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Short Course Session Spotlights Contractor-Grower Partnerships
15 Jul, 2008 By: Jamie J. Gooch Get GrowingYesterday afternoon at the OFA Short Course, Landscape Management sponsored the “Partnering for Landscaping” session to provide attendees with examples of how growers and installers can partner in mutually beneficial arrangements.
The panel discussion included Joe Stoffregen, Homewood Nursery in Raleigh, NC; AJ Petitti, Petitti Garden Center, Oakwood Village, OH and Kate Nelson, Wallace’s Garden Center, Bettendorf, IA. The trio had a range of expriences to share.
The Business Alliance
Stoffregen has partnered with one company, Landvision Designs, for 12 years. Landvision’s design offices are on Homewood Nursery’s retail site, providing the landscape firm with instant exposure to a broad customer base. The partnership allows Homewood to offer its customers one-stop shopping for plant materials, supplies and installation and design services.
Like the other panelists, Stoffregen considered offering installation services to his nursery customers. His customers would often request installation and design services, but Stoffregen was reluctant to split his company’s focus.
“We wanted to focus on doing what we were best at,” Stoffregen says, “but we still wanted to provide what our customers were requesting.”
The solution was a business alliance with Landvision Designs, which had a great reputation for providing good customer service. The two companies came to a mutually beneficial financial arrangement and have worked closely to solve the day-to-day issues that all partnerships face.
Varying Degrees of Partnering
Like Stoffregen, AJ Petitti said his garden center found a landscape contractor they could trust to provide a high level of service to the customers the garden center sent his way.
“We began by recommending a number of contractors to our customers, but some didn’t work out,” Petitti says. “We found a small landscaper just starting out who we thought would be able to provide our customers with installation services.”
Petitti has its own design center, which many of its customers use in conjunction with I.K. Design, the contractor with whom Petitti Garden Center works. The garden center gets a percentage of the installation fee that I.K Design charges, and I.K. Design gets a steady stream of customers. Petitti guarantees the plants that are installed for one year, just like the plants bought by consumers.
Kate Nelson from Wallace’s Garden Center does not work exclusively with one landscape company, but she does provide a 20% discount to landscapers on perennials, trees and shrubs. She says working with landscapers helps the garden center move inventory quickly and can bring in new customers.
Livescapes magazine will feature more on how landscapers and growers can work together in the next issue.
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