“Good idea,” I thought, complimenting myself on another bright idea for attracting more customers.

Greenburgh Nature Center, a 33-acre, town-operated nature center, is less than a quarter mile from my newly opened store.

The members and visitors to the center must be my kind of customers – interested in nature in general and, hopefully, in birds. I’ll get to know them and see how we can work together. It really was a good idea.

My approach was received politely but coolly. I got along great with the staff but learned that the director feared my store might be a threat to his tiny gift shop.

"There must be some way to create a good relationship," I pondered.

Later that fall, our local newspaper featured the nature center’s annual bird seed sale. That re-kindled my interest.

I want to be their supplier for bird seed. But how?

A wise sales pro once told me that getting someone’s business is easy. First you must understand the potential customer’s problem. Then you solve it.

What problem does a nature center have with a seed sale? I didn’t have a clue. So I probed the friendly staff. Imagine running a small nature center. It may sound ideal. But think about the reality. The budget is always tight. The small staff is enthusiastic but overburdened. They have hundreds of ideas for fun activities but are bogged down by mundane daily chores.

My nature center relies heavily on a large group of teenage volunteers. They’re eager, love to work with animals and nature but not really excited about menial tasks such as cleaning or organizing. Without these volunteers, the work for paid staff would be overwhelming.

In addition to the fall bird seed sale, the center holds a popular fall festival, a popular Halloween Scare Night and a member appreciation fall foliage boat trip – all within a few weeks. Each of these programs requires a lot of staff and volunteer time.

Reinvented Seed Sale

The seed sale, happening at the same time, needs volunteer help mostly for manual labor: unloading seed bags from the truck, stacking it, carrying it to customers’ cars. Not the fun type of work that nature-loving teenagers rush to do. So one problem associated with their seed sale was the heavy demand on the volunteer help.

There was another problem. Customers who ordered bird seed were asked to pick up their seed only during certain hours on a specific Saturday afternoon. This timeframe was not always convenient. Customers had to wedge their seed pick-up into an afternoon packed with other activities.

Inevitably, some people do not pick up their seed at the allotted time. They may come earlier in the morning or the next day. Sometimes they are out of town or simply forget and don’t show up until two weeks later.

Any seed bags not picked up on the scheduled day are in the way and must be moved to a shed for storage. This requires more volunteer effort.

I now understood the major problem associated with their annual bird seed sale: it places additional burden on staff and volunteers during an already busy period. So I devised a solution and won their business. Here’s how.

I eliminated concerns about volunteer labor by offering to do all the labor for them. At no charge. They no longer needed to coax volunteers to lug seed bags. I would do it.

They didn’t have to worry about ordering seed from a vendor, unloading trucks, or storing bags. I would do it all.

My solution did have one negative: I asked that customers pick up seed they ordered not at the nature center but at my store, where they might buy something.

Although my store is only a few blocks from the center and on the same street, I worried that they might consider any change of location undesirable. I tried to overcome this potential objection by allowing their customers to pick up seed at any time, not just at certain hours on a specific day.

I am normally in the store anyhow, so I did not incur any increased labor cost. Any added cost associated with the center’s seed sale I considered a form of advertising.

I discussed my plan with the center’s staff. They loved it, and should have. It eliminated a lot of work.

But they did not think the director would go for it. They warned me that he had been dealing with his seed supplier for a decade. Still, they liked it so much they agreed to present my formal, written proposal at the next staff meeting.

Minutes after the staff meeting, I received an excited call with good news. The director accepted my proposal. I got their seed business.

That was the start of my relationship with the nature center, a relationship that continues to grow. In addition to their annual seed sale, I have conducted birding programs for them.

They have presented programs in my store. We do joint bird walks. They refer visitors to my store to buy birdfeeders. I send families to them to join their children’s program. The director even got me up at 5 a.m. to join him on a bird census.

Our strong relationship happened only because I took time to understand their business and think about their problems from their point-of-view.

The old sales adage "know your customer" really does work.