Of Conferences And Magazines
For the past few years, I’ve served on the OFA Grower Committee, one of the association’s committees charged, in part, with planning the content for the OFA Short Course. In our planning meetings we often have to make tough decisions to develop a good program. On the one hand, we want to create sessions lots of attendees will be excited about you know, the ones that fill up 200-person ballrooms, the really sexy topics like mixed containers or new varieties. On the other hand, there are hard-core business topics like staff management, accounting and safety that are critical to successful businesses.
To attract people to some of the business sessions, we’re often tempted to cheat a little on the descriptions sneak some cost accounting into a session on trends or hide recruiting tips in a merchandising session. We’ve even toyed with the idea of opening a large ballroom for a hands-on mixed container workshop using the best new varieties, and once the room is packed with as many people as we can get into it, we lock the doors for a marathon session on business management. No one would know the difference until it was too late, and then we would have them, right?
OK, so kidnapping might be a bit extreme, but you get my point: It’s pretty tough to find the right balance between high-demand topics and necessary ones, even though we know that’s what will make a good conference.
Similarities Abound
When it comes to balancing content, magazines are a lot like conferences. Reader surveys we have done and comments we have received over the years tell us that most people like to read articles that will give them new, easily implementable ideas and anything about how to increase profit…as long as neither of those topics has anything to do with cost accounting, record keeping, budgeting or legalities.
We would love to fill each magazine with merchandising ideas, case studies and the like; those types of articles are the most fun for us as well, but in good conscience we can’t call ourself a business magazine without addressing the actual “business” side of garden center retailing.
So just as my OFA committee and I try to do for the Short Course, we at Lawn & Garden Retailer try to find the right balance of high-demand topics and necessary ones for the magazine. And it’s even better when we can combine the two. For a long time we’ve been looking for a regular columnist to address the financial side of the industry in a way that won’t put people to sleep or send them running for something with a little more glamour. This month marks the beginning of a column that has done just that.
“Dollars & Sense” by Bill McCurry is about the finance and numbers part of business, but I think it’s the most interesting, easily understood column about the topic I’ve ever read. Bill makes learning about a tough topic almost enjoyable. You can check out our new column on page 26. Let us know what you think about it and if there are any other topics we can add to help you run a better, more successful business.
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