Fresher than Fresh with Ryan Black of Jet Fresh Flowers

Episode 153: Ellie is back for the second episode in our NextGen podcast series, where she interviews NextGen floral professionals & friends under forty. 

Today the spotlight is on Ryan Black, Marketing & Media Director for Jet Fresh Flowers, and SAF's 2022 Marketer of the Year.

Get a history lesson in Ryan's past that led him into his blooming role, discover a typical work day as a marketing director, and a glimpse into what life looks like as he builds and scales Jet Fresh's creative endeavors.

You'll also get a sneak peek into what's planned for 2023, an announcement on "Fresh Fest" (of course we're going!), and marketing inspiration from the expert himself.

If you aren't already, be sure to follow @JetFreshFlowers on Instagram and discover more at jetfreshflowers.com!

Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
Real Life Retail Florist

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:02

This is all stuff I'm learning. Like I I don't know how to delegate well, so that's stuff I'm learning how to do better. Same. Um it's hard for me to take my hand off the wheel and let someone else drive.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Welcome to the business and pleasure of flowers. We're your hosts, Vonda LaFever and Lori Wilson.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

And we believe that business and fun are a perfect combination. Kind of like us, Vonda.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Today I have Ryan Black with me. He is the marketing and media director for Jet Fresh Flowers based in Miami. And you guys also have a boutique flower farm in Ecuador. Hi Ryan.

SPEAKER_03 0:45

How are you doing? How's it going? Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Yeah, thanks for being here. You just got back from Ecuador, right?

SPEAKER_03 0:51

Just got back. We had the Floor Ecuador show. It's the big trade show out there. One year it's in Ecuador, then the next year it rotates, it goes to Colombia, then it goes back and forth. Nice. And uh like you just said, we have the boutique farm out in Ecuador, so we just did uh the booth as a first time as the farm there. So it was great. Yeah, yeah, it was a it was a big deal. Uh it was a it's a completely different animal uh as far as the trade show goes compared to the US shows. Everything is done three times the size. Every single booth has coffee and bar and food options. There's a place to sit at every booth. There was when I got there like the four or five days before the show, there was every single booth had like 20 people with power tools just going ham for three days.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Your book your booth looked super impressive. How long did it take to get that?

SPEAKER_03 1:40

I mean, it was like about it was about three months of planning.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:43

Uh working with a contracting team out there in Ecuador. Um they had to physically they had to physically put it together, obviously, for the whole thing, because we can't ship anything there for the show. Normally, it's the opposite here. Normally we usually build it all in-house and we ship it to where we gotta go and we just set it up ourselves. So it was a it was a learning curve. We learned some tricks and things to do better for for the next time around.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Was that your first time exactly?

SPEAKER_03 2:08

First time at that at that show at that scale. Yeah, we even brought out uh Carlos uh Moina from Pedal Productions here in Miami. I brought him out with me to just have like extra help and like a professional, you know, somebody that's used to dealing with that level of scale and size.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:27

Uh was a good reason was a good point of having him there. Also, he's a florist designer, uh, working with pedal productions for 30, 20, something, 20 years, something like that now.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Amazing. And you also had the hippie leaven at your farm.

SPEAKER_03 2:40

Yep, yep, yep. So I actually didn't even get to go to the leaven because we were setting up the booth, but man, that looks so it went, it went, it went so well. Uh it went great. Everybody had a great time. Uh, we got a good turnout of people that went to the farm, did the whole, spent the day, they got to listen to music, got some good food, got the whole farm tour. It's a lot of what that show is. It's you go visit farms and then you go do the trade show, so it like works into people's schedules pretty much.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Was that the first time you did the love-in?

SPEAKER_03 3:08

That was the first international love-in. The last one we did was at uh uh Norley Kennicott in Detroit.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 3:14

With with Andy Arthur. We did it there. But uh he actually came, so he's the only one that's been to both so far.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Love him. I got some we got some merch from him.

