is difficult in those lonely early cold spring weeks; to keep plodding along, get the displays built and the plants ready for sale. It’s easy to put off the work and wait for some warm days for that nasty work. But, when the warm days come in a garden store, time is up. There is nothing left for preparation. It is just strap yourself in and ride the roller coaster of spring planting. Can the candidate overcome the obstacles and meet the deadlines for success at green garden gates?

"When I was a young boy, I lived in a small farming town in Nebraska. One evening, I watched a college guy on television pole vaulting in a national track meet. How much fun that would be, holding that pole high up into the air and swinging my body over that steel bar and falling to earth!

Next to our house was an old vacant weedy lot that was on the crest of the hill. I paced it back and forth and decided that I had just enough room to run the length of it. I cut away the brush and made a crude little pathway. I found some old boards in my dad’s garage, sawed and hammered together a couple of supports and carefully measured and placed long nails at intervals on the supports to hold a crosspiece between them.

My dad and I talked about my big plan. He went to the hardware store and bought me a huge long thick wooden curtain rod for my “pole”. I got out the paint and candy striped it red and white. My dad asked of his buddies from the mill to dump a load of sawdust at the lot and I shoveled the next three days moving that pile into my pit to make a soft landing. I gathered thin little pieces of long wood, put one of them across the supports on the nails, walked back to the end of my path, faced my creation, ran down the path and hurled myself over the crosspiece, falling onto the soft sawdust. I was hooked! All that hot summer, I was at the lot, alone in that little patch of weeds, just me and my candy striped pole, staring down the line at that strip of wood hanging high in the air.

But, I soon ran out of those little wood crosspieces. One miss and they would break in two. I looked way down over the hill into the backyard of a house. There they were, a treasure of hundreds of those little strips of wood in a pile! I would climb down the steep hill and across the meadow and carefully sneak into the backyard, grab an bunch of them and run back up to my pole and my sawdust pile. Every time, I missed and broke the wood, I thought of that long climb back over that hill. I learned fast how to get over that bar without breaking the wood!

That autumn, I went to a large school in a big city. I was the all city high jump and pole vault champion. The other boys laughed with me. The pretty girls smiled at me. It all was because of that vacant lot, my candy striped pole, and a pile of sawdust.

#72 COMMENTS * (revised 6/3) "the sand monkey"

Conversations over the evening dinners at the Tulsa house about choosing our first green garden gates manager reminded Nick about his father’s story,“the sand monkey”. What was needed for green garden gates was the best sand monkey they could find.

Before the big logging trucks, The pine was brought out of the mountain forests in the solid freeze of a northern winter on huge wooden sleighs by a team of four “fine looking” shiny coal black Percheron work horses. The dead silence of early morning on the mountain top busted open with the sharp cracks of big timber crashing through the canopy and slamming down to the hard iced earth. The crosscut saws rhythmically slipped back and forth against the wood. The horses snorted, exploding steam from their wide nostrils. Leather boots would squeaked on the frozen snow and ice along the trails. When the logs were lifted and loaded onto the sleigh and the steel chains were cinched tight, the journey began down the iced tracks to the landing below where the load was broken from the sleigh to tumble into the river and on to the mill.

The Percherons were fitted with the harnesses and hitched to the sleigh. With one thunderous command, They lifted their heads high, dug into the ice, and gave a powerful jerk against the leathers. The mass of wood and runner began to move finding its way into the tracks. The horses trotted happily in cadence ahead of the sleigh free from the massive weight of the timber ready to pull again if the sleigh got stopped and stuck in the ice tracks along the mile long trail.

They watched, The sawyers, the loaders, and the straw boss of the crew, all dressed in the uniform of the woods, black woolen “long johns” underwear, a red long sleeved shirt with red suspenders holding up “can’t bust em” heavy work pants, high laced leather spiked boots, and a can of “Cope” Copenhagen “snoose” tobacco tucked away in their front pockets. They all let out a yell , mixing clouds of breath into the afternoon sky. It had taken a week to get those god damned wet logs onto the load. They all turned to the “sand monkey” Their paychecks depended now on this lone lumberjack squatting down on the front of the steel sled rails under the shadow of seventy tons of frozen logs bound to this carriage. It was now up to him to get the cut out of the woods.

