As We See It: Predictions in 2023 for Retail Florists

Episode 157: Everywhere you look you see  predictions for 2023. Everything from thoughts on the economy and sales to personal growth and mental wellness. Vonda and Lori share their thoughts and ideas on what to expect or work toward in the new year. 

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

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:03

The other thing that I thought was interesting is there's a prediction for financial freedom.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

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

SPEAKER_03 0:19

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

SPEAKER_04 0:29

Hey Lori, what's happening this morning? Not much. We're getting ready for the big freeze that's going to happen in the great state of Texas. So you know, every person in my city is in disarray right now. Um, the fate the the town Facebook page is blowing up, as you can imagine, um, because we are not prepared for cold temperatures.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

And you aren't either, which is hilarious because you and I both grew up in the Midwest. And so we're like, we're used to the cold and all this, and but yeah, not, and the people are not, and no pools are not like my husband has been spending the last two days running back and forth to Home Depot because he gets a different idea.

SPEAKER_04 1:17

And anyway, it's just funny because the thing is, it's gonna last maybe two days, right? But like last year or two years ago when it happened, we did have a pipe break. Thankfully, it was over the garage, yeah. So it wasn't in the house. Um, so it's just those first world problems, right? That's right, exactly. Exactly. So, anyway, okay, we have, I think it's kind of exciting what we're gonna talk about today. You kind of gave me an assignment, let's look at 2023 trends or you know, predictions, or what do we think are gonna happen? And when I looked at your notes and then looked at mine, I'm like, wow, we really did go down different roads, which we normally do, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:06

We do, right? Yours is very business-minded, mine is more about yourself and how to how to grow yourself.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

So which is really interesting because when you look at predictions for 2023, I mean, they're all over the place, right? There's some things that are saying unpredictable, or well, we're cautiously optimistic as we're coming into 2023. And so you take a look at, I mean, hundreds of posts because when we talk, we don't just say things lightly, you know, it's something that we really look at. And like you, you're the big researcher, but when it comes to something like this, I mean, gosh, we want to make sure we're giving the right information.

SPEAKER_04 2:47

Well, right, and we're gonna preface the whole thing by these are just predictions on trends and things. You know, my dad's living with us right now, and we keep talking about scenarios um for him long term. And I think it's funny um because every time we have that conversation, it could be four different times in the day, it always ends by him saying, case, whatever will be, will be. I mean, and he just keeps saying that. And I was like, You're right, the future's not ours to see, and he just talks it. Yeah, yeah, right. You know what? I mean, we're gonna have these predictions, but we we don't know the future.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

We just well, I'm gonna start with my first one, and it's one that maybe you've all seen coming, and that is that the supply chain for 2023 will not be an issue. I mean, all of the containers are starting to come in back into stock. When um we met with Smithers Oasis in the fall, they said that the cold glue is coming back in in December, and so some of the things that you have been waiting for will not be the issue coming into 2023. So I think that's like woo-hoo, that's good.

SPEAKER_04 4:06

Yeah, that's really good. When you were saying that, I was picturing all of those cargo ships that were stuck, remember a year ago and two years ago. So I'm I'm assuming the logistics of that has been worked out.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

It's yes, much better. And and I was even talking to Amy about flowers direct from the farm into um our flower shops, which is our farm to shop program that we have. And she was saying that logistics are much better. Pedx is up about 99% production, so that's good. There's still a a limited number of cargo planes that are coming, so if something breaks down, that is could be an issue, but she said that's really what it's been for for the last few years, anyway. So um she doesn't feel that that's a problem, and flour production is up to production because of course the demand is down slightly, and so that makes a difference with getting what you need. So I think overall supply chain fresh and for hard goods should be a positive going into 2023.

SPEAKER_04 5:10

Yeah, let me ask you, you mentioned demand is down, and I have been noticing on all of the Facebook groups, not just flower clicks, but all of the groups, people saying, is it slow for anyone else? Is it slow for anyone else? You know, and and I wonder, is it truly slow or is it like 2019 normal?

SPEAKER_01 5:34

That's what it is. It's 2019 normal. Think what happened. There was such a jump, right? Obviously for 2020, but then 2021 was almost unprecedented crazy. Um I actually was shop talking to a shop yesterday who said from 2020 to 2021, her business was up 54%. And so this year she's back down to 2020 level, which seems slow because it was absolutely crazy last year, but she wasn't worried, she was just like, you know, I was kind of bracing for the 2019-2020. And I think shops have been so crazy, Lori, for so long. Everything seems slow. And yeah, if you prepped for what you had in 2021, it's gonna seem really slow. It could be down 50%, right? Based on those, it depends on where your predictions were, I think.

