Part 2: Small Changes, A Better You, & Better Business for 2020

#003: Vonda and Lori continue sharing stories, important traits and thoughts that can help make a difference in you and your business this year. From whether or not to multi-task, to how we should prioritize, and a few things in between, the girls share some advice that can be put into action and make you a better version of yourself for 2020.

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

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:03

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Vonda 0:04

Welcome to The Business and Pleasure of Flowers. I'm Vonda LaFever.

Lori 0:08

and I'm Lori Wilson .

Vonda 0:10

We often get wrapped up into the day to day operations of our business and forget the pleasure flowers bring to everyone,

Lori 0:17

including us!

Vonda 0:18

Join us each week as we touch on important subjects that will help lead you to a more successful business.

Lori 0:25

And at the same time remind you that pleasure or just downright fun, needs to be part of your everyday life. So thanks for stopping in today. We're so glad you're here.

Speaker 1 0:40

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Speaker 2 0:40

Hi Lori . It's good to be back.

Lori 0:42

Hey Vonda how are ya ?

Vonda 0:44

I am good. You know, last week we shared some ways to become a better person. Did you pick one of those five and work on that last week?

Lori 0:56

Well, I didn't know I needed to do the assignment, but I kind of did and I'm looking at them, so it was having someone hold you accountable or being very mindful of accountability was the technical term, bonding with your employees or bosses. So I guess I bonded with you, my boss. I could say that one. And get enough sleep. Physical activity, practice your problem solving skills out of all of them? I think I did the first one as far as being mindful of accountability. I did, I came to you and I came to Kami web girl and anytime I had a question or even thought I would run it past you guys. And so I think, I think maybe accountability was my thing I did last week, even though maybe I wasn't aware of constantly practicing it. I feel like I did do it. Going into the new year, the new company, the new everything. I have to have someone hold me accountable, especially during the holiday seasons and going into January, sometimes January can feel really slow, you know, it's hard to get out of holiday mode.

Vonda 2:14

And we are not going to be slow. It's going to be one way or another. And I actually did accountability as well and I , cause I really worked on checking on in with you and Kami and really and the people that we need to work with in building this business. So it was a, it was a good week of accountability for sure.

Lori 2:35

All right , so we're, both great with accountability now we just gotta do the other four, so, we're continuing this list right this week. And again, we're going to be mindful of our time. We're really, our goal is to always keep this around 30 minutes and I will tell you I'm going to be a stickler for time because I forgot to refill my coffee mug before we started today.

Vonda 2:59

And we know you operate on coffee, so let's get moving on this one.

Lori 3:05

Exactly, let's get going, what are the ones we're going to be talking about this week?

Vonda 3:07

Well, it's a little bit more challenging this week. First one is to track your time on certain tasks.

Lori 3:16

That is all you. I feel like you've done presentations on this before.

Vonda 3:23

It is because a lot of it has to do with productivity in the flower shop. You know, it's like how long did it take you to make this design? But as far as the owners and managers and it, or whether it's a company or your time that you're spending with family, how long does it take you to check your email perhaps. Because sometimes we get into a website, it takes us to one place to another and it's like, Oh my gosh. And then you're in a time warp. You're like, that was only gonna take five minutes. Now it's 35 minutes. My time was not well spent because I was into something. So taking a look at the time you spend on those tasks I think is a really tough thing to do.

Lori 4:04

It is. This is probably one of my biggest weaknesses, you know, because I can go down that rabbit hole of the dark web, like getting into one website will take you to another, another, another, another. But like we talked about last week, using my Google calendar to actually block time for doing those kinds of things. That's really the only way I can track it. I know, again, we keep talking about Kami , our little partner in crime, but she, because she does have a lot of different irons in the fire as far as with Flower Clique, she has to be able to monitor like on this day from this time I'm only gonna do this task or I'm going to do this task. I don't do that as well. I like to change it up. She likes to have that consistency of I only do this on this day and I'm like, Oh , but what is that more fun comes along.

Vonda 4:59

You would be so bored if you did it that way.

Lori 5:02

We talk about that all the time. We could maybe rule the world if the two of us lived close by each other because we're so opposite. No, we couldn't do that. But spending time tracking is very hard for me and I would imagine a flower shop owner, at least a lot of the ones I talked to because it takes time to track your time.

