It’s the riddle we grapple with everyday: our Garden Centers are beautiful, and when someone comes in they always buy something. But how do we get them here? The answer, partly at least, is that our target audience is looking for 2 things: to be inspired and educated. Simultaneously. Enter: workshops.

“The purpose of a business is to create a customer who creates customers.“  

– Shiv Singh

Why Workshops:    

Invite your customers to get their hands dirty, make a mess (which they don’t have to clean up), spend an afternoon with friends, and go home with a growing masterpiece they’ve made themselves. The organization it takes on your part will, if you’re consistent, pay off in spades.

The Business Model:

Best practice is to charge a fixed price upfront (ex. $45 to build a Fairy Garden), and offer a canned recipe for people to put together.

I resist that model. Not only does it deny your customers a sense of creativity, it also denies you a feast of upselling.

I charge a $10 deposit upon booking. A used to let people book for free, but a third wouldn’t show up and that complicated merchandise planning. Make their reservation worth something and people will take it seriously.

Provide a minimum charge for the workshop in the print (ie. the $45 Fairy Garden, which covers the basics), but leave it open-ended. Hire an instructor who works on commission and, if they’re charismatic, will convince most people to use the same products they do. Let the upselling begin.

Near the end of the workshop, count the materials they’ve used. Sending customers to the front till without a final total is asking for chaos.

Advertising:

If you reply on your tried-and-true online platforms, you’ll have initial success followed by disappointment once your customer base has its fill. You’ll also be squandering workshops’ ability to bring in new customers.

Posting your workshops on a third-party events platform will widen your reach. A page on my site gives visitors the “what to expect” basics and a list, with each link flowing to that workshop’s page on Eventbrite. People searching for gardening-related events there will find me, and many have never been in my Garden Centre before.

I also promote on Facebook. Each time I release the new line up (in January and August), I target a paid boost to women in my area who like DIY and Gardening. From Sept to Dec this year I have 51 workshops planned, and I anticipate an 80% sell through.

You’ll need to promote hard the first couple of years. Provide consistent value and your reputation will help to fill the slots.

After the Workshop:

Make sure you’ve harvested every attendee’s’ email in the signup process. Taking your workshop has given you implied consent to add them to your email list, but contact them respectfully or you won’t hear from them again.

You’ll want to email a workshop reminder a few days beforehand. If you don’t, people will forget and blame you for it.

Email them a survey on the Monday after asking about their experience. Make sure to ask if they’ve come to your Garden Centre before and offer a $5 gift card for their next visit. My workshops yield hundreds of new customers a year.