Reflections of 2023

Episode 209: 

Episode Description:  Vonda and Lori identify what they believe are the three most crucial areas for personal and business reflection from 2023 as we transition into 2024. Drawing upon their own experiences, conversations with many in this floral industry  and their own insights, Vonda and Lori provide a thoughtful guide for listeners to assess and analyze their own journeys.

Tune in as Vonda and Lori share their perspectives and encourage you to actively participate in this reflective journey. Your personal and professional growth awaits as you engage with the reflections of 2023 and set the stage for a successful and fulfilling 2024.

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

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

So the first is the biggest opportunity that's come within the challenge, and most people would say it was more of a challenge that they ever wanted to be within. 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. Good morning, Vonda.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Hey, Lori, how is it today?

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Day after Christmas. Merry day after Christmas.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Thank you. Thank you. Um, it's the 12 days of Christmas, so this is the first of the 12 days of Christmas because you know, the 12 days of Christmas don't start. No Christmas Day. Oh, you are full of fun facts.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Full of the fun facts. Okay, I have an important question for you. Okay, Otto. This was a debate in my home over the holidays. I'm going to spell a word and I want you to pronounce it for me. Oh no. How do you in your home pronounce the word P E C A N?

SPEAKER_00 1:23

As in the nut that one uses. It depends on if you live in the South or you live in the North. It could be a pecan.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

There's now three ways that I have heard, and it's making me crazy. How do you say it? Oh pecan. So there's now pecan, which that's kind of a new one for me. Really? Yes, I've heard of man and I grew up pecan. Pecan. You need some pecans. You gotta get your pecans. My aunt to this day gets me. I get a big bag of pecans for a Christmas gift. Oh wow, nice. You get them. We've been giv getting them, we get them before Christmas, and you in your baking.

unknown 2:19

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:21

My Aunt Mary, we call her Tiz, my dad's sister. That was always her gift. It's a great gift because you know, pecans, pecans, pea, whatever you call them, they're pricey. They are. That's a very nice gift.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

So I so you are pecan. My mom always say pecan. Pecans. Pecans. That's crazy. Praline. Pecan praline pre pecans. Pralin. But pecan. What do some of my friends call them? Pecans. Pecans. I've heard people call them pecans. So so everyone, just what is it? How do you pronounce that word? Pecan.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

The pecans. How do you pronounce Audrey Christoph, who is one of our coworkers? She and I go back and forth and crack each other up with these because you know she was raised in Ohio. I was not. I was raised in Oklahoma. We both have such different language in certain words. When we say the word C-E-M-E-N-T. Like con cement. What do you say? Cement.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Cement. Cement.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

It's cement.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

What's a cement? What's a cement?

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Cement in my driveway is cracked.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Wow.

unknown 3:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

I think one of the Yeah, you could go on and on and my entire household was and then but somebody like a neighbor said something about pecans. I'm like, pardon me. Pardon me. What? Yeah. Where are you from? Anyway. Okay. It has nothing to do with what we're talking about today, but I wanted to know it's it's all good.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

It's it's a it's pleasure. It's a Christmas thing to really look at. For sure. For sure. It's something to reflect on. Good segue, Lori. Good segue. Thank you. I know I sent you a message early this morning because I was out taking Bella for her morning duties. Yes. And the sunrise. Literally. The sunrise was fabulous. Yeah. And when I looked in my window, I saw the reflection of the sunrise in my window. And I'm like, you know what? That's really what we need to do today is talk about reflections of the past since this is the very last episode of 2023.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

Yeah. And you totally and you're all in. Totally switched horses on me. I always do.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Either you switch or I do. One of the two.

SPEAKER_02 5:05

One of us do. I was like, okay. And I shut down all of the things I was working on for they did me yesterday. It's like, well, we'll do those another time.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Well, and the theme of symposium, AIFD Symposium for 2025, is actually reflections, and I just think it's awesome. Oh, is it?