Vonda 5:26

It does, but I think sometimes if you just say to yourself, because I used to do these when I owned the flower shop, I would say to my employees, I am going into the office for 30 minutes to work on my book work . Now this 30 minutes, if somebody calls on the phone, tell them that I'm not available. If you guys have something that really is pressing, just hold it for 30 minutes because I need this 30 minutes to get this task done. That's a way to help track that time is to set those perimeters for yourself.

Lori 6:00

Right? Right. Well, and you know, as we know, once, once you get good at tracking, you can go back and look and see what is taking the majority of your time and then it goes into, do I enjoy that part of my job? If you do keep doing it, if you don't farm it out, find somebody else to do that part. Again, that's another podcast, but that's why it's important to track where you spend your time. So. All right , let's go to the next one. The next one I do this well, is the problem, nix the multitasking habit. I don't know if I'll ever be able to nix it. This actually came up in a Forbes magazine article. They cited a study, I think it was from Stanford, and it said people who are big on multitasking don't pay enough close attention. They don't do everything well and I agree with that. I don't know that it's not that I do it well. I get really frustrated. Yet at any given time on my computer I'll have 10 tabs open doing different things and maybe beyond the phone. I think I was telling you about a meeting I was having with somebody helping us with some Google calendar stuff earlier. Remember and write me a question on how it integrated with something and my answer was, well, I don't know. He did say it, but I was sending out emails as he did. That's on me, or you know, it's like, Oh gosh, I hear myself say those things like what is my problem? But my brain has 10 tabs open everytime too.

Vonda 7:36

That is so true about you, Lori.

Lori 7:38

Yeah. So my goal is not to stop multitasking, but maybe it's said a 10 try just doing five.

Vonda 7:48

That is a realistic goal for you to tell yourself I'm not going to multitask is not realistic. And I think that's what our listeners need to understand is it's not about being perfect, getting the needle moved over a little ways so that it's , it's doable .

Lori 8:04

Right. Well, and again, an argument I would think from one of the shop owners that I've talked to go, yeah, in the perfect world, that'd be great. I don't want to multitask, but I have to because I don't have the employees that can fill in those needs. So maybe just look at saying, okay, I'm only going to do three things at once instead of four things at once. And then, you know, that is one that's very hard for me. But I'm excited that I can be way more mindful of when I'm doing it now and I have people like you and Kami and Ellie that can help hold me accountable. Just again going to you this morning and saying, here's what I think I need to prioritize for the next two months. Is that, does that align with what you need me to do? I think that's really smart for employees that are maybe wanting to take on a managerial position in the flower shop, you know, you those leaders to rise up and start going to the boss themselves. Like, listen, I'd like to be working on this, this and this. Is that what you think too? Go back to that boss employee relationship.

Vonda 9:13

Right. And the next one kind of rolls into the multitasking and that's prioritize, prioritize, prioritize, prioritize. And I think that's kind of the key. Even in your multitasking, it's like, which one of those things is the most important? And maybe you should have been listening about the Google calendar instead of sending the email because that might've been more important. That might've been the higher priority.

Lori 9:35

Well we know it was, you don't have to keep bring it up. We know I have to go back and ask the question again because it was very important. In my mind, I think, the psychological, the deep seated reasoning for doing that is thinking I have to get back to this person really quickly that emailed to me cause I want to make them happy. So your brain you mean well? Right when you're multitasking you really do mean well but it comes back to backfire. So it's, it's okay.

Vonda 10:09

So we look at prioritizing and one thing we know, and it's because it's been proven right, is that if you have three things on your list, you will get it done. If you have too many things on a list, they will not get completed.

Lori 10:24

Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting going again, being in January, new year, everybody doing their resolutions or whatever they call them. I saw somebody online changed out that word and said, let's not call it resolution. What is your motivation for 2020 I was like, Ooh, that's a good one. But if you write down, I'm going to lose weight, I'm going to paint my house, I'm going to do, you know like 10 different things, you're just going to feel like such a loser in December of 2020 because you're not going to be able to achieve all those like little mini goals within the big goals. I think that's a smart thing to do. Anyway, prioritizing. That's , that's hard for me too . Very, very hard. What's urgent in a flower shop? Vonda? What would be, you know, if you had somebody, you're getting sympathy ready, you have a bridal consultation and then you have a new customer come in , but you only have two employees. How does that whole thing work?

