Garden Retail: The 5 Numbers Project
Explore: Meet the Expert / What You Get / Pricing / Data & Metrics / Downloads
Owners and managers of garden retail stores have been asking us for years, “How are others doing, what are you hearing out there?” The fact is, until now there has not been a national database or benchmarking resource in this industry to answer that constant concern.
Your MarketMetrics will allow you to easily see how your company is doing compared to your peers in the performance numbers that matter. You’ll identify critical industry trends so you can make meaningful business decisions and keep ahead of the pack.
Your MarketMetrics is online, private, visual, filterable … and best of all does not need more spreadsheets, another “office person” or numbers-nerd. You’ll get the specific data you need to ‘beat the street’ and still have a life!
The program is open to any firm in garden retail (whether you’re the member of another group or not).
Subscribe here >>
Subscriptions are Now Open!
Subscriptions to The 5 Numbers Project are now open! Here’s your chance to join more than 50 garden retailers selling nearly $400M from across North America who are measuring what matters to drive profitability and productivity.
By subscribing now, in addition to your personalized dashboards and monthly comparisons, you will get immediate access to current insights and downloadable training tools to help your team understand your company’s opportunities for the year ahead.
Wondering what The 5 Numbers Project looks like?
See a sample of what the dashboards look like and Ian’s personal video comments that each firm receives annually with this 20-minute video.
Your Industry Expert, Ian Baldwin
The Garden Retail community within Your MarketMetrics is led by Ian Baldwin, a veteran retail consultant who has over 30 years in helping his independent garden and hardware clients “make more money with less stress!”
Born and raised in England, holding a BS in Hort and an MBA, Ian is a well-known consultant, speaker and business thought leader in the retail garden industry. He created and delivered The Garden Center University (GCU) management program, conceived the “Gap Theory” for retail fiscal analysis and has a “Who’s Who” consulting client list.
Ian developed the metrics for The 5 Numbers Project from his work with network groups of garden retailers from coast to coast and is excited to extend the concept into a national program of metrics comparison dashboards.
Data & Metrics
The challenge now is not a lack of data, it’s too much data (TMI!). Retail operators are overloaded as it is, so the last thing they need is more data, endless spreadsheets, and extra labor hours to “run the numbers.” In The 5 Numbers Project, Ian shares with participants the five simple data points (and their few but crucial “offspring”) that have enabled many of his clients to consistently out-perform the industry, without more hours in the office.
The 5 Numbers**, to be submitted MONTHLY by each participant.
- Retail Sales in dollars
- Customer Count (transactions or “register rings”)
- Gross Margin dollars
- Labor Cost in dollars
- Labor Hours used
- Item Count (<< New Bonus Number started in 2023!)
The crucial “Offspring” metrics that will be calculated from the 5 Numbers and shown monthly on your Dashboard (Month and YTD comparisons).
- Average Sale per customer
- Gross Margin dollar change
- Labor Costs dollar change
- “Gap” Dollars change
- Sales per Labor Hour
- Basket Size (<< New in 2023!)
- Average Item Price (<< New in 2023!)
** To learn more about the philosophy behind each of The 5 Numbers, read up on Ian’s blog series on T5NP.
Submission Spreadsheet & Glossary
Download the initial data submission template (an Excel spreadsheet).
Subscription Highlights
Your Subscription Includes
- An anonymous USER ID and Personalized login accounts for up to 4 users
- A private dashboard showing your own company results, Year To Date, in dollar values compared to the previous year. To maintain anonymity only you and your authorized team users will see your company’s dollar values.
- A comparison dashboard with peers across the country, showing % changes from previous year – results that can be filtered by business size and geographical region. You will also see (in real dollars) how your Average Sale and Sales/Labor Hour compare with others.
An annual report of aggregated trends reflecting the historic view of the independent garden center channel.
.
Plus. . . Expert Insights
You’ll get “Subscribers Only” insights from Ian Baldwin, to help you understand what you’re seeing on the comparison dashboards and how to improve your business’ performance:
- Annual “Debriefing the Year” and “Post Spring Analysis” videos to see trends across the industry
- Receive opportunities for 1:1 numbers consulting with Ian twice annually to understand your own company’s opportunities & challenges
Your Investment
ONBOARDING
Most importantly, you’ll need to make an INFORMATIONAL investment – you’ll be provided with a downloadable Excel spreadsheet and a video tutorial on getting “apples to apples” – to provide monthly historic data going back to 2018 if possible – and through today, so we can build your company’s baseline dashboards.
$1295 per firm
MONTHLY RENEWAL
Each month, you’ll submit your five numbers online through a convenient online submission portal. And once you hit “submit” that’s it! YMM will quickly calculate and show where your company stands in the Five Numbers AND the “Offspring” metrics compared with yourself – and other firms – for the same month in previous year, and last YTD to this year to date. Monthly renewal will begin in the first month after your account setup.
$175 / month
COMMITMENT PERIOD
We all know meaningful financial improvement doesn’t happen overnight! While we have broken the payments down into a recurring monthly charge, we DO ask firms to commit to an 18-month subscription, to be able to make season-over-season progress over at least two Springs working with the project.
That’s it — collecting and comparing just five numbers will to allow you to focus your attention on what really matters and make meaningful changes in your business’ profitability.