Interview with Sharon McGukin AIFD, PFCI: What's Next - Selling Flowers in 2020/2021

Episode 21: Vonda has a 1:1 interview with Sharon McGukin, internationally known floral designer and educator known for teaching others to “celebrate life with flowers”. Listen as Sharon shares insight and advice for these challenging times as shops emerge from Covid-19. Her three important take aways will give you food for thought and help encourage you to move in the direction that is best for you.

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

Transcript

Sharon 0:06

Because you're a given those natural skills that make you successful at that. So if you play to your strengths, play to your skill, you're going to be more successful.

Vonda 0:24

welcome to the business and pleasure of flowers. We're your hosts Vonda LaFever.

Lori 0:29

and Lori Wilson , and we believe that business and fun are a perfect combination, kind of like us. Vonda Vonda I have to say, when you sent me what the little promo was going to be that you just played this week, the thing that hit me was a memory of when I taught school of course , and the man, Mr. Miller next to me who taught seventh grade math, he had a poster in his room and the very first day that I taught, I read it and I didn't quite understand it. I mean, I'm like, Oh, that's kind of cute, but you know, fast forward by the end of the year, it hit me. Oh my gosh, there's so much truth in that. And the poster said, find what you're passionate about and never work a day in your life. Meaning just what Sharon said. Find what you're passionate. What's your skilled what you know , like we say what gives you life? It's not going to always feel like work because you love what you do. So I loved this podcast. I love that you interviewed her. The other thing I want to say is the two of you need to go on the road because you're very soothing.

Vonda 2:00

Hopefully we don't put people to sleep.

Lori 2:03

No, you are not. No, you don't put people to asleep . I felt like I was just like sitting on the floor and two women were in front of me just having a good conversation over a cup of coffee. So I loved it. I loved it.

Vonda 2:18

Well good . Well, let's get onto it. I am so excited to introduce my very special guest today. She's internationally known for teaching others to celebrate life with flowers. She's an amazing floral designer, educator, design director for Smithers Oasis, speaker, author, past president of the American Institute of floral designers. She is also a wonderful mother to three amazing children and has four really special grands as well as being my good friend. Thanks for joining me today, Sharon.

Sharon 2:55

Vonda. I am so excited to be with you. Always. We have had fun together with flowers around the world and it's just always so great to connect from our homes and get to be together again. Thanks for including me.

Vonda 3:09

Yeah, it is. It's great to see you again. I mean we can see each other, they can't see us, but it's awesome to be able to just see ms Sharon and look face to face. Sharon, you really have the pulse on the floral industry. Having owned a flower shop, worked retail, had a studio for weddings and events, creatively directed projects literally around the world and have tracked trends both in design and marketing. So what I want to ask you is what's next?

Sharon 3:39

Well, Vonda in my opinion, when it comes to selling flowers in 2020 and 2021 creating the perfect vision is key and the perfect vision is your vision, what works for your life and your business. It's like when you watch a slow motion video of a flower bursting into bloom, growth hurts. We're all experiencing the growing pain of our changing times and it hurts. Well, what comes after that? What is next? We've been living so fast that this is a big change and my mom always said, be careful what you ask for. You might get it. We all said, I wish I had more time. I could catch up. I wish I could spend more time with my family. I wish I could get some rest. I wish we could lessen pollution and our universe paused and we just need to remember to consider it a gift as well as a challenge because after a pause comes a reset. So what's the reset for us? What's next? How can we move forward? How can you move forward with your floral business? Because change is inevitable. It's how we grow. It's what moves us forward. We've just had a major, major shift when I was in high school a few years ago. Don't laugh.