You see, no man on the crew commanded more respect than the sand monkey. He was more than a lumberjack grunting and pushing logs. He was an artist who had the precision and coolness of any fine orchestra conductor. His small metal bucket was filled to the brim with fine loose dry sand for the journey. He hunkered over the rails riveting his eyes on the ice tracks, feeling the motion of the sleigh. He had brought the paychecks home many times guiding the logs to the bottom of the hill. He knew that if the sleigh stopped, days may be lost getting it moving again.

As the sleigh picked up speed, the sand monkey would drop a tiny line of sand into the ice tracks. As the runners hit the sand, the load would slow ever so slightly. He closed his hands when the sleigh started to slow and waited with his bucket for the next downhill stretch. Too much sand meant the load would stop and freeze into the grooves halting the sled. Not enough would speed the load and drop the logs off the sled. It was on the sharp turns along the trail when the monkey revealed that he was truly the maestro of the timber. With fists of sand in both gloves he released and held, released and held turning and slowing the mass of logs around the curves.

After the slow and long mile, the load smoothly glided to the riverbank. The bucket of sand was empty. The logs tumbled into the water below. The sand monkey had brought in the pine once more.

#71 CHOOSING A MANAGER* (revised 6/3) "wife, husband, or other?"

Managing a garden store can be extremely difficult and full of pressure. Each day gone is one day lost in the short planting season. All the profits that will signal success of failure are measured in weeks rather than months. The manager must have a laser focus every minute of every hour. No distractions can get in the way of this quest. It is only eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work.

This total attention to the “garden store mistress” can play havoc on personal relationships or it can strengthen those relationships. A wife, husband or other must be totally understanding, supportive and committed to the cause. There is little time, no energy left for idle conversation, friends over for dinner, a trip to the ballgame, or leisurely walks in the countryside. Until the gardeners have finished the planting and summer arrives, the drive is relentless.

A wife, husband or other can be a tremendous asset to the manager. If that person is a partner who can share the burdens of the stress of the springtime and can otherwise contribute to the emotional stability of he or she who runs green garden gates, no one is more important.

Children, also can be a stabilizing element of the manager as he or she works through the busy weeks and months. The living arrangement at the store, although small and compact is designed to accommodate a small child or even two small children.

We, at green garden gates, welcome a partner to our manager with the understanding that all efforts and attention of the manager is devoted to the success of green garden gates.

#70 CHOOSING A MANAGER* (revised 6/3) part three "signature leader, signature smiles

“I would have fun with them on those spring mornings, the older ladies, dressed so nice for a Sunday outing at my little garden store. They would be clutching their purses as they bent down near the trays of yellow marigolds wishing them right along the borders of their welcoming sidewalk to their front doors. They greeted me as I passed with hose in hand pulling it carefully around them. I would stop short and grin broadly as I did each season on a May Sunday.

“Now ladies, I would say as I looked into their bright eyes, All winter long you have been reaching into that purse to give me a few of the coins you have collected. Now its spring and now it is time, Now, I would chuckle; it is time that I got all of the bills at the bottom of that purse.”

They would pull their purses close to their breasts and laugh heartily,

“Oh no, you are not getting any of them.”

The would leave happy with a cart full of our flowers and their dollars now in our pocket.


Nick Hudson
Former garden store owner

Signature Smiles

It is that welcome, that signature smile, that invitation to green garden gates that brings gardeners to our stores season after season. It is that ability to call upon our employees to look forward to an enjoyable working day. It is our store managers who set the stage for this delightful experience. This personal appeal cannot be learned. It is already part of a person. It is a special sense, an inborn ability to reach out to people and receive from people. It is the smile, the empathy, the sharing, the calming voice and eyes during the hectic hours of a springtime day. Above all, that is what we want.

