Selling the Practice

You Need to Make a Living

If you have your heart set on going through the bother of earning your organic certification, you should be sure you have a market at hand willing to pay a premium for goods labeled Organic. If that’s not your ambition — though you can still grow as organically as any certified entity — you won’t have the organic advantage to fuel your checkbook.

You’ll be competing in the free-for-all world of the open market: flowers, fruits, herbs, vegetables, plants, trees, services — whatever. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get something out of it besides satisfaction and environmental do-goodiness. Money is important too — after all, you’ll probably be spending more of it at first.

Marketing — What You Can Legally Say

Okay, you’re not Certified Organic and can’t legally say so. But you are Chemical-Free and you do exercise Environmentally-Friendly Practices — and you can say so. Chemical-Free and other such royalty-free jargon, if it’s true, is okay to say. If you’re committed and savvy of its ways, tell your customers.

Brag. Tell a friend. Get on television. Call your local paper, if that’s where your market is, and tell them to get their best reporter’s butt to your facility pronto — it’s where something big is happening. Make signs, print labels or plant tags — but watch your costs. Ease into it. At first, simply start a never-ending chain of word-of-mouth advertising by telling as many people as possible. It’s free.

Don’t Hesitate to Boast

Afraid to boast? You once told someone you were quitting smoking forever and found yourself lighting up later the same day? Here’s your solution: “Reduced Pesticide Usage,” “We Use IPM,” “Good Bugs Rule!” Or whatever. The Green Methods Are In Use — even if the rare, as-soft-as-possible chemical comes into play to bail yourself out of a transitional jam. Say so.

You won’t stick your neck out and get it lopped off the way you did when you started smoking again. People will know you’re honestly trying your best and that you care. It’s not the right time to hold that press conference — but it’s a start.

It’s not just customers who’ll think it’s wicked cool that you’re doing this. Your employees may be pleased about it too. They might like the idea of fewer hazards from a bunch of smelly pesticides. They may think those predators and parasitoids are neat.

Be a Teacher

Your customers may learn, if you’re willing to teach them, to appreciate a few good guys on the plants. They’re going to like the idea of eating untainted vegetables, fruits, herbs, nuts and grains. Who wouldn’t? (If it could be fresh-picked, too, you’d really get them excited.)

Interiorscapers: Tell Them Everything

How about your interiorscape clients? The banker or mall manager? They might get excited as well. I’ve heard many interiorscapers say they didn’t want their clients to find out about their foray into the greener ways of maintaining the greenery. I’ve never understood this logic. When asked, I offer the opposite: “Tell them everything.”

The interiorscaper contractor’s worry is usually that account contacts may object to having bugs in the building. That’s an easy objection to overcome. The biocontrol agents employed in interiorscapes don’t sting, bite, swarm or act in any annoying way. They’re on a mission. They’re not into computers or people’s ears. You can’t even see most of them. Most people just aren’t that observant — they barely even see the plants in the first place (except in malls where planting beds may resemble ashtrays or trash cans).

Spray something oily or stinky, though, and they’ll know. Oh, yeah. Most people won’t notice pests on the plants until the plants begin to really look awful — and then it’s not the pests they see, it’s the damage they cause or the honeydew they poop. Tell your clients this stuff — especially the stinky chemical thing. They’ll probably agree after hearing your lucid argument, and consider your ideas.

Make Customers Your Allies

They may become one of your greatest assets in your little war against pests. The banker may do a little scouting for you when not flirting with one of the tellers. The mall manager may turn out to be your ally, too — even bending down to rescue a little beetle who strayed from the potted oasis centered in the mall’s thoroughfare. This stuff doesn’t just happen, though. You have to tell them, convince them and teach them.

Who’s in charge of taking care of these plants? Who’s responsible? Who gets sued if a little old lady wipes out and breaks her hip because you forgot to clean up the oily residue left on the tiled floors after your midnight spray party? You both do. Tell them that.

Succeed at It

Excepting the rare person who sniffs propellants out of aerosol cans, most people, if they decide to stop and think about it, would rather not come into contact with so many chemicals on any given day. If growers can get by — and stay in business — most would rather not spray. I know this because I’ve heard it from many growers, all with stripes of a different color, even those who’ve never tried doing it another way.

When the habit is formed and the customers are taught, you may be in a position to charge a little more for the goods you produce or the services you perform. If you’ve made your case and been a good educator, customers should be willing, ready and able to deal with a small increase. Plus, your plants may be healthier and look more vibrant than ever.

In one heavily-sprayed conservatory plant-collection I know of, approximately six months after the sprays stopped, people started to talk: “Your plants look so much… uh, greener. Yeah. What’d you do to get them that way?”

Make it pay. Aim to get the most out of it. Your heart and mind are in it — so make it pay for itself in every way you can imagine.