Vonda 5:05

just a few years ago. Yes , we both ,

Sharon 5:09

our government teacher, Mr. Bennett said there is always a recognizable shift through the ages and there will be one either for your children or your children's children because it's just the time in history for that to come. And I pondered that very often. What will cause that shift? How will we make a different world? And what happened was we got the pause and so let's size up that shift and then develop our own perfect vision for responding to it. Perhaps it will result in slower pace for wellness or a better quality of life or a different way of doing business. We have to chart where we want to go to know how to get there. So what I've always done and had my children and have suggested to others is always set one, five and 10 year goals. Now when we look at goal setting, do you usually write these down or how would you suggest that our listeners make it real? Well, what I like to do is yes I do write it down and I'm not a , it's the first of the year kind of thing. It's when things begin to change and I recognize there's change as sit down and write those one five and 10 year goals and it does change. Do I always get to the 10 year goal? No. Cause sometimes I've gone on a different path before that, but it gave me a direction to chart too . So if I have a plan that says I want to be here in 10 years, then by five years I need to be at this point. By the end of one year, I need to be at this point, each month I need to accomplish what. And today I start by, it's how I wrote a book. I said, okay, and one year I want to finish this book. So here's my timeline, the photography, the text, this is where I need to be each step. It took two years I didn't make it in one year. But if I hadn't said, okay, today I start with this, I would have never gotten the book even in two years. So by setting those goals, it leads you to what you need to accomplish to go in that direction. So I do think it's important. Sometimes it's a shock. Sometimes I think, Oh, in 10 years I'll be this age. You might say, Oh, in 10 years my floral business will be of this age and need to reach this amount monetarily or in five years what will have changed and how do I adapt? So with what next? I think we need to explore what could be next. For us, it's like Eleanor Roosevelt said, the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. Write down your dreams and then the steps it would take to get there. Maybe it means connecting with some new people, maybe it means learning a new skill. Again, back to my book, for me to write the book that are self-published, I had to read a book about self publishing. It gives you steps to follow because the main thing for us to remember right now when we're so frustrated and let me say, because people may say, well, it's easy for you. You have a different job. My jobs all went away in the space of a week. All of our jobs went away, so I know they will come back, but they will come back differently. So I sat down and did the goals of how can I change with it? Because the most important thing for us to understand right now is that change happens for you, not to you.

Vonda 8:47

And it's how we respond to that change that happens for us.

Sharon 8:52

because inside every change there are hidden opportunities and we have to see the opportunities as stairsteps in the evolution of you, of your business, of your home, for your family, find the new opportunities. Even in this major challenge. I've been sheltered at home since March 15th and I did get to see my grandchildren for mother's day, but it's the first time, and my husband said to my son, you know, in all of your life, he's 38 we've never gone two months without seeing you. So those are big changes, but the reward to the change is you can get to the other end of it.

Vonda 9:37

Wow. Those are real big rewards.

Sharon 9:39

Yeah. Yeah. So now we have to say what's next and realigning your floral business to meet new expectations. One of the things we realized is you can't be all things to all people. We've been saying that to flower shops for years, but we want to, we want to be everything to all the people in our community, but this is the time we have to stop and think. We've got to play to our strengths. We've got to delegate our weaknesses and refine our vision.

Vonda 10:07

Sharon, are you saying to find your niche and hone in on that, but also look at the individual parts of your business that are not your strength and empower others to help?

Sharon 10:19

the things that are our weaknesses. We need to delegate those and give that person permission to do it in their way. It doesn't always have to be as we've done it before. Now more than ever. It's how should we do it in the future in 18 things highly creative people do differently. Carolyn said, if there's one thing that distinguishes highly creative people from others is the ability to see possibilities that others don't or in other words, vision. So that's what we're talking about today, creating our own vision.

Vonda 10:55

Sharon, that is a really great quote. Could you repeat that?

Sharon 10:59

If there's one thing that distinguishes highly creative people from others, it's the ability to see possibilities where others don't or in other words, vision.

Vonda 11:13

That's great.

Sharon 11:14

She continues with many great artists and writers creativity is simply the ability to connect the dots that others might never think to connect. So what are your dots when you sit down and make a list of the things that you love to do versus the things you think you have to do because you know what someone else might love to do those things that you're making yourself do , and if they love it, they're going to do it better. So connecting the dots of what next for my business, what kind of business would I go to? I think sometimes if we sit with our staff and brainstorm on becoming a destination shop, what type of shop would we want to go to? And then how do we create that? We also need to stop and think, maybe we don't want our shop as it is today. Maybe we need to redefine the space. If we adapt our handcrafted products to high tech delivery, what would that look like? And I think that's a question we should ask ourself real often. What would that look like?