Signature Leadership

In 1952, Les Schwab, the crusty old tire man, led his one store company with a small shed, a two-holer out back, and an outdoor pump for water, into the largest independent tire business in the United States. Anyone who drives up to the doors of a Les Schwab Tire Store on a cold snow blizzard day understands why it is so successful. It is the people, from the manager right down to the kid cleaning the sidewalks.

Les Schwab in his book, “Pride in Performance” sets down the leadership rules for his managers. We, at green garden gates believe in his model for leadership. Here is how Les Schwab wants his managers to perform in making all of their employees important.

1. Give them all the responsibility and authority that they can handle.

There are employees at garden stores who have the skills, experience and enthusiasm to contribute much more for their company than what they are assigned to do. For any number of reasons, jealousy, personality conflicts, different styles of leadership, they are ignored and relegated to dismal jobs way beneath their abilities. This is simply a waste. Managers must get over all of this, recognize the skills of the employee, and move them to a place where they are the most valuable to green garden gates.

2. Include employees in what’s going on

Because others have captured the title of “the deciders”, employees on the front lines of a business are often left in the dark in the process of decision making. Get them involved! Seek out their advice and council. The choice cannot be the best choice unless all of the people who place their hands on the problem each day are allowed to contribute.

3. Assign employees work which is important in their eyes, work that they can take pride in doing.

The kid that blows off the walks for the gardening customers is just as important as the accountant sitting in his shiny oak desk. Don’t forget it. Tell that kid. Make him understand that his pride in getting it clean and ready is a real contribution to the garden store.

4. Let them share the limelight now and then with you.

Don’t gather it up and keep it for yourself. Find the employees who really made the suggestion or completed the task and give them the credit.

5. Take a sincere interest in the employees as individuals

Find out what makes them tick, what has meaning for them in their lives. Explore and learn about them. Help them achieve their goals. Make their pathway smoother in their lives.

6. Never belittle or ridicule them

The surest way to lose employees is to make them small. The good ones will soon be gone and the store will be left with only the people who are forced to stay there and take the ridicule because they need the paycheck. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. If it is a bad day, take a breath and end it right there. Don’t let it spill down to the employees in your charge.

7. Ask and listen to his or her advice

Chances are the employee has a valuable answer. Go to them. Give them the problem and listen to their perspective. It could just save you much time and money.

8. Confide in them once in a while.

You will be amazed how much lighter you load can be if you share the problem with your employees, it is a team, this garden store. Remember that.

#69 CHOOSING A MANAGER * part three (revised 6/3) "face time"

A Floor Manager

“My friend Peter has owned and operated a large successful garden store in northwest Washington State. He, like so many of us, as owners, is burned out with retail customers; year after year, the same old questions, the same old problems. Recently, a consultant hired by Peter and his wife Emily to look over their place spotted Peter right away and realized how bad it had gotten. He looked at Peter straight in the eye and said “Peter, I want you to never wait on a customer in your store ever again as long as you live. Go to the back and stay on your tractor and don’t come out until closing time.”

Jack Skiller

Garden store owner

California

So many of us have just been overloaded and finished with retail customers. We can hardly keep a civil tongue and we give the shortest answer possible just to shoo them away. Quite often, as the business gets more complex, the most talented people in the organization in solving problems and selling products have worked themselves into a job description where they can hide from the customer all day long and especially in the busy hectic spring season. Take a look around. They are not on the floor any longer. Go to any McDonalds and try to find the store manager. He or she is nearly always looking right at you in the peak hours, taking the order, dishing out the hamburgers, and directing traffic.

The managers at green garden gates are truly working floor managers. They are in the mix when the money must come in. They are selling the products and fielding those repetitive, often dismally boring questions, from gardeners. They are out there with the troops watching the flow, the cadence of the operation, improving, correcting, training, and evaluating hour after hour, day after day. This is not a position at a desk with the door closed. This is face time and lots of it. We cannot accept a manager who is invisible to the gardeners.

