Episode 049: Join Vonda and Lori as they chat about current flower shop events including decorating installs and social media marketing ideas. They also recap some thoughts on the HBOMax series, Full Bloom, and what's to come and conclude with post Thanksgiving thoughts that remind us that we all have so much of which to be thankful.
Full Bloom
Our sponsors:
Flower Clique
Flower Prep School
and our podcast page
Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
Real Life Retail Florist
Episode 049: Join Vonda and Lori as they chat about current flower shop events including decorating installs and social media marketing ideas. They also recap some thoughts on the HBOMax series, Full Bloom, and what's to come and conclude with post Thanksgiving thoughts that remind us that we all have so much of which to be thankful.
Full Bloom
Our sponsors:
Flower Clique
Flower Prep School
and our podcast page
Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
Real Life Retail Florist
Interesting. When you said that, what came to my mind was my dad saying, yep. I went to the school of hard knocks. Yes. She talks about that.
Speaker 2:Lori. It's so good to be back with you.
Speaker 3:Yes. We made it back, made it back in one piece. My Thanksgiving, we did travel, but we drove and we quarantined for 14 days. We just went to go visit Mark's mother who never leaves the house. So it was good. He got back on Friday. How was your Thanksgiving?
Speaker 2:It was very good. It was really nice. Ellie and Tyler were here and we fixed a Thanksgiving. Feast. Doesn't matter if you have four or you have 40, you still fix the same amount of food.
Speaker 3:There's no, in-between no first. So we thought we'd grill out. This was weeks ago. Cause it's easy. The closer it gets to him. Like that just feels weird. And so my mother-in-law was like, Hey, how about that casserole? I used to make, it has like dressing and, but it's roasted chicken and it kind of feels like Thanksgiving. We're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good idea. The closer it got I'm like, it just feels wrong. Right. So we got there and I just said, Esther, here's the deal. We got to go big or go home. I said, I got it. We'll do it. The great thing about my mother-in-law as you know, you've met her. Okay. I love to cook, but she will have everything clean by the time I've finished preparing something. So she's like a dream, you know her in the kitchen with you sure it was good. But we had a lot of leftovers. It all freezes. Well, and she did, when we all left on Friday, she was like, Bailey, your pie that you made was delicious, but you're taking it home with you, Laurie you're taking it. So she was making sure we all divvy stuff up, but it was, it was good. It was different right.
Speaker 2:As it was a totally different Thanksgiving. And I think people found themselves being more grateful. I mean, yes, it was easy to go, Oh, I can't do what I used to do, but you know, we're here. We're able to have a good meal. Even if it is a limited number of people we can do FaceTime, you know, with technology today, it's so easy to keep in touch and share stories. It's hard. It really hard, but it does make us a little bit more grateful. And I think we're going to talk about that
Speaker 3:A little while. Right. And a funny story about how that whole thing turned out. My dad is about an hour away from my mother-in-law. So my mother-in-law lives in Tulsa. My parents lived in Bartlesville and so my sister and dad, we're going to do nothing on that day because again, they're stuck in a house. And so I was trying to figure out and I was like, praying about like, how can we get people together safely? And they're just, couldn't figure it out. Well, my cousin who is weatherman Tulsa, he likes to say that he's the one that did it. But Thanksgiving day was going to be a high of six, like 66 and sunny, which in Oklahoma, you can go either way, right? It's either going to be beautiful or it's going to be snowy. So my sister and dad came and they walked around the back and I had set a little table for them outside in the sunshine at two o'clock when it was going to be the warmest part of the day. And then Martin and his mother, we opened the windows into the kitchen, which were right there eye level. And they sat in there and ate and it was just, it was perfect. It was so perfect. And I know my mother-in-law first was like, no, just let them in the house. This is not right. We need to sit at the dining room. We need to, you know, and so it was really hard to adapt. We've talked about adaptability on here or pivot. That's kind of been the word for 2020. How do you pivot? And we pivoted and when it was all over, it was like, wow, that was great. It worked, it worked. Yeah. That's it worked so far. I mean, I keep texting everybody. Does everyone feel good? Everyone. Okay. Yeah. So far so good. So there is a heart of gratefulness, even though going in, it you'd thought, well, this isn't going to end well or this, how can this be? This isn't how we've always done it. Right. And so I think a lot of the flower shops, at least our flower click members, they are coming in on that other side of, wow, like this isn't how I've always done it. I had to do it differently, but it's working. This is awesome.
