Greetings!
We have 6 inches of snow! Those of you who know me know that snow is one of my least favorite things. However, it signal end to the landscape season and puts us into "winter mode." For some that means relocating to warmer weather. For others it means starting winter projects. For me, its teachin' time. Before I get to that, though, I want to share a few things with you.
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In the last newsletter I forgot to mention my friend, and advisory board member, Joel Lerner of Environmental Design in Chevy Chase, MD, who is the current cover story for the Professional Landscape Design section of Lawn & Landscape Magazine! Congrats, Joel!
Over the years I've learned a ton from Joel about getting noticed. In my mind, he is the king of guerilla marketing. The article in L&L tells a bit of the story, or you can get the full one from his book: The Landscape Professional's Marketing and Sales Sourcebook. The book was written long before the internet played such a huge role, but the principles are easily adapted. Contact him directly if you're interested.
In fact, guerilla marketing has gotten me some nice opportunities. A small one is the My Favorite Plant exercise, which is described in my Blog.
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| Green Industry?
 What's this 'roo have to do with being green? Click here to find out!
Seriously, "Green" is in! Every other business seems to get it and use it to its marketing advantage. In my local Ace Hardware the other day, I saw a display of ACE logo'd canvas shopping bags for sale accompanied by a sign reading something like "Saving The Planet One Bag At a Time." It listed comparisons between canvas vs. plastic bags, including biodegradability, resources used to produce and deliver them, and reusability. All that to sell bags! Will buying one of those bags save the planet? Try it and find out! Only 3 bucks.
Why not the Green Industry? We're an odd group for sure, as we don't always get to the party on time. We also take a lot of criticism for noisy leaf blowers, chemical use and vehicle and small equipment emissions. How do we get in on the Green thing? Well, we already are! I blogged this topic a couple weeks ago. There are some good business ideas there, so check it out and let me know what you think!
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Trademark
Last week we received our official trademark registration from the USPTO! It took the better part of a year, but I was able to do it without hiring an attorney. Though the idea of pursuing it was planted by APLD Counsel and all-around good guy, Sam Swansen, and I did ask my personal attorney for some advice, I was able to work it out myself with the help of the internet and legalzoom.com. Now it's time to add the ®!
Course Schedule
Courses for Winter 2008 have been posted on our web site. There are some big changes from past offerings, all of which were driven by responses from the survey we did last year. Thanks to all of you who took the time to respond! Please feel free to let us know what you think.
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