SPEAKER_03 3:23

You got his merch? Alright, good. Yeah, he's I I am unfortunately responsible for the Mr. Magoo uh character that he's got right now.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Okay, so Ryan, we met at SAF Next Gen. You spoke on a panel for expanding your brand and gave some insight into you know the things that make JetFresh so successful from a brand and marketing standpoint. While I was listening to you, I had met you the night before, I think, but when I was listening to you, I like really got to know how your brain works. Okay. You know, we have a lot of parallels, we have a lot of the same interests. I'm inspired by your creativity. Um, so I really wanted to get you on the podcast and talk one-on-one with you about, you know, your past, your present, and your future.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

I know.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

And also I want to give a shout out, no surprise here, but it is well earned and well deserved. You won SAF's Marketer of the Year this year.

SPEAKER_03 4:19

So we did, we did. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Round of applause for that.

SPEAKER_03 4:22

Appreciate that very much. Yeah, no, it was a huge, it was a huge win for us. Um we put together, I put together a really good proposal uh because you had to submit the application for answer questions, show some statistics, a proof of the proof that the stuff actually worked. Um so once we put together, once I finally put it all together and looked at it, like I was like, man, we sh we need to win this. This was Yeah. We had a yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Looking back at it, you know, day by day, it's like just the grind, but when you put it all together like that, it really shows you like wow, I've put we put so much work into this and kind of see it fast-forwarded.

SPEAKER_03 4:55

And I've been with Jeff Fresh since the beginning. Um, I I guess this will lead into some of your questions, but like I've been there since the beginning, and to watch, to see like, you know, where it's come now from where it was, like it's it's crazy. Like it's a really like the big the first month, first few first few months of Jeffresh was my dad literally on a desk by himself in a corner of JA's building. Like it was just that. There was no no employees, there was no warehouse, there's none of that. And it just grew little by little. And amazing. Fast forward now, we're going on almost 15 years.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

So let's start at the beginning. You are number three of five brothers.

SPEAKER_03 5:33

Correct. My parents, my parents wanted a girl, they kept trying for the girl, and they got boy, boy, boy, boy, boy.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

They got Connor.

SPEAKER_03 5:40

They got Connor. Connor, I think. I mean, we all joke about Connor was a later, later edition. He might have been a surprise edition, we don't know. But Junior Jared, Junior's the oldest, uh, he's 36. Jared will be 35 in March. I'm 33, going on 34. Casey's 30, and then Connor is 26. We're right there, we're all back to back, and which is kind of cool because we all kind of grew up around the same age, around the same time, doing it all on the same stuff.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

God bless your mother. You guys have this New York vibe. I know your dad is from New York, right?

SPEAKER_03 6:15

Our whole family, our whole family is originally from New York. We're all born in born in New York. I've lived, I moved to Florida in the year 2000, so technically I'm more of a Floridian than I am a New Yorker at this point, but I moved in sixth grade.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

And you moved your dad, then worked in other companies, and then started JetFresh in Miami. That was kind of the reason for the family move down south.

SPEAKER_03 6:36

I'm fourth generation, so my grandfather had a place originally in 28th Street. That's where my father, you know, grew up and did his did his flower career was on 28th Street, and then he started his own company, and then that company had issues and then it went under, and he had a uh a non-capete clause, so he had to l he could couldn't work in in basically in New York, so he had to he moved down to work with uh with his father in Florida, and that's why we moved to Florida is to work with my grandfather down here. And ironically, right as we moved to Florida, he passed away.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

So I'm sorry. You are such a creative person. Is there anything in your childhood that influenced that or were you just born?

SPEAKER_03 7:18

I mean, I've always been creative. Um I think that's one of the things that's like like something I didn't really learn. I just always have been creative and thinking outside the box in that sense.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

Um always thrived in art class.

SPEAKER_03 7:30

Yeah, literally. Um I took I remember taking those uh you ever see those old commercials where those at-home art institute where they tried to try to hook you. I remember taking that test and getting like uh I don't know, the grader and everything, but I remember doing those and I was always drawing and stuff like that growing up. And yeah, I was I was actually pretty good. I was always pretty good at art class. Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

And then you went to college. So you worked a little bit for Jet Fresh from the beginning, right?