Speaker 2:I think the creativity level in business owners right now is at an all time high because they've really had to pivot, but what do they pivot to? Or what can they do differently to still have the business and really increase what they've had.
Speaker 3:Right. Right. So, okay. Thanksgiving is over Christmas is, you know, in the blink of an eye, just a few more sleeps and boom, what do the flower shops right now? What is a flower shop owner? So put your owner hat on, what do they need to be preparing for this week? Well, quite honestly, Lori, they should have already been prepared for them, right? It's a little too late to prepare
Speaker 2:As we've all been seeing, there's a lot of installs. People are going to homes and decorating trees or whatever needs to be done. Some beautiful installs happening at this point. And interesting enough, depending on the state, you're in again with guidelines, some people are not allowed to do that. So they're really careful who they select to go into the home because of the guidelines, right? They want to be super safe with themselves and their employees, but also they don't want to go into someone's home. That's going to say, Hey, guess what? Shop ABC was into my shop and decorated, and then somebody's going to go shut them down. I have to be really careful. And I know that a lot of shops are in that situation. So yeah, installs are going on now. Poinsettias will be just rolling in the door. I mean, shops with pre-order those and are getting them in and getting those out for delivery. Also next week, the shop owners should be preparing to pre green their containers pre green and get them in the cooler, ready to put flowers in and send them out the door. I don't know.
Speaker 3:No, if you saw, I thought it was so cute. Some of our members that have joined flower prep school because a lot of people have new employees and their needs for training and part of our flower click flower prep school, you do a whole segment on pre greening, which I remember, well, because you had me do it. Some of them have been posting the most adorable pictures. One of them Donna at Elaine's posted pictures of her daughter who is, I mean, she's fairly young and she's like, look, she's pretty greening now because she went through it. And I'm like, that is so funny. Cause she's already, she's, she's practicing for Christmas so she can start pre graining. So I thought that was cool.
Speaker 2:That is, that brought you back. Didn't it Laurie to the days we weren't doing it.
Speaker 3:It did. It actually made me wish again that it was a safe time that I could go into one of our businesses just for a day and said, can I come in practice? You know, I always say that I don't get to practice pre greening with COVID right now. It's just, it's just not a safe time, but I'm hoping that's one of my goals for 2021. I want to be able to go in and practice prep school.
Speaker 2:Yes. Right. That's the key is to the success of flower prep school is really to get in and practice. Right. The other thing that you've been watching I'm sure is all the virtual open houses, you and Ellie talked about that, um, I showed her a month ago and gave people ideas. And now it's so fun to watch.
Speaker 3:It's so crazy because so many of them are doing it and every one of them put their own spin on it, which I think is very cool. Some shops. And like, I'm going to talk about Josh from nature's best. I think I bring him up a lot, but he's, he's such a great one to follow. If you are a flower shop and you want to learn how to do it and do it well, he does Facebook lives a couple of times a day. Now, not everybody needs to do that. But one of the things that he does that I love is his shop is called nature's best florist. And he created a private group for his VIP's and it's called nature's besties. And so it makes you kind of feel like you're part of an elite group. So everybody wants to be in that group and then he will do additional lives in there and maybe say, okay, my nature's besties for the next, I don't know, I'm just making this up till noon today only you guys get a VIP of 10% off of this or, you know, just whatever
Speaker 2:A special offer for offer.
Speaker 3:Ooh, I want a piece of that. And so I just love that he's getting more creative and innovative as he goes, not just Josh, a lot of shops, but he's probably the last one that I watched. And another thing that I think is a great, we talked about doing competitions on your Facebook page. And so one of our straps, Janet from McCandless started doing this a long time ago. And I'm just amazed at how much engagement she gets. She will post on a, either a Sunday or Monday, three different designs. And the one she did yesterday or the day before I can't remember was all right, here's our contest for the week. Do you like the cute little Teleflora snowman ornament design, which has our arrangement in it? I think a Thomas Kincaid win and then something else. And so you vote a, B and C and then the end on Friday, she'll draw a winner in a live and she'll pull the name out of a hat or however she does it. Here's where it really does benefit the shop. First of all, everybody shows up virtually because you want to win. And then you tag the person that won, plus you call them. But then all of their friends see that they won. Then they come in or you can either do curbside and bring it to them. Or they could come in. Both of them have masks, they get a picture as they hold it they're distant, but they get a picture. And then that gets posted on winter's personal Facebook page. And that increases your, your reach. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's great. What a great idea.
