Episode 057: Join Vonda and Jerome Raska AIFD, AAF, PFCI, MCF as they chat about thoughts on everything from the Covid challenge to marketing ideas for Valentine's Day.
This is a conversation you won't want to miss.
Jerome is the co-owner of Blumz...by JRDesigns in the Detroit metro area with 2 locations, a Teleflora Education Specialist and President of Great Lakes Floral Association. With over 25 years in the floral industry, Jerome is a wealth of knowledge. His warm personality and sense of humor, as well as his desire to help others succeed shine through in this interview.
See his Teleflora Design program on YouTube:
Our Sponsors:
Flower Clique
Flower Prep School
Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
Real Life Retail Florist
Episode 057: Join Vonda and Jerome Raska AIFD, AAF, PFCI, MCF as they chat about thoughts on everything from the Covid challenge to marketing ideas for Valentine's Day.
This is a conversation you won't want to miss.
Jerome is the co-owner of Blumz...by JRDesigns in the Detroit metro area with 2 locations, a Teleflora Education Specialist and President of Great Lakes Floral Association. With over 25 years in the floral industry, Jerome is a wealth of knowledge. His warm personality and sense of humor, as well as his desire to help others succeed shine through in this interview.
See his Teleflora Design program on YouTube:
Our Sponsors:
Flower Clique
Flower Prep School
Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
Real Life Retail Florist
What
Speaker 2:Are your expectations? This Valentine's
Speaker 1:Day, I'm really thinking Valentine's day is going to be through the roof. Welcome to the business and pleasure of flowers. We're your hosts, Fonda fever and Lori Wilson. And we believe that business and Fen are a perfect combination. Kind of like us. Wanda.
Speaker 2:I am so excited for you to hear the interview I have with our special guests today. Jerome, what's his last name? Resco Jerome. Rascoe yeah, I love the name. I know it's just live in Hollywood. He should live in Hollywood and he could, Jerome is the co-owner of two retail floral and event operations in Metro Detroit. His partner is Robin Yelvington and both of them are super talented and run just a great operation up in the Detroit area. Wow. Okay. So you got to interview him. He gave me the week off. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. So what did y'all talk about? We talked about Valentine's day. Yes, of course. But we also talked about kind of what happened in the transition with his shop during COVID knowledges and his approach to that was so cool. I absolutely loved it. And so you're going to just be in for a treat and so are all our clickers. All right, well, let's listen, Jerome. I'm so excited to have you with us today.
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm excited to be here. Um, you know, what's better than to talk about flowers and getting ready for Valentine's day and all that good stuff. It's what we do. It's we eat, sleep and breathe flowers. Don't wait.
Speaker 2:We do that is so well put, you know, you're one of the most upbeat, positive and fun people that I know in the floral business, even in the COVID challenge, living in Michigan, which I think was so challenging, you've still been able to find humor. I know we talked about a little and it wasn't easy, but you're persevering. You share with our clickers a little bit about that journey.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I mean, first of all, the COVID challenge, I love that topic. You know, the COVID challenge, I guess my, my mentality and the way we put ourselves in a spot where we can move forward thinking. And that is, if it wasn't the COVID challenge, it would be just a different challenge because, you know, in retail and in this industry, there's always a challenge. And quite honestly, we've always lived with it's the challenges that make us better. So we're looking at the whole COVID challenge as an opportunity to make us better. So we're working smarter, we are streamlining things and we're really striving for that ultimate customer satisfaction. Our goal is always to exceed anyone's expectations. And if we can do that on a daily basis, it's golden. I'm not saying there's not challenges, but it makes life.
Speaker 2:I love the way you put that. You know, it's just a different challenge because the challenge in the floral industry are endless. And you're just taking this on as a, this is just one more challenge.
