Aug./Sept. 2002

TPI

ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS

PR Insight..............................................Page 2 

Editors Like Short Releases

Financial Management....................... Page 2 

Stop Payment Trap

Taking Care of Business.....................Page 2 

Seven Ways to Stay Up in Down Times

Marketing Tip.......................................Page 3 

Now is a Good Time to Review What  
Works and What Doesn't

Shrewder Computing............................Page 3 

Web Content—Dos and Don’ts

Water Awareness................................Page 4 

Best Management Practices (BMP) 
For Golf Courses

TPI Action .............................................Page 4 

— Non US Producers can Turn to TPI

For Methyl Bromide Assistance 

— Board Approves Restructuring of TPI

— Have You Renewed Your TPI 

Membership?

TPI Midwinter Conference
February 26-28, 2003 
Birmingham, England
Sneak Preview

♦ Educational sessions featuring: 
—Producers from various global 
regions will discuss production 
—Thames Water Pic. rep will 
address global water issues
—Randy Graff will share insight 
into successful pricing
♦  Two days of exhibits
♦  JCB Factory/Headquarter Tour
♦ ITPF Banquet & Fundraiser in 
England’s Castles and Gardens
♦ Many Optional Pre- and Post 
Conference Tours from Eagle Tour
Visit www.TurfGrassSod.org for more.

BUSINESS  

MANAGEMENT

Turfgrass Producers International

TPI Takes Leadership Role:

Coalition Acts on Methyl Bromide
TPI Executive Director Doug Fender 

In an unprecedented show of industry 
unity, TPI is leading a coalition of U.S. 
state and regional turf producer associa­
tions to complete a nation-wide “Critical 
Use Exemption For Methyl Bromide” 
application. Practically all uses of 
methyl bromide are to be banned after 
2005 and only a special United Nations 
group (the Methyl Bromide Technical 
Options Committee or MBTOC) has the 
authority to grant special use exemptions.
Recognizing the enormous resources 

required to complete the USEPA’s 27- 
page application in a short amount of 
time, the TPI Board of Trustees agreed to 
take the lead; helped to create an adviso­
ry group of experts on the subject and 
began coordinating the nationwide effort.

said, “We’re fortunate to have Drs. 
Haydu, Unhru and Vansickle... all from 
the University of Florida... and Steve 
Godbehere from Hendrix and Dail assist­
ing with this process. They are all recog­
nized experts on various aspects of turf 
and ag economics and agronomics as 
they relate to methyl bromide’s impor­
tance to this industry. We recognize that 
even an outstanding application may be 
rejected by the EPA or MBTOC, because 
their objective is to ban this chemical. 
However, if we don’t make the effort we 
won’t have grounds for any later appeals 
or other options.”

Turf producers from across the U.S. 
have been asked to submit highly confi­
dential data to TPI for inclusion in the 
application. No farm’s data will be 
exposed to scrutiny or used for any pur­
poses other than completing this applica­
tion.
When Customers Say “No,” Don’t Quit

TPI President Stan Gardner said, “It’s 
great to be addressing what is basically a 
warm-season growers’ concern. In the 
past, TPI has been criticized for focusing 
almost exclusively on cool-season con­
cerns. We have and will continue to put 
TPI’s resources on those issues where 
they are needed, regardless of whether 
it’s warm- or cool-season grasses.”

Although the goal of every sales call 

is to “close” (confirm an order), to 
expect that to happen every time would 
be unrealistic. However, to simply quit 
after the customer says, “No” to your 
sales pitch closes the door to potential 
sales. Keep the door open by trying to 
close something—anything—to keep the 
sales process alive.

Reason: Closing on something height­

ens commitment and increases the 
prospects’ motivation to buy later.

Learn to recognize and welcome 

“intermediate” closes, including gaining 
the prospect’s promise to:
♦  Meet again at a convenient time
♦  Review your product literature
♦  Accept a bid or proposal
♦  Visit your farm and experience first­

hand your crops and test plots

♦  Visit and talk with others who use your

products and services

♦ Use your products or services on a trial 

basis
Be sure to follow up each sales call 

with a personalized letter of appreciation, 
reaffirming highlights of the conversa­
tion, including an invitation to contact 
you for additional information.

Member Benefits for 
Non-Renewals to Stop
As of September 1, farms and firms 
who have not renewed their TPI mem­
bership for 2002-2003 will stop receiving 
member benefits, such as this newsletter, 
Turf News and a wide range of other 
valuable services.

If your renewal notice has been mis­

placed or lost, or you’re not sure whether 
you renewed, contact the TPI office right 
away at 800/405-8873 or 847/705-9898.

