Three ways to advance your nursery business before an economic downturn

A version of this article was previously published in the August 2019 edition of  Digger Magazine.

Market fluctuations and shifting consumer trends can create economic complications for businesses across industries. However, even though an economic downturn may be looming, the nursery industry’s current strength provides a sturdy foundation for making informed business decisions that could position companies for stability and growth, regardless of outside influences.

Following are three steps your nursery business can take to evaluate and bolster its strengths while the economy is still stable.

Develop a people plan

When determining future business goals, it’s important to identify leadership gaps and decide how best to fill those needs. This can be achieved through a few steps.

Build your leadership team

Begin building a strong nursery-leadership team by taking the following measures:

• Fill missing roles
• Invest in high performers and develop future positions for them
• Identify the most important elements of each position
• Determine necessary title and compensation changes

Plan for succession

Once established, your leadership team is responsible for determining potential successors. Specifically, leadership should address CEO and other top-executive succession planning, considering internal and external candidates.

Management succession

While leadership succession planning often gets more airtime than management succession, it’s difficult to implement ownership and wealth transitions without an effective management succession plan.

Provide employee resources

Leadership should be able to provide insight into development programs available to employees. These programs are critical for preparing a business for succession.

When effectively made, your people-development plan should yield a significant return on investment and be a net positive to your business’ bottom line.