Vonda 12:22

Yeah, it's not just a dream, it's a possibility.

Sharon 12:25

The dream becomes a vision, the vision becomes a challenge. The challenge becomes an opportunity and the opportunity is an absolute possibility for many shops. It's hard to go back to where they were in terms of business relating to either their community or the restrictions or monetary restrictions. So what have you just did pop up shops for events to start with? We've past mother's day , but if you did a pop up shop for mother's day and it's not quite time to be open all the time, then you could start with the next, graduations had to be canceled . So maybe on the day that should have been a graduation. You could recommend that we celebrate the seniors and people send balloons or flowers or gifts, whatever you have to offer to the seniors. And then as more events take place down the road, we start to replace dance recitals . We start to replace games with kids in the future. You could do popup shops until the time has come to be fully open again in your area. Even a popup Friday where they get, thank goodness it's Friday flowers, so look at opportunities. If you can't go full steam, what could you do in small bites until then? Or maybe it's time you downsize your facilities and focus on online. I know people who are doing that, rent out some of that space for office space because the office space is going to pull in more people that usually don't come into your business anyway. Offer a pay to play design space for a fee so people can come in, buy the flowers buy the containers and make their own designs as an activity for the first time. We really take the experience economy to new heights.

Vonda 14:17

Yeah, to bring people in and let them experience your world.

Sharon 14:22

because bringing them in is so important. They want out of their houses. And so if you can offer, and you'll have to do it in smaller groups to start with, space it out, but one person per table is six feet. When you work it out, become a being place whether it's online or in store, but remember to keep that brand the same. If they see you online and it's a fabulous website and they come to your being space and it's not, there's a disappointment and that's the cardinal sin, disappointing a customer. You always want them to relate to you on some level, but online or in store, get people in. You might want to do Facebook lives on a certain day. Facebook Fridays for example, maybe a local artist exhibits in your store and then you show most people online with zoom or book signings and you're outside where they can get the book signed. Garden club meetings. If you now have extra space, a wonderful thing to do is allow the garden club to meet in your flower shop because then they become more accustomed to seeing the products you have and as you said, taking part in your world. One person told me she did tea on Tuesday . So every Tuesday people knew that 11 o'clock they could come to her shop for tea in a small community and they contributed to the tea. They brought baked goods. And what happened was they started making a list, Oh I gotta get this, I gotta get that. And then they would get it on Tuesday cause they were going to a store anyway.

Vonda 15:58

Oh nice. Wow. That's a great idea.

Sharon 16:00

Of course she kind of blew my mind. I think it was tea on Thursday and topless Tuesdays and I was k ind o f like, and she said, yeah, we sell tops women's tops t oo. And so they're less b y 20% on Tuesday.

Vonda 16:17

What a creative marketing play.

Sharon 16:21

wasn't that great. So you just have to sit down and think, what would I love to see right now? And how can I offer it to my customers? Maybe you need to up your game online. Mark Sandborn says your success in life isn't based on your ability to simply change. It's based on your ability change faster than your competition. Your customers or other businesses.

Vonda 16:49

Ooh, yeah. Maybe virtual bouquets where we used to call that a gift certificate, but now you send a virtual bouquet, so you send a frame of flowers and then deliver them as the person who's receiving them , chooses virtual open houses where you'd go through to show what all you have that's available for delivery, zoom parties where they just come together and you do a demo while they watch or zoom classes where they do classes themselves. You know , we've had several people as you know as well, they offer a box that could be sent to the house or they can pick up curbside, take an actually participate in that class with you, which is a great idea.

Sharon 17:33

But remember the key is make sure you're in store and online brands match. Be sure that you deliver what you promise.

