Jonathan Senneff and Foliage Direct Focus of the Plantscape Industry Alliance 

Jonathan Senneff,
Foliage Direct

FIRST CHOICE VENDOR FOCUS - JONATHAN SENNEFF, FOLIAGE DIRECT                   Print this Page

Jonathan Senneff
Company Name: Foliage Direct
Title: President
Place of Birth: San Antonio, Texas
Residence: San Antonio, Texas

Briefly state your business’ focus:
We wholesale and broker the highest quality foliage from Florida, California, and Hawaii. We import, distribute, and drop-ship air containers from Hawaii.

When did you get started in your business? What sparked your interest?
I was introduced to the interior plant industry at an early age by my parents who started Plant Interscapes a year before I was born. As I grew older, I gained a great appreciation for plants and what they can do for us. I spent endless summers working alongside my parents’ employees in the greenhouse, doing installations, retail, and plant maintenance at our Austin branch while I was in college. I suppose sometime in my senior year my father approached me with the dreaded, “So what do you plan to do once you graduate?” question. I really wanted to work with them in the family business but didn’t know exactly where my skill sets and ambitions would fit in. At that time Foliage Direct was more of a concept than a company, supplying wholesale foliage to local interiorscape companies on a rather small scale. As there was not a dedicated position concentrating on the development and success of Foliage Direct it was the perfect fit. I was offered the opportunity to take it over to concentrate on increasing the outside sales volume, monitor the quality and cost expectations, and supervise the transport and delivery logistics involved in sourcing our industry’s keystone commodity.

What is your education and job experience background?
The greatest learning experiences occurred while growing up in the family interiorscape business. My father, to an almost annoying extent, would continually quiz my brothers and me on plant names and problems whenever we passed a tree, shrub, garden, or greenhouse. When it came to time to sit down and learn all of the botanical names and care guidelines I really didn’t have to study much, I picked it up while growing up. When people ask I tell them I have been doing this my whole life but just recently got a business card! I was involved in the Future Farmers of America in high school where I took many agriculture and horticulture classes which taught me the science behind how plants grow, nutrient requirements, and various propagation techniques.

My formal education can be attributed to St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas where I graduated with a BA in International Relations and concentrations in Business. I had the opportunity to study in Spain for a summer and I traveled to Holland to visit the Aalsmeer Floral Auction, the largest floral and foliage distribution market in the world. That experience sparked my interest in the express distribution of high quality foliage products. Like all college graduates I was ushered into the business world thinking I knew it all, the rude awakening and reality of my lack of knowledge hit around the first day on the job. The first lesson I learned is how my little mistakes can crescendo into big problems and how to take the responsibility for finding a solution.

What notable achievements or events have marked your career?
Being that my current career is just shy of a half decade I like to think that every time I meet and exceed a new or existing customer’s expectations in quality, price, and service it is a notable achievement. I oddly enjoy the pressure of an impending problem where a solution is immediately required. Specifically, my largest issues arise in freight logistics where minutes matter and time conscious decisions either make or break the deal. These high pressure situations have trained me to work well under pressure and look to other alternatives for remedies, usually resulting in solutions that surpass the utmost planning.

What plans do you or your company have to improve/expand your business?
Currently Foliage Direct is concentrating on increasing the customer base who have the ability to receive and inventory larger quantities of Hawaiian plant material. With recent hikes in fuel and energy costs, it is imperative to ship and distribute our relatively low dollar, highly perishable, commodity in the most economical means possible. Some plants are more travelled than their end users. For example, it doesn’t make sense for Hawaiian plants to land in California, be trucked to Florida, only to turn around to Texas. If you add up the cost of freight for that one plant on its three leg journey it can be quite costly, not to mention all the possibilities for damage along the way. Our Direct Air Hawaii service drop ships full air containers of Hawaiian plant material direct from the islands to your nearest airport facility, thus reducing the freight allocation and various markups along the way. The value to our customers is extremely fresh high quality plant material, at bulk rates, shipped from Hawaii in two days. We have negotiated FedEx Express rates that are in the neighborhood of 85% off list rates to make this freight option highly lucrative and economically feasible. What is the minimum quantity to order to acquire bulk foliage rates? It may be much less than you expect. We currently ship air containers with as few as 100 pots and as many as 200 plus with the average falling around 150-175 plants.

Are new product lines in development? What changes do you see in your company for 2007 and beyond?
At the first of the new year I will be traveling to Florida for a month’s stay to supervise our consolidation operations and oversee our quality control measures. I will be working directly with our current suppliers and looking for new sources to benefit our current customer base.

What can interiorscapers do to help you serve us better? What advice do your have for interiorscapers?
Well the first thing they can do is pick up the phone and give us the opportunity to work with them to serve their foliage sourcing and procurement needs. The best advice I can offer when looking for a company that specializes in foliage procurement is to realize that in our industry quality trumps price. We deliver where high quality and price value intersect.

What do you hope to see PIA achieve for interiorscapers and the allied trades?
I think PIA and other industry organizations alike are taking the right steps to legitimize our industry and give it a national presence beyond our regional scope. In an industry with few barriers to entry, where all you need is a watering bucket and a name to call yourself an interiorscaper, many inconsistencies develop which fragment and dilute our standards. It is extremely advantageous for members in our industry to continually band together to discuss the direction we are heading, procedural standards and consistency, what works and what doesn’t, and to connect suppliers with end users—we all benefit. I think the services that organizations like PIA offer are invaluable to our solidarity and future to work together for a common purpose.

Do you see specific future trends for our industry? What issues will be in the forefront for interiorscapers and allied trades?
The major issue that I see as a potential problem for our industry in the future is, and no offense, the aging of our industry leaders and the lack of interest from younger generations to replace them. There is an abundant degree of experiential knowledge and skill at the top of our industry that needs to be channeled down if we hope to preserve the state of our industry that the older generation has worked so diligently for. We need to not just focus on the interiorscape companies but growers and suppliers as well. Would it be too ambitious to only source commodities from suppliers that have a succession plan in place? Wouldn’t you want to spend your money with a company that you know will be around for the next 20+ years? I think we need to allocate resources and create programs to reach out to universities to inform and spark interest; maybe even start a board that is comprised of younger entrants to the industry. Let’s call it the Interiorscape Industry Preservation Board, any takers? The most common response I get when people ask “What do you do?” is, “Wow, I didn’t think you could make money doing that!”