Vonda 11:20

Well, you know the sympathy people are the most important at that point, but you can move them into an area and get them seated. So it's a priority, but you're doing this in an order that you can still accommodate everyone. You get them set up and ready to go. You're talking to the bride booking an appointment for her to come another time and you're taking care of the customer. But all of them you have greeted and made them all feel important first. So there is, there's a priority in which one needs to be your most time at right then. Yeah. But I think the prioritizing maybe in a flower shop is such that we as owners oftentimes think that we have to be in the deep of everything going on in the store, right here and now, instead of working on our business instead of in the business. And that's what each of us has to look at individually and say, what do I need to work on on the business right now? Do I need to work on some more marketing? Perhaps its I need a new employee and what can I do to find somebody or groom somebody that can be a good employee for me going into 2020. So it's those kinds of things that I think in the shop we have to look at and say, or maybe it is, I have a great big party coming up in this customer requires me to do it. And so that is my priority.

Lori 12:42

I'm sorry if I interrupted you, but I just had a thought and you know I can't keep those thoughts. I talked with a shop owner this week and we were talking about this and how she doesn't, she's concerned about which employee is going to kind of rise up in 2020 on a personal side she is having to care for her mother who is declining and has some issues and so that's a whole other priority, right? I mean family. You can't just say, mom, I can't take care of you. So you get put in these positions. It's not just stuff within your business because it's your life too. You have to prioritize your family.

Vonda 13:21

It's interesting Lori that you say that because when my husband and I went into business, when we started the flower shop in Dixon, Illinois, we went into business for family, fun and trends . That's why we went into business. We wanted to have a business that we could have our family incorporated in. We could bring our children into work after school. They would come in and it was all about family and we made our employees like family. Everybody who worked there was family. So when you're saying prioritize and it is family, that is number one. And you can get somebody to make the designs in your shop. You can get somebody to do things, but you can't get somebody to love your family.

Lori 14:02

And you can't get time back. She knows all of this and so she is actively looking because she understands that. But I just thought that's really interesting. Our priorities, what we think is priority, when something happens, trauma happens within your family, those change and everything else looks a little less important.

Vonda 14:22

And we've all experienced those. I mean you and I've had those just in this last year.

Lori 14:25

Exactly. That's another podcast. Right. How to deal with all of that. So, okay, well this one I think I learned very early on in Vacation Bible School. Treat others how you want to be treated. There's so much weight in that. I know it's cliche, but it is so true. I see this in my children. How I talk to my children, how I talk to people on the phone, and it can come back and hit me because I may say something to my kids. It's probably not very nice. And then they hear me five minutes on the phone with a flower shop owner and they're like, are you because you were so mean to me? Yet you're so nice to this other like, how is this happening? But it reminds me, golly, we have to treat our employees. We can't attack our employees for failing at something if they give it their best shot, if they really tried because we wouldn't want to be attacked when we fail at something.

Vonda 15:30

Have you ever read the book? Everything you need to know you learned in kindergarten?

Lori 15:33

A long, long time ago.

Vonda 15:36

That's what this reminds me of. You know , it's like, it's, well, that's another podcast too.

Lori 15:43

Well, it is. It really is about how you want to be treated early on, and again, my mom, I was raised by a kindergarten teacher. My mom taught kindergarten for 37 years and truly had the heart and the mind of a five year old. Those were her little people. She would always talk about that. She would say is that kind, it's what you're saying to your friend kind? And that's still is up in my head, you know?

Vonda 16:13

And it should be, I mean when we look at that, like you're saying with our employees and customers and even that customer who comes in who is not happy, right? Still have to treat, okay, how would we want to be treated if we're upset? And we go in and vent, what are you going to do? So it's every bit of business goes into treat others how you want to be treated.

