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Talks for landscapers, garden center employees, nursery retailers, landscapers, and other horticultural professionals.
Making it Personal Connect With Your Customers through Blogs and Beyond
How do independent garden centers distinguish themselves from box stores? By cultivating person to person connections. This talk explores the ways that garden centers and landscapers create and nurture those links…and although I’ll cover some things you should be doing on line, I promise that this is a how to, not a should do talk.
Garden Center Event Planning Reaching out to bring customers in.
This presentation gives examples of turn-key events that independent garden centers can use to expand their customer base and cement relationships in their communities. You’ll come away with ideas for events for all twelve months of the year.
We Can Grow This! Uniting as an industry to promote plants and gardening.
It’s time for all of us, growers, garden centers, manufacturers, marketers, writers, radio/tv personalities, and home gardeners to get together and unite around one message. We are passionate about plants and we know that gardening is one of the most life-affirming things that people can do. Let’s unite and do for the phrase “You can grow that!” what the dairy industry did for “Got Milk?” Color? You can grow that. Laughter? You can grow that. A tasty, organic meal? You can grow that. Stress relief? You can grow that. Flowers for a wedding? You can grow that. This talk focuses on our power – as individuals and businesses – to cultivate a resurgence of gardening.
Note: I am so committed to this message that for the year 2012, and perhaps beyond, I’ll waive my normal speaker’s fee for this talk. Pay my expenses to your conference or event and I’ll tell audiences how we can grow this.
Sell The Excitement! Communication Skills for the Green Industry
Whether you are the owner of a horticultural business, a volunteer Master Gardener, or an employee of a garden center, you need to be a good communicator. This presentation will teach you the various means of effectively connecting with the public. Writing effective newsletters and handouts, being a dynamic speaker, and using the local media are a few of the topics that will help you to assist the public and position yourself as the local gardening authority. Learn how your communications work to create enthusiastic, loyal customers.
Ten Things I Hate About Your Talk Creating PowerPoint Perfection not PowerPoint Poisoning
Learn how to create an illustrated talk where the digital software (PowerPoint or Keynote) helps to create a truly dynamic presentation. See how images, text, transitions, and most of all your words and pacing all can work together to create memorable talks. This presentation is specifically aimed at those in the green industry: growers, garden centers, landscapers and horticultural sales people.
Annuals That Deliver
If your clients and customers are paying for new annuals every summer, they want plants that deliver color. From the brand new to the tried and true, this talk shows plants that are an asset in the garden from planting to hard frost.
Low-Maintenance Perennials
We all know that some perennials are reliable and relatively carefree, while others are thugs or picky prima donnas. This talk highlights plants that are dependable and delightful.
Guidance to Go
Consultation Services
Does your garden center or landscaping business make house calls? This talk explains how on-site consultation services can build customer loyalty, boost sales, and position you as the local go-to source for landscaping needs. Learn how a coaching/consultation service will be a profit center for your business.
Landscape Design Bloopers
This talk looks at design mistakes that are commonly made by landscapers and home-gardeners alike. By looking at where things have gone wrong, and sometimes seeing a corrected version through the magic of Photoshop, I explain the reasons why some garden designs look better than others. Learn how to provide plantings that please your customers on the day the job is finished, and for years afterwards.
Gardening With A Purpose
One of the buzz-phrases of 21st century gardening is “Gardening with a purpose” and I have to admit that when I first heard this phrase, I thought, “well duh!” We all have reasons for being in this business and our customers have their reasons for coming to us for plants, products and advise. But sometimes it’s easy to lose track of this purpose, or to forget how important our business truly is. This presentation is appropriate for garden center employees, professional landscapers, master gardeners and home garden geeks: we are all involved in one of the most life-affirming activities there is.
Educating Your Customers or Employees About Perennial Plant Maintenance
If we want our customers and clients to keep coming back for more plants or continued maintenance, they need to remain happy about their gardens long after the plants have been placed in the ground. Garden center customers and landscape crews need to know the strategies for keeping their perennials looking good all season. And green-industry professionals need to know how to convey this information to their customers.
This talk is about demystifying and simplifying perennial plant maintenance for your clients, customers and crew. Covering basic maintenance, simple strategies, commonsense reminders, and educational aides, this talk is geared to garden retailers and landscape professionals.
Cultivating Success
Creating an Educational Program for Your Customers
Garden centers are often the first place the public turns to learn about the plants in their yards and gardens; like it or not, we are in the education business as well as the garden retail business. This talk explains how, without spending much time or money, any garden center can develop a comprehensive educational program that will benefit you and your customers. Subjects include: attracting program attendees, building repeat customers, winning presentations, cross-merchandising, using the off-season, and information stations.
Garden Center Essentials
The top five things every garden center employee needs to know and how management can cultivate a knowledgeable staff. This presentation focuses on employee training and recognition: how to grow them and keep them.
Read speaking endorsements of C.L.
Download CL’s Green Industry Speakers One Sheet
Contact information:
For details about these or other talks and workshops,
please contact me by email at: clfornari@yahoo.com
Mail: C.L. Fornari P.O. Box 355 Osterville, MA 02655
Phone: 508-428-5895