SPEAKER_03 7:57

I went all yeah, I went away one year, first year of college to a little D3 school in North Carolina to play football. And then after I moved back here the following year, uh I transferred to FAU and I was working part-time in the warehouse, just like whenever I had free time, I was I would drive down and work in the warehouse. And once I graduated with a degree in computer animation and uh map minor in graphic design, um at that point I was doing a few different things. Uh a buddy of mine, we had started, we'd started a business doing websites, logos, business cards, that kind of stuff. So we were already kind of doing those things as just a way to make money. My brother and I, we were starting a uh a t-shirt line and we were doing like graphic t-shirts and and we were building a brand, working on that. Um, so I was doing all these things on the side, and then my dad came up to me as I graduated. He's like, I'm gonna hire somebody for graphic design. Would you like, you know, do you want you want a shot? You want the job to be yours? And I took the job as uh part-time. Okay, because I was doing all the other things on the side as well. And at the beginning, it was easy to do part-time because it really wasn't a plan, there wasn't any there wasn't anything really. There was no website, there was no, you know, none of the basics. So it was like, yeah, get in and then just kind of start from there, just build it up as you go.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Yeah, just do the essentials first and then Right.

SPEAKER_03 9:14

That's and that's what we started with. We started with essentials, and then it started with like marketing off flyers, uh sending out email blasts to like directly to the customers, creating graphics, creating videos. We were doing that, you know, instantly. That was like one of the first things we were starting to do. And yeah, they're not good if you look back that far. They're the first ones are bad. Like the cooler videos, you can barely hear them talking because the cooler fans are so loud. Yeah. The lighting is horrible.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

You got you went to school for computer animation and most motion graphics, though, right?

SPEAKER_03 9:46

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

When did you give that up? Or when did you decide, you know what this isn't for me?

SPEAKER_03 9:52

Um, there wasn't a lot of jobs in Florida right after I graduated for computer animation. There was some opportunities. I I went up to Port St. Lucie Um to interview for a pl uh for something up there, but I didn't really want to move away. I didn't feel like um a lot of the opportunities were in California, a lot of the opportunities uh were in New York, things like that. And animation wasn't as mainstream and commercialized as it is now, you know what I mean? So like literally commercials are doing it, they're using it every day. There's so many, there's so many more opportunities now than there was. So that's why I didn't stay in animation.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

So you said you started part-time at JetFresh.

SPEAKER_03 10:35

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Did you still feel like this is a part-time thing? I still want to have my own stuff on the side, which you still do.

SPEAKER_03 10:43

I'm still that I'm still in that mind space, kind of actually. I'm full-time with no free time on the side, but like in my head, I'm like, I'm still working on my own stuff on the side. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

So did you do you kinda did you in the beginning have like one foot out, one foot in?

SPEAKER_03 10:58

Or were you like it was days of the week. It was like days of the week, like on uh how I am Tuesday, Thursday work from home. It was like Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'm not doing Jeff Fresh. It was kind of like that. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

You briefly touched on the early days of JetFresh. You were building a website, marketing email blasts. Besides that, was there like a big first initiative or goal that you had for JetFresh? Like we need to grow our Instagram or we need to build our email list, or what was your like first big focus?

SPEAKER_03 11:39

The big focus I would say was uh YouTube.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 11:43

Building uh starting putting up videos on YouTube and stuff like that. Um we would throw the phrase around then, it's like, oh, picture's worth a thousand words, worth a video worth, right? You know, so that was what we were saying on at the beginning. Um, it was also the fact that you know you had me then doing it at that age where I was into Facebook and Instagram, and that's what I was spending my time on throughout the day. So it was like just taking advantage of that and just applying it to the to the business. Yeah, um, there was no competition on our side. We were in a specific market niche, right? We're B2B, so like social media is not really designed for that. But there was that's kind of why nobody was doing it. You know what I mean? There was no reason to do it in a way, like who are we gonna who are we gonna talk to there?

