Makeover

Chris Beytes

Something crazy happened over on the Green Profit side of the magazine this month: Inspired by Vogue, Glamour, Vanity Fair, GQ and a thick stack of other fashion magazines, they gave themselves a makeover.

Why? To illustrate the links between fashion, style and gardening, in an effort to help make your business more fashionable, more stylish … dare I say, more hip.

Green Profit, with the help of leading creative types in the industry, has long worked to connect the dots between our products and the consumer world. Color trends is one such way. We were the first to publish Color Marketing Group color trends. And remember when Goldsmith Seeds partnered with Benjamin Moore on paint colors to match flower colors back in the ’90s? We were there to report on it.

Long-time columnist Kerry Herndon was the first flower grower I know of to promote his products (orchids and bromeliads) as fashion while his competitors had barely reached the “décor” stage. And he shared his vision and reasoning with you in the pages of GrowerTalks and Green Profit.

When managing editor Jen Polanz and graphic designer Anissa Lobrillo were planning the makeover for this special issue, they even considered making over ME, GQ-style. Thankfully, they ran out of time before they could hit me with the hair gel and guyliner. (As it is, you’ll note that I’ve loosened my collar since last month).

Now, while we’re advising you retailers to get more stylish, you’ll notice we didn’t suggest you erect a million dollar glass greenhouse, cover your concrete floors with eco-friendly bamboo or dress your employees in matching Armani uniforms. We’re well aware of the cost and time constraints you face; whatever you do to increase the hip factor of your business has to be on a budget.

And as always, we practiced what we preached. My budget is so tiny, my spreadsheets come with a magnifying glass to see the bottom line. Still, we have long operated on what my friend Kellee McGee O’Reilly calls “the magic of the shoestring,” so we found ways to take Green Profit from comfortably stylish to fashion forward without spending any more than we normally would.

For instance, the cover photo was shot in-house using my creative director’s daughter, a donated Dramm Colorstorm hose and fashion from SteinMart, Target and Zappos. We were looking for “Glamour meets Garden Center” and we think we achieved it.

We couldn’t go out and hire all new columnists (nor did we want to), so we briefed our existing writers on our plan and asked them to write like they were on the Vanity Fair masthead. Nor could we afford to reshoot their photos, so we tweaked them up in Photoshop. We kept all our existing departments, but we redesigned them to reflect this new, albeit, temporary look. “First Off” became “First.” Front Lines became “Front.” (In that same vane,  I suggested “Cheap” for “Cheap Tricks,” but “Tricks” works better, don’t you think?) In fact, we like the shorter names enough that we might keep them. (By the way, that’s a good editing trick: Write your sentence, then remove every adjective. You’d be surprise how much stronger the writing usually is. “Very” is one of the first words to cut.)

Really, in the end, a makeover, whether of a magazine or a garden center, has more to do with attitude than with physical changes. What’s that saying about putting lipstick on a pig? I’m blessed with a talented pool of writers and editors who could write for any fashionable publication. If they couldn’t write their way out of a paper sack, it wouldn’t matter how cool the magazine pages looked, it would still be boring.

The same goes for your business. Focus as much of your makeover efforts on your staff’s attitude (and your own!) as you do on your color schemes and displays. That way, every element of your business will reflect your newfound trendiness. GT