Speaker 3:Just one more little hurdle to jump. You know, when this all first started in the national news, Michigan made great headlines because we had a, when everyone termed as a very strong governor and we were probably one of the first States to shut down and, uh, uh, our whole state was shut down. So if you weren't an essential business, we were, everyone thing was shut down. So we literally were closed. We were not allowed to make any transactions, have people into our stores or do anything, no online sales, no nothing for at least a month that happened, uh, the 1st of April. So we had no Easter. We had no administrative assistance week, which worked for us being in metropolitan areas, a good little bump in the spring. So we didn't have any of that. Um, I had already ordered things. Uh, some I was able to cancel others. I, I wasn't. So, you know, we're in a pretty religious area here under the trade area. And so we had bundles of palms coming in for Palm Sunday and all that type of thing. So we used it as a marketing opportunity. We just put buckets of palms in front of our shop and we put it out on social media. Hey, you know, Easter is not canceled. It's just different. And so we allowed people to come by and pick up free palms from both of our locations. And, um, you know, it was cheap marketing really. Uh, but boy, did we get the response? I mean, we got people liking and sharing and posting and posting pictures with their palms and how much it meant to them to bring some normal back to their life and all that type of thing. It was so amazing. So we thought, wow, if this worked and it was just a bucket of palms on the front door, what else can we
Speaker 2:Do?
Speaker 3:Then there became that whole push with, uh, supporting first responders. And they were tying blue ribbons on trees and postboxes and things. It was a big thing here in Michigan. I don't know if it took off in other States kind of like several years ago when they were tying yellow ribbons on trees for service people and things like that. They were doing a big push here for first responders because our hospitals were full first responders were working and there was reports of them having to decide who they were going to treat and who they were going to just let be in the hallway and, and all that type of thing, which kind of is going out of the here still in certain parts of the country. We're fortunate. I think where we're at, just because of the way it was treated, that it's not as bad right now. So we took the opportunity and we put blue ribbons in front of all of our, and invited people to come by and pick them up and then take them home and time on their trees or time on their mailbox or whatever they wanted to do. And so, again, it was another huge opportunity. I mean, how much is a bowl of ribbon really pennies? So it was super great and we just, uh, we did it and again, got great reviews from it. So, you know, it's that community involvement and engagement that keep your shop and your product in front of them. So the minute we were able to open up, which I will tell you was kind of stressful. Um, we found out exactly two weeks before mother's day that we were able to open again. Okay. Because we were stressed and we were thinking, Oh, there's not going to be a mother's day for us. What are we going to do? Because that's our huge revenue for the year, really. And many of your listeners I'm sure feel the same way. And we were just like going, Oh, what are we going to do now? So we were able to open for mother's day. And that was really our first real grand opening. However, we weren't allowed to have anyone in our shops. It was only a curbside service or, um, no contact deliveries, which then pushed it all towards online ordering or phone orders, which is another whole thing that we can talk about because the online aspect of it all just blew up and continues to do so right now. So
Speaker 2:Do you think that because of the Goodwill, from the palms and from the blue bows, you were busier than you have seen the you've reaped, the rewards of that
Speaker 3:From the community? I would, I mean, I have no way of tracking that because we didn't, we didn't put a coat on our Palm, you know, although now maybe we should have, but, uh, or something, but anyways, um, the reality is, is no, we have no way of tracking that I would like to think. So, however, our mother's day was through the roof. I mean, it was ridiculous. And you know, the other side of that was, couldn't get any staff to come back because of stimulus checks and the fact that they were getting additional monies from unemployment and all that type of thing. So that aspect of it became yet another hurdle. And, uh, and it was like, okay, how do we do this? What do we do? So that led us right into simplifying things. And so, you know, bad things happen or at least we think they're bad. And really that just forces us into a better direction. So we went from almost 50 employees down to 12. Wow. And we had a record mother's day. So
Speaker 2:Simplified it. I remember seeing your website, it was all about simplifying and you just did designer's choice. I mean,
Speaker 3:We did a ladder dessert in the first week. We started the holiday with some of our own custom features, which we created, and that was our direct movement getting rid of product that we owned. So we created features in containers and faces and different things that we had, and we wanted to make them go away. And so, uh, we use that product as our custom features. And then as they sold out, we removed them. And then when it got to the actual mother's day, we stopped doing any design at all and just did hand-tied bouquets and looming plant baskets, which is a popular thing in our market anyways, for mother's day. So that morning on mother's day, morning, we're fortunate to have a large parking lot. So we literally had a parking lot with construction cones that I borrowed from the city and partitioned off our parking lot and had people pull in one driveway and out the other. And as they did the loop around, they pass by all these beautiful hanging baskets that we just, I mean, literally it was all done on mother's day morning. We just hand wrote some big signs on cardboard. It kind of looked like a crazy farmer's market, but people loved it. And we made discounts on the hanging basket is this much. But if you buy two it's this much, and if you buy five it's this much. And we went through 800 hanging baskets I'm one day, which was incredible for us. We don't normally do that kind of volume. I would say normally on a normal mother's day, we might've sold a hundred, 150, so you can see the volume difference. But I called one of my suppliers, mind you, all of their people that were buying their plants were also cutting back. So they had all these plants they're gone. What are we going to do with them? I said, I'll make you a deal. You bring me a truckload of hanging baskets. And if I don't sell them, you take them back. So it was kind of like the always win-win the it's kinda like the old, uh, scam to win program that a lot of our large box stores use with their growers. And I kind of made that same offer to my supplier and they were all excited about it. And they said, yeah, what do I got to lose? Right. And so they brought over and we were happy to sell all, but about 20 of the plants they brought,
Speaker 2:Wow, that's amazing what a great story.