SPEAKER_02 5:24

Okay. Yeah. I haven't even read that far in your notes.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

I know because it's first we have 2024, which will be great. It's emerge, but Lori Novak and Frank Fasia 2025 reflections. I think it's such a great theme.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

That's gonna be some really cool designs.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Yeah, that could be really cool, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

That's gonna look cool. Okay, so you were looking at you saw the reflection, you and Bella, and it made you start really thinking through 2023, and we're we're winding down, and we um we've come a long way, you know, the company. Um, and we've been kind of getting nostalgic lately, our team. We just had, you know, a couple weeks ago, our little virtual company Christmas party. We had a lot of fun, and just I don't know about you, but I was kind of working on a side thing, of course. Um, but I was looking um and and it hit me. Wow, our staff has grown. Like the whole screen was taken up with women, beautiful, bright, vivacious women in funny hats and just like laughter. And I a couple of times got a lump in my throat, and I was pretty reserved for me, you know, for me. Um and I didn't say anything about it, but I was like, this who'd have thought, like I didn't dream, I I don't know what I dreamed flower click was gonna be. I just knew it was along for the ride. Right, you know, I was like fine with between you and Ellie, yeah, sure, I'll do it. Um, but I know I didn't dream this.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Yeah, yeah. No, it and I'm not sure what I dreamt, but I know that I just knew to follow my heart and the heart of all those around us and listen. Yeah, and I knew God would give us the direction that would bring us where we are today and and further on. So I think it's all about helping others, Lori. And I think that's the beauty of that laughter and the team and that screen you were looking at. It's like each one of our team members, it's not about them.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

No, no, but I just thought uh every single one of them together like make up such a significant portion of Flower Click. Like, you know, you, Ellie, me can't we're out there physically a lot just because we're loud and we talk and you know the the ones behind the screen that just work their rear ends off constantly to make us be able to get out there, they are the rock star. This kind of is reflection, but I I I do think this is important. I was reading because I was preparing for something else. Um I was reading about uh well, it's in this book that I want to read. What we'll talk about another time, but it was talking about your rock stars, and it was talking about the difference between people on your team that are rock stars and your superstars, and they're just they're both so incredibly important, they're just different kind of stars. Your rock stars, man, they are solid. They are solid as a rock, they are so good at what they do, they are in their wheelhouse. You gotta nurture them and support them, and they love what they do. You keep them there, you give them the support they need, you give them what they want to make them happy, right? They will be your rock star forever. You move them out of their wheelhouse into stuff that is unknown, they're gonna freak out.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

And don't yeah, we have some of those.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Yes, your superstars, right? They gotta fly around a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

That would be a Lori Wilson.

SPEAKER_02 9:58

I'm not gonna name names, but I'm just saying, you gotta have both to make a really great team. And I was reading that, I'm like, wow, but you don't want a whole lot of you don't want all superstars. You don't want to anyway. I was reflecting on all of that, and I was like, that's really cool. I've never thought of it that way.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

That sounds like a podcast for 2024. I'm looking forward to that. Yeah, that is really interesting, and I think everybody who's listening today can kind of take that and go, Who are my rock stars?

SPEAKER_02 10:35

And who are my superstars? Yeah, but understand both are oh, you gotta are they're equal in importance. Absolutely. And like, no, no, no, they're both, you gotta have both. I love that. So anyway, I love that's my reflection. That's all I got for today. It's all on you now. Go.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Well, I think what I wanted to do is kind of look back, right? We're reflecting back. Yeah, and at the very beginning, I do believe of this year, we said we're not gonna talk about the challenges, we're talking about the opportunities.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

So we challenged ourselves to look at those opportunities. Yeah. And the opportunity to look within ourselves and within our business to see one, what we're doing right and what we could do better.

SPEAKER_02 11:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

And so I want everyone just to reflect. We're not going to have this long. This is just a time for each and everyone who's listening today to reflect on the year that there were opportunities that came from the challenges that we faced and see how they affected you and what you can do to almost hit a reset and go forward. So the first is the biggest opportunity that's come within the challenge. And most people would say it was more of a challenge that they ever wanted to be within. And that was the economy. I mean, we saw price increases that people are still having. There, those, those are not going to go away. Um, and it's interesting because I've been in this business so long, and prices have been so stable for, oh my gosh, I mean, I want to say 30 years, they've been stable. And then boom, now they're up and they're not gonna come back down. And there's also been a dip in business. I mean, we had pre-COVID that was like boom, we're just exploding, and now we're back down to pre-COVID numbers. Right. And there's a lot of suffering, I want to say it's almost like a suffering, I think, in businesses and and uh business owners, because it's hard. It's it's hard stuff. And if you didn't react to the price increases by increasing the prices because of fear mostly, or fearful that we're gonna lose business, then you could be in jeopardy of losing your own business if you haven't done that. So I I don't know, I'm not, I'm not trying to be a downer. What I'm trying to say is I want you to reflect on how did you handle that situation? How are you handling that situation? And what can you do to reset to make it better?

