The Pause and Pivots We Learned in Moving Past Covid-19

Episode 074: Many business owners took the time to pause and re-evaluate their day to day operations which often resulted in a pivot. Vonda and Lori share a few of the many positive unexpected pivots that have come out of the business shift and as well as encourage everyone to give each other grace moving forward.  One thing that great business owners learned was  with change comes new and great opportunities!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

It was taking the time to pause, yet be able to look at the priorities and be able to control the outcome. Yep. Welcome to the Business and Pleasure of Flowers. We're your hosts, Vonda LaFever, and Lori Wilson.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

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

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Lori, I've been reading a lot and hearing a lot about what's going to happen on this post-lockdown and what are we going to look like? How are people going to handle all of this?

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Yeah. It's interesting because think about a year ago.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Was it almost a year ago? It was over a year ago. Over a year ago, we did a podcast, and I believe it was episode 17. 17. And it was like, who are you going to be post-COVID?

unknown 1:03

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

And I have to confess, doing that, I think I was thinking it was going to last maybe through July.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

I think that's what you were thinking. I mean, we both were like, okay, well, maybe in the middle of the summer, this is all gonna open up. It's almost it's like and like, we were we wrong. Yeah, for sure. We were wrong. We were going through at that point things that really still are important, and that's what's the difference between priority and core values, and what are those inner core values? And you really challenge people, Lori, to think forward. You know, what is the momentum for the future? What is it that you visualize your shop to look like when you got through here?

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Yeah, yeah. Well, because so many people were having, you know, to especially in the Northeast at that time, they were legit closed down, right? Like couldn't do anything. And so, you know, maybe some of them were at the point where they could be the only one in the store and they could do curb sides, but we didn't know where this whole thing was gonna go. We were still trying to figure out, you know, under what law or rule they could stay open. Were they agriculture? Were they not? Were they this? Were they essential? Were they not?

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Remember? Yeah, I know it was just crazy at that point. But what we've learned in this last year are two what I want to call big words pause and pivot. The two Ps, the P words.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

There you go. Pause and pivot. Yes, you're you're absolutely right. We paused, not because we wanted to, right? The world made us pause, which isn't a bad thing. No, but we pause and then we didn't know what pivots we were gonna make, but it's been so interesting coming out a year later to talk to shop owners that look back and go, Wow, I never thought I would stop doing this, yet I'm realizing I don't want to do that part of my business anymore. Right?

SPEAKER_00 3:29

You had predicted that because you had been challenging a lot of our Flower Click members to say, Hey, think about this, think about that. And they truly did. Some of the pivots came about. If we can look now and say, okay, this happened, some of it was just because of what has happened in the business, and that is so many shops have gone to huge online business, so much more work is coming in from their websites. You see that's really their main location now is their online location, right? Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

So there have been some businesses that we know of that have actually they didn't have a lot of walk-in in the be anyway, so they decided to move to their location because they were paying a higher, pretty high rent. They realized again, another thing that a lot of people did during the pause, at least you met with a lot of them and kind of went through their numbers. What am I spending on what? And what can be modified? And so they had an opportunity to move to a different building and spend all of their time and energy really ramping up their website. They don't do a lot of stuff in store, but they haven't skipped a beat, like their numbers are still just out of the park, they still do all of their deliveries. Every once in a while, they'll have someone want to come to their store, and you certainly can, but the other thing it has freed them up to control their time better. One of the owners is, you know, a new mom. And so she can either have her child with her, or there are times she doesn't need to be in the store because they're not having walk-in, and it was costing them a lot of money, always making sure there was an employee there, and they might get one walk-in, right? You know, so talk about a pivot, that's a major pivot. That's a major pivot, and it's making them more money.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

I think that's what we've found is that with the website orders on the increase, which Flower Click really tracks those, and we can really see that major increase and the major increase in the number of orders coming in, but also the dollar amount that people are spending. So there's some really great things happening there, but you're controlling your cost of goods, you're controlling your cost of labor. And if you have people who are downsizing, they're really controlling their facility costs as well. So which all goes to more profit, which is why we're doing what we're doing anyway, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Right, right. Another pivot I've noticed again, some of our shops is they shorten their hours, their walk-in business hours. However, they either have a call service, you know, that does it, or they just have their phone forwarded to their cell phone. Again, they have it, and they're like, We're not going to go back to our old hours because we're really not missing customers because again, they don't have a lot of walk-in anyway. They have some, they do have some, but it's saving her a lot of time. Plus, she gets to spend more time. She's like, I want to be with my grandchildren more.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

There you go. It was taking the time to pause to be able to look at the priorities and be able to control the outcome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

And you know, it's interesting because this this one particular shop I'm thinking of, she had been wanting to do it for a while, but she was fearful that it was gonna cause. But the pandemic kind of put her into a position where she didn't have a choice, she had to do it, you know. And now she's like, dang, why was I fearful?