Speaker 3:Things like that. I know Julie fountain of flowers, she was been one of our guests. She's doing amazing social media posts. Amazing. And I know she will give all credit to Ellie because she learned not, I know Ellie does some for her, but she learned the style and made it her own. Yeah,
Speaker 2:Definitely her own, but she, yeah, she takes care of Warren and I love it. And I comment on him because he just draw you in and it's products she has in her store, but it has a story too.
Speaker 3:The story behind. Yes. Yes. And not every time, but so many times the customer can see themselves in that story. And that's when the purchase happens. I want a cute journal and a hot mug of cocoa with those Christmas tree shaped I'm in, you know? So anyway, lots, lots of fun things, lots to be grateful for.
Speaker 2:There's a shop called Lloyd's flower shop and I kind of watch on their website and they had a ladies night out, which they usually do is a traditional thing ladies night out. So instead they had a ladies night online. And so it was kind of fun because again, you have to recreate yourself and it's like, okay, what can I do instead of what I normally do and love it, pivot is the word. And like I said, so many creative florist. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean Renee to cheat, I would comment it on hers because I wish I lived near her because she's doing a virtual wreath class and you can sign up and then you just basically pick up your kit. Or I think for an extra$10 are going to be delivered. I mean, it can't be delivered from Indiana, Pennsylvania, but I love this out of the box, pivoting that we're all doing and everyone, all your customers like sounds good. Let's do it.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't want to go back to the installs on Thanksgiving day, evening caught up on my episodes of full bloom. You know, the HBO max with Barry and Ellie and I were obsessed. And Tyler was there listening, going, I love listening to your commentary about this. You know, we all have something to say. Right,
Speaker 3:Right. Oh, I wish I could watch it with you because there are so many times that I watch and I'm like, I don't know at Vonda, I think about the mechanics there are, so was this Ellie's first time to watch it? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes. So we watched it from the beginning. So I got to see the first two episodes. I've already seen those. And then we watched all four of them at that time. So I'm really excited for the next one to drop on
Speaker 3:Thursday. Yes it is. And you know, last week we had Beth from full bloom. Yes. And we were supposed to have ACE berries too, but he was having technical. And so he reached out to us yesterday and was like, Hey, when are we going to reschedule? So I'm hoping we can get him this week for next week's podcast.
Speaker 2:We will, we will definitely do that next week. You can expect ACE. Barry's his insight on full bloom. But if you've missed it, please it's worth the subscription to HBO florists and non-ferrous alike. And what do we hear, Lori?
Speaker 3:We'd heard, they've already signed up for a season two, which I'm so excited. So they're doing, I don't know if they're called casting calls, but they're ready for audition. So I don't know how you do that, but Google it. I'm sure you can figure it out or contact this more ACE and they can tell you how you apply to be on that show. Would you ever consider being on a show like that bond?
Speaker 2:Actually, John and I discussed that and the short answer is yes, I would consider it. But the long answer goes into, I have to think longer about a project that I do my mind doesn't click, just like, you know, Beth was one boom, boom, boom people. It's like, you have literally five or 10 minutes to come up with that project. Some of them, I would be like, Oh, I'm all over it. Like the chandelier one I've been
Speaker 3:That one without a problem. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That was not. But then some of them were like, wow,
Speaker 3:How did they come up with that? You know, I know, could you have done the one that had to be in the air? It was in the first two episodes.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It was a really cool one. She did. Yeah. That one would have been very challenging for me, but the big projects, I am really a team player. So I might not have been the best leader, but to get things.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's more my strong point. Yeah. I totally get it. My son and I, you know, we always watched like chopped the cooking shows like yeah. My biggest reason that I would never even think of applying is because I can't handle being timed. Like I wasn't even a good test taker in school or in college at all. I just, I would get obsessed with, I only have 45 minutes left, you know, that's why I think one of the questions I had asked Beth, and I don't know if we were recording or not like, do you know what the challenge is? Because surely, you know the challenge before they say it, she's like, no, we don't know. Which is crazy.