SPEAKER_02 13:26

Right, right. Because we can always, always reset. You know, we we learn from our failures, right? We all we all and I don't failures is a strong word, but we learn from our mistakes or how we maybe mishandled certain things or look back, don't be afraid. I think so many of us are afraid to look back at numbers or afraid, you know. I hate when my credit card statement looks, I don't want to look at it. I don't want to look at it. I don't want to look, even though you know you gotta pay it. My gosh, it's not going away, but you don't want to look at all the itemized things because you have to deal with the reality of what you actually bought. Um but similarly, you have to at some point, that's why you say, look at it weekly, monitor it weekly in small chunks at a time. So you know, you know what you're spending. It it taking it in little chunks. I think that's if you're not doing that, I'm not a profit coach, but I've heard you preach long enough to know if I were a florist moving into 2024, if that's something I wasn't doing, I would certainly jot that down. Start if I'm resetting, start doing that now.

unknown 14:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

And and be realistic. My my thought for 2024 is just be realistic. We know Valentine's Day is a Wednesday, which is really encouraging. That's a really encouraging thing for us. But the marketing is key. It's just not like, oh, it's Wednesday, it's going to be busy. Right. We have to market flowers. I mean, that flower feeling is a marketing campaign that's out there, but we individually in our markets need to market flowers and what they do for consumers. I mean, we knew it in COVID, but what happened? Did we forget? No. Right. Remind them what flowers do and what and what they can do for you know our mental well-being.

SPEAKER_02 15:27

So right, you brought up COVID a couple of times, and I think it's a really not that we want to go back and revisit the pandemic, but we forget during that time at the very beginning. And I remember you even saying, and many of our really savvy business-minded members saying, This isn't going to last forever. Keep that in mind. This isn't real life. These however long this is gonna happen. Like you didn't have to market, you didn't, they didn't want to market, they couldn't keep enough. This, these aren't real numbers. It is eventually gonna go back to normal. And a lot of people didn't heed that, right? And now that we are back to, I don't know if you want to say normal, new normal. The new normal.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

Yep, it's hard coming that really it's like we we did a really great job um pivoting, right? In that several pivots. Now we just have to keep that, we know how to pivot. Yeah, it's just harder to pivot pivot backward than it is forward, yes, right? Yeah, so just that keep keep that in mind. And the other one, Lori, is and you deal with this all the time, and that's the staff shortages or changes that's happening with staffing.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

Yeah, and I I wish I had a magic phrase, you know, for this. There are multiple shops across the USA that I have conversations with. Um, so first and foremost, if you're listening out there and you feel alone in your staff shortage issues, I want to assure you that you are not. I have at least, wouldn't you say, Vonda, two to three a week uh conversations at least um with just members. Um, that's not even mentioning the normal conversations I have with non-flower click members that want to know about Flower Click, and this comes up. Um well, I'm having a hard time getting employees, blah, blah. Um, so there's this is just kind of a constant in our industry. It's probably in other industry retail industries too. I don't know. My suggestions if we're looking at reflecting back, look back at your process, look at your hiring process. Start there and write it out. This is assuming you haven't done this. Write out what is my hiring process? Everything from what is your ad, if you're on Indeed? What exactly is your wording? What is your interview process like? What is your onboarding like? What do you look for? Do you have a lot of discernment? Are you intuitive? What you know, what are the things? Are you looking for skill? Are you looking for will? Like all of those things, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Right.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

Reflect back. What is it you're looking for? Is it just a gut feeling or are you just needing a body in there? Right. That all of this stuff matters totally because we are getting ourselves it so bogged down in in our time, and it's so draining for a manager to have to spend all this time, plus your staff having, you know, you have to have someone to mentor that person, and then they get involved, and then those people don't show up.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