We understand, however, that the emotional health of the manager is critical. There can be too much exposure causing harm to the store as easily as not enough exposure. Our daily formula percentage for our managers is about seventy percent floor time and thirty percent recovery time, away from the customer activity.

#7 Managers at green garden gates are floor managers involved directly in customer service and support as well as monitoring the ongoing activities of the floor.

#68 CHOOSING THE MANAGER* (revised 6/3) part two "being there and being gone

Being there



“We fish the Naknek for the beautiful Alaska Coho Salmon. It’s the wild, wild west on that river. All year we prepared for those few hours when they are running. If those nets are not out when it starts, we lose everything. It is all about being there every waking minute.”

John Eldridge
Commercial Fisherman
King Salmon, Alaska

Like the Naknek River of Alaska, a garden store, during the preparation for and the actual planting and growing season, can be a thrill a minute for the manager and the staff. There just are not enough hours in the day to prepare it and service it all for the gardeners. The manager has to be on the tip of the spear during those crucial weeks that account for nearly all the success of the business. Driving away at closing time is for another kind of business, not a garden store. We, at green garden gates, recognize this fact and it must be a given for the managers that operate our stores.

We require our store managers to be in residence, to live on the grounds of the business for a minimum of three spring and summer gardening seasons. We believe that, with this requirement, the manager will remain vigilant to the operation of the facility, be prepared to correct any problems immediately with the facility and business, and further commit him or her to the success of green garden gates. Although, our model is that of a multi-store national organization, we place great value in the concept of a “mom and pop” business. We want undivided and total attention to the store. We want the manager to be bound to the store, with no other distractions that could cause green garden gates to be allowed to drift away from the task at hand, the sale of plants and plant care products to the gardeners of the area.



"Only when you step out of the field, can you see the mud on your feet"

Chinese peasant woman to her children
on breaking away and finding a new way of looking at life





We also believe that if the manager is obligated to “feel it, hear it and touch it” at all times, he or she is best able to observe, correct, train, and review the activities of the staff. The manager, with this residential requirement, is also in the best position to change or modify the model of green garden gates for the stores operating now and in the future.

Each green garden gates is designed and built with a modestly spacious apartment for the manager fully furnished and equipped, complete with satellite television and high speed wireless connections. It can accommodate the manager, a significant other, and a child. It has an outdoor play area as well as parking facilities. As part of the compensation, it is provided to the manager on a year round basis free of charge, never to be sub-leased. It is contractually agreed that the manager, upon termination for any reason is to vacate the apartment, unconditionally, no more then twenty four hours following a termination. A reserve fund from the salary of the manager is held for any damages or repairs to the apartment and contents.


At the completion of the third season residency on the site, the manager has the opportunity to continue with the apartment or move off site. A new manager will be chosen to take up residency. At no time will a manager be living off-site during the planting and growing season.

There are several exceptions to this requirement. First, if the manager is required to leave the store and apartment for an extended medical emergency. In this case, the assistant or one of the four owners will occupy the residence and operate the business. Second, if the manager leaves the apartment for a holiday which can only occur after the spring planting season, during the summer months. Third, if the store is closed with no retail activity as in, perhaps, the winter months. The manager may move to another residence in the immediate area as long as there will be “continued and regular” vigilance to the building and grounds of green garden gates.

Being Gone



“I wish the manager would just get out of here for a couple of days. She is driving us crazy”

Sally Folk
Garden center employee
Nebraska

There are dark sides to the manager being at the store at all times. The staff needs to breathe, to be, at times, free from the watchful eye of a manager. The employees need to express themselves, spread their wings, create and be empowered to operate green garden gates. We understand that it is difficult when the manger is always on the grounds. Additionally, the manager gets tired, irritable, and loses focus by being chained to the store. It is the policy of green garden gates that the manager must leave the site for two consecutive of the slower business days each week and not return (unless there is an extreme emergency at the facility) until the close of business day on the second day. We want our managers to have another life to unwind and relax each week and blasting them off the site is the only way to do this.