Taking Care of Business

By Dave Anderson  

www.LearnToLead.com 

Los Altos, CA

Seven Ways to Stay Up in Down Times

Business-as-usual doesn’t cut it when 
markets, consumers or other conditions 
beyond your control turn against you. 
The old saying, ’’What doesn't kill you 
makes you stronger," is little consolation 
when business is slow. Here are seven 
steps to help you stay up in down times:

1. Focus on your core business—and 

invest in what your business does best. 
Always assume your core is under per­
forming and you'll be right most of the 
time. Aggressively market to your cur­
rent customers. In down times one of the 
best ways to gain market share is to 
retain the customers you already have 
and gain their referrals.

2. Don’t "panic-spend" on advertis­

ing—and focus on doing a better job 
with the customers already coming 
through the door. With lower traffic 
counts comes an opportunity to build 
more rapport, give better presentations 
and follow up more thoroughly through­
out the sales process—often resulting in 
more.

3. Don’t kill your capacity to pro­

duce—improve your bottom line by 
maintaining a tighter inventory, re-focus 
ad dollars, put vendor products/services 
up for bid, and improve receivables and 
other cash flow factors. Resist the short­
sighted strategy of cutting costs that con­
tribute to the development of the your 
most valuable asset: your people. 
Training is not a luxury and it's not a

cost; it's an investment in sustaining your 
competitive edge and increasing your 
production.

4. Reduce entitlements, reward per­

formance, terminate the weakest 
links—tenure and credentials don't sub­
stitute for results; so, reward and support 
employees who perform. Otherwise, the 
weak links in your organization can 
lower the collective self-esteem of the 
whole team, compromise your standards 
and impair your credibility as a leader. 
Top performers feel cheapened and 
diminished working in an environment 
where others don't contribute and can't 
pull their weight. Use down-times as an 
opportunity to clean up your roster.

5. Cut once—reducing expenses one 
month by cutting out free pop, then two 
weeks later eliminating another benefit 
(and perhaps an employee or two) and so 
on, is disruptive and demoralizing. Get 
it over with by bringing all employees 
together and explaining what you are 
about to do, why and then do it. Then 
reassure your people that everyone and 
everything that remains has been 
strengthened by these cuts, and now it’s 
time to get back to work.

6. Don't develop a loser's limp—an 
economical down-turn always exposes 
the sins of the good times, yet many indi­
viduals tend to blame outside conditions 
in order to escape responsibility of their 
current business ills. Typical ones

PR Insight: Editors Like Short Releases

Sending one-page fea­
ture releases can get you 
on an editor’s must-use 
list, according to Carole 
Collins, senior media spe­
cialist at the federal 
Consumer Information 
Center. Reasons:

• One-pagers offering 
readers a main point and 
some usable tips that need 
little polishing 

• These briefs feed edi­

tors’ hunger for stories 
that urge people to act, 
not ponder 

Here are some ideas to 

improve the chances

editors will use your 
releases: 

• Use lots of "you" 

copy—information "you" 
can use, or how "you" 
can make or save money.  
Also, try to include the 
powerful word "FREE." 
• Put tips in a bulleted 

list format 

• Write text that shows 

how readers can control 
their lives—"These tech­
niques will increase your 
property’s value" 

• Appeal to readers’ 
fear of losing control— 
"Are you in danger of

losing community pres­
tige?" 

• Include a statistical 
chart or a graph. Editors 
will sometimes run your 
release just so they can 
use the chart or graph. 

• If you send a release 

electronically—which 
many editors prefer— 
include the text of the 
releases in the e-mail 
message rather than as 
attachments. Reason: 
Some editors have trouble 
detaching a file because 
of system differences and 
might delete it.

include poor (or lack of) leadership, hir­
ing standards, performance expectations, 
accountability, strategy, urgency, people­
development and a growth environment. 
These are the inside threats a business 
owner/manager must work on to elimi­
nate day-in and day-out.

7. Stay positive—through honest 

communications, good coaching leads 
from the front with plenty of speedy, 
positive reinforcement for worthy per­
formances. It involves encouragement, 
motivation and listening. Good coaches 
also give fast feedback, as well as conse­
quences for deficient performances.

Stay focused on the big picture. And 
remember the best time to fix the roof is 
when the sun is shining. When better 
times return it's the best time to train, 
coach, clean up your roster, set standards 
that create urgency, make the tough deci­
sions, implement necessary changes, take 
risks and lead from the front.

