New Product Development Company Launched to Help Lawn & Garden

PARADISE VALLEY, AZ (June 1, 2000) - A new company is out to provide lawn & garden manufacturers with the tools it takes to successfully market their new products. The Lawn & Garden Performance Group LLC was formed in early 2000 under the leadership of Rick Pontz.

Pontz, who has held positions of president, vice president of sales & marketing and national sales manager at various lawn & garden companies over the past two decades, said he was driven to start the company after watching numerous products fail.

"Most of the products failed not because of a lack of performance or consumer demand," Pontz said. "They failed because the product marketers didn't know about - or didn't pay attention to the idiosyncrasies and pathways to marketing lawn & garden products." Pontz estimates between 2,300 & 2,500 new lawn & garden products were launched in 2002, but only a small fraction of those ever made it to retailers' shelves.

The Lawn & Garden Performance Group LLC provides a full range of services to companies, including designing and implementing new product launch programs, recruiting, training and managing direct sales forces and manufacturer representative agencies; identifying new market opportunities for existing business; developing and implementing a cost-effective market business plan; expediting the development of new products to maximize market impact, improve return-on-invest; and serving as intermediary and negotiator to companies seeking acquisitions, mergers or strategic alliances.

Rick Pontz says, "We formed our company to help entrepreneurs avoid the most common mistakes and to give them a fighting chance against the "big boys. We're here to help manufacturers break the glass wall of distribution in the lawn & garden industry".

Lawn & Garden Performance Group LLC President Rick Pontz has successfully introduced more than 40 new products to the lawn & garden industry during the past 22 years. Many of the products are currently being sold by such major retailers as Home Depot, Lowes, Ace Hardware, Wal-Mart, Sears/K-Mart, Tru-Value, Do-it-Best, and Gro-Group.