From hundreds of employees to local school children, emphasizing education pays off for Pike Family Nurseries.

by Delilah Onofrey, Group Editor
donofrey@meistermedia.com

When you walk into any of the Pike Family Nurseries, one of the first things you’ll notice is they seem to be doing everything right. What’s even more amazing is Pike’s has been able to replicate this success at more than 20 garden centers in the Atlanta metro area and is now sprouting outside cities in new regions, like Birmingham, Ala.

Pike isn’t an overnight success but one built on sticking to its core values for more than 40 years and working at it everyday. Founder William “Pete” Pike began with a single garden store and three employees in Marietta, Ga. Building on a reputation for top-quality plants and expert staff, Pike Family Nurseries grew into the largest independent chain of garden centers in the Southeast.

Today, the company is led by the second generation, with son Randy Pike as president and CEO, brother Gary in charge of the wholesale division and sister Dana actively involved in the business. A year ago, the family took on Roark Capital, an Atlanta-based private equity firm, as a partner to gain access to capital for expansion.

“We were looking for seven years for a good partner but didn’t find the right match or chemistry,” Randy says. “We did a lot of research and met with 50 companies. It’s been a match made in heaven. They’re great guys. They bought the majority interest, but we still own stock. We also have a vested interest in the company being successful. It’s got our name on it.”

Big On Education

	Pike Family Nurseries Owners: The Pike family and Roark Capital, a private equity firm. Location: headquarters in Norcross, Ga. Founded: 1958. Size: 26 locations in metro Atlanta, with a new one in Birmingham, Ala. Employees: 1,5OO peak season. Divisions: full-service retail garden centers, wholesale for contractors, stone and aquatic centers and the Pike Design Group. Web site: www.pikenursery.com Slogan: I love to play in the dirt.

Although Pike is a family business, Randy views it as an extended family and believes each employee makes a difference. Pike’s commitment to employee training may be unmatched in the industry. “Every week of the year, whether it’s product knowledge, use of equipment, loading, plant care, we have training,” Randy says. “Every new employee goes through orientation and learns the Pike motto and culture. Then at the store level, a trainer trains. It’s expensive, but it pays off in the long run. It started 20 years ago. We call it Pike University.”

Pike’s headquarters in Norcross, Ga., has a modern lecture hall that can fit more than 100 people, complete with a stage, rows of tables and several computer stations. Training varies with the position. It could be four hours for a cashier or 40 hours for an accountant. Most of it is on-the-job training.

Beyond human resources, Pike has a vice president of personnel development dedicated to employee training – Wayne Juers, who has a horticulture degree from the University of Georgia (UGA) and was a store manager for 15 years and a high school teacher for four years.

Juers says Pike measures results by doing brand audits and evaluating customer service through secret shoppers and the shopper report with customer comments. “If employees get a good shopper report, they get a green merit leaf to put on their name badge and a $50 savings bond. We also have applausograms, which encourage employees to recognize each other and reinforce good behavior.”

With the leadership at Pike, Juers has developed training modules. “If there’s a customer service issue, we can respond with a new module to address it,” he says.

Pike also works closely with the University of Georgia to have certified nursery professionals on staff by having employees enroll in the Georgia Green Industry’s certification program.

“You can talk to certified plant professionals in the stores, not just one,” says Marketing Director Vincent Donroe. “We’re so proud of it because we know we have many of them in our stores. We know people can get the right help. We also recruit from the University of Georgia and Auburn so we have horticulturists.”

Having educated employees is not only a big part of delivering good customer service, but also maintaining the quality of plants at retail. “As soon as the shipment lands on our ground, it will be taken care of – all by hand,” Randy says. “We’re not using a sprinkler or watering them all at the same time.”

Reaching Out

	Sweet Southern Living Pike Family Nurseries’ new Birmingham-area store in Hoover, Ala., features a Southern Living idea garden, which will change four times a year with the seasons. The magazine’s editor, John Floyd, was there for the ribbon-cutting ceremony, along with the mayor of Hoover. “It’s so great to have a garden center like this in your hometown,” Floyd says. “Pike came to us and asked about partnering to show the Southern Living style of gardening. Our editorial staff came up with the idea garden for the community and general public to see our ideas in action. It’s a reader-based marketing program and a lot of fun.”

Perhaps the program Randy is most proud of is its Pike’s Tikes in-school classroom program, which provides a hands-on lesson in planting to second graders. A Pike spokesperson visits the individual classes with an activity cart. After a 45-minute presentation, the children come forward to plant as the instructor leads them through the steps. “We’ve reached more than 100,000 kids in Atlanta,” he says.

Pike also educates grownups through its speakers’ bureau, which started in 1979 with one horticulturist speaking to clubs. Over the last 18 years, it has grown to include 60 speakers. This service is offered to nonprofit organizations, neighborhoods, civic and senior groups. The fee for a one-hour presentation is $75. Audience minimum is 20 people.

In Pike’s Greenback fund-raising program, 7 percent of the cash value of purchases made are refunded to the group in the form of a credit that my be used for flowers, seeds, plants, shrubs, trees, tools and more. Other outreach programs include supporting the Atlanta Fire Department to give free Christmas trees to those in need and being a big sponsor of the Southeastern Flower Show at the Georgia World Congress Center in downtown Atlanta. Proceeds support the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

Playing In The Dirt
Pike is on a mission to make gardening fun and actively engages its customers through its Play In The Dirt Club. Members receive educational newsletters year round, as well as invitations to fun events and special offers. At the garden centers, Pike sells shirts that say “I love to play in the dirt” and even had a CD made with 12 songs, including “Come Play In The Dirt.” Randy has heard assemblies of 400 to 500 children sing this song.

“When we were little kids, we enjoyed getting all dirty, but as we got older and had to cut the grass or trim the bushes, it became a chore,” he says. “When we grow up, there’s so much stress. We want to go back and play in the dirt like when we were kids.”

The industry should do all it can to present gardening as a fun activity, he says. “You create excitement. It’s something else to do on the weekend, not a chore,” Randy says. “It’s fun to do a little at a time. Let the kids put together their own container gardens or plant a tree in their honor instead of going to a movie or out to eat for dinner or watching TV.”

Donroe says Pike’s advertising strategy is to reach both avid gardeners and weekend gardeners. “We use a mix of mediums to reach them – newspaper, radio and direct mail,” he says. “Our free-standing inserts are highly successful. People love the vividness and the information.”

One clever radio skit features a man who is a weekend gardener talking to a woman, who is an avid gardener. She raves to him about all the great things she found at Pike. As part of its radio advertising, Pike also sponsors Atlanta gardening celebrity Walter Reeves’ show from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Saturday mornings. Eight of the broadcasts are live at a Pike store – four in the spring and four in the fall.

Outlook & Opportunity
Randy is someone who sees a much bigger picture than the business itself. “When we sell $10 million worth of stuff, that means $10 million worth of flowers were planted to beautify the community,” he says.

When asked how he feels about box stores staking a bigger claim in lawn and garden, he says, “I like Home Depot and Lowe’s. Some stores are right next to ours. It doesn’t bother me one bit. Everybody has their place.”

Randy notes our industry may be the fastest growing in America but a lot of people don’t do real gardening. “If we can teach them how to do it and make it simple and not so chore driven, they will see results,” he says. “All the benefits people talk about associated with gardening are true. It’s just getting them to do it. It’s the best way to grow our industry.”