Move confidently into your 2011 garden retailing season with four renowned presenters during the 2011 Garden Center Symposium, Jan. 26-27 at the Country Springs Hotel and Conference Center, Waukesha, Wis.
Learn about financial planning, up-to-date marketing ideas, merchandising suggestions, and successfully educating your customers about their plant selections. Scheduled to speak at the 2011 symposium are:
• Terri Coldreck, owner of Color Results, and a consultant on visual merchandising strategies.
• Robert Hendrickson of the Garden Center Group, with more than 30 years of experience working with garden centers on marketing, merchandising, management and strategic planning decisions.
• Ed Lyon, Director of UW-Madison’s Allen Centennial Gardens who also brings experience from plant selection in the retail industry.
• Tom Shay, owner of Profits Plus, a resource devoted to small businesses and their financial well-being.
New this year: The speakers will hold a roundtable discussion for people to ask their specific questions.
Registration materials are available online or can be obtained by e-mailing eonelson@gardencersymposium.com or calling 608-265-5283. The registration fee includes all meals. Additional details found here.
As a long-standing regional educational event for the upper-mid-west garden center industry, the symposium strives to provide owners of small independent businesses access to nationally renowned speakers without having to break their travel budget. All four of this year’s speakers are well-known throughout the industry for their insight into the decisions that small, independent garden centers must make as they deal with both an ever-changing customer base and economic fluctuations.
The symposium offers a trade show where clients and suppliers can discuss what’s new, interesting and/or different in the trade. Suppliers registered include: Bailey Nurseries, BFG Supply Co. , Dramm Corp, Edgewood Greenhouses, Evergreen Nursery Co., Hoffie Nursery, Inc. , Holland Beauty Flower & Bulb Corp., Hortica Insurance, McKay Nursery, National Nursery Products, Plantpeddler, Saving Rain, Sun Gro Horticulture, W. & E. Radtke, Inc., and Xylem, Ltd.
Perennial favorites return to the show with "Tricks of the Trade," where attendees have a chance to share growing and marketing ideas with each other, and the "Garden Center Profile," featuring Village Green Home and Garden in Rockford, Il. Both a live and silent auction are also part of the program.