Q: What does the first week after Valentine’s look like in Gringoville?

A: Well, first we start to recharge our battery after 21 days straight of organized chaos.
Then, in the spirit of constant improvement, all of our department heads
meet with their teams and put together their department GBU’s.

Q: What are GBU’s?

A: The Goos the Bad and the Ugly!

Q: What came of those meetings?

A: The biggest action item came around forecasting.
We got caught off guard with the growth.
We were planning on 12% and got hit with a 38% volume increase?

Q: That’s good, right?

A:  It’s good and bad.

Q: Why bad?

A: Well, we call it the 6P’s:
Proper Planning and Planting Prevents Poor Performance.
When the numbers come in that strong, and over plan, that means
we have to work a lot of overtime hours to get all orders out the
door on time and operating costs go through the roof.

Q: Ah, so bad for you, but not bad for your customers?

A: Mostly. It’s bad for customers only when we haven’t planted for increased volume;
then we wouldn't have the extra flowers they'd have wanted.

Q: Got it. So what would you do about that?

A: More desk-side chats with clients. We have to plan and plant together for best outcome.

Q: What’s the next planting period?

A: Right now we are working with clients on summer Sunflower planting
forecasts for weeks 24 though 34 (June 11th—August 26th).

Q: What’s the deadline to get those forecasts from clients?

A: March 15th.

Q: Are your clients collaborative when it comes to forecasting?

A: They most definitely are. We’re lucky. We have some really bright clients with
really good data and we just need to do a better job on our front of getting that
information from them so that we can plant the right quantities for the right times.
They know that it’s in their best interest to forecast. The stakes are high and
“you can’t sell apples out of an empty apple cart.”

Q: OK. Got it.
So, new subject.
I see there’s a new video on your website.
What’s that all about?

A: I’m glad you saw that. We had multiple clients ask us to
put a quick video together so that they could use it to show stores
how to use their new Dos Gringos display fixtures.

Q: Cool idea.

A: Some of our best ideas come from clients.
I think it turned out really nice. It’s 33 seconds long.
I’m guessing that the team created
it around my short attention span?!

Q: Speaking of short attention span. Remind me of the link again.

A: Here you go! Just click below: