GROWING A BUSINESS

Born into a coal mining camp, this biz owner is now worth $72 million running a chain of retail nurseries.

By Vicki Gerson

Bill “Farmer” Meadows was born into a coal mining camp in West Virginia and was lucky if he had running water and a decent meal on the table. Today, he is worth $72 million and last year, brought in over $4 million in revenue. Meadows is the owner of Meadows Farms, the largest privately owned chain of retail nurseries in the United States.

When Meadows sat on his childhood sweetheart’s porch in West Virginia, they’d talk about what they wanted out of life. They wanted to be millionaires, but in their wildest dreams they never thought they’d be as successful as they are. Betty and Bill got married when Bill was 18, and they started on their goal. Little did they realize that his tireless work would one day pay off and make him extremely rich.

Bill Meadows enlisted for two years in the army because he knew that was the only way he’d be able to get a college education. Since they were married, they would be able to live off base.

Six nights a week until 1 a.m., Meadows worked at a drive-in movie theater collecting tickets, selling popcorn and cleaned the rest rooms. “This is the only way we could save enough money so Betty could go to college,” he said. “At this time Betty was working her day job and nights at the theater too.”

Once Meadows was out of the army, he went to Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia on the GI Bill. Both went to college at the same time. During his senior year money was tight, so he loaded delivery trucks at night.

While in college, Meadows majored in physical education and social studies. Upon graduation, he got a teaching job at a middle school and coached football at a high school. His first year, he earned $3,600 a year.

Always interested in business, Meadows started thinking about how he could earn money in the summer without investing too much money. Listing his ideas on a yellow pad, he kept thinking about the produce business. The second year of teaching he purchased Radio Flyer wagons and decided to sell tomatoes. He’d travel to the Washington DC markets and pick up 500 to 600 pounds of tomatoes in 40-pound boxes.

With parent approval, he took his football players to large housing developments in Virginia, with two boys per wagon holding 40 pounds of tomatoes. They’d visit every house selling a quarter-size basket of tomatoes for 50 cents. “I was buying each box for $3 each and selling each box for $10. That year, I made $8,000 peddling tomatoes door-to-door.”

Because he didn’t enjoy going door-to-door selling produce, he came up with a new plan. He purchased four old bread and milk trucks for $300 each that he had towed and parked near major highways leading into Washington D.C. Meadows painted the trucks red, put a combination lock on the back and opened the back up during business hours. At night he went to the markets and filled the trucks with produce.

Into the third year of this summer business, he had 16 trucks and grossed between $60,000 and $70,000 selling tomatoes, other produce and mums in the early fall. Meadows continued to teach school until 1968 and kept this side business going.

Always a believer in owning property, Meadows purchased a little 20-acre farm three years after he started teaching. He used the farm for growing tomatoes. Deciding it was time to get rid of the trucks because it was becoming more difficult to have free roadside locations, Meadows bought his first nursery, which was 1-1/2-acres in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia. He purchased that property for $60,000.

A plant distributor heard of the Meadows’ success, and discussed selling plants as a nurseryman. Two years later, fruits and vegetables were completely phased out, and Meadows started selling plants exclusively. “With half the effort, I could earn more selling trees, bushes and other outdoor items,” he pointed out.

As the years passed, Meadows purchased more locations. Today, Meadows Farms has 500 to 600 full-time employees and 200 part-time employees. During the months of January and February, Meadows Farms is closed. Ten years ago, Meadows decided to offer landscaping services. He has 27 people who are either designers or landscape architects. Now, he’s added 140 trucks so 42 crews can go out every morning to plant at people’s homes.

Meadows tries to open one nursery a year (last year he opened two) and finds work still fun. His advice for other entrepreneurs who want to make it to the top is to do some “heavy duty thinking. Sixty percent of my time, when I’m going to make a major decision, goes toward thinking, while 10 percent is research. The other 30 percent is divided between getting a plan, having patience and working hard. Anyone can work hard, but that won’t help you make it very big.

“The only reason we now have landscaping services today was due to heavy duty thinking. I wanted to get landscaping jobs that resulted in $10,000 to $12,000 per customer if I was purchasing $100,000 trucks,” he added.

One of the reasons Meadows believes he’s wealthy is that “at first my wife and I didn’t go out and purchase new cars or pretty new furniture. We bought used cars and used furniture so we could use our money to buy property—which today is valued at $32 million. We didn’t even own a house till we were married 15 years. When we purchased our first house, we paid cash for it.”

About 20 years ago, Meadows moved to their 1,000-acre farm and built a 13,000-sq. ft. house and built a 20-acre lake. He also purchased 300 cows and has a farm manager. Although Meadows could easily retire, he still “calls all the major shots.” His son, Jay, runs the day-to-day operations, but if it’s time to buy or sell a nursery, purchase a truck or purchase land, he makes the final decision.

If you're interested in viewing a great website that really maximizes promotion of a business, check out Bill Meadows' site at: www.meadowsfarms.com. The site contains helpful gardening information and sells a wide variety of products to help home gardeners develop their plots. The site contains helpful tips that will keep buyers coming back to the website throughout the year. It's a great marketing tool.

Meadows Farms is headquartered at 43054 John Mosby Highway in Chantilly, Virginia. Phone: 703/327-3940, Fax: 703/327-2894 Website: www.meadowsfarms.com or E-mail: jmeadows@meadowsfarms.com