Onboarding Process for a New Customer
Investors often ask us how PittMoss onboards a new customer. Frank’s Produce & Greenhouse is a great example of how we earn new customers.
Last summer, PittMoss entered the Maryland market in the same region as Frank’s Produce & Greenhouse. When customers started coming into Frank’s asking for PittMoss products after a competing neighborhood garden center closed due to the owners passing, Frank’s took note and started carrying PittMoss to accommodate those customers.
Meet PittMoss’ new customer, Jake, from Frank’s Produce & Greenhouses. Frank’s is located in Howard County, Maryland and has been in business since 1975. It’s a large family-owned and operated open air farm market and nursery.
Our CEO, Brian Scott, and new East Coast Representative, Peter Forbes, held an event at Frank’s the weekend of May 14th. After Franks purchased six pallets of PittMoss (four for retail), Brian and Peter sold over three and a half pallets on Friday and Saturday… eventually selling out in that weekend! Just as important as educating customers is the idea of educating all of the garden center’s employees to the benefits of PittMoss. By the end of the weekend Frank’s employees were selling PittMoss over other brands and Jake already placed another larger order.
Brian will occasionally go on the road for events like these, but has less and less time due to the growth of the company. “I normally leave that to our Brand Ambassadors and Sales Team, but because I love talking to customers about how environmentally-friendly PittMoss is and enjoy educating customers on how bad peat-based products are for the environment, it’s just a passion of mine. We want them to be part of the solution to reduce the carbon footprint by buying a peat-free product like PittMoss”.
Peter agrees and adds, “because PittMoss is such a light-weight product, it’s easy for our garden centers and their customers to handle. Both the customers and garden center employees notice this right away.”
When PittMoss enters a new relationship with a garden center like Frank’s, we host an initial sales event, educate the owners, staff, and customers about our organic potting mix products, and after at least a couple weekends of support and education by hosting events. In that short time, garden centers and their customers normally embrace PittMoss and don’t want to go back to peat-based products!
Between our Brand Ambassador Program and Sales Team, we educate and train the garden center team, merchandize our products properly in the stores with point of purchase materials, and price the products right. That’s what makes it easy for us to keep the selling process going.
None of our national competitors in the industry do what PittMoss does. We create value, better customer service, and because our products are very different, it is easy to get reorders.
Selling on the retail level also opens the door to selling on the commercial level. For example, Frank’s Produce owner, Jake, is trialing our commercial products for his mums this fall. This is where we always try to cross-sell an owner. It opens up further opportunities to work with Jake and help him to “Grow with PittMoss” both literally and figuratively.
Cross selling and build strong relationships with business owners is important to us. We find that when we create strong relationships and continue to strengthen them by offering a consistent quality product and excellent customer service, our garden centers (and their customers) stick with us and we have excellent customer retention metrics. We often earn a customer for life. The Proof is in the Performance at PittMoss!