SPEAKER_04 6:36

But I would think that your employees and yourself and your your mental stability would be way better right now than it was two years ago.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Interesting enough, probably not, because it's that anxiety of OMG, what is going on? Why am I not busy? Why am I not instead of going okay, yeah, we can rest a moment, maybe January will be more like that, but there's anxiety going along with the loss of craziness.

SPEAKER_04 7:13

Well, I think I think you're right. I think there is anxiety because when I'm reading some of these things, they they seem fearful, but there are the Ralphs and Giordano's that comes in and he's like, no, you know what? Yes, it's slower, but here's what I'm doing to make use of my time. Like, you gotta keep thinking through. Well, there's always something to do. Um, but it would it would be scary.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

I get it. Yeah, it yeah, really. Um my second prediction is that accessibility is key. And when I'm saying accessibility, it's like we have so much of the workforce right now who is having to go back to work, not in our not in our industry, right? No, I know.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

But they're having to go back to work, and so either they're quitting that job because they don't want to go back in the office, or they're only required to go in the office once a week, or maybe two times a month, whatever the case is. And so there's a lot of shift in being accessible to wherever you're going to be working, right?

SPEAKER_04 8:18

And it's funny because this is one of your terms that overlapped with one of mine, and it was um flexibility. You to be a business owner, you have to be flexible. But when I think about when I filter that through being a flower shop owner, right? Um, I think of the, and I talked about this, I don't know, a month ago, uh, about the guy who was having employee problems. It was like a revolving door, and he hired a handful of uh moms. And the first thing he did was sat him down and said, Tell me your hours. What where's your sweet spot? Where can you work? And he literally created the schedule around those three ladies because they all had different aged kids, all different times, all you know, one of them was like, I just want to do weekends because my husband's at home and he can take care of the kids. And like, great, and it worked. So to me, that is flexibility, right? Right, right. It's also incentivizing a person to want to come work with you because you're willing to work around their hours. Um, we also we have some uh flower click members who have women that work from home from their garage.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

Well, that well, that's where I was gonna say. Not necessarily the work from your garage, but with technology the way it is, there would be, I would say, no reason that you couldn't hire a salesperson to work at home and take orders. Go through sales training, our sales prep school is fabulous for that. Go through the sales training, have them be at home, they can remotely access your computer, input those orders, and you're not having the distractions. You know, whoever's doing the sales is not having distractions of anything going on in the shop, which could be crazy. Um, when you're having 80% of your orders coming in off over the phone, having somebody doing that remotely could save you a lot. And Lori, you can speak into how tough it is to get people to work these days, right? They don't it's it's hard to get that employee, and if they have the opportunity to work at home and to do that, gosh, we we maybe haven't really bridged that in our industry.

SPEAKER_04 10:46

I only know of one shop. Well, no, I take that back. I know of a few, but one that I've recently talked to, and they are a shop in North Carolina, and her manager's husband, they got transferred to Texas. So that's what they're doing. She is she does the phone, she does their marketing, she also trains the staff. They're in our sales prep course, they have our sales prep course, and so she does virtual meetings with new employees and runs them through the whole program, and she's she's killing it from a thousand miles away.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

And Nicole from City Line Flores. Well, right, Nicole, her citizen.

SPEAKER_04 11:28

Yes, yeah, her shop's in Connecticut and she's in California, and so I don't know that she answers like the daily phone, but I know she does all of their marketing, she's like killing it with all of their marketing. She's so good at it, but um yeah, I I it's that think outside the box mentality that we have to do.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

Right, right. And I think most cloud-based systems for appointment sales systems, you know, easy to access that. So give that some thought for especially with Valentine's Day when you need extra people on the phone to be able to take care of that.

SPEAKER_04 12:04

Yep. I think it would be um a fabulous incentive to find an employee that would love to do that. Yeah, agree. So I mean, you know, you think about we know big shops that have call centers because they own multiple shops. This is no different, except in my mind, this is more personable.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

It is, yeah. It of course it demands great communication, which is kind of my next one, which is customer service has never been more important than it is right now and going into 2023. Customer service and being authentic, it I mean, people can see through excuses, they can see through people who are just trying to be nice. You really have to be authentic. Right. My conversation was with the wholesaler, and she's like, you know what? I know I'm busier than most because I don't make excuses. If I say that there's a plane that was delayed, there really was a plane delayed. I'm not just making that up. If I say there's been weather, there's weather, and people know that about me because you know, so many times florists will fact check, right? It's like they said this again, and and they will look that up. And I think that goes all the way through to the culture of your shop. You, as the owner, need to be honest and transparent, but you need to pass that along to each and every one of the employees, clear down to the driver who's taken those flowers to the door, you know, it's that whole culture that we've talked about before.

