square foot and no lower--that’s pricing fixing. Accurately determining your direct costs and your overhead costs and setting a price that allows you to recoup that and earn a reasonable profit—that’s just plain common sense and what it takes to run and grow a business. Too much of our industry was operating on the farming model—what are you going to pay me for my crop? Not the professional business model—this is the quality product I’m offering and this is its price. We were seeing cost increases in cars, carpets, and housing, and coping with increasing costs from our suppliers, but not being paid sufficiently for the product that we were delivering and afraid to ask for more thinking we’d lose customers if we did. I could put in some jabs to try to wake them up and even make fun of sod growers because I am one. But when I’d throw out some figures on the impact when you drop your price and how much more turf you have to sell to make the same amount of profit, it got the point across.”
Betsy adds, “Randy was the first one bold enough to present that message in a conference session and it created quite a stir. I remember Arthur Milberger talking about the power of his message when he presented the President’s Leadership Award to Randy in 2007. And people still come up to him at the TPI conferences—even last year in Houston—and tell how his presentation to their association turned their own business around and was key to their remaining in business today.”
Randy and Dr. Jim Watson hold a roll of sod during the George Toma farm tour. Photo courtesy of the Graff family
Tat farm was the quarter section of 160 acres they’d started renting in 1978, an old dairy farm with great sandy soil and excellent water. Te center pivot irrigation system they purchased covered about 126 acres of that for sod production Randy says, “We tore down the corrals; converted the barn to a storage building; and really cleaned up the property, putting a lot of money into it. Ten, in 1982, when we bought it the owner sold it to us at about three and a half times what he had paid for it. So we basically paid for the work we had done. We might have been smarter to move. But we knew the quality of the sod we could produce there, the location was good, and we planned on spending our life there. In retrospect, it was the right choice.”
Betsy reports Randy was really happy being a mom and pop operation. “Our client base covered the residential, commercial and golf course markets and we were getting into sports turf on the regional and state level. He loved the day to day challenges of turf farming,” says Betsy. “We were a good team. I handled the office side of the business. I was the bookkeeper, handled sales, scheduling, marketing and mowing, running the harvester and forklifts in the field or loading sod for customers. Randy and I worked trade shows together and worked with customers on turf issues. Randy also did delivery and installs. I look back on those early days now and wonder how we did all of that.”
Te Graff’s family life revolved around the farm—just ask Amy and James. Tey grew up in the business and it didn’t take long for them to be helping on the farm and in the office.
Randy Graff makes a presentation on pricing in 2008 at Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Photo from the TPI Archives
Growing the Business
Randy says, “It’s ironic that after our first year of business was the only time we were ever debt free. We kept buying more equipment and purchased the farm, constantly reinvesting in ourselves.
16 From Mom & Pop to Major Player
One day they received a request to bid on putting in the turfgrass for the Kansas City Royals field. Randy read it, thought it was just a formality, and tossed it in the trash. Betsy says, “I pulled it out, put it back on his desk, and told him we might be mom and pop but when we get an opportunity to get into the professional sports turf market on the national level you need to bid on it.”
TPI Turf News March/April 2017
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