Meet Aquascape Designs' Top 40 Aquascape Customers!

The Aquascaper
Spring 2003

TJB, Inc. was the first company in the country to advertise Aquascape products on regional network television. "We started four years ago," said owner Ted Greiner. "And today we're still the only water garden company in our area who advertises on TV."

A Garden Celebrity

As a result, Ted is known as "The Garden Guru" in his area - a nickname given to him by a local television station that uses Ted to answer all types of gardening questions, including water gardening, whenever they came up. Ted said he's lost track of how many times people have come up and said, "Hey, you're the guy on TV, aren't you?" He's even had people ask for his autograph, so you can imagine the influence on television.

A Familiar Face
While it's true that he has plenty of competition in his area, it's also true that when local folks think of gardening or ponds, they think of Ted first. "And when you're competing for a job, you'd be surprised how handy that little familiarity edge becomes," he said with a laugh. "Instant recognition goes a long way."

Ted also advertises in the local paper, and he's developed a sophisticated website that has helped him answer many of his customers' questions about water gardening. "At first, we were spending more money on advertising than we were on Aquascape products, but the cumulative effect of advertising takes a little while to work. Apparently all our efforts kicked in, because we've gone from somewhere out of the Top 100 last year, into the Top 40 this year, and it happened quick," said Ted.

Increasing The Focus
Last year, Ted and company tripled their water gardening sales over the previous year. "The future could not look any brighter as far as I'm concerned," Ted said. TJB's average sale increased from about $2500 four years ago to over $10,000 today. "And that has everything to do with increasing our water gardening focus," he added.

Their demo ponds have helped their sales, too. In the past, they sold a standard 11' x 16' pond for around $6200. Recently, those smaller jobs are being turned into larger jobs. "Last year," according to Ted, "we averaged 60 calls every day as the result of our marketing and advertising. We got to a point that we were so busy that we literally couldn't take some of the jobs." Now there's a problem that we'd all like to have!