Business as a creative force

I'm certainly enjoying this blog. Although I don't have readership now, I feel if I keep it up I'll gain readers. In this post I'll explain why I'm so confident of that. I'm riding a technological wave, and amazingly many aren't along for the ride.

I think the Internet is making some corporations much stronger but it is creating amazing new opportunities for individuals. Look at Home Depot and plants, for instance. Home Depot has fine plants and if someone needed just one 3 gallon plant that wouldn't be a bad place to go. It's efficient for such purchases. But most sales associates can't match the knowledge a 30 year grower has. They don't have hundreds of acres of stock on hand. They bring in stuff and slap a price tag on it. Someone who might not even know the type of plant scans it in and you put it in your minivan. Back up the supply chain...

The Internet opens up commerce for so many individuals. To think Craigslist lets people advertise for free (what will the newspapers do?). Google adwords gives me the same exposure as a multinational. Maybe Super Bowl advertising is important for some people and maybe advertising builds a sense of trust for people. Perhaps I'm underestimating the power of the brand because I'm in somewhat of a fragmented industry. No one company monopolizes landscaping or plant brokerage in South Florida.

Obviously this isn't restricted to trees. Moving and storage, logistics, microbrews, etc, specialized marketing on the Internet is a great enabler....I would like to move Plants From Paradise online beyond merely being a place for people to order plants or landscaping to becoming the place for design tips, discussion areas about plants, information how landscaping affects the environment and so on. I envison knowledge to be much more valuable to this undertaking as sweat and muscle.

Obviously landscaping is physical work. It gets hot in the summer and I'm on every job up to this point. True I have helpers and sometimes machines are needed, but it isn't the speed that I can dig a hole which will create anything of lasting value. Planning a landscape is process which requires intimate knowledge of the plants. Such skills aren't quite as fungible as the ability to rapidly dig a hole. (Not that I can't dig quickly- invite me to install a tree, I'll prove it-it's just that creating a landscaping plan and a successful business requires so much more.)

I'm looking forward to seeing where www.MiamiJunkRemoval.blogspot.com will go. It will be a profitable venture, I'm sure, and I can coordinate junk removal after landscaping jobs. The price of gas is FORCING us to become more efficient. Hopefully people won't view this foray into junk removal as a dilution of my goals with PlantsFromParadise.com, because it's merely a way to recoup some gas expenses. It'll be interesting: Bring in Beauty, Bring out Junk. I already have a motto.

In the meantime, I'm reading "Getting Things Done" by David Allen. I have to say I recommend it so far. I'd say I lived up to the title today, if you consider snorkeling in the Keys getting something done :)