Speaker 3:And we cut down any and all of our design expenses and every single person that we had available that had the ability just made hand-tied bouquets. And we wrapped them quickly with some cellophane and colored tissue. And we had buckets lined up that were 50, 75 and a hundred dollars mixed bouquets. You know, being in this industry for as long as I've been, if someone told me you were going to sell a hundred dollars mixed bouquet, I'd probably say, yeah, you're crazy. But the reality is, as I've often said, although, you know, sometimes we find that we get in these situations that we don't realize we're a victim of our own thing.
Speaker 2:That is so true.
Speaker 3:So, you know, it's easy for me to give advice to other people, Oh, you need to do this. You need to do that. But I did it myself. And so this kind of forced us to do that. And yet at the same time, it, I mean, it increased our sales ridiculously because we found out quickly that 50, 75 and a hundred was the sweet spot. And people were buying three, four or five at a time. We couldn't make them fast enough. It was ridiculous. And we just literally used every single STEM or product we had laughed. My we're hoping a full day on mother's day. So we opened that 8:00 AM and we were pretty much scraping straps by five o'clock, which was the happy sweet spot for us. And we closed at six and we were done.
Speaker 2:And you had a big toast.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It kind of collapsed, collapsed. I think we ordered a pizza, which was the food of choice for that moment, you know, but, um, the reality was it was an amazing holiday, but the takeaway from it is allowing the challenges to force you into a new direction that actually becomes your new normal. And that's really what it turned into. Uh, because now we're going into Valentine's day and guess what? We're going to have 50, 75 and a hundred dollars mixed bouquets because we already were proven that that's what they'll pay
Speaker 2:And how was like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Was that good for you as well?
Speaker 3:Well, once we were able to open back up retail wise, our sales have been strong all along, but those of you that know me know that we also do a fair amount of weddings and event work. And of course that's been gone because our weddings went from big, beautiful galas to none. And then they opened back up to a limit of 50 people or less. And now they're currently sitting at 10 people or less, but no indoor. And we're in Michigan. I just tell ya, right at the moment it's 27 degrees. So it's a little brisk out there. So there's not a lot of outdoor events going on. There's a few people still having a heated tent here and there, but the rule is, if you're going to really follow the rules is you can't have sides of the tent. Cause that's, that makes it in closed indoor of that. So, so right now we're struggling with just 10 people. And that goes for our funeral homes too, though. So it really affecting the funeral business, uh, to the point that some people are just kinda throwing their arms up and saying, let's just have a Memorial service. So there Ryan for cremation and a Memorial service at another date, which I don't know how much you've been experienced to that. But the reality is as time passes, it never happened.