If these things are done when business 
is good, people will stay sharp and  
focused. Let them know there's still  
room to improve. When business starts 
to pick up again, develop a mind-set to 
run up the score rather than sit on the 
ball, and the next downturn will find you 
bullet-proof rather then bullet-rid­
dled.

The Stop Payment Trap—Although 

Financial Management
banks usually accept verbal stop-pay­
ment requests, they may not accept the 
responsibility for mistakenly honoring 
the check. The best defense is to tell the 
bank representative you will follow up 
with your request in writing; then put the 
stop-payment request in writing and fax 
or deliver it the same day.

Gift Tax Trap—According to Bottom 
Line/Business, putting assets such as real 
estate into a family limited partnership 
(LP) and then gifting non-voting shares 
to heirs is one way to reduce gift and 
estate taxes. This works best if the assets 
are put into the LP or LLC before mak­
ing the heirs partners or members. A 
new Tax Court case says that setting up 
an entity with all interests in place and 
then adding assets amounts to making  
indirect gifts to the beneficiaries, poten- 
tially with adverse consequences.

Marketing Tip
Now is A Good Time to Review 
What Works and What Doesn’t
As Charles Dickens began his Tale of 

By Dave Dymond 
H&H Sod Co., Inc. 
Kenansville, FL

competition? 

Two Cities, “It was the best of times. It 
was the worst of times.” In the sod 
growing business we have benefited 
from the “best-of-times” economy this 
past decade. Marketing or selling our 
product has been relatively easy. In fact, 
in our case, we have been challenged 
more to produce enough, than to sell 
what we had grown. However, could 
now be the beginning of those dreaded 
“worst of times?”

We have been called on to shift gears 
and pay attention to how we can improve 
the marketing of our crops now that the 
economy has begun to soften and inven­
tories, as well as competition, have 
grown. It has been a long time since we 
were concerned about whether we could 
move all of our products or maintain 
profitable volumes.

It has become very clear that it is time 
for us to assess what we have been doing 
right—in the eyes of our customers—to 
bring us the success we have enjoyed in 
the past. It is also time to ask ourselves 
the following questions:
♦  What else can we do for our cus­

tomers? 

♦  How can we help our customers market

more of our sod? 

♦  Are we giving our customers what they
want in the manner they truly want it? 
♦  Have we updated our knowledge of the

local market/economy? 

♦  Is our product as good of a fit for the

market today as it was, say, five years 
ago, three years ago... or even last 
year? And, more importantly, will it  
fit for the immediate and future years?
♦  Have we told customers about any new
varieties or products we are growing 
and experimenting with that may be a 
better fit for them? 

♦  Have we invited our customers to the

farm to see our operation? 

♦  Have we communicated with all of our

customers or just our favorites? 

♦  Is there any way we make the smaller
volume customers into larger volume 
customers? 

♦  Have we become “just order-takers?” 
♦  Have we assessed and observed the

Shrewder 
Computing
Web Content— 

Dos and Don’ts

A Stanford University study rein­
forced the fact that—unlike newspa­
pers and magazines—the text of a 
Web news site is the primary focus, 
the graphics are secondary.

Lesson: Although your Website’s 
appearance is important, its informa­
tional content matters most. The 
right content influences visitors’ per­
ceptions of your business, generates 
sales and contributes toward cus­
tomer loyalty.

A few suggestions:

1.  Reinforce company image—be 

sure the content is targeted to 
your audience and conveys your 
goals

2.  Insist on accuracy—spelling, 

grammatical structure and unbro­
ken links are as important as fac­
tually accurate and complete text
3.  Access to your business’ back­
ground—separate any advertis­
ing from the informational con­
tent to avoid comprising your 
objectivity

4.  Include a “Last updated” mes­
sage—better to link pages after 
completion than to link a partially 
completed section and apologize 
with an “Under Construction” 
sign

5.  Monitor popular content—in 

addition to traditional surveys and 
focus groups, use Web response 
forms and tracking services (such 
as HitBox at www.hitbox.com to 
determine what works best

6.  Remember your 

neighborhood—although the 
Web is worldwide, an on-line 
newsletter publisher (Streetmail) 
survey revealed that 72% of Web 
users indicated they were more 
likely to use content created with­
in their communities than that 
produced in a remote source

7.  Frequently re-evaluate your 
Website’s content—make sure 
your site’s information is current, 
accurate and complete; tests links 
(internal and external) to insure 
they’re still working.

♦  Have we lost some of our customers’
business without even knowing it? 
♦  Have we added any new customers

lately? 

♦  When was the last time we “beat the

bushes” for new customers? 

♦  Is our staff still friendly, helpful and

professional? 

