US (OR): 2015 Farwest Show spotlights retail opportunities with session on selling and motivating Gen Y

As part of its retail education track the 2015 Farwest Show will shed light on Gen Y, its economic power and, in particular, its impact for garden retail. Retail guru, Anne M. Obarski will deliver a seminar address, Gen Y: How to Motivate, Manage, and Sell to Them!, sharing her insight on the economy’s most influential generation. Garden centers need to better understand this segment, 80 million strong and wielding more spending power and stronger opinions at an earlier age. The economic opportunity is enormous and one every retailer needs to embrace with smarter training for employees and marketing for customers.

Anne Obarski is a professional international speaker and founder of Merchandise Concepts, a retail speaking and customer service training company since 1984, outside of Columbus, Ohio. Anne is a requested speaker for nursery and landscape associations within the US and Canada and has been a contributing columnist to a variety of green industry publications. She is the author and co-author of 5 books on customer service and newest book, “Make Your Customer Service CONTAGIOUS”.

In addition, Obarski will present a second seminar, Customer Service TOUCHPOINTS: Make Every Connection Count!, pointing out where garden retail, and even producers, must put focus to avoid any and all parts of your customer service falling through the cracks.

Obarski headlines a Farwest retail education program with a long list of experts who will share a range of topics important to garden center operation and sales. Other highlights include:

Timothy Howard, President, Clarity Connect, Inc.
- Tips for Writing Good Marketing Copy and Designing Great Signs and Advertising- This interactive class will use actual marketing examples to demonstrate how to and how not to design marketing copy.

Carol Miller,Group Editor, Today’s Garden Center and Greenhouse Grower magazines
- How A Modest Merchandising Makeover Can Boost Plant Sales- Using a case study, Miller illustrates the positive sales impact of simple and inexpensive merchandising on plant departments.

Marshall Dirks,Director of Marketing, Proven Winners
- The Top 5 Trends for 2016 That You Were NOT Thinking About- Touching on everything from color preferences to the increasing demands of current and new customers, Dirks describes the process that Proven Winners makes to assure that
the best plants are selected for the North American market. Learn how Proven Winners responds to changing customers and receive insightful business suggestions for the coming year.

“Successful garden retail is an ongoing, dynamic effort,” said Allan Niemi, director of events at the Oregon Association of Nurseries, producers of the Farwest Show. “The retail education at this year’s Show will give garden centers valuable tools and knowledge to keep pace with the ever-changing consumer, pointing the way to increased sales and profit.”

For more information

Oregon Association of Nurseries

Allan Niemi, Director of Events

T: 503-582-2005503-582-2005

aniemi@oan.org

Tom Kegley Communications

Tom Kegley

T: 843-991-4366843-991-4366

tkegley@rev.net

Publication date: Tue 11 Aug 2015