During this year's Golf Industry Show, visitors to the Direct Solutions booth had a chance to win a prize for shooting "turf monsters" with foam darts. The game was symbolic of a new approach by Direct Solutions, the Colorado-based distribution arm of the Canada's Agrium Advanced Technologies. The metaphor is that Direct Solutions wants to help superintendents slay monsters on the golf course, not just on the trade show floor.As a subsidiary of one of the world's largest multinational chemical companies Direct Solutions seemingly would have a large enough product portfolio to sell from without leaving the umbrella of its parent company. Instead, Direct Solutions sells from a line up that includes a mind-boggling 3,000-plus agronomic products from multiple manufacturers. And based on customer feedback, it is throwing its weight behind exactly four of them.
"We've received feedback from our customers, and it says ?I need products that help me now, I need a great price and I need after-sale service and support,' " said Rob Stevenson, the company's PR voice. "They're telling us they need a partner."
Based on that customer feedback, Direct Solutions has gone from a product-based approach to meeting its customer's needs to a program-based solution. The approach is consistent with the term "turfonomics" that arose during GIS, a term that signaled an overall, solution-based approach that so many companies are adopting to better help superintendents be successful. And for many of these companies, providing broad-based solutions has been a very new way of doing business.
"It's a different approach for us," Stevenson said. "We've been product focused in the past, but now we are more of a solution-based company. It is all about what is best for the customer."
That program includes exactly four products that Direct Solutions' technical team believes will meet the needs of superintendents during the early part of the upcoming golf season. It's an approach that Direct Solutions launched during the fourth quarter of 2013 and has continued into this year.
The current program the company is promoting includes Syngenta's Acelepryn (chlorantraniliprole) insecticide for grub control, a combination of Dow's Defendor (florasulam) and Dimension (dithiopyr) for crabgrass control and Radiate (3-indolebutyric acid and cytokinin), a plant growth regulator from Loveland Products formulated to help strengthen transplanted turf.
Stevenson says that Direct Solutions' agronomic team came up with this list of products to help superintendents this spring based on current weather conditions, historic weather patterns and current turf conditions throughout the eastern half of the country.
"We have more than 3,000 (products). We've picked four. That means we have 2,996 other products, but we're devoting our time and attention to helping superintendents understand why we think these four can help them do their jobs better.
"There is a little prognosticating, a lot of science, a lot of agronomy and a little bit of luck involved."
Direct Solutions sister company, Crop Protection Services, is operating a similar program west of the Mississippi River.
Those who didn't make the current list can take heart that the program-based approach changes quarterly based on changing needs of superintendents. Although some courses still are covered in snow, and thousands have yet to open, Direct Solutions' technical team already is working to identify the best program to fit the needs of superintendents this fall.
Maybe even one day some of the products on the list might be from Agrium.
"We're product-agnostic," Stevenson said. "It's all about educating the superintendent. It's about experience, and it's about confidence."