It's just the whole thing. I reflect back to maybe it's been two years ago since we had Dr. Nicole Price on, and she said, you know, we have to set ourselves up for success in even the hiring process, that first conversation you have, because it's real easy to say, Oh, yeah, it's fun to work in a flower shop. We just have to it is not fun. You know, flowers are so beautiful to work with, and right you can't paint that picture. It's painting the reality of the day-to-day job. Yes, it's there's beauty you work with every day, but this is hard work, and you have to get along with your team members and you know, all of those things. So, yeah, setting yourself up for success and knowing the process exactly.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

Set those expectations very quickly in the very beginning. Um so I don't know. I don't know. I this is this is the question and the concern that keeps me up at night.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

Yeah. Yeah, because you're having those hard compliments.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

It breaks my heart for people. And I know the easy way out, and this is gonna, I don't know if this will make people mad or not, but the the easy way out is for owners to go, oh, people don't want to work anymore. I think some people don't, I agree, but there's more to it. I do believe there are people out there that want to work. So we have to look at at some point, we as managers or owner, what we have to look internally to and go, hmm, as Taylor Swift says, maybe I'm the problem. Maybe hi me, I'm the problem, right? I don't know. I I just think we have to look at all things first, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:52

To see the reflected, see if it's you. I think that's right.

SPEAKER_02 20:59

Yeah, or not just you, but my I don't mean you as a person, I'm talking about your process.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

But Lori, when it comes down to it, the person who's in charge is where it starts with. Yeah. Oh, sure. Absolutely. We know that. We know that. Right. I know it's not just you, but it's like, okay, let me look and see what it is. What is my process and why am I doing that process? Because it's part of me.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

Yeah. Yeah. Right. It's hard. It's hard hiring and bringing. And I would think that's one of the hardest jobs on this planet to be a manager of some type of retail, whether it's the floral industry, whether it's Taco Bell, whether it's wind, whatever, and having to manage young people.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Not even young people, just people, people, people, because all the different Different personalities, right? Yeah. And the bigger your shot, the more difficult it is because then you're not managing just two or three people. You're like, oh my God.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

I cannot, I can't imagine. I I just I just know how hard it was just to maintain one classroom. I can't imagine having to do that.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

So I got well, the third thing to reflect on, and this is really about yourself. Have you been good to yourself this year?

SPEAKER_02 22:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

When we were talking earlier, you're like, no, I haven't been. I've lost, I've gained weight, I've done this, I've done that. And I mean, not you personally, but I know what you everyone. I mean, there are struggles that individually we have every year. Like I struggle some weeks. I'm like, dang, I can't get out of bed. It's dark. I don't want to go for my walk. Right. Right. Right. And then I'm like, well, that's not being good to me. So I need to do that for me. So then you like hit the reset button. And you hit the reset button.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

And here's my suggestion because I used to think you can only hit the reset button on a Monday. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Like if I, you know, mess up my week with my exercise routine, which I have not gone to the gym. I don't know. I can't even remember last time I moved to the wife. My husband keeps threatening to get rid of my thing. And then the rebel in me, I'm like, do it. Do it. He's like, I'm gonna. I'm gonna. Like, you know, we're like 15-year-olds, whatever. So silly. So silly. Anyway, I used to think. I'm I'm not gonna start. It's Thursday. I'll start on Monday. I'll start. And why is that? It's a weird mindset for me that you have to get out of. It's like starting my I'll start my diet on Monday. Okay, it's Sunday. I'm gonna get ready. I'm starting a whole new week. You have to you don't have to do that. No, you have the free it's your life, your body, your spirit, your choice, your everything. You can start any day you want.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Absolutely. And I'll have to share with you that after I had my second child, I went to a dietitian to make sure I was eating right and to lose weight and all that. Right. And he always would say, if you mess up today, start again tomorrow. Yeah. Just you mess up today, start tomorrow. If you had those French fries you weren't supposed to have, right? Tomorrow, it's okay. Right. Start again tomorrow. So you don't have to wait till Monday. You don't have to wait till Sunday. Just it's okay. Tomorrow's a new day, reset and go again. Right.

SPEAKER_02 24:45

And that's that's the thing. That's what I have to remind myself that.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

All of us. Yeah. We're human. We're it's all it's all part of our human nature. You know, it's part of human nature that we're not perfect, but we're gonna reflect back on what we did in 2023 and look ahead to 2024 and say, we're gonna do this better.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

Right. New year, new you, right? That's it. 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.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

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.