SPEAKER_04 13:40

So I um I'm gonna say something and I might trigger people, but I don't care because it needs to be said. Okay, one of my pet peeves in any industry, but I'll just talk about the floral, but in any kind of customer service related industry, is when you are talking to an employee, you know, I'm a customer, they're an employee, and you you figure out pretty quickly they know nothing, like nothing about what's going on in your shop, what you have, they don't really care. Here's my pet peeve when I'm talking with a shop owner. It's like, well, it's just hard to find employees, you know. I can't help it, I can't fire them because I need an employee. Here's the thing the fault is not that employee. You have not trained them, you have not set them up to be successful because here's what happens if the employee is gonna be a crappy employee, they're not gonna even get through the training, they're gonna quit because it's too hard. That's fine. You dodge the bullet, you pull somebody else in. See what I'm saying? It's so frustrating. We cannot keep using the excuse of it's so hard to find employees, I can't find them, they're just she's never gonna change. Well, you haven't had her him or her go through your shop's training tools or whatever it is, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:07

You haven't set them up for success.

SPEAKER_04 15:10

No, no, because it it truly will. If it's if it's an employee that is like very apathetic and just truly doesn't care, they're not gonna last a week through the training, they're gonna just quit or probably just not show up. Just not show up. That's okay. They weren't your person, look for somebody else because it's costing flower shops so much in their reputation because of stupid social media. Yep, you're right. You're right. I mean, you cannot afford to do that anymore, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

And and when you were saying, you know, show them and set them up for you know success, blah, blah, blah. You have to set the example as well. Because I think some people do hiring and then just kind of like push them off, and they're not even setting an example for that person they just hired. You know, you have talked time and time again about getting giving them a mentor. If you're too busy and you don't have time for that, give them somebody that they can mentor them and help them do that, even though they're going through training. Who can they ask questions? I mean, right, can't throw them in a corner and say, here, right, pick your best employee that you have already to mentor them.

SPEAKER_04 16:25

And I will say, give that employee an incentive to like give them a, I don't know, whatever. And and that will help because then it takes the weight off of you, it gives that middle person a really great responsibility, and it's gonna help your business, and it helps build the culture, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Right. That's what you're trying to do is right mentor everyone in the shop.

SPEAKER_04 16:53

Interesting again, because that kind of intertwines with one of the ones I was looking at. It was invest in a life coach, a personal coach, or a mentor. And you need a mentor to help your staff, but you too need some feedback, you know, and that's why you and I, I mean, we will have hour-long coaching calls with our flower clip members. Just yeah, it may not even be about flowers, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:23

I had a couple scheduled on my calendar for the first year, so you know it's like it's okay. You know, it's okay. This this was an interesting statement, and this was actually out of um a writer for the Wall Street Journal, and it says the focus must be on connecting the right people to do the work that needs to be done effectively.

SPEAKER_04 17:45

That's 100%.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

I know, right? It's connecting.

SPEAKER_04 17:48

You and I've talked about that for years. If you put your person in the wrong position, they won't be effective. Again, right? If you had Cammy and I swap jobs. Sorry, Cammy, Cammy would have a nervous breakdown. I would have a nervous breakdown. I would I would just stare at the computer and through try to absorb it through Osmus, but we wouldn't really succeed, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 18:16

At all. Um, you swap Ellie with Audrey. That wouldn't work. No, you you you have to make sure, and that's why I always tell people when you're interviewing at the very beginning, ask them what's your passion, what drives you, what do you love? What do you love to do in your free time? That's gonna tell you a whole lot about where their fit's gonna be in your store. It's it's so simple, yeah. Yeah, that okay, so a life coach, life coach or mentorship, yep. Okay, and the prediction they have is, and and I see this with a lot of my friends that do therapy, they do it virtually because they don't have time to go in anymore. So, life coaches, mentors, therapists, all of the stuff, it's all available if you just went into your office, shut the door, and you do a Zoom call.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

Yeah, yeah. Actually, there was all kinds of advertisements this weekend for that. The the um probably because the holidays were coming out. Yeah, it was, you know, and talked about how it wasn't expensive, but how it could really make a difference in your life. And I'm like, wow, you know, we know that society needs that at this point, and that doesn't surprise me that that's really gonna be a trend for 2023. Great, great.

