Economist Dan North discusses 6 major topics that could affect garden centers in the new year.

The United States government and media outlets regularly report that the economy is strong. But what’s really driving growth, and what are possible concerns and setbacks? Being aware of some key economic indicators and wage trends could help retailers and growers make more informed decisions to stay ahead, especially as the busy spring season approaches.

Sister publications Greenhouse Management and Produce Grower recently spoke with Dan North, chief economist for North America at insurance company Euler Hermes, about the state of the U.S. economy, what he’s hopeful about and where there are uncertainties. North is tracking the happenings of these six topics that include economic indicators, agreements and trends.

Dan North: Right now, consumer confidence is at an 18-year high. Consumer confidence started to ramp up right after the [2016 presidential] election. Like it or not, [the Trump administration] had a mostly pro-growth agenda. A lot of that has worked. Deregulation, tax cuts, that sort of thing, have actually helped the economy. That’s not enough, though, because that gives you the willingness to spend, but you need the ability to spend as well, which is personal income. Personal income growth has been kind of flat, below average for a number of years. But we think that’s going to go up. And the consumption, which is two-thirds of the economy — gets fueled by that income. We think the increase in income is going to increase consumption and broaden the economy.”

Dan North: Why do we think income is going to go up? Several reasons. There are pressures on wages. One, if you look at this ratio of job openings to unemployed people, it’s above one. It’s the highest it’s ever been, and basically, when it’s one, it means there’s a job available for every person that’s unemployed in the U.S. That ratio correlates really strongly with wage growth. So, that is putting pressure on wages.”

“There’s another variable we look at called the quits rate. What frequency do people quit their jobs? Because if you quit your job, you’ve got to be really confident that you’re going to get another one, or maybe you have another one already. That correlates strongly with wage prices as well.”

“The third thing is wage — hiring plans, particularly with small or medium businesses, [is] where the growth is. … There’s this National Federation of Independent Business survey, NIFB. Part of that survey — there are a number of questions. One is the percentage of respondents who are saying they want to expand employment. That’s up at a record high. This is the biggest single problem for most of the businesses and trade groups I talk to: they can’t find employees. There’s a skills mismatch. But basically, the point is, it’s a tight labor market, and that is going to drive wages up. And it’s driving up hourly wages slowly. If you look at weekly wages, what’s happening is, employers, since they can’t find more workers, are working the ones they do have longer hours, so weekly wages, which accounts for the hours, actually are growing fairly sharply — 3.4 percent. That’s an eight-year high.”

Dan North: Amazon went to $15 an hour. They’re a very profitable company and are able to do that. But again, broad-based wages are on the way up, particularly if you look at those weekly wages. $15 an hour — [as] a minimum wage — actually affects relatively few workers. Typically, minimum wage workers don’t stay at the minimum wage terribly long. They move up the wage curve as they get more productive. So, the push for $15 — a higher minimum wage — will do exactly what both the left and the right say it will do. Higher minimum wage will give people who already have a job more money. Higher minimum wage will also make it harder to employ somebody who doesn’t have a job, because if you’re in a fast food restaurant, for instance, and you’ve just had to increase your pay to these people you already have, it’s much more difficult to afford hiring more people now that you’ve got a minimum wage. So, you head toward automation in productivity and that sort of thing. It does exactly what most say it’ll do. And in this age, where we have a great deal of prosperity, if it has offsetting effects, maybe it’s the right thing to do. But usually, government shouldn’t interfere in wages or open-markets types of prices. It causes distortions that usually work against everybody.”

Dan North: It’s great if you can’t find people to work, to go to automation. There’s usually a big fear, and always has been, about automation and technological advancements, that they’re going to destroy jobs. And we’ve seen this from the industrial revolution forward. Every time there’s been an advancement, people say, ‘Oh, it’s going to destroy jobs.’ And it does destroy some jobs. However, for instance, a good example is a robot on an assembly line that replaces a worker. So, that job got destroyed. However, somebody’s got to design the robot, somebody’s got to build the robot, somebody’s got to install it, somebody’s got to write the software, somebody’s got to maintain it. So, you destroy one job and create several others, and the benefit has always been that it creates jobs, much against the fear of destroying jobs. If you’re the guy who gets your job destroyed, you don’t really care about that. You know the technology has destroyed your job. But from a macro viewpoint, if you look at it all together, technology — advancements — have always brought more prosperity overall.”

