John Stanley

I encourage my clients to enter awards. Yes, it takes time to get the application in, but the rewards can be tremendous. Many of you will know that my wife, Linda, and I have a sweet chestnut farm. This year we entered the Global Agritourism Awards. Farms in the sector entered from around the work. […]

Telling stories can grow sales, we have proven that this works many times. The key is having the knowledge that the customer can believe.The key to success is building t credible knowledge the customer can have confidence in.How do you obtain knowledge is the key.Janet Draper of the Smithsonian Institute recently gave a presentation on

As a farmer we can sell a 550 gram added value chestnut product for $15 and believe we are making good money. Okay we have to wait 7 years for a chestnut tree to fruit, but that is part of the game rules. On a recent visit to the farmers market in Helsinki we discovered a farmer making

Successful businesses that deal with consumers understand that they are in the solutions industry, not the product industry. On my recent tour of the USA I saw an excellent example of this in action.The Perennial Farm is located in Maryland and is one of the largest suppliers of perennial plants, except they do not sell

Boston is one of the older cities of the USA and famous for its side street retailing and cafes. Early February may not be the best time to go retail discovering in this city, but at least there are no crowds. Most cities in America are not designed for walking tours- Boston is. There were two spots that were

At this time of year, a host of trend reports come out from around the world forecasting how the next twelve months is going to be. I’m told the word of the year in America, and one I have seen in reports already is that 2024 will be “Indefatigable”. My first reaction was to get the dictionary out ( yes, not Google) and find

It takes time,patience and money to develop a new product. Once developed the least you can do is take pride in the product and what you have achieved. If you do not take pride in the product, the team will treat it as a commodity and eventually it will be sold on price rather than

Parti Kereszet is one of our garden centre clients in the north of Hungary. They have just finished their Christmas display and we thought we would share it with you. The aim is to inspire the customer and this is what they have achieved. Brilliant job

I don’t know about you, but I love simple ideas, the often obvious ideas that increase sales. When I hear them I often shrug my shoulders and think I knew that, but I have never used it as a selling technique I had one of those moments recently at a farmers market. More and more small