DIRTY SECRETS Never Underestimate THE POWER OF a Simple Idea The one simple question to ask that can help you make better quality sales and better sales relationships - and train yourselves to be better advocates for customers. By Christina Salwitz I n my job as The Personal Garden Coach, I feel like I have heard it all since I opened this business - and if you add in my 20 plus years in retail garden centers, until recently I felt quite resolved about it. But of course, like so many topics we feel confident about, someone or something comes along and rocks our world to teach us that we ain't seen nothin' yet! That's precisely what I want to discuss this month and remind all of us that we can't take any of our diligent efforts at spreading good horticultural information for granted and that there will always be that one gardener who makes you scratch your head and say to yourself " Really? " Information Gathering So much of our daily interactions with customers and clients relies on us effectively " giving permission " for the gardener we're helping to do something they've always wanted to do. Like removing shrubs they have hated for 20 years, or adding an expensive collector's peony to the garden that they've always wanted because it reminds them of their departed mother. We're also consistently called upon to be amateur detectives in the best interest of the customer, too. I used to be one of those online plant ID app people who identified as many as 50 plants per day for customers based on terrible phone photos - and I got pretty darn good at it because I learned to ask the not-so-obvious questions that others had missed and eventually given up on. 46 | LAWN & GARDEN RETAILER | JANUARY 2020