Vonda 17:43

Yeah, there's a lot to that, Sharon, because there's so much disappointment when people see something and as you said, then they go into the store and it's so different or vice versa. Sometimes it's an absolutely gorgeous store and your online presence is a total disappointment. It looks like everyone else online.

Sharon 18:02

Well and another thing Vonda I find everybody's predicting everything is going to be online. When we come out of this, I do think we will use online more and there will be like telemedicine and things like that that we've heard about. They've talked about, but now it's going to be more of a reality. But I also believe we've lost the human connection and people are so needing to connect. I saw one woman on television who said, I just need a hug so bad and FedEx very often delivers the wrong package to us. And I found his contact information and now when a package comes, it's not hours . Instead of calling FedEx back, I call him and say, you got a package. Its on my front porch and he comes by and grabs it and we've never connected other than over the phone. And the other day Tim said he knocked on the door and said, hi, my name is so and so and I'm the ones who's packages always come here. And I just was in the neighborhood and thought, I just want to introduce myself.

Vonda 19:03

Wow.

Sharon 19:04

We've been calling him for two or three years, but now there's a need to connect. I see that for business too , I say, don't write off the in store . If you do events to bring that experience economy into your door, there will be the 80 20 rule. Like everything else. 80% of people do the same thing, but there's going to be that 20% that pays more, who want a human connection. And so I say, don't totally dismiss your pants on brand because there's people who are going to want to connect to him. What do you think Vonda?

Vonda 19:40

no, I agree. I think people are really wanting to connect as we're opening this up. There are so many people are just like, like getting my hair done. I'm like, okay , yeah, I'm , I'm ready to mask up. I'm ready whenever I can to get out in the public. Again, it's a service, but it's also a connection.

Sharon 19:57

Well, and I'll tell you, I have fibromyalgia, so my muscles hurt a lot, so I'm like, forget the hair. Forget the nails. Forget the restaurants. I don't miss any of them, but I miss my masseuse.

Vonda 20:10

You not only want to face to face, you want a hands on experience.

Sharon 20:15

I want her to come back, but in that light it's all about making it happen. You create your vision. What would you like the next 10 years to look like and how do I start with year one? Getting there? You can even do it with a vision board, but putting it into practice is the hard thing. And for that, if you don't mind Vonda, I'd like to share two books that I think are a good idea for that.

Vonda 20:37

Please do Sharon.

Sharon 20:39

this is a really old book, but I used it when I was changing myself. I had a flower shop. We had a family illness. I needed to make a big change and I could do the job of a floral educator and manage what I needed to manage at home. When I was trying to make the change, I found this book. I could do anything if only I knew what it was. Barbara S, H, E. R and when my children graduated from high school and from college, I made them read the book. I've recommended it to lots of business people. It's very simple but it really makes you think in debth.

Vonda 21:17

We will put the link for that book below in the business and pleasure of flowers so people can purchase that. If you're recommending it , Sharon, and it's worked for you all of these years, it will be a good purchase for everybody to jump in on that one.

Sharon 21:30

and I think you can get both of these books off of Amazon. This one is another one. Eat that frog 21 great ways to stop procrastinating and get more done in less time by Brian Tracy and really probably won't tell you anything you've never heard before, but it reminds you to develop the habit of doing it and it says everything goes in a 20% and an 80% lists that 80 20 rule again and you start with the hardest things, the things you don't want to deal with first and just eat that frog. I find when it comes to frogs, this didn't come from this book. This is a Chinese quote, but we think too small like the frog at the bottom of the well, he thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the, well, if he surfaced he would have an entirely different view. We are very like that frog. We also are like the frog that is in hot water and you keep adding hot water. It stays and it doesn't notice the change in temperature until it's cooked. But if you drop the frog into the hot water, he would hop out. Well, we've been in our water for so long and this hot water has been pouring in. It's time to hop out and think, how would we change that? How can we move forward with it? And I think it would be interesting, I'd love to hear from people, how would they, my Facebook page is Sharon McGukin. I'd love to hear from you. What are you thinking? How are you going to move forward? What can you suggest for people who are trying to change their business? As Vonda said earlier, I use as my tagline, celebrate life with flowers. And when people ask me, what do you do? I say, I teach others to celebrate life with flowers because what is life without celebrations is washing dishes and cook meals.