SPEAKER_00 12:27

And or other people didn't see that vision. You obviously didn't.

SPEAKER_03 12:31

So we were trying to just figure out what where our audience is, what's the best way to reach them, um just learning what what works for us, you know, like a lot of the beginning, I mean, honestly, the first few years was just winging it, figuring it out.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Throwing something out of the walls.

SPEAKER_03 12:47

There was never a marketing plan, there was never a brand identity structure or anything like that, one of those, one of those guides where you you do the all different names. We didn't have we I still don't have those, honestly, because honestly, whenever I have to use them as a designer, I get annoyed. I'm always like, oh man, I wish I didn't have to stick to this color scheme and this. Yeah, and you I that that just you know, don't put an artist in a box.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Let's move to present day, Ryan. I want to know about a typical day in your life as a marketing director. And since you are working from home certain days and in the office certain days, I want to know what it's like in the chaos in JetFresh when you're there for the day.

SPEAKER_03 13:31

I mean, I I could give you a good example. Um, every day is different. JeffFresh itself essentially has four brand companies that we're running right now, between JetFresh Miami, Jeff Fresh Growers the Farm, JeffFresh Global Trading, which is our broker style buying arm in Quito, um, and then we have our hippie psychedelic rose brand, which is its own separate entity. Um, so depending on the day, depends on the week, depends on what I'm working on. So, like, for example, if you were to go last month, I was doing everything for the Ecuador show. Nothing else mattered at that point. Oh, that's all I was focused on. So, print items, designing stuff, taking pictures, photography. My desk is in the corner of the office where I have a little makeshift pull-out, pull down roll of paper. But for the longest time, it was literally just poster board, just using poster boards as the backdrops. But so, like, for example, yesterday a day-to-day was a mixture of Zoom meetings, dealing with uh as now that I'm having more people on my on my team with Amelia, who I have she's doing all the design work and photography for me in Ecuador for the farm, managing her and what she's working on, as well as Joelle, who's my intern right now, uh, here in Miami, just dealing with uh working with him and figuring out what's what we need to do on his his schedule, figuring out things that works best for the team. That's all part of the day-to-day now.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Do you like that? Do you like being managing people?

SPEAKER_03 14:58

Yes and no. I like uh I value my personal opinion and like I like to have uh you know say in what we're putting out. So like if it was the opposite, I wouldn't like it. I know that. So you know, I just have to get used to this. Is all stuff I'm learning. Like, I I don't know how to delegate well, so that's stuff I'm learning how to do better. Same. Um I it's uh hard for me to take my hand off the wheel and let someone else drive. Um that's all stuff that I'm learning as I'm going. But throughout the day, there's like yesterday, for example, as I'm designing, I'm right in the office. You hear that it actually hasn't happened for a while, and yesterday was the first day that that purge alarm went back on. And and so you have to stop working so you can record all the Nerf gun fighting, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:43

That breaks your concentration for a good 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_03 15:46

It I mean it definitely stops the groove.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

If you're in a groove, like you know, that definitely puts a puts a halter in it, but so for instance, when you were like the Ecuador show is the only thing that matters. But I see you posting on Instagram every day as well. So that's a huge part. So are you batching all of your your reels and your content, or are you doing it all on the fly that day?

SPEAKER_03 16:07

Where it depends. Some of the things we're doing on the fly, some of the things we have uh nothing is longer than like a week out, though. Okay. Everything is being made because of all the everything reel related and social media wise that we're posting, it's usually stuff that we're selling right then and there. It's usually something that we just got in, it's something that's hot right now.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

And that customers can buy that.

SPEAKER_03 16:30

Right. So a lot of that content can't be planned out too well. Right. Like, yes, well, I'll know like what's coming in through the inventory, like, oh, we got this cool shipment coming in, be ready. But until it's there, because I don't know if you've ever had to ask a farm for pictures to promote things in advance, but you're never gonna get the pictures that will live up to my quality standards from them.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Right.

