DECEMBER 2022

Article by Jessica Johnson, Managing Editor, Power Equipment Trade

WEST MONROE, Louisiana – Jeff Smith says you only have one chance to make a first impression, so the building his dealership is housed in packs one heck of a punch. From the sheer size of it, to the paint colors, to the suspended zero-turn mower over the front door, it is hard not to notice Twin City Outdoor. Having purchased the land off a service road adjacent to Interstate 20 in 2015, Smith sat on it a while. Then after a brief meeting with his accountant, decided to expand the dealership from its old location of 8,000 sq. ft. more in the town of West Monroe proper in 2019. He drew out the plans he wanted, headed to an architect to put in the beams and the bathrooms and got the ball rolling. Twin City Outdoor has 45,000 sq. ft. under roof, 38,000 sq. ft. inside, including a 20,000 sq. ft. showroom and 3,000 sq. ft. of parts with 30 ft. ceilings.

What’s perhaps one of the most noticeable things about Twin City Outdoor is not the size, but the color. Whereas most buildings are grey or tan or some combination, which Smith admits is what he had initially chosen for the dealership, Twin City Outdoor is a combination of leprechaun green and orange. It is very loud. It is nearly impossible to forget and not notice—just the way Smith wanted it to be. The color scheme was born after a road trip with his wife where they noticed a bright colored building. It stuck in their minds so much that on the way back they pulled off the road and looked at it, taking pictures and marveling at how much a bright green building, that housed storage units, could stick in their minds so much.

Well, come to find out, the storage building’s color was selected because it was eye catching and backed by neurological studies about colors and memories, an internet search revealed. That was all Smith needed to know—Twin City Outdoor was going to be a giant green and orange superstore on the side of the highway, impossible to miss.

Smith laughs as he tells the story of an older man in town who stops him every time he sees him to comment that Twin City Outdoor has the ugliest color of a building he’s ever seen. “I ask him, ‘do you notice it?’ and he says every time. Well, that’s what it was designed to do,” Smith explains.

I guess it really isn’t a secret that life is just always moving at warp speed and we are simply hamsters on the wheel. Or that naturally, when the weather turns cold and the days are shorter, the instinct is to burrow in—retreat into our homes and our thoughts. I don’t know why December always makes me a little blue. I have young kids at home, and Christmas is magical, if not a lot of work at this stage in my life. Don’t get me started on that blasted “elf on the shelf” . . .

Article by Jessica Johnson, Managing Editor, Power Equipment Trade

Cooper has been a loyal shop dog at Art’s Lawn Mower Shop, Florissant, Missouri, since March 2020.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The following companies submitted editorial profiles to complement their advertisements in Power Equipment Trade December 2022.

Rotary

Sunbelt Outdoor Products

Yamaha

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky – Packed aisles and sold out show space marked a successful Equip Expo, the first year of the re-branded GIE+EXPO event, now fully owned and operated by the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute (OPEI). “Well, we sold every inch,” at the Kentucky Expo Center in Louisville for Equip Exposition 2022, said Kris Kiser, CEO of OPEI, who was truly excited about the show’s resilience and relevance after 39 years and through several name changes. Equip Exposition has shown remarkable adaptability during five decades, with an ability to repeatedly reinvent itself, Kiser said.

Dan Shell and Jacqlyn Kirkland contributed to this article.

What if your dealership could use one of the most valuable forms of marketing—the one that customers and potential customers trust above all others and the one that will most likely result in an increase in sales? I know what you’re thinking: Such a thing doesn’t exist or that would require a large ad budget. The good news? Word of mouth marketing can work for any size dealership and in most cases it doesn’t require an advertising budget.

Readers are encouraged to send relevant historical lawn and garden media items in.

In 2022, Power Equipment Trade told the story of five independent servicing dealers in the U.S. In this month's issue read what they had to say about everything from managing employees to life.