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Because it's change, right? It's change, exactly. You know, and you feel, oh, what if I miss that one walk-in customer? Right, right. And now you're like, you know what, they're gonna call anyway, it's all gonna be good.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Everybody's using the website, or they're just gonna call.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Yeah, they're using the website to look anyway, and then they'll call as long as you forward that phone. I think that's awesome. We also had people downsize the number of employees, some because they wanted to, but mostly people didn't come back. People did not come back because of fear or whatever, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:06

And a lot of people I talked with, again, I know things are starting to get back to normal, praise God. But during that time, their employees were moms and the schools were shut down. Yeah, and so what do you do? You have you can't leave your kids at home alone, and so they had to be home, even though you probably want to. So, I mean, some of this it it just is what it is, it was hard. But the things that came out of that were many of our businesses realized, hey, maybe I don't need as many employees. But the the thing that came along with that, Vonda, is a lot of them ordered like our bundles, and you know, they have they have our recipes, so they could do it a little better because they had some help.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

It's called working smarter, not harder, right? Being more organized, have a system so that it really makes productivity at its highest, and you're just not spinning your wheels. So, yeah, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

I do want to say flower shops are always looking for good employees, it's a never-ending battle. So it's not like every shop during the pandemic realized, hey, I don't need extra employees, but because they didn't have a choice, that's right, you know, so it's hard.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Well, and you've had some talk to you just recently about changing their wedding model as well.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Yes, well, we've had like two different schools of thought here, right? So I was talking with a shop yesterday that was just like, you know what? I have a a budget, I don't want to do any wedding under $4,000. I'm just not gonna do it. It's not worth my time and my energy and my weekends. I don't want to do it. So she wants the the bigger weddings, and then you though have been talking to a lot of shops that are quite the opposite, totally opposite.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

They're they just want to do like, let me do the body and the bouquets, and you can just drop it by. Y'all come pick it up, I'll have it in a box ready, but no service. Right. So we've got from one extreme to the other, yeah. But but I think that's good. The common in both of those is that both of them have figured out how they can be profitable at that. Yes, like they're not gonna continue to do the weddings and not make money. So we talked to someone who worked for a whole year and they figured all the weddings they had done for the whole year they'd made just a few thousand dollars. Yeah. Bottom line, and it was like, wait a minute, what are we what are we doing?

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Was not worth it at all. The shop I was talking with that said she doesn't want to do anything under this certain amount. One of the reasons why is she she's always loved doing sympathy work, but she truly fell in love with doing the simp. It's just it is like no other, and we know that every every designer I know, I've never met anybody that's like, uh, I hate doing sympathy work. And if I I just haven't met them yet, not that they're not out there, but she's like, I would way rather focus my time. And she goes, for example, I mean, we were on the phone for over an hour. She goes, I just finished a casket spray while talking to you. That's right. I was like, talk about multitasking, that's amazing. She's like, and it looks pretty damn good.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

I'm sure it did.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

I'm sure it did too.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

So yeah, so there have been some pause moments that really have caused some really great pivots, which I think is great. I think that's kind of it. Because what we have to realize is there's so much that we can't control. That's not changed. You know, now that we're getting through COVID, doesn't mean we can control things again. There's still everything's out of our control. And I was listening to something on Instagram with this Danae Logan, who's a therapist, and she's just very interesting to me to listen to. And she talked about really we're living in a moment, and when we start to feel anxious or we're starting to feel fear, remember that's for that moment. Tomorrow, it's gonna be different. You know, if we can just think, okay, well, I'm feel feeling this now. Let's just take a deep breath and let's just move on. This moment is going to pass if we allow it to. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Well, it's that's biblical, right? I mean, it's uh in the new test, it's Matthew 6, something, but it says, therefore, don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own, and I just love that. No, that's a NIV version. I know there's lots of others, but that's the version that speaks to me. Yeah, listen, that's we're still gotta take this day to day. Each day has enough, it does enough for us. One other thing I I saw and I took a screenshot of it on Twitter. Um, I don't even know this person, I don't even know how it came about, but I felt like it was meant to be um because we were talking about this post-pandemic coming out of uh this whole thing. And it says this her name is Caitlin Flanagan. I don't know who she is, but she's on Twitter if you want to Google her. She says, Allow me, a longtime cancer survivor, to explain why you might be feeling a bit depressed. You just spent a year in survival mode. Now the danger has passed, and you're having to power down from high alert tunnel vision to low threat normal life. It's going to take a few months to adjust. Wow. And I read that a couple of different times, and I got a lump in my throat because it was exactly how I feel. And if I feel this way, other many people, especially our businesses, like you're almost a little gun shy coming out of this. For sure. So many of our members have been on high alert. This whole like the blessing, if we can look at any blessings in this pandemic, is our retail flowers have been thriving. Like I again, I have yet to speak with a shop. I'm sure they're out there, but I've yet to speak with a brick and mortar shop that's like, you know, I'm really slow. I'm not getting any order. Like ours just can't keep up, right? Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Would you would you feel the same way? Totally agree. Totally agree. People have found an appreciation for flowers, and so we're just like going a little bit crazy.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