SPEAKER_03 16:49

Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

So yeah, gotta do it yourself.

SPEAKER_03 16:51

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Alright, so you work with your dad and your brother Casey pretty much full-time. I want to know about family dynamics.

SPEAKER_03 17:00

Well, it used to be my junior is the oldest, he still kind of works there. He's there like once, he's there a couple times a month to do some bookkeeping stuff and back of the house kind of maintenance. Um, he was the original operations manager, and his day-to-day job was to get yelled at and to just deal with all the bullshit and problems. And like my dad now is much different than my dad at the beginning of Jeff Fresh. Okay, okay. He stressed and the the temper has all kind of fizzled out a little bit, and now he's more he's all calm and he's cool now. But like back in the back then it wasn't that.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Like there was well, he was hustling, he was trying to make a living.

SPEAKER_03 17:40

Exactly, exactly. That wears on again. But that's a big reason why my brother Jared, uh, who also used to work at the company, he was one of the top salespeople for a long time. He helped grow the company very much. Um, he was also one of the leaders of he was the original fern on the videos, you know what I mean? He was very much the like the mini, my the mini showman versus how my dad is. He was very much that same. They had the he's a car salesman, so like he was on it. He was always able to be on it as far as that.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Jared had a much different experience than Casey does now in that role.

SPEAKER_03 18:12

Yeah, much, much different experience. Much different experience. Yeah, because Jared and my dad were so much alike that they would just fight constantly, they were just butt heads on everything. Jared had different views on where the company should go. My dad was very much in his way. This was the right way. Um so there was no wiggle room for him there. And we had a we actually had a podcast where we got all the brothers on there together and we kind of talked about it a little bit, but yeah, it was it was like we needed to record for another hour and got got more got more into it because nobody was nobody was uh nobody wanted to offend anybody, nobody wanted to bring up any bad memories.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

But personally for you, is there a line between personal business with you with your dad and your brother?

SPEAKER_03 18:56

There is. Uh um there it's not a it's not a very wide line. It's pretty thin. Like when I talk to him and Casey in the office and stuff, it's usually about like, you know, the family or what's going on with his situation, his his wife, his kids, I mean his dogs, uh, his house, you know, stuff like that. My dad, it's the same way. What's going on with the family?

SPEAKER_00 19:15

After hours when you guys are all grilling out together on a Sunday, for instance.

SPEAKER_03 19:20

It's pretty it's a pretty normal family outing. Um, I'm sure a conversation might pop up about work, but for the most part, we guys know how to separate healthy, have the healthy. I mean, I mean at the family, you in in that case, yeah. But like my wife was working with me in the marketing department for almost for a couple years.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

I know, she was I talked to her about that.

SPEAKER_03 19:41

It just got to be too much, you know. So there was no separation there. Yeah, and that was more the issue.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

You know, co-workers, co-collaborators, right, married, living in the same house, like just too much.

SPEAKER_03 19:53

I totally that I'm always I'm all I'm I feel like my dad has ingrained that I'm not workaholic, but like that high level of of work. Like we're all me and my brothers are all that way. Like we're always, you know what I mean? Well, like, even if we're just standing around in a in a place, we'll maybe we'll grab a broom and just do something. We're not just gonna stand there.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

And your dedication to it also kind of wants, I think my mom's talked about this, that like she wants everybody, she expects everybody else to work the same that she does. Right, exactly. You know, for normal people or normal people that aren't don't think like that, it can be can be challenging. So you know that the power of storytelling is so real. But there is a huge gap between reading a book like The Purple Cow by Seth Godin and actually implementing those strategies in an impactful way that converts viewers to loyal customers and having that loyal base like you do. What do you think separates a successful brand or a successful company or even a small business apart from the rest? What is it?