Speaker 2:The thing that I can relate that to, and most of AI AFD designers can, is that we have to do an evaluation and it's four hours to complete five designs. And you're walking, you have all these flowers and it's like, okay, now I have to create things using this. So in a sense, it does prepare you for that, but not to the competitive level that we're talking about full bloom, for sure. I, that they're just hitting it out of the park.
Speaker 3:I would have a panic attack and like, Oh, full blown, need the paper bag over my face. Hyperventilating you'd need a compress on my neck. But if you haven't watched it, it's on HBO max, you can get like a week free if you are 80 and T w I Googled it in at, and T you get a 30 day free trial, which is what I got. And then it's only like$50 a month. And you can cancel it any time. Yeah. There's so many cool ones
Speaker 2:On though. Right now. Are there theories?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. There's some other things on the HBO max. That really, really good. So anyway, watch it. You can get on YouTube. There's a couple of people that do commenting on it afterwards. They're kind of funny. It's called floral observations. Don't know these guys, their name, but they're very entertaining. Let's say Matt and Garrett. That's all I know. And I believe they were both AIF de Vonda. So anyway, they're funny. And I tend to agree with a lot of what they say every time. So, okay. Segue, Monda, moving from full bloom and how grateful we are that we have this to entertain us.
Speaker 2:We want to talk about grateful. We really do yesterday. I was in mailing a package at the ups store and it was just me. Well, mailing my packages. And another lady came in and one clerk was there and she's like, um, I'll get somebody. I'll get somebody. The lady goes, no, I'm in no hurry. She comes it's okay. She said, I'm in no hurry. And the guy goes, no, no I'm coming. And she came out and I said, boy, isn't that the truth things have changed. And she said, you know, it really has. It's made everybody slow down. She said, I would never want to do this again, this pandemic. But she said, I've learned people are so much appreciative of what they have. They're not in a hurry. They're more kind to other people in a store or out of a store. And she said, I just think we have learned so much through this. And she said, that's when like I'm in, not in a hurry. It's okay. Everybody has slowed down. And everybody has started to appreciate what they have more than we ever have in our lifetime. And that's why I think I just really wanted to hit on gratitude, especially coming off of Thanksgiving, we are grateful for everything that we have.
Speaker 3:Right. I just finished a book that one of my friends wrote actually, she's an amazing woman. And the name of the book could be offensive. But once you read the book, you realize I get why she named it that. So it's called the wholly educated mother blank. It is a filter free guide to getting through the unthinkable. It's an amazing book in her heart. She just pours it out to her name is Dr. Nicole Price. And so I know right now her book has sold out. But if you want to read it, it's a very short read. It's, it's pretty much her life story and how she got to where she is now. She teaches leadership and diversity training. Um, and when the pandemic hit, you're not going into companies teaching these things anymore. So she had to figure out what do I do? How do I turn this around? Um, but she gives a lot of good guidance, but one thing I circled and I go back to all the time is so right now we're learning some hard lessons through this pandemic. Right. But she said, keep this in mind, hard earned lessons are still lessons you can learn from. Yeah. And I'm like, gosh, that's such a simple sentence, but it packs so much into it. Like hard lessons. Yeah. There's still lessons. Still think we're learning, we're learning maybe what not to do, or we're learning what we don't like about certain people or certain things. And so I'm grateful. We're talking about gratefulness. I'm so grateful for this book that when I picked it up, I was like, okay. So I would never put that word on anything. Right. Great. What is she thinking like, Oh my gosh, I've laughed. I probably cried more than I laughed in this book. But that is one of the things like I highlighted it. I did everything, but I'm like, that's so true. Hard lessons. Yeah. They're hard. But they're still lessons. Interesting. When you
Speaker 2:Said that, what came to my mind was my dad saying, yep. I went to the school of hard knocks.
