 Yale Youngblood |
Over two decades-plus in this business, I’ve developed a lot of friendships, probably more than I deserve – and certainly more than the random someone in most other fields is likely to lay claim to. One pal, in particular, is pertinent to this issue.
Thomas Birt owns Mesquite Valley Growers Nursery in Tucson, Ariz. He and I go way back, but our relationship blossomed from “howdy” status to full-blown buddyness nearly 16 years ago during a late-evening airplane ride from Somewhere to Somewhere Else. You’ve done the trade show thing; you know what I’m talking about.
As fate would have it... (or at least as the woman at the ticket counter would have it ...) Tom and I were placed in adjoining coach section seats on the aforementioned jet flight, during which we discussed how to best run a garden center.
Lest you wonder, he contributed more to the conversation than I did. In fact, to this day, that night taught me more about the industry than any conference I’ve attended.
Since then, our paths have crossed many times, each one presenting me with another opportunity to learn something significant. To wit: The lesson that ultimately became this month’s cover story.
It is rooted in a trade show Tom visited but didn’t visit. Instead, he told me, he skipped out on a walk of the floor to head to the local Bass Pro Shop, the “is this heaven?” mega store for outdoorsmen – where he made a rather heavenly discovery himself.
“They had this one elevated display, with several stair-steps leading to it from all sides,” he said. “I noticed everyone was climbing the stairs to check out what was up there – I mean everyone – and I said, ‘that’s something we need to do.’”
Tom returned to Tucson and promptly made a replica of the display at Mesquite Valley. He stocked it with one of the store’s hot products – “some decorative frou-frou something” – and it sold like crazy. “Then,” he said, “I thought by the way people seem to be naturally drawn to the display, we probably can put anything here.”
SO ... He gathered a bunch of bags of soil and put them up for viewing. Sure enough, they sold in record numbers, too. It didn’t matter what was up there. The display itself made people think that the product must be important. “I have to admit,” Tom said, “that visit to the Bass Pro Shop made me look smarter than I really am.”
I have one more Thomas Birt recollection, and we’ll call it the moral of this story: A couple of years ago, we shared another plane flight. In fact, I gave him a high five as I passed by his first-class seat on my way to coach.
yyoungblood@gie.net
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