#6 Our managers are to live on site at green garden gates during the growing and gardening season. Our managers are to have two consecutive days off per week during that season.

#67 CHOOSING THE MANAGER * (revised 6/4) breaking barriers

Choosing our manager


There is no person more important to a garden store business than the on-site working manager. We say this because, too often, the owners or accountants or buyers are given more attention, more incentives and more recognition. No one gets paid; No one has a job unless products move out the door. It is the responsibility of that manager keep turning the wheel every minute, every hour. If that does not happen, failure will happen, guaranteed.


At green garden gates, we have developed guidelines for the hiring of managers at our stores. While not any one of the guidelines eliminates prospects from this position, the composite is very important.

Male or Female?

“They laughed at me. They said it was a store for biker guys and we did not need any fru fru. Well, I fought them all the way. I tricked out those dungeon biker stores and the ladies started to walk in and buy and boy did they buy, and so did the men who were lawyers and doctors.

Sarah Lindsey-Banks
Managing the upgrading of the Harley-Davidson Stores

It has been automatic to think of a manager of a garden store to be a man. This business seems to demand that physical strength and stamina are paramount. After all, who is left unloading a semi of heavy trees when there is no one else around? Who moves loaded plant carts, or fills an order for twenty bales of frozen peat moss into an enclosed van? It is all tough and muscle straining day after day. Absolutely, it takes a man. Well, not so fast. If the only real reason for a excluding a woman for manager is strength, muscle, height and weight, let’s set that argument aside for the moment.

Seventy percent of the gardening customers who come to green garden gates are women. More than that a larger percentage of the buying decisions are made by women. Doesn’t it stand to reason that, without question, the look, the products, the atmosphere, the presentation, the approach to customers is directed primarily to those women shoppers? Would not a both a male or female be qualified to direct the store operations? We, at green garden gates, are not a feed store; we do not make parts for radiators. Many of our customers arrive in heels, they arrive in their Lexus. They want the feel or they will not freely purchase.



Ok, let’s simply solve the muscle thing. We will make available the tools and the human resources at any time to get the job done for our female or male managers.



A male or a female both possess sometimes different but equally important skills for green garden gates. We welcome both men and women as our managers.

#1 Managers for green garden gates can be either male or female




Young or not so young?

Here are some myths that We have to avoid when making choices for our managers Young workers have more energy, spirit and stamina for the long haul. Young managers are trained more easily. Young managers have more hunger and thirst for success. Young managers have “fire in their belly”. Young workers are the last into work and the first to leave. Young workers will stay long enough to add a job to their resume. Young workers have to be rewarded all the time or they will get discouraged. Older workers are more resistant to change, more hesitant. Older managers are likely to be “set in their ways”, following patterns learned and not able to adapt. Older managers do not have the stamina for the long haul, their interests are elsewhere. Older managers have been “burned” and are cautious, taking the easy road, avoiding difficult choices that may endanger their positions. Older managers cannot relate to their young employees. Older workers value a job well done. Older workers relate to customers more easily. Older workers will stick with a task no matter how tough it is

Both the young and not so young managers and employees bring equal talents to green garden gates.

#2 Managers can be of any age



A higher formal education or the “school of hard knocks”?

“They turned me down for the job because I did not have a college degree. That was it. I had been doing that job for months and always was at the very top of performance. They dead ended me at that level. They said I was the best person ever to be in that job.


Sammy
Applying the business manager position of his company

So many bright and talented employees have been passed over when applying for the job of a manager because they did not have a college degree. It is tragic and a waste of talent. Not possessing college work, beyond a high school diploma or its equivalency will absolutely not exclude their selection. We want our managers to have been exposed to the real world as well as the classroom world. Of course, there will be standards of proper speech and decorum that needs to be closely aligned with the customers of green garden gates, but that does not translate to the necessity of having a college educational background to have gained these social skills and decorum.

#3 Managers are to possess a basic formal education as well as experience in the workplace.

Gardener, haberdasher or gravedigger?

