| Progress North
Update:
Just want to keep you up to date with "what’s happening" around Progress North, the joint conference between OFFMA/NAFDMA being held Jan. 14 – 20, 2002 at the Sheraton Centre, Toronto. The latest good news is, we have confirmed our feature speakers for the conference. We could have over 100 speakers before the program is complete, but there are 4 that I would like to tell you about this month. Bob Woodhouse is our opening keynote speaker at the conference. Bob lives in the Guelph Ontario area, but just got back from a year’s trip around the world. His unique style will entertain plus educate everyone. He will open our conference with an animated yet practical talk on "Balancing Your Life", an important concept for farm marketers who put in 70 and 80 hour work weeks in the heat of the season. One reason it’s animated is, he makes his presentation while juggling! Bob has worked with some of the largest companies in Canada like CIBC, but he also works on smaller businesses showing them how to get a business to grow. Come prepared to get involved, get excited and maybe even learn how to juggle! Gill Masters is a marketer from Britain. She and her husband not only have a roadside market (farm shop), but also do on-farm entertainment, school tours and group functions. Besides their innovative ideas in on-farm marketing, they are now going through the most horrendous experience imaginable, operating a retail farm business in a country paranoid over Hoof & Mouth Disease. This has impacted their customer count, because people are afraid to come to a farm for fear that they contribute to the spread of the disease. Gill will talk in 2 or 3 sessions, "Crisis Management", "Children’s Parties" and possibly "Edutainment". Pete Luckett operates Pete’s Frootique, a multi-million dollar retail produce store in Bedford Nova Scotia. Not bad considering the market area (Halifax, Dartmouth, Lower Sackville and Bedford etc., wouldn’t have a combined population of 250,000. But that’s not all. He has authored 2 books on produce, appeared on CBC for 12 years and now is on CTV weekly talking about his passion, food! His market has awesome displays with top quality product, and he helps ensure customer loyalty by using branded products under the logo, "Pete’s Brand". In 1999 he won the "Best Independent Specialty Grocery Store in Canada" award. When he’s not working (which is about 75 hrs. per week), he does |
motorcycle racing. His presentation style is high energy with humour, but it includes lots of ideas that you can take home and implement immediately. Pete will be the keynote speaker opening the second morning of the conference. Because of his hands-on experience in retailing, we have also asked Pete to participate in the session "Wants Vs. Needs, How to Market Them". |
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| John
Stanley is a marketing consultant for Australia. John has spoken at
conferences and has clients all over the world including Canada. The
interesting thing about his clients in Ontario and the rest of Canada is,
they are some of the leading retailers in their field. John spoke at the
Arizona NAFDMA conference and received the 2nd
highest rating for all the speakers at the
conference. Comments like "Very excellent speaker", "His
information is pertinent to any retailer". "He can hold your
attention"! "This man is the best retail speaker I’ve
heard". "It had things that I could take home and use!"
John works in both the garden centre industry and the retail produce
industry. We have asked him to participate in 2 sessions, "Gardening
Trends" and likely something in the "Advanced Markets"
track.
We plan to keep you updated in each newsletter. Stay tuned! Joint Ventures Ted Milner, Milner Refrigeration (OFFMA Assoc. Director 1991-2000) shared a story about a group of 4 builders and a developer in Barrie who together have formed a little marketing company and paid for signage, a website that links to each of their individual websites, plus newspaper & radio advertising.They are now working on their 4th "Grand Opening" using local papers. The local radio station does on site "spots" at each location, plus runs 20-25 ads during the prior week. Last weekend they had advertisements in the Sun. (On an individual basis, it would have been financially impossible to do what they have done.) They are very pleased with the overall results. They have had great traffic and sales have been better and more profitable than anticipated. Ted felt it would be worth mentioning to our members, as the principal should also work if local marketers got together and did some cooperative marketing.
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