The more things change the more they stay the same… I don’t believe that sentiment anymore. Clearly there is a lack of originality happening today. This lack of originality leads to the recycling of ideas; and I do believe some of those ideas should have been buried – and never revived!  I see this within the fertilizer business as well as in the lawn care industry regularly. Products come and go, and then come and go again, and again. Currently it’s been my observation there is a new and bigger push happening right now called the “We’ve Got Something Just Like That Now!”

In recent weeks, I’ve been receiving this type of feedback from several customers of mine… essentially, what is happening, is they are being contacted by major suppliers and manufacturers, and in an effort to get that customer and their business back into their fold – varying attempts are being made to reclaim those customers through nonsensical false claims plus expensive products in an effort to entice them to switch out of our products for their product offerings. And the product and price comparisons being made are just not even close.

While I learn to embrace the “Forward Thinker”, or “You’re Ahead of Your Time” or “Anti-Establishment” persona that I’ve been labeled with, I do think that it’s endearing, in a way, to now be “copied” by companies that have had decades to provide better products for the industry. The nonsensical claims many of my customers are now hearing, especially during THIS new growing season confirms our guiding principle that the industry and the customers we service deserve better, and this leads me to believe there is a shift attempting to occur here. Allow me to explain:

The fertilizer industry has long been on the thinking, marketing, studying, and misleading model of “put down the max rate of everything, every time.” Yet I now have over a decade proving that model to be detrimental to lawns and ultimately to the service industry. After years of professional applicators scratching their heads over the diminishing results based upon the model and way of thinking, the lawn service industry is now demanding better products and better results. And yet, the fertilizer industry “recycles” and remains with their decades of information based solely on plant science and rooted in the “just apply more” model.

So, here we are. Those fertilizer companies are now trying to sell against something that is less than half the input and twice the result; their mottos and rates however remain the same such as “add this extra thing in and it will do a little bit of something as well as only cost you two times what you are paying,” What!?

If this sounds ridiculous, it’s because it is. So now we have their company reps, who are just doing their jobs, moving material and selling something because they need to compete in a changing marketplace and while people are getting smarter and more educated about functions of fertility and soils. See a shift happening here between the two industries?

So there ARE other upstarts… people like me who have made it their life’s work to create something unique, functional, affordable, simple to understand and easy to implement and this is causing waves, not ripples in the marketplace. The scramble for companies to have something similar and say “me too, me too! I have that!” is happening all over the place right now. So when our customers are being contacted and told: “I’ve Got Something Just Like That Now!” ….  The result is a misfire. An educated customer is a hard sell for a fertilizer salesperson; it’s about knowing when you’re being sold a literal bag of crap and no substance.

As you may know, I have personally taken the stance of education first and sales second. This means that anyone can read, watch and study what I’ve been presenting in an effort to maybe make a bigger difference overall. That doesn’t seem to matter. People are simply copying verbiage from my websites and articles and using those terms to promote their own products. They claim their products can perform (but they don’t), and those products are offered for sale at 3-4x the rate of what we do.

These are also the companies who don’t understand how to implement carbon first, fertility forward, non-chemical corrective fertility models and are struggling to keep up. They don’t understand our fertility model or the function of how more can truly be accomplished with less. So, how does one promote a business model that in and of itself is designed to sell customers LESS product over time? That’s right, in the last few years we have cut application rates for clients that have been with us for a number of years. They were already applying less than half the industry standards of N to begin with; now it’s even less, and the grass and soil are flourishing.

I still take the stance of “I have no competition; I only have allies that are promoting my business through their short comings!” So, even with the “recyclers” and the folks trying to sell their products as a “we have something like that now too…” well, overall I suppose the more people continue to talk about this fertility model of treating the environment as a whole unit, not pieces, it is easier for me to move forward faster. This is one of the reasons I wanted to have my writing put into public forum, so that people can see the years of conversation here, not some “yahoo” spreading wild new ideas. I suppose at the end of the day, science and understanding will prevail. One without the other is counterproductive.

For over ten years now, we have been at the forefront of fertility through carbon first, fertility forward, non-chemical corrective fertility models. Looking back from our early “go green” startup days back in 2005-2008 to present day – it is gratifying to see and experience the growth from customers to products to peer networks to the growing collective lawn care industry knowledge and more. Many of you are our “bio-based pioneers” and you have been with us every step of the way. Thank you! Let’s keep growing…..