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Wasson Nursery, Inc. Mary Breidenbach, Indiana Nursery & Landscape News To tie into our upcoming Summer Meeting 2022, we chose to highlight the event’s host, Wasson Nursery, Inc. Wasson Nursery is a family-owned landscape company with garden centers throughout east central Indiana and specializing in residential landscape design and lawn and garden services. We spoke with Bob Wasson, who along with his brother Dan Wasson, Jr. runs the company, which was started by their father Dan Wasson, Sr. 45 years ago. In 1977 the owner of the small nursery in Union City, Indiana who Dan Wasson, Sr. worked for, offered to sell the company to him. With a few loans Dan Sr. purchased the nursery and hired two friends to help him. “His entry into the business was timed well with the growth of the industry,” shared Bob. “As the business matured, we caught a good trend and expanded to three locations by following our customers. Our work first grew in Muncie, so we opened the Muncie store in 2008. And in 2017, we opened our Fishers store as we saw more work coming from the Indianapolis area. After 45 years at the helm Dan Wasson, Sr. just stepped down this spring and handed over the reins to his oldest son. Dan Wasson, Jr. is CEO and intimately oversees the landscape services. Bob Wasson is in charge of retail operations. While the transition is complete, Dan Wasson, Sr. still comes to work everyday and oversees their progress.
FISHERS 317-770-3321 11010 E 156th St Noblesville, IN 46060 UNION CITY 765-964-3477 1000 W Chestnut St Union City, IN 47390 MUNCIE 765-759-9000 3737 N. 500 West Muncie, IN 47304 https://wassonnursery.com/
Key to their success Without hesitation, Bob shares that the key to their success and overcoming problems is the creation of their executive team. In addition to Dan, Jr. and Bob, the executive team includes Zach Yeagy, COO; Royce Shewman, Controller; and HR Manager, Danielle Wasson (wife of Dan, Jr.). “We meet weekly to plan out the business and talk through the problems. Our business is run by committee and this works well for us. It allows a lot of thought and intention to be put into decisions and ideas to get tested. Specialties In addition to the three garden centers, Wasson Nursery offers landscape design, personal groundskeeping, tree and shrub care, and lawn care services. What ties this all together? “Our focus is on the homeowner and anything residential,” explained Bob. “Our very wide-range of services offered is all across the board. It’s unique and can be complicated to market because different areas of the business connect with people differently.” But yet it works because the homeowner remains the center of their attention. As Bob explained, “We put a lot of focus into our retails stores because it gives our landscaping services credibility and name recognition. We tell our retail staff in training, ‘Customer experience is so important because ultimately our goal is that they fall in love with our brand at the retail level and when they’re ready for that backyard patio we will transition them to landscape clients.’ So much starts with good experience in the store.” This is particularly true for the Fishers store, now in its sixth year. Bob shared, “the Fishers store is growing like crazy. Surrounded by tons of neighborhoods, the store supports their presence with about three-quarters of the landscape leads coming from the Indianapolis area.” While they’ve grown a lot since they added their second store in 2008, they are continually looking to the future for opportunities for growth. Here are some of the new projects that Bob shared with us: • Online shopping: To try to be prepared for the shift to online sales in the next 10 years, Wasson has shifted their in-store system to Shopify, an all-in-one shopping platform. With a generation of shoppers now more comfortable shopping online this change will allow them to be prepared for the evolving retail environment. 22
INDIANA NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION • www.inla1.org
The Wasson Family: (seated, l to r) Carol and Dan Sr., and sons, Dan and Bob Wasson (standing)