In Praise For A Conference - Oct. 2002

I recently attended the Sealy Conference at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States, which is organized by a board of directors and faculty at Cornell University. Each year a "victim" is coerced into being the conference coordinator. The chosen one this year was Rej Picard of Westbrook Floral, Ontario, Canada. This is the kind of job for which you do not get paid, yet it requires huge amounts of time and work. The work done by the coordinator pays everyone who attends the conference. The blend of speakers and topics that Rej put together was perfect for the people attending. The conference's title was "Floriculture's Profit and Market Crisis: Charting a New Course."

One of the ironclad rules of the conference is that nothing said at the conference may be attributed to the person who said it. This allows extremely free and open discussion without fear of future consequences for words spoken in this private, public forum. I am sure this is a good idea most of the time, but it makes my job a little harder. Even the paid professional presenters from outside the industry may not be quoted under this rule. Go figure. With that said, I will try to share some of the terrific stuff that was presented at the conference. If you want to see the program for this conference, check out their website at www.hort.cornell.edu/seeleyconference.

One of the more powerful messages we received concerned the continuing consumer trend toward wanting to live a richer, fuller quality of life. Most people believe they are smarter than average, and most want to feel affluent even if they are not. The most interesting idea for me was that people want a good experience more than just more stuff. Even though you sell it cheap, people still expect quality.

This idea is enough to start us down a path that is different from the path of price-the only one the industry has followed for several year. Where do we fit in? Flowers are pure experience. It is super critical that people have a good experience with our products, or they will find another place to spend their money. For $3.50, Blockbuster will rent you a DVD of a popular movie for a week. I do not know what their policy is if you do not like the movie, but I know Blockbuster is a line item on my household ledger. I digress.

Flowers are a pure experience that always starts out good. Bedding plants are very much experience driven. I love the annuals we plant in the fall here in Florida (the ones most of you plant in the spring). Potted plants are a bit harder to place. Potted flowering plants make a strong case for being an experience-based item. But what about foliage plants? They are part home decor and part lifestyle choice. On balance, they must go into the experience category.

People have a relationship with their plants. When plants thrive, owners are happy. They feel smart and competent about their purchase. When a plant slowly withers and dies in their home, they feel terrible about the seller and the whole experience.
This knowledge demands that we stop growing and retailing the cheapest, nastiest plans to consumers through our most important retail channels. How will this happen? Growers will give retailers what they demand even if it is the wrong thing. Retailers must demand much higher quality with defined specifications.

I believe that a bad trend toward cheap, nasty plants is finally beginning to reverse. Retailers are learning that price does not mean value. As retailers demand more value, growers will produce more value. Only when we understand that value is a bundle of product and total experience, and deliver that to consumers, will we see the kind of healthy marketplace we all want.
So much more was learned at the the conference that will not fit here and is difficult to write without attribution. I highly recommend this event to anyone who has not attended. Ithaca is a beautiful little city in the middle of the summer. The Cornell staff runs a great conference. Many of the people attending come year after year and attendance is very restricted. If you want to go, you should make plans early. I, of course, will wait until the last minute and not be able to get in. I will write a column complaining about it.