We get hung up on this gardener thing. Some garden store owners insist that the mangers and key employees need to have some sort of degree in horticulture, botany, or landscape architecture. Nonsense. And to add insult to injury, those employees are regarded as very important employees. Nonsense again.

Some of finest most knowledgeable employees in the store have never stepped foot in a place of higher learning, let along getting a degree in these fields. Some of the worst employees post these diplomas proudly on the wall. There has yet to come a decent number of graduate landscape architecture majors who can tell the difference between crepe myrtle and crepe paper. And the master gardeners? Forget it. Most have just enough information to make them dangerous in the retail garden store. If you want your customers to have a tour of your plants and learn about the stages of plant life, leaf color, and flower characteristics or if you want your customers to have a pretty picture with little tree symbols, property boundaries, these are the people to send on that mission. If you want your plants purchased, skip this group!

Now, that is being a little rough on these graduates and degree holders. Some have made the change for the retail store. Together with their knowledge and their newly acquired “street smarts” on plants, they can very fine and valuable employees. Just be careful that the staff is not loaded with a bunch of plant snobs. Garden stores are not botanical gardens. We sell things.

The first quality of the manager is that he or she knows how to sell; to have a basic understand of the gardening products, give honest advice, and close the deal. The best plant a garden store has is the one that left the parking lot in the customer’s car. Experience in a garden store retail setting is great. More importantly, however, is experience in a fast moving, high product turnover retail environment, where movement is the key. Some of the best employees of garden stores come form the cosmetic and clothing industry. Those employees know how to display and sell, leaving only dust on the shelves. Likewise a manager from these businesses knows how to motivate and how to promote. Like the haberdasher, the object is to get the suit on the man and satisfy him so he will never want to take it off ever again!

The manager needs to be part gravedigger, sweating away during the long hours of the spring planting season, digging those holes one after another from dawn to dusk endlessly until the season draws to a close.

#4 The manager has to have a basic understanding of gardening, experienced in selling and moving products and be willing to put in the long difficult and demanding hours of a garden store.

#66 CHOOSING THE LAND * (revised 6/4) "signing day"

Signing day



The four gathered around the big table for the final completion of the checklist. The property scored high for the best place in Tulsa for a green garden gates. They were eager and ready to move ahead with this land.

Signing day for the land was set for May 1st. The start of construction was scheduled for September 15th. During the last several months, anticipating the acquisition, the process of formalizing the companies was completed. The financial investors brought together by Sarah Bank’s husband, John were registered in the state of Oregon under the name of Mt. Hood Investment Group. The four partners of green garden gates formed a Sub-Chapter S corporation named GGG National. It was agreed, and accepted by the seller of the land that Mt. Hood Investment group would lease the land and sign the contract. The land would be then sub-leased to GGG national for the development of green garden gates.

Everyone was invited to the land for dinner the evening before the signing; the accountants, attorneys, real estate agents, consultants, and the local media. The children played in the newly mowed green field of the land. A long table with a white table cloth and matching chairs was set. Blooming red geraniums in clay pots were placed on the table near where the they would be on display for their customers this time next year. The evening was warm with a light breeze.

Sarah Lindsey-Banks rose to offer the first toast. The evening sun picked up the vivid auburn of her hair and face.

“To Sammy, what an adventure you signed up for! To Twyla, it’s finally time to break out the hammers and to Nick, my dear friend; we are riding your dream with you. Now let’s get started and have some fun making it all come true!

Sarah picked up the Champaigne bottle that she had saved for these many months. With one wild swing, she thrust and smashed it on a nearby wooden fence post.



“I christen thee green garden gates, the first.
The flagship of our crazy, wonderful journey”

#65 CHOOSING THE LAND * (revised 6/4) "working down the checklist"

Access to overflow parking

The ability to grow and prosper in the garden store business is directly related to the amount of customer vehicles that can be accommodated at one time. Sure, it’s the selection and the service and the “buzz”, but getting gardeners parked to shop is the key. Springtime can bring huge parking problems for garden stores.