Vonda 23:25

and you have to take time to celebrate. You have to take time and just savor those moments, savor the celebrations.

Sharon 23:36

That was what I was going to say. If we didn't have traditions and we didn't have celebrations and we didn't have milestones in our life, all we would do is working and sleep. So that's what adds the joy to our life.

Vonda 23:49

It is. It's a joyful life too. And what we have to do, again, as you were saying, is we have to look at the joy in life and really celebrate that part of life and don't look at the negative because as we know, life is 10% what we're given and 90% how we react to it.

Sharon 24:04

So my suggestion is chart how you react to it and move it towards something you love. If there's parts of your business you didn't love, move to the parts that you did because in the concept of do what you love and the money will follow because you're given those natural skills that make you successful at that. So if you play to your strengths, play to your skill , you're going to be more successful than if you play to what you think the expectation of business in this particular time is. I'm thinking one great suggestion is to establish a celebrate day a day to send love and appreciation to people who've been there for you throughout this challenge. It might be heroes, it might be family, it might be someone that has been sheltered alone.

Vonda 24:54

That's a great idea. Celebrate you day.

Sharon 24:57

Everyone sends a thank you or I love you flowers and says, we made it through it.

Vonda 25:04

I love that everyone has someone in our lives. You think of that, how many people in your life you would say, I'm celebrating you today. I love you. I am so appreciative of you in my life and if we as florists would do that for a few people, actually put that on Facebook or Instagram, this is what I'm doing because I'm appreciating or celebrating this person today. Who do you celebrate and kind of get the whole snowball happening?

Sharon 25:32

I think across the industry we need to do this and I think we need to set a future date once we kind of see when we're going to come out of it and have a celebrate day and send love and appreciation with flowers. We are trying to celebrate things. My five year old granddaughter had her birthday during the challenge and she called and they live about an hour and 15 minutes away and she called and she said, dema, are you coming to my canceled birthday party? I said , no darling , I can't come to your cancel birthday party. I'm so sorry. I'm disappointed. And she said, well can Wells and take her cousins? No darling, we can't. She's wanting to be a police woman. So her mom checked with the police and the police in their area in Dunwoody did a parade for her, a parade of police cars past their house and they were playing over loud speaker, happy birthday. And she was so happy. We watched on video. It was so cute. Then today, this afternoon myself, I will be in a car parade for a friend who's been in nursing for 45 years and she's been in the command center at the hospital. She has been the person who takes charge of all of their accreditation and she has retired. So we're all doing a parade past her house. But you look for ways to celebrate people. Let's teach people to celebrate with flowers.

Vonda 26:57

Yeah. And we can do that. There's no audience better than right here in front of us. They know how to celebrate with flowers.

Sharon 27:04

We just have to join hands and do it. But the biggest advice I would give Wanda , search your soul for that deep dream you put aside and go for it. That came from the, I can do anything book. So I hope you'll give it a try.

Vonda 27:21

Oh, thank you so much for joining me today, Sharon. You've given such great advice for people and such insight on what we can do to better ourselves. So thank you again for joining us.

Sharon 27:32

Thank you so much.

Vonda 27:36

So Sharon, our very last question since Lori's not here to ask, what is giving you life right now?

27:45

Well Vonda you know the answer to that is going to be the Mcgrands. My four grandchildren, who right now their doorsteps and sometimes they're one year after the other, but right now they're three, five , five and seven. And they were just here for the weekend and I hadn't seen them in two months. And it, because of the challenge and it was just pure joy. And I think that's what we need to help bring back in to our customers' lives through our businesses. Just the joy of celebrating events or family or holidays or whatever. What's giving me life right now is the Mcgrands.

Vonda 28:24

I love it. And the hugs and the kisses that those little Mcgrands give you. Boy, what joy that brings you. So let me do just a quick recap, Lori, on some of the main points I got out of what Sharon was sharing with us. There were three that I'd like to like to pass by you and say, did you think these were major points as well? One is recognize that challenge happens for you, not to you.