SPEAKER_04 19:38

I believe insurance companies are and and big corporations too are really leaning into that more because I've noticed more and more that it is covered. Where you think 10 years ago, Vonda, that wasn't covered for insurance. You're on your own. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Well, that's good. They're finally stepping out to that.

SPEAKER_04 19:58

Yeah. Okay. So this is from an article that I was reading, and it's basically just my 2023 predictions. It's by a lady named Veronica Smith. Um, so flexibility. She we already talked about that, you know, flexible part-time, maybe weekends only. Um, I get if you're if you're a smaller shop and you're not set up to have somebody work at home yet, but our encouragement would be start doing a little digging into your POS system, you know, see how that you can make that happen. Because, like you said, it really is easier than you think. Um, so especially for Valentine's Day or for Mother's Day, you know, what busy, busy times. Um, the other thing that I thought was interesting is there's a prediction for financial freedom. And this is for people as a whole, it says, gone are the days of the monthly paycheck and single income. Individuals want to diversify risks and create multiple streams of income, active and passive. I see this on the TikTok. There are so many, which they really are advertisements. I just scroll right through them. But Sue's like, you want to hear how to do a side business? Follow me here, follow me there. People are doing Amazon. Amazon is notorious for hiring little you know influencers to sell all their products and you get affiliate marketing. I mean, Ellie could talk to you for hours about how to do that, but that's very especially in the millennial age, so many of them, they they don't just put all their eggs in that one basket. They're you know what I think, I think it's good. I mean, you think I've we've talked about this. My my husband put, you know, one job for I don't know, 30 some years. That's That's how it was back in the day.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Now people are like, no, I like to keep my options open. So interesting fact, because I was reading this when it was predictions, because that was one of them that I had read too. But about a third of Americans have started or planned to start a side hustle. And that was in 2022. So you it's happening. It's yeah, like, yeah, whether it's passive or or or just right.

SPEAKER_04 22:27

We have a flower shop owner, a clicker, that just got her real estate license. Yeah. And I'm like, good for you. That's you know, she's like, I want to do something else too. Uh maybe I don't know. I don't know what I need to call her and go, what are you doing? How are you gonna do both? But I just that's it. You know, you want some bring in some more income because you want the financial freedom. Um, okay, the next one was personal reinvention based on your passion or your superpower. This kind of goes back to me saying when you interview somebody, the first thing you should talk about, what do you love? Yeah, what do you love to do? You know, um, they want to do what they love for a living and they reconcile the huge gap that currently exists. If you're miserable, if you're a flower shop owner right now and you hate flowers, you have just grown to hate them, get out, right? Exactly. Liquidate will get you out because you're probably not going to be successful.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

That's why most flowershop owners are successful, because this is their passion, right? Right. And they're power is either pe being with people or the design or you know, right, the floral right.

SPEAKER_04 23:42

But I won't even take it a step further with this because I want, you know, we all would love to do only what we're passionate about. Like that's kind of not real world. Right. Um, I had a conversation with somebody the other day, not a flower click person, not even a shop owner, but somebody. And I was giving them ideas because they were looking for a job, and they're like, Oh, I don't like that, or I don't like that. And I was like, here's the thing. I love people. I love people, I love having conversations with people, but I don't necessarily love flowers. I love I appreciate flowers, but you know me, I'm not a designer. I don't want to be. So I take my love of people and I focus and concentrate 80% of my job and energy on the people, right? And then about 20%, I have to do spreadsheets, or I have to add recipes, or I have to pretend I'm a designer for social media. You know, so you gotta take a little bit of stuff that's not your passion, yeah, because the if the bulk of the job is, yeah. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 24:54

Totally. Yeah, you're right. You know, it's that's you can't have a hundred percent all the time, right?

SPEAKER_04 24:59

No, right, no, especially if you're a small business, you know, if you're running, so anyway, that's I think we can get super focused on what's my passion, and but take part of that and go, well, where could that fit in what industries?

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Very well said, yeah, good challenge.