Dan North: I think to have the USMCA put into place, really, frankly, was a relief because it could have been really disastrous in a couple of industries — agriculture, for sure — autos, where a big supply chain had been established between the three countries. If that had been disrupted, it could have been really damaging, more so to Mexico and Canada than to us, but it truly could have damaged us. To get that solved, I think, was really a big relief. Now, there’s some changes in it, but they’re pretty minor, really. It’s mostly NAFTA with some tweaks like they’ve been talking about for years.”

Dan North: [When] you raise interest rates, of course that raises rates on all kinds of consumer loans, auto loans, mortgages. And that’s done on purpose. The Federal Reserve is charged with balancing the economy between inflation and unemployment. So, if they believe inflation’s coming, it’s their mandate to brake the economy, and that’s what raising interest rates does. The concern is at some point — and it will happen — the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates too much and that will push the economy into recession.”

Interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Patrick is associate editor of Greenhouse Management and Produce Grower magazines.

Tips for reviewing and updating garden center signs, tags and labels to make sure they are effective.

To state the obvious, if a sign isn’t noticed by your customers, it has no value other than possibly as a sun or wind screen. In order to be noticed, a sign needs to:

When shopping your store, many customers will not necessarily be actively looking for your message. Therefore, your signs must be easily seen and “heard.” One of the foundations of a good sign is that it is the proper size.

Proper sign size depends on three things:

With all these variables, there is no simple mathematical formula that provides a foolproof answer. However, for every 1 inch of letter height, you can add 10 feet of distance for optimal reading and 25 to 30 feet for maximum readability (see chart below).

Do not approve a sign solely by what you see on screen. Be sure to evaluate the size of the words in the real world. Learning from others is the easiest way to get the size and content right. If you are planning on a roadside sign, drive down a street that has the same speed limit as yours. Find signs that have roughly the same amount of information you have and are easily seen and understood as you drive by. Use those as the basis for yours.

Apply a similar approach for signs in your parking lot and in and around your garden center. Take a tape measure with you to other retail locations. Pick signs that are easy to read from a comparable distance to what you need at your store. Measure both the sign dimensions and letter height. Be sure to also document from how far you can easily read it. Of course, make adjustments to that distance based on how well or poorly you see compared to your average customer.

Additionally, you can use any of your existing signs as a basis. Are they easily readable from the same distance customers will see your new sign? If not, make the necessary adjustments in the design.

Before installing your sign, be sure to evaluate the proposed sign location from where and how your customers will see it. Think about:

It is quite common for people to be disappointed with the lack of “pop” on their actual signs versus what they approved on a monitor. Similar to font size, approving color choices based solely on what you see on a computer screen can result in signs that are difficult to read or that lack visual appeal. Again, learning from others is a great way to eliminate mistakes. Keep your eyes open and note what color combinations catch your eye and are easily read. In general, you will want high contrast; light colored text on dark colors and vice versa.

If you have the right size sign in the right location, your message now has a chance of being heard. To help increase the probability that you communicate effectively, it’s important to use the right words, symbols when appropriate, and images to complement the text.

The two most common content errors are 1) adding too much information and 2) using industry and technical terms that are not understood by your average customer. Keep the amount of text on your signs to a bare minimum. If they can’t be scanned, they typically won’t be read. Of course, the closer the sign is to the item being sold, the more text your sign can have (see images below),

When selecting words, be sure to use your customers’ vocabulary if it’s different than the technical or industry lingo. For example, are you a “nursery” or a “garden center?”

If you can use symbols in place of words, you may be able to communicate more with less. In some cases, you many need to educate your customers about what a symbol means. However, once they have learned it, it can be used. For example, consider the plant characteristic symbols (above).

“A picture is worth a thousand words” is an exaggeration and cliché, but it is true that the right image can certainly communicate on its own or help reinforce the text.

Once you have the right size and location with the right message, the final decision is to select the proper sign material to ensure your sign will hold up over time. There are a lot of choices, but the three most commonly used are coroplast, vinyl and mesh.

Coroplast stands for “corrugated plastic.” It is great for placing in A-Frames, securing to structures and hanging in areas where there is limited wind. Coroplast signs are printed on 8-foot-by-4-foot sheets and then cut to size. Signs can be single or double sided. Grommets are typically added to the corners to facilitate installation.