SPEAKER_03 20:58

So I think with storytelling specifically, it's one of those I don't want to say trendy topics, but it is kind of like the hot, the hot marketing direction. Like if you were to hire a marketing consultant, I imagine they'd tell you you gotta storytell more. You gotta tell the story of your company, blah, blah, blah. I think that's only as good as your story. You know what I mean? Like you're if your story's not good or it's not interesting, you could tell the story as good as you want, but like, you know what I mean. At the end of the day, if if there's not there's no plot or nothing there that's gonna, you know, that's gonna drive the story, there's there's only so much storytelling, there's only so much storytelling can do, you know what I mean? So having a good story, number one, being able to back it up and like prove it, number two, like nowadays it's so easy to just write a story that can be your brand's story going forward, right? But what was the story going backwards? You know, like what's the whole story? Um, this industry is so personal and everybody knows everybody, you know what I mean? Like everybody already knows. The story, you know, a lot of people already know the story, more or less, you know, so you have to find a way to tell it in an interesting way.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Yeah. But even with like your cast of characters and having each person within your company, a lot of the people highlighted they're their own brand, they're their own story. And you tell that day after day when you do the what's the one with Nat? What's it called? Hey Nat, what's that? Hey Nat, what's that? Um, the one with Pinky. Like in that way, when you're going back to you have to have a good story. You also have to have if you're if it's a visual thing, right? If it's content, like having people that play into that story is super important. And if you have a team of duds, you know it's not that's a hundred percent true.

SPEAKER_03 22:46

You're a hundred percent right. Having a team of duds is realistic, and I see it. I see people making videos out there, and unfortunately, like these guys are you don't have to do anything, they're one takers, they you know, they don't have there's no prep, there's no cue cards, they're winging it too. And but they're salespeople and they know the stuff like the back of their hand, and they're all passionate about it, and they believe in what's going on. So it just it just comes out, you know. But they're 100% characters, it's exactly that. They're characters, and they're they're good characters, you know, they're the ones you're gonna want to binge watch versus for sure. You know, there's people that don't like to be on camera. There's people that you know nowadays it's almost like assume that you're gonna be on camera if you come work with Jeff Fresh, right? Like you almost have to expect it at this point. But like I I'm not that person. I don't want to be in front of the camera every time. If if that was my job where I needed to constantly be in front of the camera, I would be, you know, having this to deal with that con that that anxiety of doing that. Find your stars. There's gotta be one.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Alright, let's move on to the future stuff. So you are obviously a huge part of JetFresh's overall growth of the whole machine. With this trajectory in mind, what is next for you within the family business? You mentioned that you have you're managing people now, you're starting to build out your creative team.

SPEAKER_03 24:08

That's what's next for me is getting the team built at this point. We like uh we were we would say the joke of we're a marketing team that sells flowers now. So we need to make it like we're a machine essentially, and we're we're we've been put at this level of this bar to where we need to constantly meet this quality, this constant amount of consistency and and the numbers that we need to put out. So to re to keep up with that that that goal is is is a lot of work. Um so putting together a team is my first step. Um, putting together a team that where I can take a step back on the day-to-day stuff and do some more of the big picture stuff, managing the team, focusing on our on our greater growth because we have there's so many cool things that we're sitting on that that needs to be put out.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

That you just don't have the capacity for it.

SPEAKER_03 24:57

I'm I'm eager for it. Like we're waiting for certain things, but like we're exciting. Yeah, we got a lot in the works. Um and hopefully by next year we're gonna have everything in place to where we can make that happen easily.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

Is there a specific focus for next year?

SPEAKER_03 25:13

Yeah, I can give you, I'll give you the I'll give you the exclusive.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Ooh, you heard it here first.

SPEAKER_03 25:18

Yeah. 2023, I'm not sure what month, but we will be having Fresh Fest.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Fresh Fest?

SPEAKER_03 25:27

Yeah. We've been do we've been doing all these trade shows this year, and we want to do our own. Sweet. We're gonna have our vendors come to Miami. We're gonna have our customers fly down for the day or the or two days, we're not sure yet. But just be ready for invited. Of course, of course. We need we need we need we need as many people to come as possible.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

So you guys are obviously 2023.

