Adelia Ladson
MOULTRIE — With what is becoming an almost annual tradition with its fifth event, the Moultrie-Colquitt County Chamber of Commerce-facilitated Job Swap was held on Thursday. Local businessmen Patrick Mobley and Steve Lazarus walked in each other’s shoes for a day.
“I think it’s important to see what goes on in the community and see how other businesses operate,” said Lazarus.
The day started out at Mobley Plant Co. Mobley said his father had been growing plants since the 1940s with another partner but since 1981, the company has been called Mobley Plant Co.
“We started right out with him the first year,” said Mobley of him and his brothers.
“I’m ready to go to work. I’m reporting to duty,” said Lazarus when he walked into the office.
Mobley responded that he was ready to have him stack boxes.
“Just remember how you treat me,” Lazarus replied back teasingly. He said he had some boxes that Mobley could stack, too.
Before Mobley gave Lazarus a tour of the property, they sat down and spoke about the greenhouse business. An employee jokingly asked Lazarus if they could get off at noon as he walked by their desk.
Mobley told him the 53 greenhouses on site produce vegetables. He also had more on a property in LaBelle, Fla., which made a grand total of 130 greenhouses owned by the company. He also explained his relationship with the farmers and the scheduling involved.
“So they know what they’re doing and you know what you’re doing,” Lazarus said.
Mobley said that his plants are in just about every state in the Southeast and one of his largest customers is in Indiana. Tomatoes, cabbage and peppers are his biggest crops. He said, in peppers, he grows everything from bell peppers and jalapenos to serrano and habaneros.
“You name it on peppers. We grow it,” he said.
Mobley said his job was to get disease-free, quality transplants to his customers.
“I won’t grow for anybody I don’t personally know,” he said.
He knows most of the produce growers in the Southeast, he added.
Lazarus commented that even though Mobley has a large business and he has a smaller business, they run about the same. Especially when it comes to product liability. If a customer is not happy with something, they handle the issues the same way.
Mobley also owns two furniture stores in Perry, Ga., Mobley Budget and Mobley Fine Furniture. So, he understands the retail business, as well. He and Lazarus spoke about the retail market and the economy.
“If they’re in that store, they’re in there for a reason,” Mobley said.
Mobley then took Lazarus over to the seeding warehouse and “put him to work” taking trays off of a conveyor belt.
“That got my heart pumpin’ right there,” said Lazarus.
Mobley explained how the process of planting the seeds in the trays worked and told Lazarus about the different sized trays they use for each variety of plant to be grown. Today, they were planting cabbage seeds and, after germinating for two days, the seeds would be ready to go into the greenhouse. He also told Lazarus about how he “schedules” the seeding precisely so that the plants would be ready to go to the customer on a specific date.
Throughout the day, the two men compared their business practices with each other.
Mobley then took Lazarus out to a greenhouse and explained how the plants were grown and then loaded onto trucks for delivery.
“On the greenhouse side, there isn’t a job I haven’t done,” he said.
After a tour of a couple of the greenhouses, Mobley took Lazarus on a tour of International Forest Company, which is his pine tree seedling operation. He said they grew short leaf pines for the National Forestry Service and long leaf pines for private timber companies and also Fort Benning. He added that the conservation effort since the mid-’90s had created a demand for the long leaf pines. They also grow loblolly, slash, and Virginia pine seedlings.
Workers were pulling out some of the pine seedlings and packing them for shipment and Mobley had Lazarus help stack some of the boxes.
Mobley said that he loves the “growing” part of his job and still gets out into the greenhouses as much as he can.
“You love what you do,” added Lazarus.
Later in the afternoon, Mobley went over to Lazarus Department Store to get a taste of the clothing business.
“Alright 50 percent off everything,” he yelled as he walked into the store.
Lazarus sent him right to work in the shoe department where a customer was waiting. After speaking with the customer, Mobley went into the stockroom to find a shoe but didn’t seem to have any luck. Lazarus helped him out by telling him that each shoe had a tag that had the location of it in the stockroom. Lazarus, laughing, also gave him suggestions on how to handle customers.
Lazarus told Mobley that his store was really strong in the men’s merchandise and the women’s side was a lot smaller. He said he has a really good employee who handles the purchasing and merchandising of the women’s clothes. He said she goes out to Los Angeles, Calif., to buy the merchandise. He said the ladies’ side of the business was much more difficult because trends change so much more year-to-year than in men’s clothing. Also, the ladies’ brands are much more expensive, from a retail standpoint, he added.
“Basically, my store is about brands. ... What people want,” he said.
He said that work boots were his number one category of merchandise in the store.
“I have just about as much going on as Patrick does but on a smaller basis,” he said and Mobley agreed.
“The hard part of my job is I’m already buying stuff for next fall,” Lazarus said.
He said that he had to weigh the risk factor in the quantity of things he buys and decide whether he wanted to take a risk.
He took Mobley to his office and showed him how he ran his entire retail operation through his computer system, which he invested in during 1995. He also showed him how he could track the sale of his merchandise by product name.
He also showed him how he ordered his merchandise and Mobley asked him if he would special order items for a customer. Lazarus said he would order one item for a customer and then absorb the cost of shipping so that his customer was taken care of.
“That’s not something a big store’s gonna do,” said Lazarus.
He told Mobley that he had a 10,000-square-foot store but he wouldn’t find many independents who had that size store. He said he probably carried 30 percent more inventory than he should.
“It’s hard not to have something a customer wants in a small community,” he said.
He told Mobley that he inherited many customers from his father but really expanded his knowledge of the retail business through networking with other retailers.
“I’m on the road a lot too,” he said.
Lazarus said he goes up to New York City to buy merchandise and to Orlando, Fla., and Charlotte, N.C., twice a year.
“I hate the marketing part of it,” he said.
He and Mobley also discussed different advertising options and the pros and cons of each. Mobley seemed to connect with Lazarus on a retail business level because of his involvement with his furniture stores.
“Now are you ready to buy the business,” Lazarus teased Mobley.