Speaker 2:It doesn't happen. You're exactly right. I was talking to someone the other day about sympathy work too. And they were saying their funeral homes had 10 limit as well. And what they were doing is extending the time period for visitation. So instead of a two hour visitation, now they were like a six hour visitation because they could only let so many at a time, but they said, at least that was better because people were going and they were sending flowers.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And I will say that we're still getting a fair amount of sympathy orders. So we're happy with that. I don't see a big decrease in that. I also see a lot more going to people's homes as a sympathy gesture and things like that. So the sympathy businesses still strong, but again, it's just changed. Uh, some of our funeral homes have put tents in the parking lot and actually had people gather there, uh, with heaters and things. Again, you can't put sides on them and it's, you know, it's cold here in Michigan, but still there are accommodating and people are still making their way. So I mean, you know, you got some of these families that we're dealing with. I mean, if they have five or six children and then they're married and then they have grandkids, immediate family makes up way more than you're legally able to have. Right. You got immediate family that can't even be in the funeral home at the time that they want to have a service. So some of them have been opening up the whole funeral home where normally they would have two or three visitations going on at a time. They're just having one at a time, which spreads it out. I just noticed this past week, and it's a kind of a, a sad visual of the times is that it happened in April and then it went away. And now it's back again. A couple of my funeral homes do have refrigerated trucks in the parking lot to save some of the bodies and things for right now. So it's kind of a strange time. A lot of those deaths are not COVID though. A lot of those deaths are just natural deaths, but people say, Oh, they didn't die from COVID. But you know, the reality is a lot of our mature people are dying just from being lonely. You can't have visitors and things like that. There's so many other factors that throw into it, you know, depression and all that. So it's a unique time. And the fortunate part is as floral providers, we can still provide that little bit of comfort that we can with a beautiful bouquet of flowers and we're, we're promoting them. You know, I never used to think about putting something out there for sympathy flowers, but the reality is, is we're doing some Instagram posts and things like that. Now, remember the Instagram audience is younger. Those people aren't even used to dealing with deals so we know what to do. And so our little Instagram blurbs about sympathy and comfort and things like that have really been gaining some good traction because it's untraveled territory. They don't really know about it. So it's our opportunity to educate them.
Speaker 2:I love that. Yeah. I hadn't even thought of that in the wrong, but you're exactly right. They don't know what to do. They're just like, Oh my gosh, you know, you know, grandma died or sometimes a parent, you know, they just don't know what to do about it. Wow. So w w when you're talking about moving forward a little bit about Valentine's day, what are your expectations? This Valentine's day
Speaker 3:I'm really thinking Valentine's day is going to be through the roof. Um, I mean, I know normally our industry projects 20 to 30% less being on a Sunday and things like that, I just don't think that's a wise way to plan this year because our sales have been up all along. Um, I think we took a little dip in September 1st part of October, and I've heard from other retailers, they had the same situation happened that end of August, September 1st part of October was a little soft and we thought, Oh, geez, what's going on? And then it swung right back. So, uh, up until that, our business has been good. And then since then it's been steady again, we're considering the fact that we're removing all our wedding and event monies, because that's just nonexistent. So as a company we're down, but the reality when you separate that out, and the fact that we've made changes and adjustments to make it work, which is the key, is to make those changes and adjustments with labor dollars and product dollars and inventory and all that, then it's a good time in the floral industry.
Speaker 2:It is. Yeah. If making the adjustments, like you said, now, you said you went from 50 to 12 employees. Where are you now? Where do you, where have you settled?
Speaker 3:Well at 12. Yeah. We're still at 12 and that's good. And again, we're simplifying things. So as we're creating our own email specials, we're making those designs super easy, super simple, so that it doesn't take a lot of time to make them because we don't have a lot of designers. Our key is our salespeople, to be honest with you. And I know for years and years and years, that's always been where people kind of forgot about salespeople. And it's like, the key is the salespeople always has been. We just never really looked at it that way. And so now when I have people on the phone looking at our refrigeration and saying, Oh, we've got two buckets of great, beautiful white Oriental lilies, today's Oriental Lily day. And, and they're really suggesting it and bushing it. You know, you put five stems of white Ram. I was with some beautiful pink Floyd roses, and you got a gorgeous striking bouquet, throw some Jenesta or wax flower and with it, and you've got, you know, your a hundred,$150 wrapped bouquet going out the door for someone to enjoy
Speaker 2:The salespeople have never gotten the kudos that they need because a sales person is many times more important than that.