Vinyl is flexible and can be rolled up for shipping and storage. However, it makes installation a bit trickier, as you need to ensure it is stretched taut to look good. Vinyl comes in a variety of different qualities and thicknesses. If the sign will be hung outdoors, request vinyl with a block-out layer so that light will not bleed through the sign and make it difficult to read. Signs can be single or double sided. Grommets are added to the corners, and for larger signs, additional grommets are added every 2 linear feet around the edges. To reinforce the sign there are two additional options:

Mesh is flexible like vinyl. It is perforated and is ideal for windy areas as they let approximately 37 percent of air through the small holes. With the holes, the printed image is not as sharp as on vinyl or coroplast. However, it is lighter weight and is great for large signs. Mesh can be only be single sided. Mesh must have both hemming and webbing as well as grommets.

As a reminder, keep your eyes open and take note of signage solutions that work and don’t work from various retail locations. Snap pictures with your phone, and keep a tape measure handy so you can benefit from the experience – both the expertise and mishaps – of others. It will help ensure your signs do their job by educating and informing your customers, and it will save you time and money.

Timothy is the founder of Clarity Connect, a website design company focused on the horticulture industry and GardenCenterMarketing.com, an online marketing and signage solution that allows garden centers to easily create customized plant bench cards, hang tags and pot labels. Clarity-Connect.com.

Use these 10 high-impact, low-cost ways to drive employee engagement and get your customers to love you.

We all seem to get it by now — more engaged employees perform at a higher level. The organizations that get their strategy right in this area provide a superior customer experience, have lower levels of employee turnover, higher morale, and ultimately much higher financial performance. Their customers love them more. What are some things you can easily implement that will give you big lift in your levels of employee engagement with the lowest investment?

First, hire right. Making the right hire is well over half of the battle in your employee engagement levels. Hire people who believe what you believe and have the attitude you want. Get that right, and the following 10 ideas can help them thrive.

It’s important to help the communities in which you operate. You cannot underestimate the impact of allowing your people to volunteer (yes, even on company time). It is beyond giving back, it is team building, networking and uniting around a common problem to overcome obstacles. With regard to engagement levels, this is one of the highest-rated items on many employee engagement surveys, and it is a multiplier in terms of return on happier and more satisfied employees.

Some of you may be skeptical, but according to the 2017 Gallup Study of the American Workplace, having a best friend at work has a high correlation with engagement and higher productivity. But how can your organizations help support this? Formally, you can embrace deeper mentoring programs and relationships. This should be aligned in initial onboarding so the mentor can assist and facilitate introductions, networking and group activities. Informally, the more in and out of work activities that you can schedule aids in bonding, networking, and ultimately friendships.

Whatever you call or brand your internal efforts to schedule fun stuff, give it to the people who are passionate, and let them run. Never underestimate the impact of happy hours, food trucks, bowling and other fun activities to help your people get to know each other better on a personal level and perform better in teams.

Wherever possible, err on the side of providing more flexibility for your people. You hired them so hopefully you trust them, and if you don’t, you probably should not keep paying them. It is about the “job to be done” and not where it gets done from. Working from home a day or two a week or extending flex time goes a long way in helping people better balance their lives.

Leadership by simply walking around is a really big deal. Have your senior staff pop in on random employees to just see what they’re most excited about working on. Top organizations in engagement consistently show that access and informality with senior staff drives employees to feel more comfortable, enjoy their work more and provide more discretionary effort.

When someone does something awesome, find ways to recognize and reward the behavior you want. It is amazing how many employees still only get feedback primarily when they have done something wrong. So many leaders simply expect great performance, and then think they are providing fantastic coaching and leadership when they rip apart someone who screwed up. That management style is already going the way of the dinosaur if you are really looking to attract and retain the top employees of tomorrow.

Play a game of “What rule or outdated process can we kill?” Once a quarter, include in any regular scheduled meetings, “keep it, or kill” it as an exercise. Employees get to nominate rules or processes they believe do not add value. Leadership still has veto authority, but the goal should be able to kill at least one (and you can’t add one to replace it). There are so many areas you can see this have impact. Often times, entire rules and procedures are put in place to avoid a few exceptions. Again, if you trusted them enough to hire them …

Your people are on social media. While there are some specific instances of needed prohibition of access to some sites and/or personal devices, the best companies are moving toward the understanding that people are increasingly not separating their work and personal lives. Embrace this. Regarding social media specifically, encourage and help your people to be brand ambassadors on all platforms, not just the ones you think are for business.

