Q&A: Jennifer Noble

The horticulture industry is perplexed – if not paralyzed – by the future. To examine how businesses must “shift” their approach to win customers in the future, AmericanHort launched its SHIFT initiative two years ago.

Cultivate’16 will feature several opportunities to take a closer look at the resulting SHIFT insights and how to apply them – including a “SHIFT in Action” learning experience to explore non-green industry retail strategies, and a panel discussion with retailers who have implemented the insights, called “Making the SHIFT.”

To connect the dots by explaining how to apply the SHIFT insights, AmericanHort’s Knowledge and Professional Development Administrator, Jennifer Noble, will present a session called “What IF We Knew the Future?” Here’s a sneak peek.

Q: What prompted AmericanHort to launch the SHIFT initiative?

A: At Cultivate’14, we announced that we’d be undertaking a research initiative to look at the future, focusing on the goal of attracting new and dedicated consumers, reengaging the old, taking the shopping experience to a new level, solidifying the value of plants and horticulture products, and increasing revenues for the entire industry.

That’s a pretty lofty goal, but we knew those were top-of-mind for the industry, and we needed additional insight to tackle those.

A: First, we’re going to walk through the research process so attendees understand how we came up with the insights. Out of the SHIFT research, there are nearly 30 insights into what ‘shifts’ we can make in our businesses, and we’ll dig into several of those.

We’ll also look at how you implement those insights by looking at examples in other businesses – within the green industry and even outside of our industry.

Q: What are the most intriguing insights from this research?

A: Something that’s notable about the insights is there’s some simplicity in them. It’s just shifting how you look at your consumer, how you talk to the consumer, how you’re presenting products to the consumer. People can get a sneak peek of the insights at: www.AmericanHort.org/SHIFT/.

One of the things we’ll talk about is the insight that most consumers don’t identify with the term ‘gardener.’ We get a lot of conversation around that, because what we perceive to be a ‘gardener’ and what the consumer perceives to be a ‘gardener’ are two different things.

We’ll also discuss understanding your consumer to the point that you can create a consumer profile – recognizing that consumers have distinct buying motivations, and tailoring to those motivations, whether through marketing or through products.

Q: What does the future consumer look like, based on SHIFT research?

A: What we see across the board is customers who want it to be easy, fun and engaging. They want to know the story behind the business; they want to see that transparency.

We talk often about the customer of the future, and that sounds really far away, but the future is happening now. These customers are out there now.

Q: How should horticulture leaders shift their approach to be successful?

A: We’ll talk about recommendations for how to implement these insights – and that will vary in each individual business – but at the core is understanding who the consumer is that you have coming into your store and also the customer that you want. Maybe those are the same, and maybe they’re not.

Understanding that customer profile sets the base for all of the other insights about adjusting your language or the type of products you’re offering or the way you have your store set up. If you can understand who your customer is or who you’re targeting, you can tailor to who you’re trying to reach.

Want to go? Sunday, July 10 | 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.