Speaker 3:Well, besides the kudos, I think that salespeople have never gotten the training they needed. True. And so I think spending more time with them and training them and educating them on how to say and what to say and how to do the reality is you just have to work because every flower shop, every floral company that's selling flowers operates a little differently. So you have to, you know, you have to blend what it is that works for you. And, you know, demographics, you know, we have multiple locations and our Northern store up, and Holly has got totally different audience than those of us that are more towards the metropolitan Detroit area. And so, you know, you got different ethnicities, you got different, just, just different everything just need to, to adapt really and work with it and capture those moments when people call and want flowers, instead of suggesting a design where you're sending the rat bouquet that, you know, think about it. And when you ask the customer, do you want that arrangement of Bay street? You want that wrap? They off the normal responses? Oh, they already have so many faces.
Speaker 2:Hmm. I don't care. You know, I don't care. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And we always say, well, if we put the value into the flowers, you'll get more flowers as opposed to having to purchase a container. Uh, not that I don't do container designs. Obviously we also have offered where if people do take the opportunity to call an advance where we say, you know, if you have a base and you want to drop it off, we'll put it in your vase. And they really appreciate that. And once we get them at the shop, that's all another ball game, because now it's real easy for me to sell them. Some of our gourmet truffles that are sitting there in the case, and they can't resist and things like that. So we use that as an opportunity to lure.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's great. I love that. Do you worry about the longevity of the flowers when you send them out wrapped rather than innovation?
Speaker 3:No, it's all education. I mean, we, we give the floral preservative packets with it so that they have that. And then we tell them to refer to the directions that are on the outside of the packet, you know, that type of thing. And you know, that food packet, you can buy them from your local wholesaler, or we've actually had some that we, you know, custom imprinted with our logo on it. And so it's branding. I mean, those are all options. If you want to spend the extra money, you can do that too, just to continue that branding message.
Speaker 2:Well, that kind of leads us right into this question that you talked about in your presentation that you did for Teleflora a lot about grassroots marketing. Could you kind of give us a little bit more information? I just thought that was so simple. Right. But brilliant. You were calling it grassroots. I call it branding, which you used as well, you know, branding on your packages of flower food, but what were those tips that you were sharing that you were using for your grassroots? Yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, branding is anything you can put your logo on and get people to come back to your shop, obviously. So the flower food packets is one thing. Um, we have for years actually been doing the imprinted ribbon. I think I talked about that in the presentation that imprinted ribbon to the point that we even had one of our corporate clients like it so much that we now do it for their deliveries. So every time they call us, we use their logo, the ribbon on their deliveries, so that when someone receives from that company, they have their branded ribbon right on it. So branded ribbon is very cost-effective, um, you know, you got your initial plate set up and things like that, but afterwards the reorders are minimal and the pricing is very affordable. So I highly recommend that don't think branding is just the logo either because you could create your branding with a color palette as well. So keep that in mind, you know, perfect example is the little blue box. Everyone knows what that is, right. Especially ladies. So I think about the little blue box, you think about the sole on the shoe being red. Uh, there's a lot of things out there that is color oriented. So keep that in mind, too, as you know, a floral educator, we all know too, that people are attracted color palettes. That's what people buy. They might color. So use that as an opportunity to, for branding your sh your business. If you have a color that's for your company, we did that. And the oversized postcards, or just a standard postcard, really, we get those printed and we always include marketing material in every single package that leaves our building. So whether it's being a delivery, because if you're a member of a wire service, I made a point of that. Also, the people that are receiving those flowers might not know about you because you're receiving that order from another party. And if you're doing that delivery, I want them to call me in the future. So I make it easy for them to call me, I get my branded card on there. I Mark it for future events, such as right now, all our packages have Valentine's day on it. And so we're encouraging people to go online and order early and all that type of thing, but it's nothing else. It's a reminder. Yeah. Sometimes I've heard where someone will receive flowers and then there'll be the Valentine card and they'll slip it over on their husbands night, man, so that they can have a little friendly reminder. So keep that in mind. That's a great way to use as a, as a marketing piece within your own world. But yes, the imprinted cards, we do that on deliveries, as well as any package that leaves our store. So if somebody comes