Some stores have employed parking attendants to ease the congestion. Some have valet customer service, moving the cars on and off site at peak business hours and days. ‘the lucky garden store owners have had adjacent or near their land, an overflow parking area. This may be a church parking lot, a school lot or a vacant piece of property.

The owner will pay a fee or contribute in some way to the organization, insure against liability and damage, and take care of the maintenance of the property. This valuable asset may only be used during the busy spring months but this overflow parking can be worth its weight in gold.

Is there the possibility for overflow customer parking near the land?

Yes, there are several possibilities for this. The neighboring land is occupied by a meg-church with a huge parking area. Although they are active each day with gatherings, there is an abundance of parking remaining on the weekdays and Saturday. Sundays are out of the question for use by our store. We have had some preliminary conversations with the church board of directors and they are very interested in providing this overflow. Further negotiations will continue if we take possession of this parcel of land. There are a number of rural pieces of non producing farmland in the area that could be used as overflow parking. Although possible, the cost of minimal improvement to accommodate vehicles may be prohibitive

Utilities on the site

There can be a prohibitive expense to bringing utilities to an undeveloped piece of property, especially in a rural area. That cheap land is not cheap anymore when all the bills are paid for bringing in these services. Gas companies are not interested in running a line unless they can be assured that the usage will be large profitable for them. Connecting to a local sewer district often requires that landowner to pay a “capitalization fee” as much as 20,000.00 and pay for all the hookups and piping into the land. Water also may require a cap fee and hookup expenses. Electrical companies may have to sink a new pole and run new lines to the property, often all charged to the landowner. Those costs have to be seriously examined when weighing this “cheap land” against a property equipped already with the utilities. Oh yes, one more thing. Don’t forget the fire hydrants. Most municipalities want hydrants installed with frequency along a commercial area. The cost to put in these babies is pricey and you will pay the freight for them.

Does this land have all the utilities necessary for a green garden gates?

With one exception, the land is fully ready with the utilities. Fortunately, the nearby mega-church has brought most services to the area. Gas lines, underground power lines, and water lines were installed when the frontage road was built. In addition, a fiber optic transmission line was bundled with these services. We will incur the normal cost of piping the utilities once it reaches the property lines, which is normal. We will however, have to pay for the cost of installation of at least two fire hydrants for the land, with an estimated total expense of about 10,000.00.

What’s that fire truck doing in the azaleas?

As the planning for the building construction begins, all governmental agencies get involved. Sometimes there is a little sleeper restriction by the fire department about the land that could catch you flat footed and really pissed off.

The firemen get nervous about getting onto the property for an emergency. If the land is fenced with locked gates, they will most likely insist on a “Knox Box”, a steel lock box containing keys to the fence and business door locks. The fire department will only have the key to this Knox Box, enabling them to open the gate and doors rapidly. The cost for this box is about 300 bucks, a good investment to save breaking down doors and fence gates

That one is easy. This one can make you very angry.

Fire Departments want more than one way to get into the property to get to a fire or emergency. If your land is on a road that dead ends and the entrance to that road is blocked off for any reason, They may determine that they cannot get the water hoses and equipment to the site. They may require another access off a nearby road for an alternate pathway. It Sounds reasonable doesn’t it? Just put a locked gate on your fence line bordering that another road. But that is the easy part.

Then the fire department will probably have to drive from that emergency entrance into your property to the buildings. That means that FOREVER a pathway large enough for a fire truck will have to be clear and unobstructed AT ALL TIMES, leaving a big swath of land unusable for display and sales of garden store products. That is a lot of land that cannot be used for anything.

When choosing land for a garden store, look closely at roadways for emergency entrances. You may be buying land that can never be used.

Employee commuting

Rural businesses, far away from employee living areas can be difficult for everyone. The commute can be long and rural areas can have many obstructions such as railroad crossings and narrow crowded sometimes unimproved roads. The employee can come to work exasperated and tired of the commute and not in a positive frame of mind for customer service. Also, the services of day care and medical help are far from the location causing additional stress on the employee. The difficulty of the commute may mean the loss of excellent employees over a period of time. When considering land that requires a long commute, understand the sacrifice an employee must make to get to your workplace. Again, that cheap land may not be so cheap after all.