SPEAKER_04 25:22

Um, let's see. The next one was well, boom of the economy of relationships, the rise in networking, both personal and online, will intensify as people realize, and I believe this, the value behind human connections, um, both personal and professional. Social media platforms will implode in a good way. Um, I think this is very true because it is no secret that I am a very relational person. Like I have to have a relationship. And I have, I don't, I don't get out much, right? Because I work at home, I work behind a computer, all of my people live in my computer. Um, but going out with my dad visiting some of these assisted living homes, I find myself just re-invigorated because I'm having face-to-face conversations with people, right? Like the director of sales there. And I'm like, wow, this do you want to get coffee sometime? Like you're but it's so true. I think we've been held up in a pandemic for so long, too, that we've we've kind of forgotten how to be relational.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

And actually, that's causing a lot of anxiety in relationships. And so that goes back to your number one. Make sure you have a coach or a therapist, Mr. Weber. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 26:53

Yep, yep. Um, okay, so I'm gonna move real quick down. The last one I was gonna talk about was a stronger sense of community and social impact. And I do like that one because I do believe every business needs to have something outside of the business that they're passionate about. Maybe it's, you know, uh a pet rescue place, or maybe it's uh habitat for humanity. It's something you have to stand for something. And and that's what people look for, um, especially uh people younger than you and I. It's like, you know, what what are you about? What's your yes, you have a shop, but you know, maybe they have every Saturday they let the uh operational pet rescue set in front of their store, or I mean, whatever. But be passionate about something. So, how do you best prepare for 2023 as a business owner? Number one, what we already said, invest in a personal coach or mentor, right, or therapist, whatever you can afford. They're all out there, or just call me. There you know. Or it's only $150 an hour. It's okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. This one was interesting. Double down on your personal brand. Now, I want you to think as a shop owner, if you're if your shop's called Vonda's flowers, then yes, double down. But if it's called Flowers, etc., let's use that as your brand because that's your business, right? Position yourself as a trusted authority in your community with your brand. That means you got to start having relationships with other people in your community. You start going to those town hall meetings, you know, be be there, be there and be present. Yeah. Um, this was interesting. Triple your network. So wherever you are today, you have to increase your reach, pick a second social media, build new networks, create your own email database. We see this in our email marketing program with our clickers, right? Like we're there, you go in and we pull those lists, and some of them are doing a fabulous job of asking for more email content emails. Some of them are not. We need to have a little conversation with them, right? But they're they're doing this. The other thing I see in flower shops is even now going into 2023, they are only on Facebook, right? Yeah, they have to get on Instagram, you gotta at least get on Pinterest, you know, you got Twitter, whatever you want to pick, pick another one too.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

So what I was reading also, and I didn't put this in my prediction because we just talked about this last week was the TikTok is the big one for 2023. I it is just it just is one of those things they said, you know, for you gotta do it. You need to be on TikTok because it's the social platform. I know Lori. So I didn't want to say it, but I had to since you said social. Here we go. Yep, no, but they thank you for the affirmation, Vonda.

SPEAKER_04 29:57

I know, Lori. You're making me feel good. Um, the other one was diversify your income streams. We kind of talked about that. That really is if you're feeling, hey, it's not, I mean, I think that's a gut check, right? You know, if you need to add a second line, or maybe you want to increase your wedding and an event part of your business, you know, if there's something you want to do.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

And on a side note on that, if you're a business owner and you have an employee that has a side hustle, that has to be a conversation too. We've talked about that before. Yes, just make sure you, if you know that, or if they haven't told you and you find out, have that conversation. Make sure that it's not coming your business, but helping you in what they're doing. So side note, sorry.

SPEAKER_04 30:43

Yeah, I was surprised by that. That's happened a handful of times last year. We had that what would happen is an employee, let's say their designer would start advertising their own design skills like on Facebook or on their social media. Um you need to have you need to set a precedent before you even hire that person, right? Or if you probably already have them, have a meeting and say, listen, here's here's where we're gonna have the boundaries.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Yep, set the boundaries. I agree. Okay, sorry.

SPEAKER_04 31:18

And then the last one is keep current with new trends.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

So you need to be out traveling or at least watching what's going on. Um, and I think we're gonna see that a lot in 2023. There's gonna be a lot more face-to-face, which, as you mentioned, it's life-giving for us to do that. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 31:34

Exactly. So I hope some of these come true so we can come back in six months and go, see, we told Jeff it right.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

I think it'll be good. I think we've done a lot of research, and I think these are good food for thought for everyone.

SPEAKER_04 31:48

Yep. Thank you so much for listening to our podcast. We hope you enjoyed spending time with us because we enjoy spending time with you.

SPEAKER_03 31:57

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 32:08

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.