We have finally reached a tipping point where the vast majority of organizations understand the value of diversity in their teams. They not only get it, they strive to leverage it for a competitive advantage. Appearance standards have shifted drastically of late, as many companies are now not only allowing, but encouraging, unique looks and individuality in their employees. Some companies are hesitant to permit their staff to work with visible tattoos, facial hair, or body piercings — especially if they are seeking to maintain a carefully curated brand — but where possible allow your people to be themselves. The key is getting and keeping the best talent, not the talent you think looks the best (unless that’s your goal). You should seek employees who are passionate, talented and believe in what you believe. Those are the ones who become truly engaged and deliver the ultimate customer experience and help build the brand you deserve.

These tips can help you immediately in your employee engagement efforts at a relatively low cost. The key differentiator for organizations moving forward will be in how they become an employer of choice for pool of top talent. It is not just about happy and satisfied employees — it is about those who are able to bring their best effort and energy to work each day. Those are the ones who become truly engaged and deliver the ultimate customer experience and help you build the loyalty you deserve.

Curt is a speaker, talent-development expert, and co-author of “Going PRIMAL.”

Create “perfect plant” lists with varieties that thrive in your area to help garden center customers succeed.

When home landscapers start shopping, they are confronted with plants and products they have no knowledge of. They don’t know which plant will grow to be the right size, which one will flower, or if a particular choice will keep its leaves through the winter. Worse still, they don’t know which plant is likely to live and which one might die, given the soil and sunlight exposure on their property.

Experienced plant people know that there are some varieties that will thrive in their region, and others that are tricky, picky or unreliable. But those new to plants and gardens have no way of knowing if the shrub, tree or perennial they choose can be expected to flourish or not. In fact, many aren’t totally clear whether the plant they’re considering is a perennial, shrub, tree, or in a category they aren’t even aware of.

In an ideal world, we’d have a knowledgeable employee helping each and every one of these customers. But as we all know, this is impossible, especially during our busy season. It can, therefore, be a great help to our clients and staff alike to create some “local love lists” that suggest perfect plants for your area.

These are simply lists of plants that are, short of unexpected disaster or a really big homeowner error, guaranteed to do well in your region. The list of such plants should be organized in a way that solves the customers’ problems. So instead of creating a listing titled “Shrubs,” you would write something such as “Use these for sunny foundation plantings” or “Use these shorter shrubs for shade.” And don’t overwhelm the uninformed and inexperienced with every possible plant that you sell or that they might use; stick with six to 10 cast iron choices for each situation.

Begin this winter by writing down those categories that your customers look for most often. For example, in my area, people frequently want screening plants, flowering shrubs, smaller trees, short evergreens for foundations, and hydrangeas. Once you have your categories, fill in up to 10 reliable plants that would meet those needs.

Next, look for a memorable name. You might go for alliteration, repeating the first letter or the sound of your name. Weston’s Winners, Texas Triumphs, or Stonington Stars are examples. You could also use the name of your garden center with terms like Favorites, Sensations, No Fail, or Sure Things. A quick and easy label would be “Best For” with the name of your city or region. At my garden center, we call our lists “Best For Cape Cod.”

Finally, print out these lists with your store logo and start promoting them. Have downloadable documents on your website. Make these lists available throughout your store. You might even want to put a special symbol or sticker on the signage near the plants listed. If you’re able to have labels custom printed for you at the grower, or if you print your own labels, use a separate color for the plants on your local love list.

These lists can also be useful for marketing your business, training inexperienced employees, and setting you apart from the box stores. Take photos of the plants and products on your list and use them as subjects for your educational programs, blog posts, and social networking.

When we provide customers with a list of ingredients they can understand and have confidence in, everyone benefits.

C.L. Fornari is a speaker, writer and radio/podcast host who has worked at Hyannis Country Garden, an IGC on Cape Cod, for more than 20 years. She has her audiences convinced that C.L. stands for “Compost Lover.” Learn more at www.GardenLady.com

Try these 4 strategies to purposefully set and meet your goals for the coming year.

It’s the New Year and you know what that means. ’Tis the season for resolutions and goal setting. As we all know too well, goal-setting and making resolutions can be double-edged swords. On the one hand, if you don’t set specific goals, you can’t realistically expect them to manifest out of thin air. What’s the saying? It’s never going to rain roses, so if you want more roses, you’ll have to plant them. Or something like that. On the flip side, setting specific goals and then not achieving them — or never getting around to working on them — can be discouraging. So, let’s look at four easy ways to get on track with goals in 2019.

