This past week, I rode all over the Dallas/Fort Worth area with the General Manager of Calloway's to ALL of the 17 stores. It was eye-opening to see how each store catered to communities in which they are located. I also had the opportunity to do the safety inspection for 13 of the stores under the supervision of the GM, as well as help the store figure out what they need to do to prepare for inventory that starts on Monday.
MONDAY
I visited the newest store in Little Elm. This location was opened a little less than a year ago, and Calloway's see great potential for it. The GM likes to visit this location first each week to ensure that they are ready for the next coming week. Little Elm is growing fast, with lots of housing developments going in around the store location. This city is just getting established and this store will have been there since the which I believe will definitely boost customer loyalty. From Little Elm, we went to the Corporate Office in Fort Worth to take care the paper work for the upcoming week. The people at the corporate office and many of the store managers threw a surprise party for my GM to celebrate 25 years working with the company. He absolutely loves what he does with the company and loves the company. My adventures around Dallas/Fort Worth, showed me that a lot of people that work with Calloway's love working there. Every manager I talked to, was excited that I was interested in this part of the industry. When the party was over, the GM and I got started on the paper work. I learned how corporate sets the labor budget and the sales objectives for each store. The GM explained how stores can get a little extra money for the labor budget, and informed me that until fall the labor budget for stores slowly declines starting at the beginning of summer. We looked at sales for each store, and he showed what data to really look at to get the best picture of how a store was doing that day, that month, or this year. We went over approving Purchase Orders and Personal Change Requests (We got a lot of those in due to the termination of seasonal workers or changing temporary employees to full or part time employees).
TUESDAY
We saw 4 stores on Tuesday. We started at the Duncanville location. It was an excellent example of how the surrounding stores can help or hurt a business. This started off as a great location and was very successful, but when the big retailers left, business took a big hit. A new Winco Foods is going in nearby which may breathe new life into the area. Duncanville still does okay with what it has and the staff, while small, is dedicated to customer service. The next store, was South Arlington. My GM started there 25 years as a delivery/carryout worker. The area around this location has really taken off, so this location does quite well. It has a larger staff than Duncanville, so it was an interesting contrast. A larger staff can make a huge difference because if you have more employees, you can assist more customers. The next stop was Stonegate. The layout is a bit different from the other Calloway's in that it strays away from the classic building for allied with 4-5 greenhouses beside it and a nursery yard in the back for a pergola, a glass house for interiors and allied, the nursery yard in the middle, and a gift shop like building in the back. This store gears some of their lawn ornaments to TCU fans as it is located close to that campus. The last stop that day was North Arlington. You can see AT&T Stadium from the nursery. This store has a reputation for being literally one of the hottest of the Calloway's locations. The greenhouses now have 2 layers of shade cloth. The top layer is white and the bottom is black. According to the employees, the addition of the white shade cloth has helped tremendously.
WEDNESDAY
We stopped by 5 stores on Wednesday. The first was Plano. Plano was the 5th store built. It is a pretty good location. Because it is one of the oldest stores, it needs repairs a bit more frequently than the others, but it still looks very nice. The biggest problem it has is that more than once people have accidentally driven through the wall of the greenhouse from the parking lot. The next stop was the Preston Rd Location. This location is huge! It is one of the largest of the stores. It has a large staff and is one of the most successful of the stores. The Richarson location came next and was one of my favorites, mostly because it was the original. It has the standard Calloway's design with the exception of one wall in the middle of the building. The other stores don't need it because it wasn't load bearing. I really enjoyed my time at the Richardson store. The next one was Mesquite. This was the 3rd store built. Like Plano, it needs repairs a bit more often than the newer ones, but it is still a beautiful store. the staff is excellent. The last one was McKinney. This store is unique because it is made entirely of glass. As you may imagine, this is a hot store as well. During the summer, shade cloth hangs from the roof and fans are going all through store hours. When it gets real bad, they turn on fans with misters attached. This store is little, compared to the amount of material and customers they serve, so in the spring, when they have all of the busy season plants in, the place is packed. It is a gorgeous store though.
THURSDAY
Little Elm was the first of our 4 stops on Thursday. We came back to make sure they we ready for inventory and do the safety inspection. They made great strides in preparation for inventory while we were gone and it was amazing to see the changes in such a short time. Denton was our next stop. It is a very small store, but it has plans in the works to expand it. It is set up quite a bit different than the other stores. It still has a building for allied, greenhouses for bedding plants, and a nursery yard along the back. There are plants on every available space. Flower Mound was the next store. This store is also different from the rest. It has a more open design. The nursery yard is in the middle, the bedding plants and interiors are under 2 pergolas, and a building for allied. The front of building has a fountain. and the floor outside the garden is made of permeable pave stone. The stone is pretty but poses some maintenance issues. The last stop was Lewisville. This store is undergoing some repairs do to a storm that blew through. The roof needs to be fix up (nothing serious), the shade cloth had a couple holes, and the awnings needed to be replaced and repaired. When this store is finished with the minor cosmetic repairs, it will be gorgeous.
FRIDAY
My first stop was Southlake. This store was set up very similar to Flower Mound. I met one of my fellow interns here and he will be joining me at corporate soon. It is one of the biggest stores and does very well. Then we went to Hurst. This store is very large. It also houses the warehouse for the company. All of the flocking machines and other seasonal items are stored here. The final store I visited was Greenville. The amount of money made by this store does not make sense for the size and location of this store. It does exceptionally well. The staff is very knowledgeable. It has the standard layout of most Calloway's stores. From there, we returned to the Richardson store, to make a delivery and go over the Profit and Loss statement. The P&L is essentially the company's checkbook. It shows how much we spent on what when. It starts with everything summarized and gradually breaks it down into individual transactions. It was an interesting thing to learn.
I learned so much in my week with the GM. By the time Friday ended, I had not realized how many hours I had actually put in. It was a fun week but I am looking forward to my next weeks at corporate. I'm even going to get to help with the actual inventory this week that I have been working on with my North Plano store and the GM. This week I have started in the Merchandising Department. This week should be a lot of fun.
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