in and buys a cash and carry a bouquet of flowers, that package gets a marketing piece in it. So that recipient gets that even if they're just taking the flowers home to themselves, like I said, it's always there. And there's a marketing piece on that. The other thing is I'm always trying to scoop up ideas from other places as well. And recently I went to visit family and we went to a small little town and it was after the holidays. And so, you know, kind of everyone's in that mode of cleaning up after Christmas and taking down Christmas and it's that drab January time, but we found a few things and we made a purchase. And when we made that purchase in the bag was this little card, maybe just to give you a size, it was like the size of a standard raffle ticket. So it's a little smaller, narrower than a dollar bill, but still that shape. And I blocked shape, and it was divided into three coupons and it was to be used for February, March, and April. What a great way to bring people back to your shop. And so, uh, you know, I made a purchase in January, but now I'm incentivized to come back February, March and April, and this was not a floral shop. This was just a gift shop place. And so, but I liked the idea. So, you know, that's always good. The other thing we do a lot is we use coupon codes to encourage people to go online, to place their order is the more cost-effective for me to have them go online and place an order rather than call me for a Valentine's order and tie up my phones. And my staff can go online and place an order at their leisure and use this code. Then I can track that code for marketing purposes, but I can also encourage them to go there, receive a small discount or a stipend or an extra item or whatever. And that way it's incentivizing them as well as me making it easier for our team.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's great. And web sales are been out of the group. Yeah,
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. And so we've been doing that. So the online order code has been huge for us, the additional sales too. And I know I talked about this in my program that I did for those of your listeners that watch that it's still available on YouTube. They can still go watch it. If they want was for Valentine's day, we have what we call a romance package and in the romance package, I mean, you can custom make that romance package any way you want. But what we do is we have in a Valentine theme, tote bag, we put a plush animal, we use a large corsage bag and put the equivalent of like five open roses in there. The pedals we call them passion panels. We put my channels. Yeah, very romantic. And then we'd put three standard votive candles in there. They're not Senate or anything. We just use the ones we usually use for event work. So it's three votive candles, some passion paddles, a plush animal, a Mylar balloon. And most importantly, the hand dip truffles. We get good response from that. We call it the romance package and we can add that to any order. And we have them at different price points. So they usually start around 29 and go on up to like 59. And we think who's going to do an add on, you know, back in the day, we'd all be so excited. And retail that had on was a Mylar balloon, you know, how much it was like a dollar or$2. And now, you know, for someone to come in and buy a beautiful vase of flowers or a beautiful hand-tied bouquet for a hundred dollars, you would think in our own minds. And again, this goes back to selling yourself short, you know, how much extra would they spend? Well, we find that they spend 50, 60 bucks extra for a romance package.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. I would definitely say there's those studies right. To run that says when the waitress is doing pie and they say, do you want ice cream with that? They'll say, no, but if you say, do you want the vanilla or the chocolate they'll pick one. That's kind of like you, your romance package, do you want the 29 or the 59? Then they can decide which one they want.
Speaker 3:Do you want to a romance package? It's which romance package would you like to add? You know, as they say, it's all about the delivery on that. So,
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Now one question that I'm going to ask, because most people probably know, but I know there are some who don't know what the term gallon tine and Palin tine.
Speaker 3:Um, well, first of all, like everything, I suggest you Google it because the whole thing about gallon time on online that you can read about, and maybe, you know, if your area's not celebrating that maybe it's something that you print off and start distributing to your customers and let them know about it. You know, education is key. Basically the best summary of that is it's an opportunity really, for people to show appreciation or show great feelings towards another individual without having to make that quote unquote commitment of love. Yeah. And so you got a group of girlfriends that hang out and you always have a good time to gather it's it's about that. It's about Palantir's meaning you might be friends with another person, but you haven't really crossed that whole line of like, we're going to date or we're going to have a commitment, but yet we're pals. So it's, it basically gives you that opportunity to give a gesture of appreciation or thanks or whatever you want to call it without having to be committed to anything further, um, almost
Speaker 2:Like permission given to basically
Speaker 3:Yeah, basically. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like you said, it's not a commitment if you're sending something on Valentine's day, doesn't mean you're looking for romance necessarily. It's just like, Hey, I wouldn't be friends. Okay.