Right, right. And so, but our survival mode has been this high alert. Like we're on high, we're never ending. We oh my gosh, I don't even know my employee's gonna come in. Oh no, her child got sent home because somebody had COVID, so now they're in lockdown and she can't come in, like, you know, that's how they've been feeling. And now that we're coming out of it, we got to take a minute and adjust to maybe what the new normal life is going to be. And and again, you know, we always talk about giving grace to each other and to our employees and employees, give grace to your bosses because we're all navigating this together.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Yeah, the cancer survivor thing is quite the analogy. Yeah, I mean, it is so so right on. When you read that to me the other day, I was just, I was like you, I just got this lump thinking, wow. Yeah, wow.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Yeah, and you're almost, I think all of us are almost a little bit afraid to be joyful that you know the CDC just said, hey, if you're vaccinated, you don't have to wear a mask. And we're like, yay, yet I'm like, oh, but what if they're wrong? What if I still need like that's okay?

SPEAKER_00 16:39

It's okay. If you still want to wear a mask, it's okay. And the person who doesn't give them grace if right, if they want to or they don't, right? We're all trying our best.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Well, most of us, right? I want to say all of us, we're all trying our best. Speaking of masks being off and world getting back to to normal, uh, the Texas State Floral Expo is happening this summer, and it is so far, it is in person, and I am super excited because it's gonna be in Houston. Yay! Yes, I'm gonna go to it. I'll be I'm gonna be on a panel on that Sunday about how to have get your A team, like about employee relations. But I'm saying this because I'm going to be very sensitive to people if they choose to wear a mask. That's okay. If they don't, that's okay. Like we have to understand everybody's dealing a little bit differently. Totally, we're all gonna get there. It's just gonna take a little, take a different path for each one of us.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

Boy, the Texas State thing looks really exciting. I got a postcard and it's like, wow, what a great lineup! Super exciting.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Yeah, there's a lot. Renee's gonna be there, Renee Tucci. I know Renee. I can't wait to see her. It'll be great. It'll be it'll be fun, it'll be fun. I'm looking forward to it very much.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

And then, of course, the Society of American Florists, SAF, is in Orlando in September, and we are bringing the team.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

We are going, and we are gonna get us some matching t-shirts. I've decided. Here's what I want to say about that. I think we've even talked about we're gonna try to get Kate Penn or Laura Weaver to come on and talk a little more about it. But I understand that it costs money, and I I fully appreciate that it is hard for a business owner to take some time away from their business. But I cannot tell you how fulfilled I am when I leave SAF. And I'll just talk about our flower click members, people I meet that I have, they leave with just completely inspired. Oh, for sure, for sure, and renewed, and all of the things, all of the good stuff. It's so worth it. And I'm not, I don't get a commission if somebody signs up for a second, but I truly do, I love it, and I love when people go and they know it's so important they even bring some employees along because I think that again makes the employee feel good, and that's gonna help them stay in the industry, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:41

And we need people like that. Oh, absolutely. SAF gives great education, you know, from design to business. I mean, it kind of across the board. So it will be it will be exciting. I'm waiting to hear the rest of the programs that are coming, but we know there'll be a lot of them. Yeah. When is it? September September 21st, 22nd, 23rd.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

So everyone start planning now.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

There's another one scheduled for October. The American Institute of Floral Designers, AIFD, is having an accreditation session and designers and a and a program in October. Really? I thought they used to go in July. National Symposium was canceled because of COVID and because they're so big, right? And people just weren't ready for that yet. But this is a smaller venue in Florida, and they will have design sessions, and then they also have the testing for anybody who wants to become an accredited member of AIFD. So that's going on as well. So things we're, I think we'll be hearing about them all over, you know. Woohoo! It's starting to open, right? Like we said, we got to give them grace.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

If you aren't gonna be at SAF and you listen to our podcast, be sure and find Fonda and I. We would love to meet you face to face for sure. Yes, and maybe even give a hug or at least a handshake, an elbow bump or something. Give an elbow, a high five, and something.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

