The key to surviving a gardening recession

Houses prices will fall 50% and thousands of gardening and landscape business will fold leaving many in a poverty trap.

This is the sort of headline that sensationalist newspaper 'headline' writers are daubing all over tomorrows chip papers at the moment. I say sensationalist but there is a great deal of possibilities, in many guises, that can develop into this as a real scenario.

However, many gardening, horticulture retailing, nursery stock production and landscaping business are in danger of being sucked into a negative mind set and contributing to any form of downward pressure by believing that they are already doomed.

I think, and I might be maligning you, that many will consider me to be a negative person by constantly addressing the recession and 'bear' factors of the economy.

However, I am exactly the opposite and really quite a bull when it comes to opportunity. I woke up one morning last week and decided that it is time to make Landscape Juice start to pay it's own way and by lunchtime had secured three advertising contracts.

At 9 am, the companies that agreed to place adverts did not have any inkling that by the end of the day such a possibility existed. One of the companies I approached did not even know Landscape Juice or myself existed.

The point I am making is, when the going gets a little rough, managers (of whatever business group) need to get out of the bed, glass half full, and exploit untapped potential.

You may have a greenhouse full of summer bedding that is in danger of perishing because the likes of B&Q have cancelled an order and a very short time frame in which to find a suitable home for your produce.

You may be a landscape company that has stocked up on several million pounds worth of Indian paving (I am angling at Marshalls here) and need to get this off of the balance sheet before year end and avoid unnecessary write downs.

You may be a garden maintenance company that has a spare van sitting in the yard, laden with expensive equipment, yet not out earning.

You can sit it out and hope an opportunity knocks on your door or you can innovate and populate a plan.

The good old phone is the place to start so get calling those that you perceive to have a need for what you can supply. Millions of pounds worth of stone is an asset until such time the market around you reduces their stock, negotiates a lower purchase price from it's suppliers and starts selling way below what you can do and make a profit.

Once your distribution and marketing costs start to weigh heavily on your margins then you just as well of sat on your hands and never bought the stone in the first place. So, get on the phone and do a deal now.

If you are a plant retailer, get onto a blog and interact and get the message out. Why let B&Q sell at half price direct to the public when you can do the same and still make a reasonable margin?

Innovate and thrive and the key element to avoiding a recession is stay positive because you sure as bet that there will be plenty that will give in to the perceived inevitability of what might happen.

I prefer to see headlines in my head as 'Recession brings opportunities for fast thinking managers'