Silver Fern launches Grower Thursdays, open weekly time with its CTO and CIO

Silver Fern, maker of Work Suite, software for greenhouse and nursery operations, has launched Grower Thursdays, a standing offer of free consultation time with its two senior technical executives. The launch follows what the company describes as significant demand after Cultivate, the July trade show in Columbus, and bookings are open at silverfern.com/thursdays.

The offer has two parts. Growers can book a 60-minute Work Suite product demo. They can also come with problems to solve. Chief Technology Officer John Beauford and Chief Innovation Officer Stephen van Wingerden keep their Thursday calendars open every week for consultations of 30 or 60 minutes. Every call is free, and John or Stephen takes each one personally. Beauford and van Wingerden have been working this way with Silver Fern's clients for years, but it picked up over the last 12 months, and the company is now publicizing it for all growers, whether clients or not.

"Over the past 12 to 24 months we've worked extremely hard to streamline our operations and develop talent internally to free more of our executives' time, specifically John and Stephen, to make them available to growers," said Kevin Short, Silver Fern's Chief Operating Officer.

The consultations cover more than the company's software, from pricing and logistics to forecasting. Short is direct that a consultation is really a consultation, not a sales call. "I've seen John and Stephen work through problems in great depth and it really helped growers, totally outside of our software," he said.

"Very few people can sit in both worlds. John and Stephen understand how a greenhouse actually runs, and they understand the technology down to the data. Grower Thursdays puts that combination on the calendar, where any grower can book it," said Adam van Wingerden, Silver Fern's Chief Executive Officer.

Growers do not need a polished question to book time. "It does not have to be clean. You don't have to have answers. The point is to come with your problem and work it with them," Short said.