Exactly. So, our takeaways today give yourself and others grace and space coming out of it. Oh, you know what? On that, Lori, we were gonna talk a little bit about the pause and about permission slips.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The pause, as we talked about, that was one of the things because we all got put on pause on hold with unvoluntarily, but then we went fast track and there has been no end in sight. No end in sight. So we meaning flower click, we were talking the week before Mother's Day. Was that right? I can't remember when we were doing the podcast and I was showing you and Ellie, I found this letter and these little coupons that back when my children were young and sweet and loved their mama. They would make me coupons. And I found some. And I'm like, I never redeemed these. You know, it was for like a hug or unload the dishwasher, any of these kind of things. So that got us thinking because they made me feel really good, you know, just even finding them. And we start talking about what can we do for our members, right? Like, and so we came up with this. We need to give them permission slips since flower click. We have our schools, our education schools. So we kind of stayed with, we gave them permission slips, and we've mailed them these little permission slips, and you did. You you took it from there and made it all beautiful. It's all pretty pretty. It had to be pretty. Yes. Ellie would not have signed off on it if it was not pretty. So you got all the different cover color envelopes. I'm trying to think what were some of the permissions.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Well, one that Ellie came up with, which I thought was actually was my favorite, is give yourself permission to not be productive and not feel guilty about it.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

And that's huge. That's huge for all of us. Like we all need that piece of paper, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Um, and then one that I liked, because they were everything from give yourself permission to have a spa day or a pedicure, you know, whatever. But the reality is that may not happen because they don't have time. So give yourself permission. Pull out that permission slip that says, I am allowed to go take a walk for 15 minutes or whatever. Do not call me, do not do anything. What I loved is again, our members were so surprised, and they kept posting on our group, oh my gosh, this is the cutest thing ever. I love it. Even the guys, even the male owner, they're like, This is pretty funny, this is awesome. I'm gonna try to do this one today. And so I just loved it because we have to give ourselves permission.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

We do because we hold ourselves accountable for every little minute of every day, and so to give yourself permission to do it, and then it made it in a fun way for you to be able to hand it to an employee or hand it to a spouse and say, Hey, I've got permission to do this. And right when we were doing it, I said, Well, 50% of the people will go, oh my gosh, what are they doing? And the other 50 will go, okay, well, that was kind of cute. So yeah, you know, it's it was a fun thing, and we all do, everybody listening, you have to give yourself permission to do something that's good for you, even if it's just a little pause, right? Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

Speaking of pausing and what's good for you, what's inspiring you right now, Vonda?

SPEAKER_00 24:57

It's because this coming weekend is Memorial Day weekend. There's gonna be, you know, a little bit of a break. I think it's kind of nice, you know. Here in Florida, we have picnics all the time, so it's not like it's the first picnic of the season, right? But it really is one of those that our neighborhood has a little parade, and so they go with their decorated bicycles and the bicycles, and so that's just kind of a fun thing that kind of inspires me to see what everybody comes up with on Memorial Day, and of course, we are very thankful for everyone. Of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one. Um, what's inspiring me, and it's kind of funny, but I actually am learning to love it, is the my new water bottle. So when I do see that water bottle, but no one can really see it, but it is I will post a picture after the puppies will post this picture. This water bottle, Ellie texted me and she's like, Do you have this? Because Ellie and I have uh love for TikTok things and we like to see what people have, and so she's like, Have you seen this on TikTok? It's so great. So of course I ordered it. But what's funny about it, first of all, it's massive, it's way bigger, it's 54 ounces, but I actually think it's about 60 ounces once you get to the top. But it has these lines and time, so like 8 a.m. hello, new day, and then I can drink down to 10 a.m. Do it for yourself, and then at 12 p.m., it's like keep drinking, but all the way very end, it's like you're almost there, and then my 8 p.m. is awesome. So I feel like a cheerleader is right next to me, right there, and you are the cheerleader exactly, so it's inspiring me to drink a lot, but I feel like I'm gonna have to go to the bathroom a lot more too. But I'm gonna keep doing it.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

I'll shout out to Erica because I know she has that bottle and uses that every day too. So you all be working on that.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

It's very fun. If I was like driving to work every day, it's not something that would fit in my car holder, but it is great working from home because I can keep it at my desk.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

It's a good thing you can keep it at your desk.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

That's exactly. Thank you so much for listening to our podcast. We hope you enjoyed spending time with us because we enjoy spending time with you. If you did, make sure you hit that subscribe button or add the business and pleasure of flowers to your Google morning routine or your flash briefing on Alexa.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

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.