A Mini-Surge for the Market?

We were in North Carolina last week visiting major clients and playing bad golf at some nice courses. Aside from hacking up a few clubs, it was mainly a "listening tour" to see how companies are faring this spring and get a sense of their marketing needs for 2011. A few things were clear from the trip:

1. The market has definitely picked up. Everyone we talked with reported good to strong first quarter sales that were continuing deep into the second quarter. Clearly, better weather (both for golf and for disease pressure) played a big role, but there's also a sense that the excess inventory issues have resolved themselves. In fact, shortages of several key chemical products and some popular mowing units seemed to be the biggest problem.

2. People are already fully engaged in strategy/marketing plans for 2011. No one is taking this upswing for granted and the idea of getting ahead of the game is very appealing.

3. There was excellent response to our basic message of being a creative partner for integrated marketing strategies across the board in all the green markets (golf, lawn, greenhouse/nursery and even pest control). We outlined our capabilities in multimedia/video, social media and traditional print media and every client we spoke with seemed to like the approach. In short, we can be one-stop shopping for vitually any strategy at a time when marketing managers need all the extra arms and legs they can get.

One marketing manager at a very large company said this following a very productive gete together last week: "We've been waiting a long time for a publishing company to come in and meet with us like this." You should wait either...get in touch now to begin talking about your needs for the rest of 2010 and 2011. And maybe you can join us for some bad golf while we're talking business.

Speaking of bad golf, here's one of our hosts, Mike Brown (red shirt, right) from Starmount Forest CC in Greensboro. Like a growing number of superintendents, Mike has emerged as the club's general manager thanks to business savvy and an understanding of what really makes members tick.

We also visited Mike Haq at Brier Creek CC in Cary. The big takeaway from talking with Mike was the big upswing in rounds at his place. He is projecting nearly a 50% increase in play if conditions continue on pace. "People are ready to play again," he said.