SPEAKER_03 25:52

And name that rose volume three will be launching as well in 2023. Name That Rose is our originally it started as a sales tool for us. Our original marketing of Jeff Fresh was we have over a hundred varieties of roses in stock in our cooler every day, right now. Call us right now if you need a variety of rose. We all probably have it in stock. That posed a problem for our sales team being able to quickly identify all these roses, right? So we built the app using gamification, uh, and we developed this app to where you would be get a picture of the rose and you get four options of the name, and you'd have to just quickly identify the name, and it was just rapid fire game. And it got really popular and people loved it, and we've been trying to update it for the last year, and I've been like I said, I've been behind with every project, and manpower is low, and my developer is no longer around. So uh yeah, we had uh we had to make some some delays changes, but that will be launching in 2023.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

So anybody can download the app.

SPEAKER_03 26:58

Yeah, any it'd be on it's it's right now it's off the app stores, but when the new version comes out, it'll be on both app stores and you'll be able to do two versions. There's the free play mode and the tournament mode where you the tournament mode where you get three strikes. So if you get three wrong, you're out. Um but it's rapid fire, the faster you answer, the more points you get. And you compete against flower professionals all around the world. There's a leaderboard that shows the high scores. This this app became one of the apps for the industry in a way. Like it was literally that's who was using it. It was wholesalers and florists. That's who it was designed for. That's who was using it. And when you get the when you get the question right, it unlocks the rose card. So essentially what happens is you eventually develop a little uh like a Pokedex, like a little index versus all these rose cards in your phone where you just go through the app and you can pull out the app and you can scroll through all the roses and you're like, oh, this is the rose, and you have the name and information of the card and stuff like that. Uh so yeah, but nowadays there's I mean, since the last version, there was maybe 200 roses in the app. Now my current list is up to like 400 of past, present, and upcoming roses right now, and I still have more to add, actually. I have more to add in. After being in the Ecuador show and seeing all the new new varieties and new names, there's a bunch I have to add in.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

That is so exciting. I love that. Can't wait for that to come out. What's something that you've learned, whether it's marketing related or not, that you hold close to your heart that you remind yourself about?

SPEAKER_03 28:25

Um, trust your gut is big. Um definitely trust your gut is one thing that I I would do. Um for me, like I go, like, especially in this Ecuador show, like I've been to those shows before, so I would literally go around and say, what are they doing? What is everybody doing, and try not to do those things. Yeah and focus on what other people aren't doing. And those are the things that I'm focusing on. Or like seeing stuff that I personally like, pop culture or fashion or something outside of work-related, how can I turn this into flowers? Where can how can I bring this interest into my side of the business? Which is half the stuff, like the creative stuff we're making is personal projects that I'm interested in that I want to make, you know what I mean? Stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

So I feel like a lot of your stuff is and I'm not I don't take this the wrong way, but the inspirate as a creative, I see the inspiration behind it kind of hidden in plain sight, right? Like you are such you observe the world around you, and then you just absorb that into channeling it for whether it's a sticker, whether it's a booth design, whether but it's so simple, but yet it's so hard for people to do. But that's why people can relate to it or think it's so cool. It's because it's not complicated, it's not hard to understand. It's very simple, but as we know, it's it's hard to pare it down to No, I agree.

SPEAKER_03 29:51

I agree. I I don't I don't I don't think there's uh anything wrong with playing off things that people love in like whether it's nostalgia, whether it's uh pop culture or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

So the pet, is there a time that you can remember when you invested a lot of creative brain power and man hours into something for Jet Fresh? And it just totally flopped. Something that you thought would perform really well, and it just didn't.

SPEAKER_03 30:17

There's definitely been like some trade shows and stuff, some of our early trade show booths that didn't really hit the mark as far as like the idea versus the execution. Like one example would be we did one trade show one year at Wolfsaw where we did the table display that our our catchphrase was non-stop service is is the is our like our tagline. So um we tried to make that out of flowers, and nobody was able to read it at the show.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

Okay, so on the on the flip side, this is early days again. What would you consider to be your first successful campaign or marketing initiative where you guys were all like high fiving in the office and just being like, wow, this is this is great.