Lori 16:38

My grandma used to say when you love someone or you care about someone, you have so much love built up that you have to put some in cups and you'd keep it up on a shelf. So sometimes when a person comes into your life that's hard to get along with. You need to go to that shelf and get an extra cup of love to deal with them. I'm like, that's genius. That's genius. Modine Boone that was her name , my grandma. But doesn't that, think of the visual, I think of a shop owner t hat h as an angry customer come in and you've just had a heck of a day. You're done. You're so over people being ungrateful. I got to go to my shelf, get an extra c up of love so I can pour it out on you.

Vonda 17:30

Yes. Oh my gosh. I love that Lori .

Lori 17:32

I know . Its cute. Anyway, it's a little thing . All right. The last one. Well, I'm sure there's more, but the last one for us, and again, I think this goes along with the one we did last week to about relationship and forming bonds ensure that you're an essential part of the team. Everybody wants to be on the team, right?

Vonda 17:58

Definitely. Oh boy.

Lori 18:00

Everybody wants to be there. No one needs to look at other people. I mean, on the team, I feel like I have no value here.

Vonda 18:09

Right, exactly.

Lori 18:11

One thing I was thinking about when we were going through this part in being part of an essential team, a lot of business owners when they're hiring people like, Oh , this person doesn't do it the way I do it. You know, I , they wouldn't be a good employee, but it's actually quite the opposite. To have a healthy good team, everybody has to be different. You don't want to hire people just like you. You're going to bust heads if you're too much alike and you look at Flower Clique, the four of us, you, Ellie , Kami and myself, we are so different.

Vonda 18:52

And each one of us has such gifts in different areas. But then , Oh my gosh, you know, when you bring that together. I would look at Kami or Ellie or you and I'd be , well, I don't know, they're not like me. We tend to hire people who are like us rather than somebody who's different. And that becomes an essential part of the team. So look at each one of you as a owner manager. And I think sometimes that's important too Lori as the owner manager are you in a central part of the team? Not just your employee, but am I as the owner of the company essential to this company? Am I pulling my weight, right? Am I doing that and am I listening? As far as a team member, you don't want to just be the owner, which is like booming down the decisions. You want to be part of that team that you're building. And so look at that.

Lori 19:49

Yeah. That's where the leadership thing comes in. You know, and it's hard. There's a difference between leaders and managers. We've talked about that many, many times. You need both. You know, there are a lot of people that own flower shops, but they are absent. They're not going in everyday . But the key to that is you have a really good manager. You have to have somebody running that ship. I was thinking of a story as you said that, and I think I've told you this before. Again, I love podcasts and one of the ones I was listening to was a Donald Miller podcast. He's great. He's all about marketing stuff. He went to a conference on leadership and he said it was, I don't know , a couple thousand people there and he walked in and sat down and they were all waiting and the guy, the speaker comes out and he's looking at the top like at lights, like he's looking up and so everyone's looking up, everyone's like, what is he looking at? And he's just quiet. He's not saying anything, but he keeps looking up. Finally he looks down at the audience and he says, it's what a leader does. Everybody watches the leader. Everybody does what the leader does. He wasn't looking at anything, but they didn't know that. They know he's going to lead this presentation so they're following him. The whole point was people follow you guys, whether you're doing something worthwhile or something stupid, so be very careful, but be the leader of your people . If your team respects you, they're going to follow you and they're going to look up at the ceiling when you do because they trust that something's going on up there.

Vonda 21:26

Love that. That is so true.

Lori 21:28

Yeah. I thought it was really good.

Vonda 21:30

I remember listening to that podcast to thinking, wow, what power now in that?

Lori 21:35

Yeah. No, I know. Dang it, I wish I would've thought of that one.

Vonda 21:39

Exactly. Next time somebody sees me on the design stage and I'm looking around. Maybe they'll remember this moment and say, she's not looking at anything.

Lori 21:53

Oh, Vonda you make me laugh.

Vonda 21:57

So, Lori, this is the completion of our list for today. So Lori , which of these do you think can make the most difference in your life or our business this year? Oh, you already said it. Maybe .

Lori 22:13

I mean, the hardest one for me is multitasking. I'm, very clear on that one. But the one that might make the most difference for me would well probably be multitasking, multitasking and priority kind of combined. I think those two really, I mean, I think you could consolidate those two by prioritizing because I have a hard time doing that sometimes too. So multitasking, closing down those tabs, keeping only three or four open at a time. Um , knowing that it's okay to wait 10 minutes to send out that email and let me finish one more. I also think it will make me feel better.

