Summary: Greg Soles, a Product Representative with Darwin Perennials and a true advocate for perennial plants joins STEM to talk about ways to create profit during shoulder seasons using fresh, flowering perennials. Greg has been a grower and a retailer, as well as a product and sales rep working with perennials for decades giving him the perspective to talk about perennial plants from history to future. And the future is bright! Greg’s real-world stories illustrate the many opportunities to leverage perennials to not only increase profits from early Spring through the end of Fall but also to inspire customers with fresh, flowering perennials that we know add value and excitement to any garden space (including mixed combos and patio pots)! Greg shares scheduling tips to help with planning, some of the best new genetics to use to build your color bridge and much more. You really need to listen all the way to the end. Here are the resources Greg references to support The Retail Color Bridge. Share them with your team and get everyone on board to build sales throughout the year. And if you are a member of the trade, make plans to attend Darwin Perennials Day at Ball Horticultural Company in West Chicago, IL this summer! Perennials: The Retail Color Bridge Presentation LINK: https://www.slideshare.net/bcalkins/perennials-the-retail-color-bridge Darwin Perennials Culture and Scheduling Tools: https://www.darwinperennials.com/Culture/ProductionGuides/ Tons of Perennials Resources: https://www.darwinperennials.com/ Darwin Perennials Day Event Registration (Open to the TRADE ONLY): https://www.darwinperennialsday.com/register.aspx In this episode’s Connect Four, I gave you four quick stories of companies making moves in the digital/online space. From Bower & Branch, Alsip Home & Nursery and Amazon getting into the online plant sales space to an innovative Korean grower mining Instagram for plant trends and then turning that data into sales. All you have to do it look at the greenhouse trade media these days (in print and e-news) to see examples of our industry testing the waters (or jumping right in the deep end) with online strategies. As I said in the opening – it’s not a matter of if or when, it’s a matter of how. Here are some links to check out. Bower & Branch: https://www.bowerandbranch.com/ Fortune Magazine’s coverage of the Amazon Plants Store: http://fortune.com/2018/02/21/amazon-plants-store/ Alsip Home & Nursery Online Sales: http://www.alsipnursery.com/ and https://bargaingarden.com/ Email Guest Greg Soles: gsoles@darwinperennials.com Email Host Bill Calkins: bcalkins@ballhort.com Tweet Host Bill Calkins: @billcalkins Connect with Ball Seed on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ball-seed-co/ Follow The Gardens at Ball on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GardensAtBall/ See Ball Seed Videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/BallSeedVideo