♦  Is our credit policy too strict or too

loose? 

♦  Have we just simply asked for more

business from our customers? 

♦  Have our methods become static or
stagnant, no longer dynamic and 
fresh? 

♦  Have our quality, consistency and repu­
tation maintained their high level, or 
has it fallen in our customers’ eyes. 
I’m sure each of us can probably add 

a dozen or more questions to ask our­
selves. But the point is, it’s time for self­
evaluation and re-examination of all that 
we do, not just a few of the things, but 
all of them. We must do the same with 
our relationships with our customers.

The benefit of this self-evaluation will 
be the foundation on which to amend or 
intensify the direction of our marketing 
program. It may only need a few minor 
adjustments—rather than a major over­
haul—to be improved. As another famil­
iar old saying goes, “You don’t need a 
sledgehammer to kill an ant.”

In closing, ask yourself this question, 
“Have I been too busy chopping wood to 
sharpen my axe?” If you have, I can 
assure you that your competition’s axe is 
extra sharp and ready to cut into 
your customer list.

Looking for More
Business Management Ideas?

At website www.bizmove.com, you’ll 
find food for thought about topics rang­
ing from “Sales and Marketing,” 
“Personnel Management” and “Financial 
Management,” to “Buying a Business,” 
“International Trade,” “Internet 
Business,” “General Management,” 
“Inspiration Stuff’ and a lot of other 
usable information.

TPI Action

Water 

Awareness

All TPI firms who have or are using methyl bromide should immediately 

Non-US Producers Can Turn To TPI
For Methyl Bromide Assistance
determine if their country is a signator to the “Montreal Protocol.” This interna­
tional treaty requires developed countries to essentially ban the use of methyl 
bromide by 2005. At this time, TPI has not been able to obtain a listing of all 
countries signing the “Montreal Protocol,” and thus is unable to specify which 
TPI members may be impacted by this process and ultimate ban.

In its research of the subject, TPI has learned that Basamid is the only chemi­
cal alternative designated for turfgrass sod production, and is therefore the only 
product turf producers need to address in their applications for continued use of 
methyl bromide. Much of the information being assembled by TPI for the U.S. 
producers’ application may have merit and bearing for the applications of other 
countries.
Board Approves ‘Restructuring’ of TPI

Following months of fact-gathering, listening to members and hearing from 
experts, TPI’s Board of Trustees is embarking on a ‘restructuring’ of the organi­
zation as a means of making it more responsive to member needs. Details will 
be presented in Turf News and through mailings to the members, but essentially, 
the Board has chosen to move away from multiple standing committees and will 
now seek-out member input through twice-annual “Open Forum Round Tables,” 
focus groups and working groups.

In addition, a new group, “Affiliate Representatives” will be developed by 

area, state, regional and national turf organizations who select a TPI member to 
serve this working group. They will convene twice a year to address common 
concerns, share solutions and seek TPI’s involvement or coordination.
Have You Renewed Your TPI Membership?

To receive additional information on any of these items, Contact the TPI Office  

Tel: 800/405-8873 or 847/705-9898  

Fax; 847/705-8347  

e-mail: info@TurfGrassSod.org  

Website: http://www.TurfGrassSod.org

Business Management
Turfgrass Producers International  
1855-A Hicks Road, Rolling Meadows, IL 60008  

e-mail: info@TurfGrassSod.org

Best-Management 
Practices (BMP) for Golf 
Course Irrigation
Golf courses simply cannot afford to 

waste water. It’s to their advantage to 
incorporate water conservation through 
best management practices: proper plant 
selection and maintenance that provide 
adequate turf quality while minimizing 
water use. These include:
- Selecting low water-use turfgrasses, 

groundcovers, shrubs and trees

- Providing adequate nutrients to the 
turf—a balance of potassium and 
nitrogen, while avoiding excessive 
nitrogen

- Using mulches in shrub and flower 

beds to reduce water evaporation 
losses

- Adjusting mowing heights to ideal 
levels, based on seasonal water-use 
characteristics of species

- Using soil cultivation techniques to 
improve water infiltration and mini­
mize irrigation- or rain-water run-off

- Improving drainage to produce 

healthier turf root systems that draw 
moisture from a larger soil volume

- Limiting cart traffic to paths to mini­
mize turf wear and soil compaction
- Cycling irrigation sessions for good 

infiltration and minimize run-off

- Pruning tree roots near turf to prevent 

competition for moisture and nutri­
ents

FIRST CLASS MAIL 

U.S. POSTAGE 

PAID 

Rolling Meadows, IL 60008 

Permit No.662