Vonda 23:02

Yeah . Not as much anxiety.

Lori 23:04

Yes. Yes . Cause you know, I get a lot of anxiety and a lot of it is I'm self-induced because I create these different things, feeling like I have to help all these people all at the same time.

Vonda 23:17

Right, right. You gotta alleviate that. So mine is prioritize. I mean there's so much to do in 2020, so it's like, okay, let's look at these now. Right now we're working on podcasts and then we've done so many photo shoots and have beautiful images that we're trying to put on One Clique.

Lori 23:36

And we're doing all the training videos.

Vonda 23:38

Yeah, the flower prep school. So we have a lot that's going on. I do actually have a list on the priority that they need to be. I just have to stay on task and I have to be accountable to my team to make sure that that's happening.

Lori 23:51

Yeah. Yeah. What is it? That little joke. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

Vonda 23:59

And that's right.

Lori 24:02

Thats what we're doing. Okay . Vonda here's the all important question. How we end every podcast. What is giving you life right now? What are you loving?

Vonda 24:14

Well, you know, yesterday, last week it was a book, today it actually i s this really comfy sweater that I'm wearing. It's just like cuddling me in and making me feel good all over.

Lori 24:28

Oh, is it one of those fuzzy, yummy ones that I see everywhere now?

Vonda 24:32

Super soft, super soft and thick and it's just from Old Navy. But it's just a great, just a great little comfy thing and that's giving me life right now.

Lori 24:42

It's like you're wrapped in a hug.

Vonda 24:45

Ooh. That's probably why I love it so much. What is giving you life right now, Lori?

Lori 24:52

Well, what was giving me life was over the holidays and for awhile my mother in law came to visit and she is just the best. She is the person. She has a very quiet spirit about her and she is a little worker bee. I love to cook as you know. And so I would make these big fun dinners and she would always clean up. And you know as a mom as a business woman, like, are you kidding me? Someone's going to clean up my mess? This is amazing. Or, I would walk out of my office and she will be folding laundry. So she was, I was very sad when she left. She's very sweet or she always had a broom in her hand. It tells you, I swear my house isn't filthy. It's just, sounds like it.

Vonda 25:44

Your house is not filthy at all.

Lori 25:47

No, you've been there. Yeah. So anyway, she's this sweet woman. She's a hard worker or she'll be out in the my yard picking weeds or just, you know, I don't know. She just gave me life. I just really, really, really appreciate her. She's got a calmness about her. She was a school counselor. I think that's another why I'm like , Oh , you're so calming. So anyway that's kind of given me just thinking of her. And we had a great holiday and you know, and as we all get older, presents are so irrelevant for Christmas. It is so much more about the experiences . So we did some fun things with her while we were here. Things that she would probably never do, like went to an escape room or you know, we did things and she just had so much fun being with her grandchildren and it's just all about just those memories are kind of giving me life right now.

Vonda 26:41

And those are, those are precious. There's nothing better than memories like that and someone who truly loves you so much, she does all that for you.

Lori 26:48

Oh man, that's amazing.

Vonda 26:52

Such life. Wow.

Lori 26:53

I always think I'm just so lucky that she loves me in my mess and I mean mess of my tabs open all the time and my, I just, she just, she just is like, it's okay.

Vonda 27:05

She takes you where you are.

Lori 27:06

Yes, exactly. So anyway, I'm just grateful about it. About her.

Vonda 27:13

Well this takes us to the end. Lori , we're almost at our 30 minute mark so we're going to just thank everyone for listening and I hope that all of you enjoyed spending time with us and have chosen one of these again to concentrate on this week.

Lori 27:28

And you know what if they need a list, if you guys want this in just like bullet points, shoot me an email lori @ flowerclique .com and I can send those over to you super quick. I promise I won't put you on some sort of email list, but I'm happy to send you that. Also if you enjoy spending 30 minutes with Vonda and I, we want you to know we are so grateful and we would love for you to click the subscribe button so we will be able to continue all of these things. So we have a blast doing this. Sometimes we get off task, but I think our conversations spark a flame and everybody regardless.

Vonda 28:08

So we hope you 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 life and business.

Speaker 1 28:27

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