This week in our local Home News was a new display advertisement for Valley Hardwood Moldings - a new direct marketing wood business.  Another friend & neighbor now periodically advertises his solar kiln dry lumber.  A local building contractor friend now uses his kiln dry lumber in his projects.
Competition??  No Way!

For over ten years, I have been demonstrating my business methods and sharing everything I know with forest owners from all over.  I worked for years to form forest owners cooperatives - potentially hundreds of forest owners doing exactly what I do here, just down the highway. 

The Gordon Greene family is moving to 100 acres just south of Spring Green.  I have been training them for months, teaching them everything I know.  Son, Alex, now operates a new WoodMizer sawmill and is constructing the first building on the property - a timber frame cabin to live in.  He is using a chamber of our solar kiln to dry lumber to start the cash flow for his new flooring business.

Everyone asks - "Why are you creating competition for your own business????"

I have Never been afraid of competition from other forest owners.  I know the wood market is huge - more vast than anyone can comprehend.  My continuous marketing nightmare that I have faced for 20 years now - is that Timbergreen is too small.  I can't do much in the big market because of my tiny size.  I have always pushed for strength in numbers to raise the position of forest owners.

Gordon Greene just told me, "The best place for a shoe shop is next to another shoe shop.  More people will come if there are several places to shop side by side."

Tino Rawnsley from Cornwall UK just told me of a marketing effort in        Scotland.  Here is a bit of their website....  www.woodschool.co.uk
The same wisdom appears.

" ...a collective marketing scheme for end-users and makers.  The best place to site a shoe shop is next door to a shoe shop!  Our collective website provides the opportunity for quality makers and designers to be seen alongside each other in a no-nonsense situation."

Spring Green Wisconsin will soon The Place to shop for good wood - direct from the producer.  Dozens of shops will sell thousands of locally grown and produced wood items.  Our village has always been known for our Art Galleries, Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin, The House on the Rock, American Players Theater.... 
The value of the timber in our hills could easily create another attraction at least as big as our current features...
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