Lori 28:56

Yes. Now I don't know about you. Well, you did the interview. I literally took five pages of notes in my spiral notebook and I did write that down because, what, I loved when she said that. It reminded me we need to stop looking at every circumstance as we're the victim. I think we can get caught up in that. Whatever's happening. I'm not saying we're never victims, but I think we can get stuck in that rut. You know, raising kids. Our kids can go through those when they're young and everything's is, No, I didn't not me, that's not my fault. That's not my fault. It's, you know, but I love that. Like own it. Just own it. I wrote that same thing down and then she goes on to talk about even, you know, what are your responsibilities? Like what those are?

Vonda 29:58

but then realize that in that challenge there are hidden opportunities. That was the second point, those opportunities that are in those challenges.

Lori 30:09

Yeah. You know, right now going through the covid-19 stuff I, and I know you have to, I have been just amazed at some of the amazing conversations that I've had with shop owners that have taken this time and finally looked at it a little different and come up with, Oh wait, here's an opportunity. You know Vonda just like what we did with our members today in one of our Facebook lives, talking about marketing strategies. That idea would have never happened had the owner, Abby not been able to be face to face with her mom. She had to think out of the box. This is just perfect timing.

Vonda 30:52

And that's what Sharon was saying, you know, brainstorm with your staff, you know, with people around you because that is where you're going to find those hidden opportunities. And then the last one, you are always big on Lori and that is set one, five and 10 year goals to capitalize on this.

Lori 31:09

Yes, yes, exactly. The imagery I always have is somebody said think about five years from now you're at a cocktail party or an event someone says, so what do you do? What do you want that answer to be? I don't know. That's a really good question. So I like it. I think it's really good to , not five year, ten year, even one year, but what we say all the time, and I think Sharon would agree, don't write down 10 goals. Just write down one, two, maybe three because you'll get incredibly overwhelmed. I did like when she said she's not a big like, new year's goals, new year's resolutions. I'm not either. because typically the times I have done it, I've always failed.

Vonda 32:03

Right. Set yourself up for success and not failure. Right.

Lori 32:07

So Vonda, I did want to run some of them buy you a little bird told me that you almost did not ask Sharon my question.

Vonda 32:20

You are so right.

Lori 32:22

What's up ? What happened?

Vonda 32:24

I was just in the moment and listening to her wise words and I didn't have you there. To ask the question and remind me.

Lori 32:34

She reminded you though, which I love so much.

Vonda 32:41

She did. She's like, what about the question?

Lori 32:44

Yeah, I love that. That makes me so happy. Clearly, she is one of our faithful listeners, right?

Vonda 32:51

She is and we were very blessed to be able to have her come on and share knowledge with everyone today.

Lori 32:58

Yeah. Yeah, so hopefully she'll come again. The other thing, and I think you said it, we want to link to the two books you talked about. They are not affiliate links. We do not get a kickback from this. She doesn't get a kickback. I just want to be clear on that. I don't want anyone to think we're doing that, but there are books you and I have.

Vonda 33:20

That's a fave. I think of ours. It does. Like she said, it just reminds you things we already know.

Lori 33:27

and it's small so it's not daunting a 400 page book that you think there's no way I'm going to get it.

Vonda 33:34

So I did order that other book , so I've just started to read it and I'll let you know.

Lori 33:39

Okay. I can put it on my list. I have one, two, three, four, five right now. That can be six. I have a problem. Anyway. All right , good job V.

Vonda 33:53

nice job. Thanks Lori.

33:54

We have certainly enjoyed our time together today and we look forward to being with you guys. Again, if you have any questions, concerns, comments, anything we would love to hear from you, you can always email lori@flowerclique.com Also, if you enjoy our little podcast, go ahead and click that subscribe button. That's very helpful for us. And you can even leave a review and we hope you join us next week.

Vonda 34:21

Yes. 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.

Speaker 3 35:22

bye .