Speaker 3:Yes. She talks about that because,
Speaker 2:And this to me is like, yeah, because those hard knocks that have really knocked us off our seed or knocked us down to where we're on our knees in prayer that's
Speaker 3:We learned the most. And we remember it gave me chills because I'm like, that's so true. It's so true. And, and we can truly only help one another when I can come to you when you are in that state and go, man, I've been there too. Let me sit there with you. Let me, I get you. You know? And so that's what your dad, all of the life lessons he taught you think a lot of things you did, right? Because of the hard knocks he went through from that of being a victim and mad at the world, because he went through him and he's like, listen, Rhonda, we want to own your own business. Yes. You know, or what's the one he talked to you about it and working for people instead of working your,
Speaker 2:If you're going to work as hard as you are, you need to work for yourself and not somebody else.
Speaker 3:Yes. Yeah. I didn't know your dad, but you know, he learned that the hard way he did, he did, you know? And so I love that, that he went to the school of hard knocks. He learned it the hard way.
Speaker 2:And a lot of shops are doing that right now. Right. It's if you think of that and just said, I'll be there right beside you. Wow. With one flower shop having a connection with another, it helps everybody get through it. And that's what we found with flower collect that, man, we have been helping, well, let me say Laurie, you have helped connect. So, so many shops and with all of our flower clinic members, it really does make a difference when you like have somebody that is going through the same thing, same time gives you that strength
Speaker 3:In Korea. It is. And you know what? I am noticing too more and more like we're in our, our Shoptalk meetings, monthly get together in a zoom where we all come together. And, and there was a newer person that was as only been in flower click a couple of months and they had some questions and they were really stressed out about, I don't know, like a wire service statement or something like that, that they were asking. They were mad. They were just mad. I hate the wire services. I hate these things. And you know, rightly so, because they didn't understand Vonda. I almost started crying because there was at least five of our members go, Hey, wait a minute. We can help you. We know, we know that feeling. We can help you. Don't hate them. Yeah. But here's how you do it. And not only did they say reach out to me, those members, actually, four of them followed up and texted me, Hey, what was that woman's name again? I want to follow up with her such caring. It was just so good because I'm like that's community. And I was reading an article. There was a big study, a Harvard study. I'm totally paraphrasing it. It was about longevity of life. They did this study from teenagers from 1938 to and track them all. And the ones that lived the longest, they had all this other criteria were the happiest people that were truly happy in their life. Grateful, happy. One of the main variables among those people was community. Really? Yeah. It wasn't quantity community. It was close knit community. Like, well, you have to give me that study for me. I could have told you that you couldn't see that playing out in so many ways, you know, within flower clicks. So anyway. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So our take away really from this session should be, you know, what's happening and get ready for the rest of the month. Yes. Be sure. And get right.
Speaker 3:And being intentional about being grateful. Start the day with at least one thing that you can say, I'm grateful for this. Yes. Yeah. And make it a discipline. Maybe write it down because you and I both know there are days you're going to wake up and you cannot think of anything. And look through yesterday. I was grateful for this the day before, you know, last week I was grateful for this and it will start reminding like one thing I wrote down this morning, I'm so grateful. I have so many friends that are making money because they can make cute masks in their little Etsy store. And you know, two of them, I know they lost their job because of COVID. They're now stay at home moms. Thankfully they have a husband that still has jumped, but they're making a little extra income. And I'm like, I love that. I'm so grateful for cute masks. Yeah. There you go. To wrap it up. You're not even going to ask me, but I'm going to tell you, what's giving me life right now is the sunshine. We've had rain for the last couple of days and it's actually chilly here, but the sunshine is just beautiful and beaming in on my face. And that's, what's giving me life right now that I love that. I'm trying to think of what's giving me life. There's so many, many things I would say. I got to say the sunshine for me is I woke up this morning. Happy because it has been rainy here too. So that yesterday, late afternoon, we got a glimpse of the sun and I was looking through my phone and weather and I have Niceville Florida here, Jen rain. And I go, Oh, and I just said to my husband, Vaughn does get in what we had. Yeah, there we go. And now we both get the sun getting the sunshine. So I hope everybody has a little bit of sunshine in their day to day.
Speaker 1:Yes, we have certainly enjoyed our time together today. And we look forward to being with you guys again, if you have any questions, concerns, comments, anything we would love to hear from you. You can always email Laurie at flower, click.com. Also, if you enjoy our little podcast, go ahead and click that subscribe button. That's very helpful for us. And you can even leave a review and we hope you join us next week. Yes. So please come back and join us and discover how a bit of knowledge and one small change in your mindset can take you to new levels in your life and business.[inaudible].