Speaker 3:Galentine's day is celebrated on the 13th of February the day before. So that is also a great way to push for a few early deliveries as well. And that is on the 13th of February. So it's on Saturday this year, push it for that day and get those talent time and gallon time, uh, deliveries out a little bit early. Um, you know, there'll be a little different this year, especially for us here in the metropolitan area. One of our biggest opportunities was to tell people, you know, get those Valentine flowers deliver early, you know, so that you can make the other people in the office envious. Well guess what? They're not in the office, they're all working from their dining room table. So we're trying to figure out a way and haven't quite mastered it yet, but we will. I promise you about how to get people to still send flowers early and then maybe have those flowers in the, in the screen when they do their zoom call.
Speaker 2:That's exactly what I was going to say,
Speaker 3:Uh, on the zoom call. Yeah, exactly. Look what I got, I got flowers from somebody special, you know, what did you get, you know, kind of thing
Speaker 2:Sitting on their desk and they're eating well.
Speaker 3:There's that? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:This has been great information, Jerome. I really appreciate you joining and sharing all the Valentines ideas and your story, really the journey, which is I love, it's just the challenge, just a new challenge.
Speaker 3:As I say, every day is a great day. Some are just better than others. Love it on you. And I just have to make it through. And I think right now, one of our personal challenges is to keep the spirit up among your staff. Because we have noticed when we initially went into the COVID shutdown and things like that, customers were super warm and super understanding and they were excited and just glad we were open, they've gotten a little angry, like they have, as we call it COVID fatigue and you're tired of being locked up. They're tired of being, not able to be with their family and all this type of things. So people are a little as I would call it contagious at the moment. And for that, we're starting to get some edgy clients, you know, I want flowers delivered. I want them delivered like in the next hour, you know? Uh, well, what do you mean you can't do that? That's what I want. You know, we're living in them. I was out in the world where our customers have been trained that if they order it, they can get it like immediately, if not sooner. And so, um, I think the biggest challenge we're going to have with this Valentine's day is going to be keeping the spirits of our staff up and how to deal with these basically entitled individuals that come to our shops or call us that feel like we should drop everything for their personal needs. And that I think will be our biggest structure change for us, uh, how we deal with that and whatever, you know, I just want to throw it out there, Vonda that, you know, one of the things that have become so commonplace lately is everyone wants us to send them a photo of their arrangement before delivered, you know, and we've been accommodating for the most part, but we are going to be putting new policies in the place. Cause we just don't have the manpower and the time to do it because the other thing, they want a photo and they want to see it and they want to approve it before you deliver it. But they still want it all in one day. And so we're going to have to put some good strong rules in the place. And we're going to change that, that if they want to see a photo of their design, that they're going to have to order a couple of days in advance. That's what I was going to say. I think that's a great idea, but it's not going to be able to go out until tomorrow afternoon. Correct? I think that's the best way to handle it because I've always been an advocate of never saying no to a customer. And I know a lot of retailers cringe when I say that, but you know, we've always lived our life. We don't even say no to weddings on mother's day. We just, we say we can do it, but this is the price structure it has to be. And this is the materials that we have to use so that we can create an advance and holds up and all that type of thing. So we never say no, we just give them the opportunity to still do it, but they may choose not to at that point. And that's the same with this taking the photos of an arrangement before it's delivered. We're just going to tell him we'll be happy to do that. So we're not going to say no, absolutely. Because if you say, no, it becomes confrontational, right? So if you say yes, be happy to do that. Unfortunately, that order will not be able to go out until tomorrow or the next day. Once we do create the design, take the photo, send it to you, you get your response. And we have the time to check our emails because that's the other part. We're not just sitting on our email the whole time. You know, you got to deal with the customer standing in front of you. So yeah, we're going to set up some timeframe on that work fast and furious working through all these little policies and procedures. So check back in, check back in March and we'll tell you how it all worked.
Speaker 1:Well, it's been really great to have you and we will talk to you again soon.
Speaker 3:Rhonda. Thank you so very much. It's been a pleasure and I hope everyone has a super Valentine holiday and remember, keep it simple, stay organized and show appreciation to your staff. They're there. They're your best asset. Those are three. Great tips. Thanks again. You're welcome.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for listening to our podcast. We hope you enjoyed spending time with us because we enjoy spending time with you. If you did make sure you hit that subscribe button or add the business and pleasure of flowers to your Google morning routine or your flash briefing on Alexa, we look forward to seeing you next week. 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][inaudible].