Trade shows like Glee 2025 are more than exhibition halls and product launches. For the UK home and garden sector, they are barometers of innovation, testing grounds for ideas, and moments of truth for brands seeking to stand out in a crowded marketplace.
Yet the challenge remains: how do you cut through the noise? How do you ensure your products don’t just look good under the show lights but also deliver real commercial value when they reach the shop floor?
To explore these questions, The Underground Podcast sat down with Steven May, Sales Director at JDM Country Products. Steven’s career spans consumer electronics, global brand-building, and now outdoor living with Blackstone. Across industries, he has championed one simple but transformative idea: that better selling isn’t about pushing harder, it’s about serving smarter.
Drawing on his podcast interview and a series of published insights, this article explores five core principles that home and garden brands can adopt to build stronger trade show impact, deeper customer loyalty, and ultimately, more profitable retail partnerships.
1. The 100% Offer: From Upselling to Serving
Steven is clear on one point: the word “upselling” misses the mark. What brands and retailers should focus on is the 100% Offer, making a relevant, helpful suggestion to every customer, every product, every time.
McDonald’s is the oft-cited example. The simple question, “Would you like fries with that?” generates 74% uptake and accounts for 38% of the company’s global profit. The genius lies not in the fries, but in the consistent, low-pressure offer.
For garden retail, the parallels are obvious:
- A tomato plant should trigger an offer of feed, a cane, and compost.
- A barbecue should prompt the suggestion of a cover, tools, or fuel.
- A houseplant should be paired a pot cover and plant food.
These are not luxuries; they are enablers of success. Customers want their purchase to work as intended. Offering the attachments is simply helping them succeed. For marketing leaders, this raises a critical question: are your products designed and communicated in ways that make those natural pairings clear, easy, and irresistible?
2. Teach, Train, Coach: Building Sales Confidence
The best strategies fail without execution. And execution, Steven argues, depends on how well frontline teams are developed. His framework – Teach, Train, Coach – is deceptively simple:
- Teach – Move staff from “unconscious incompetence” to understanding. This is about awareness and context.
- Train – Allow practice and repetition. Mistakes are not just tolerated, but essential.
- Coach – Fine-tune performance on the shop floor, offering feedback in real time.
For brand and marketing directors, this framework has direct implications. When launching new ranges into retail, don’t assume “telling once” is enough. Consider how your POS materials, brand reps, or digital training tools support this three-phase journey. Because when staff feel confident explaining benefits and making offers, attachment selling stops being a “sales tactic” and becomes part of the store culture.
3. Best, Better, Good: Flip the Sales Script
Most retailers instinctively present products from cheapest to most expensive. Steven flips this order with his Best, Better, Good model.
Lead with your flagship option – the best expression of your brand. By anchoring the conversation at the top, each step-down feels like a trade-off. Customers see not only the price difference but also the value they are giving up.
For example:
- Best: A four-burner griddle capable of catering for a party.
- Better: A three-burner model, fine for family meals.
- Good: A base model, functional but limited.
When positioned this way, customers gravitate towards the middle, but many stretch upwards once they see the tangible benefits of “Best.” The model protects margins, simplifies the customer journey, and ensures the value story is front and centre.
Marketing leaders should ask: are our product tiers presented in a way that makes customers aspire up rather than negotiate down?
4. Ask Better Questions: Unlocking Real Insight
For Steven, the art of sales, whether on the trade show floor or in-store, rests on asking the right questions.
Closed questions yield little. Open questions – who, what, when, where, why, how – spark dialogue. And once information is shared, two tools keep teams honest:
- HDYK – How Do You Know?
- WDYK – What Do You Know?
These probing questions separate assumption from fact. In retail, this reduces the costly cycle of over-ordering, under-selling, or misjudging customer demand.
For product and marketing managers, the principle is equally relevant. Are you validating insights with real customer evidence? Are your NPD pipelines driven by “what we think people want” or by verified need? Trade shows like Glee offer the perfect environment to test assumptions, gather unfiltered feedback, and refine propositions before wider roll-out.
5. Trade Shows as Stages of Discovery
Perhaps Steven’s most practical insight for Glee exhibitors is that trade shows succeed when they communicate just two things within seconds: who you are, and what’s new. Everything else flows from that clarity.
Visual design matters. Messaging should sit between “dado and picture rail” height, clear and accessible. Staff should step off the stand into the aisle, meeting buyers where they are. Exhibitors must resist the temptation to look like a “bazaar,” overwhelming visitors with clutter.
For buyers, Steven’s advice is equally sharp: avoid reactive purchases. Instead, walk the halls asking:
- Does this product have a clear customer?
- Will it deliver a genuine “wow” moment?
- Can my team explain and sell it with confidence?
For senior marketing leaders, this reframes the trade show as more than a showcase. It becomes a stage of discovery, a place where positioning, storytelling, and practical selling strategies converge.
What This Means for Home & Garden Brands
Steven May’s frameworks are not just quick tips for independent garden centres. They are strategic tools that home and garden brands can adopt to strengthen their retail partnerships. Three implications stand out:
- Design for Attachments. Ensure your ranges come with natural, logical extensions. Communicate them clearly and equip retail staff to make the offer.
- Invest in Enablement. Marketing isn’t just about demand generation; it’s about arming the people who interact with customers daily. Teach, train, coach must be part of the launch plan.
- Think in Value Anchors. Whether through Best-Better-Good or through attachment selling, the story of value must be told in ways that help customers aspire upwards, not settle downwards.
At a time when rising costs and cautious consumer spending squeeze margins, these approaches don’t require bigger budgets. They require sharper thinking, disciplined execution, and a shift from “selling” to “serving.”
Looking Ahead to Glee 2025
As the official podcast partner of Glee 2025, The Underground will be capturing more than 20 conversations on-site with industry leaders, innovators, and disruptors. What’s clear from our conversation with Steven May is that success at Glee – and in the wider garden sector – isn’t about spectacle alone. It’s about clarity of message, confidence in execution, and commitment to exceeding customer expectations.
For brand and marketing directors, the opportunity is clear: use Glee not just as a platform to launch products, but as a laboratory to test value propositions, refine customer journeys, and model the behaviours you want retailers to replicate in-store.
Because, as Steven reminds us, when you grow your people, you grow your profits.
WrightObara will be at Glee all week. If you’d like to chat about brand storytelling, campaigns, or how to turn trade show energy into long-term impact, come and say hello – you’ll find us on The Underground’s stand 9L60. And if the show is too busy, we’d be happy to continue the conversation afterwards.
Check out the full episode of The Underground Podcast, featuring Steven May below: