Page 425 - Jan 2019 MM

Multiple Product Choices
Johnsons is a family-owned, four-acre garden center with nursery, greenhouses, an outdoor accessories warehouse, and a recently-added farm house gift shop and coffee café.
Customers are so diverse that you have to be able to be simple enough to be successful while ensuring you have something to draw them all in. Offering
a variety of services and products makes for a huge customer base. “You can’t have all your eggs in one basket, with the way trends are changing so
quickly in the horticultural
business,” says Johnson. “People used to landscape with
as many plants as possible. Now they want simpler, low-maintenance designs, while home décor is growing.”
To offer a range of products
and services, you must have the
expertise to support the options.
It’s tough to sell something you don’t
know anything about. “All of our employees are knowledgeable, so we hold frequent gardening classes for beginners, master gardeners and children; fun events, like our Easter Egg Hunt and Sale with eggs full of coupons; as well as sponsor garden tours for charities that bring the whole community together,” says Johnson.
“People used to landscape with as many
plants as possible. Now they want simpler, low-maintenance
designs, while home décor is growing.”
TERESA JOHNSON
Customers are Always Right
Shopping AmericasMart keeps the Johnsons aware of new trends, vendors and the latest products.
“We shop all three buildings for gardening accessories, jewelry, purses, small furniture, containers, baskets, art and silk flowers. Vendor videos make us want to visit showrooms and the big market book is great, plus I talk to everyone to pick their brain. You can’t just rely on your taste.
You have to know what people want, and sometimes you have to take a risk,”
says Johnson. Or adapt a trend. Knowing that concrete pots with
succulents are popular, she makes and sells some pots with silk plants for clients who don’t
want to care for a living plant.
“What we’re really growing are relationships with customers,”
she says. When she helps someone find the right herbs
for the kitchen and they are successful at growing them, she knows she may
be creating an avid gardener. If she helps someone find just the right art for the garden, that customer could decide to look around in the home décor section. And so on, and so on... >
THE GARDENS®
“What we’re really growing are relationships
with customers.”
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