Will there be a difficult employee commute to this site?

The employee commute will be very easy and hassle free. Two major highways leading from the urban core are available from all directions. There are a number of medical and day care facilities near the land. The employees, like our customers, will have not obstructions to get to green garden gates

Taking possession of the land

The time between purchasing the land and taking possession of the land can become very important. Sometimes the owner wants or needs a period of months to vacate the property. There may be buildings and equipment on the site or destruction and removal needed of some facilities. If this lag time occurs during the prime building months of the spring and summer, the garden store business cannot be ready for the planting season. Also, getting possession of land in the dead of winter, with no possibility of construction, can cause a strain on cash flow to no advantage.

Can we take possession of the property at an optimal time for the business?

We have indicated that we would like possession of the property in the early fall of this year. That will give the seller four months lead time to vacate the premises, move all the farming equipment and needed structures, and re-fence his farming property. If we decide on the land, we will sign the contract immediately. Since there is an advantage to this lead time for both buyer and seller, our contract for payment will begin at the time of possession rather than at the time of signing of the contract.

#64 CHOOSING THE LAND * (revised 6/4) "the dirt and the dips"

Topography and soil


The topography and the condition of the dirt on the site can be extremely important in locating a new garden store.


The first and most important lesson:

NEVER DEVELOP A GARDEN STORE BUSINESS ON ANYTHNG BUT FLAT GROUND.

There are horror stories out there about owners who disregarded this advice. They are spending the rest of their days pushing and shoving carts up and down hills and blocking customers shopping wagons with little rocks so they don’t end up rolling all the way to the bottom. They are running back and forth up and down terraces to retrieve plants for the many customers who simply refuse to walk up even the slightest grade, no matter how easy you make it for them. The slight dips and rises in the land can get ignored so easily when choosing the property. It all seems so simple when you look over the land with that uneven topography; a cute little bridge, a pretty English cobblestone set of steps leading to the upper tier overlooking the whole outdoor nursery. Sounds so quaint doesn’t it? Well, it ain’t nothing but a huge headache. Not to mention the huge cost of leveling and filling the land when you find yourself in this fix. Mark my words; it will be a big mistake.

The condition of the soils can also give you trouble. Fortunately, there are real property laws in effect that forces the previous owners to disclose what has been on the property and what is or could be in the soils. Demand this disclosure. Examine carefully what could lay jut beneath the surface of the property. It is pretty hard to build and develop the land if there are 15 old junk Fords poking up in that pretty field. Although most garden stores will not be planting much if anything in the retail operations, chemical deposits of rancid gas left over from a chrome plating company could spell the end to those fresh geraniums that are sitting on your display bench, not to mention the child who starts to wheeze and cough. Make sure you don’t have trouble lurking just under that ground.

Another concern is the type of soils on the land. If the area has heavy clay soils that do not percolate properly, there may be substantial expense getting water away from the surface of the display areas of the garden store This will have to be done as customers will not walk around looking for plants in pools and puddles of water.

Are the topography and the condition of soils acceptable for a green garden gates facility?

The property, although generally flat, has a sight elevation in the topography near the back of the land. The area will have to be graded with special attention given to bringing that elevation down with the rest of the property. We project a moderate expense to get this accomplished.

The condition of the soils is generally excellent, with a sandy loam consistency that drains well with no runoff outside the boundaries of the land. Towards the rear of the property, there is a small portion with a heavy clay pocket on the surface. After the land is leveled and inspected it may be necessary to “tile” that problem area (placing perforated piping under the surface and directing the excess water away from that site)

The area has been a family farm for several generations. The historical farming chemical dump and equipment storage area from the farming operations is a great distance away from this portion of the land. There is no evidence in the signed disclosure document to indicate any degradation of the soil or objects under the soil.