SPEAKER_03 30:57

Early days, I would say some of the things that got the initial like support and love and feedback was like when we were doing the like I would take the picture from Thunder Down Under and put like the guys' heads on that. And like there were certain ads that were a little more on the uh risque side. It was always always directed, yeah, it was always directed for for the female audience. It was always like a sexy guy holding a flower or something like that. But I remember like people would tell us, Oh, they printed out the deal of the day flyer and they have it hanging in their office, and and that that was always like a nice little nice little plug, nice little push.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

Before I let you go, we have ten quick questions. Are you ready? Ready, jeans or sweats?

SPEAKER_03 31:42

Sweats.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

Early bird or night owl.

SPEAKER_03 31:45

Night owl.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

What's your coffee order?

SPEAKER_03 31:47

Black two sugars.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Spicy food or no spice?

SPEAKER_03 31:50

Spicy.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

What's your biggest fear?

SPEAKER_03 31:52

Not making like not leaving leaving behind something big, you know, not making a big enough mark on the world.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

Can only listen to one song for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_03 32:03

That's a terrible question. I International Players Anthem, UGK Outcast. Weekend, Mac Miller, soundtrack to my life, Kid Cuddy. But that's it's a horrible question to ask. Like, how am I supposed to pick one song?

SPEAKER_00 32:13

What's your favorite number?

SPEAKER_03 32:15

81.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

What did you want to be when you grew up?

SPEAKER_03 32:17

Um, depends on what age you ask. Uh at one point I wanted to design cars. I had a bunch of books on how to draw and design cars.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

Biggest pet peeve.

SPEAKER_03 32:25

Okay, I'm gonna give you two, and they're both airport related. So I don't care if you stand up when the plane lands, go ahead, stand up, knock yourself out. But if you're in the row behind me, don't try to get out before me.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

Oh, a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_03 32:40

My wife has almost fought people on planes over this, but yeah. If you're being on the road behind me, wait until the row in front of you gets out, right? That's one. And number two, I'm just thinking of these because these are fresh in my mind, I was just in the airport. Number two is I could be standing at the baggage claim with my foot literally on the metal thing, and somebody's gonna come in front of me and stand in front of me somehow every time. Like, I can't get any clo I could be sitting on the baggage claim, and somebody's still gonna sit in front of me to wait for their bag. I'm like, you don't see me here.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

There needs to be like a ring around it, like a yellow line. Everybody just stand back in the back. Everybody needs a parking space.

SPEAKER_03 33:16

Everybody needs a parking space.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

We can all look, and then when you see your bag, you go up and get it. Until then? Who's Mike's favorite son?

SPEAKER_03 33:23

Connor. Or me. It's Connor and me, I would say. I think he's got a different relationship. Connor was Connor is the baby.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

What is your death row meal? Your last meal.

SPEAKER_03 33:34

Is there's pizza involved in there somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

What where from?

SPEAKER_03 33:38

I just waited two hours for one of Miami's best pizza places, actually. Uh this pastor.

SPEAKER_00 33:43

Did it live up to the hype?

SPEAKER_03 33:44

It was pretty good. Um so the pizza involved. I'm a big dessert guy. Um, so I I mean I it probably have I would go heavy with dessert. I had uh Tina from our office, she invented for me uh the brownie cake, which is brownie icing brownie. If I opened a restaurant, it would either be a pizza restaurant or a dessert restaurant.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

I love that. Thank you for sharing your story and and everything, and I hope our audience gained some wisdom from you and some inspiration. And if they're not following you, JetFresh Flowers on Instagram and YouTube and your website's super cool and has a lot of good info on it. This has been great chatting with you.

SPEAKER_03 34:28

Thank you. Thanks, Ellie.

SPEAKER_02 34:31

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.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

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.