Ravin’ Traven: Response To Last Week’s Rant
April 14, 2009 
WOW, that was sure some response I got from the rant last week. It’s gratifying folks actually read the thing, but it was surely overwhelming
I think it might be time to reflect upon the depth and VIGOR of the response, too. Allow me to remind you all of a few things first:
1. The rant is intended primarily as a communication to MY customers, a vehicle for me to get the Peace Tree message through the piles of faxes and e-mails flooding their desks.
2. It is not intended to do anything other than to make people THINK about things, not to pontificate, not to tell anyone what they must think, but what I’m thinking and how I see things. Well, it’s fair to say that people surely were thinking about this one!!!
3. The entire response trail was about the last couple sentences only, not the main thrust of the rant. The majority of it was about herbs and veggies and how I believe there is tremendous pent-up demand for our products, anything with gorgeous color moving to retail even if it is 30 degrees too cold to allow it to live.
I closed with a simple question: “Did you catch the Home Depot promotion last week?” Holy crap: INCOMING, INCOMING!!!! Yikes, it’s not like a pro-choice, pro-life debate here or Darwin versus Creationism. It’s not even whether you prefer your marshmallow Peeps stale or fresh!!
Well, maybe to MR. ANONYMOUS it is. If I may be blunt (as if THAT would ever happen), it is really easy to take cheap shots, make snide innuendos and spout sophomoric references to growing up in the ’60s when you are NOT WILLING to sign your own name to your comments!!
YOUR comments are equally important to the conversation, and the interpretation of them relies on identifying from where your viewpoint emerges. It also seemed crucial to Mr. Anonymous to direct it all at me personally. I’m okay with that, but let’s get some value for everyone out of this and actually debate the topic publicly.
Let’s do a session at Short Course, side by side. Let the audience ask the questions. Let’s see what they say, too. I have no idea how it will turn out, but it sure would be fun.
Let’s be clear about this, please. Any company, large or small, follows the same rules. Market forces affect us equally, and we all have to controls costs, provide a good perceived value, deliver to spec and be on schedule. It is EXACTLY the same, no matter what tier of the market we serve.
Mr. A seemed obsessively focused on how LARGE he is (and the Freudians of us out there KNOW what THAT tells us about him) and putting others out of business as a measurement of “competing.” But the one thing missing was the ACTUAL customer, the one who picks it up at retail and parts with money. What I was concerned with was the MESSAGE that the Depot promotion sent, that beautiful fresh annuals are worth 33 cents. The customer never said that; Depot did, and the customer has learned that now.
There was a response from Jerry Montgomery–certainly a superb market analyst, if there ever was one. It’s hard to imagine, but my personal history with him goes back over 30 years (OMG!!!) from when I was a minor peon at Ball and he was already a major chieftain. He was totally correct what the intent of Depot and Lowe’s was: to drive people through the doors.
But here’s how I see it (and I must thank Candy, who read the response trail one night with horror and asked, “Why do you get involved with this stuff?” but then came up with a great idea): If Depot wants to REALLY be a hero, they should GIVE these plants away with another purchase over a certain point. They would have lost far less money, because they would have GIVEN AWAY less, and their customer would have really felt they were getting something OF VALUE, instead of a ridiculously under-priced annual.
Geez, put the stupid DRILL on sale to get people in to buy annuals. This is the season for making money on OUR product, so why on earth would you give it up NOW? That’s all I was saying. Take the TARGET off my back. Don’t send KOHL’S to Newcastle. Don’t spray me with MACY’S. Put away your AK-Mart 47. Don’t put me up against the Walmart. I feel so Lowe’s. I’m just trying to raise the True Value.
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