Continuing with the theme of “knowledge sells†I am off to speak at The Organic Garden Club of Sacramento at Carmichael Park from 11am to noon. I have never spoken to this group before as this is about 35 miles from our store. Every time I have spoken to a group in the Sacramento area a certain number of people make the trip up the hill to the nursery.
Its more than that though, as I feel it important to get out of the nursery and engage people everywhere, either through this blog or in person. Speaking is something I like doing and it would seem most others don't, so this opens up lots of opportunities for speaking engagements. Besides you never know who you are going to meet and how they might effect your business down the road.
Speaking to groups is one way for small garden centers to get the word out. You have to have someone in the organization that does it well and is willing to do it, but the payoff is huge. So huge that I would think its important for someone in the nursery to learn how to speak comfortably to groups. The opportunities for speaking are so numerous that a person could spend a lot of their time doing nothing but being a traveling representative of the garden center. Yes, I still get a bit nervous at these things but over the years it has gone from sheer terror to something much less. There is no way around it though you will have to bust through your fears to reap the benefits.
The talk will be about how our small garden center is addressing the needs of organic gardeners. I am going to take samples of the organic products and plants that we sell. I would say that 75% or more of our soils, fertilizer, and pesticides are of an organic nature. We are heading towards an even higher percentage as we ween people off the synthetics and towards our organic products.
I'll let you know how the talk goes.