Structure can be good, especially when you’re working with employees on their work goals. But structure doesn’t require complexity. There are all sorts of fancy systems and acronyms out there for goal setting. I’m not going to bother selling you on any of them, because frankly I don’t use them. Or rather, I’ve tried a bunch of different ones, but have always found the simplest approach to goal setting works best.

My big goal-setting secret? Discipline. Write down a few goals and stick them in a place you see them regularly — like your day planner or your whiteboard. Then, look at them. That’s pretty much it. Really, it works. But I do add a little method to my madness. Each year, I make a list of five major pie-in-the-sky goals. These are your big dream goals. Goals such as, you want to open a new business, write a book, write five books, complete the Iron Man, double your income, become a real estate mogul or retire at 50 in Provence, France. Wait, I’m retiring in Provence, so you can’t have that one.

Pie-in-the-sky goals will only ever be possible if you acknowledge in black and white that they could be possible. After all, pie exists and so does the sky. Who says you can’t put the two together? Decide which dream goal you would like to achieve in one year, three years, and five years (or 20 years — whatever timeframe you want). Assign them that time target and write them down. If you don’t write them down, you won’t get any pie.

Next, pick one to five down-to-earth goals for the next 12 months, or whatever job or business time cycle you choose. Your earthly goals fall into the time-sensitive and measurable category, and might be tangible, such as improving your sales revenue by 1 to 2 percent over the next quarter, making a job change, getting your taxes done on time, hiring a new assistant, or walking or running a 5k event. Or they might be emotional, such as repairing a difficult work relationship or developing a more positive attitude toward your employees. Whatever you think will make a significant improvement in your day-to-day life or business operations. Small goals can have big ripple effects.

Once you write these goals down and give them a time target or a hard deadline, you might be amazed at how they manifest. Often much sooner than you originally planned. I call that the reticulating activator effect. There is this thing in your brain called the reticular activator system (RAS). Simply put, it’s your brain’s filter system for channeling relevant information to your consciousness, based on what you happen to be doing, thinking about, or what you choose to believe.

When you decide you must have a Monstera philodendron, suddenly you see Monstera all over the internet, in your social feeds and in places you shop. You say to yourself, “Where did all these Monstera come from — they weren’t here before?” Yes, yes, they were. Your brain just wasn’t instructed to pay attention to them with intent focus. Same goes for your goals.

Case in point: Just as I typed the last period in the paragraph above, my husband walked in the room with a Sprinkles cupcake box for me, holding a chocolate peppermint cupcake. Just the day before, I’d said to him I was feeling a little put out because it had been a long time since he brought me a cupcake, and I really wanted a peppermint cupcake. He said, “Peppermint cupcakes don’t exist.” I said, “Sure they do, there has to be one out there somewhere.”

Some people call this RAS effect setting an intent. Whatever you want to call it, getting what you want boils down to your thinking about it and focusing on it with intention. You must put it out into the world. Now, I’m eating my peppermint cupcake.

When it comes to goal setting for your employees for their job role, you need to have a bit more structure to your process. In this dynamic, you as the owner or manager are responsible for working with your employees to help set goals that both help them develop professionally, and help the company achieve overall goals. You’ll need to check in with your employees on goal progress on a set schedule.

Don’t expect a one-size-fits-all goal-setting system to work for all your employees. Some employees respond to rewards, and some respond to what may be taken away. Some employees value cash, some value time. Attaching performance goals to either benefits or consequences should be done with a keen understanding of the individual and tailored as such. Employee goal setting is a customized affair.

Why do you and your company need to set goals? For me, that’s the most important consideration. Going through the motions of mandatory goal setting for the sake of it isn’t terribly productive or inspiring. From my own experience, the biggest reason for setting specific goals is to give meaning to my actions and effort.

Have you ever felt like you were working so hard, but not manifesting the results you feel you deserve? Spinning your wheels can be an exhausting and frustrating experience. Especially when you’ve put forth a lot of effort on a project or task, only to feel like you wasted a bunch of time. If there is no real intention behind the effort, what’s the point? If there is purpose, a goal, attached to that effort and time spent, then you — and your employees — get to feel confident about the work.

Ultimately, you don’t owe anything to goals you’ve previously set, but have not achieved. It’s quite possible that goals you set yesterday for yourself, your employees, or your company, are no longer relevant in today’s reality. The important part is setting the goals in the first place. Make the goal, work the goal, change the goal.

Leslie (CPH) owns Halleck Horticultural, LLC, through which she provides horticultural consulting, business and marketing strategy, product development and branding, and content creation for green industry companies. lesliehalleck.com