Sympathy Series #2: Must Know Tips to Increase Your Sympathy Sales

Episode 082: Vonda and Lori chat with special guests Ralph Giordano AIFD  and Steve Rogala as they share their secrets on how they have grown their sympathy sales to what is now nearly 50% of their annual sales. 

Ralph is owner of Giordano's Floral Creations in Fort Pierce, Florida
Steve is from Especially for You Florist & Gift Shop in Freehold, NJ

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

It's the relationship that you make with the funeral directors and the service that you provide them and going above and beyond what they need on a daily, weekly, monthly basis.

SPEAKER_04 0:21

Welcome to the Business and Pleasure of Flowers. We're your hosts, Vonda LaFever and Lori Wilson.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

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

SPEAKER_04 0:39

Good morning, Miss Vonda. How are you? I am great. How are you doing this morning, Miss Lori? I'm doing well, but we have company. We do. We have some really important guests.

SPEAKER_03 0:51

There's other people in the virtual room. So we have two guests, and I'm gonna say their names, but I want them to talk a little bit about where they are and their shop name. And we have two of our clickers, our flower click members. Um, and we've known both of these guys for a while. You've known them through Teleflora education services and such, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:16

Yes, I have. I've known both of them for quite some time through Teleflora and just through the industry, and Ralph through the American Institute of Floral Designers and helping with the program. So we've definitely had some great interaction. These are two really talented, amazing men for sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:34

Right, right. So since you already said the word Ralph, Giordano, AIF D. Ralph, we're gonna start with you. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Good. I am doing great, ladies. So you want a little intro about myself, I'm assuming, correct?

SPEAKER_03 1:47

Yes, where you are, and one fun fact.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Okay, great. Like Vonda and everyone said, I'm Ralph Giordano, AIFD. I own Giordano's Floral Creations. I am in Fort Pierce, Florida. I am a fourth generation designer. So I grew up in the industry learning all sorts of different ways back then and current trends and things now.

SPEAKER_03 2:09

I did not know that about you. I didn't know you were a fourth generation. You and Steve, who I'm getting ready to introduce, have a lot in common. You both had no other choice of career.

SPEAKER_04 2:20

Oh, you always have a choice, right, Ralph?

SPEAKER_01 2:23

I definitely tried other things, but the industry just kept pulling me back in and finally I just gave up the urge and uh you know went back to flowers. If you can't beat them, join them, right? That's it, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 2:34

All right, well, good. Well, we're excited you're here, Ralph. And then we also have Steve Rogala. Hi, Steve. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Very good, ladies. I'm a almost like a brother from another mother with Ralph, uh, although I'm only a third generation florist, also from the Northeast. Um, but I haven't left the Northeast. I'm in New Jersey, and I've been in the family business well when I was younger. I went away for 12 years and was working in uh high-tech marketing, and then came back about 18 years ago back to the family business and was able to bring some different perspective tech-wise to the business. Uh, but again, I've been managing one of our stores and uh designing and uh working with Teleflora. I met Vonda many years ago when she came out to New Jersey and she was a uh education specialist at a program. I saw learned some really awesome things from her, and then I became a teleflora president and got to know her much better.

SPEAKER_04 3:33

I didn't know that about you either, that you were in tech before, but that makes so much sense. Wow, no wonder you know what you're doing on marketing, right? Because you have some great ideas in marketing and have really shared that with a lot of our clickers. That's pretty cool, Steve. I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_03 3:47

Yeah, for sure. I do want to say a funny story that actually happened this week. So I was talking with a flower shop via email, communicating back and forth. And this person, they've purchased our online courses, our sales prep school and our flower prep school, but they're not in our web program. Anyway, they were asking me some advice that's not really related to the online courses. And I was like, you know what? Let me reach out to some of our members via our Facebook group and see if I can help you. Because, you know, I always want to help. Even if you're not a clicker, that's fine. So I responded to him and said that here's some information I got from one of our members. He said it was fine to share with you, blah, blah, blah. He emailed me back immediately and he said, Was it Ralph or Steve? And I was like, How do you even know that you're not in our group? I emailed back, I said, actually, it was someone else. It wasn't Ralph or Steve, but I do understand. Love that. They're not even in that group, but yet they know we go to you guys for a lot of stuff, and you are such advocates in our little flower click group and in the industry. I don't think it's just in our Facebook group. I think you guys spend a lot of time just sharing advice and what has worked for you. Um, and I I love both of y'all's hearts in that. Like you're not selfish people. And I think that's really important. A long time ago, we had Renee Tucci on here. Vonda, you'll remember it was right kind of beginning of COVID, actually, when all the pandemonium was going on and just chaos. And she was talking about that too. It's like, you know, it's just so important that we quit feeling like our nearest competitor is always our enemy. Like, we gotta help each other. We gotta help each other if we're gonna get through this. And you guys have always been that way. So, with that said, that's kind of why we reached out to both of you because we are doing this series on sympathy, talking about design, talking about dealing with families, all of this stuff, right? And you guys are sort of the gurus or we think in the sympathy industry. So we have some questions, just kind of conversation starters.

SPEAKER_04 6:10

As we were talking before we started to record, so many people on Facebook groups will have questions on sympathy and and Ralph or Steve will jump in and answer that and give them really the right answer on what needs to be done. So let's just start out. It doesn't matter who wants to go first, but let's just ask what percentage of your sympathy business is directly from the funeral home versus the percentage of family that actually walk in the store. Let's, I guess we've got to pick somebody. So go first, Ralph.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

So my overall sympathy business right now is about 45% of my overall sales. My direct sales for my funeral homes are about 20 to 25 percent of that. So about 50% are my immediate sales from the funeral director, funeral home themselves. The rest are the referrals, the website sales, and our local customers directly.

SPEAKER_04 7:04

Wow, so 45% are your funeral home business?

SPEAKER_01 7:10

45% is my percentage of my total delivered sales.

SPEAKER_04 7:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

So right now we're almost 50-50. We're almost 50% in sympathy-oriented business and 50% everyday event business.

SPEAKER_03 7:22

Can I ask you a quick question just for clarity here? To me, I'm like, wow, that's that's a whole lot. Has that come about just since COVID, like 2020, or was it that way prior?

SPEAKER_01 7:35

It's been steadily growing for the past several years, but I will say that COVID did give us a big boost, a good five to ten percent boost from the direct sales from the funeral homes themselves.

SPEAKER_03 7:48

All right.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 7:50

Yeah. Yeah. So before we move on to going deeper into that, let's ask Steve the same question. What percent of your business is directly from the funeral home versus families that actually walk in the store?

SPEAKER_00 8:04

We work daily with about 12 different funeral homes and 20 more in the surrounding areas that you know, depending on the the price and what's going on that day, we will go to. So out of those 12 daily ones, there are three funeral homes that actually we work with in them sending orders to us. Given that recently we're almost 50-50 with our family work. Well, two funeral homes or three locations total is sending us 50% of our families. And out of our total business, we're about 35 to 40 percent sympathy in our area. It was on a steady decline from the since the 90s, since basically 9-11, sympathy had had been going down. But recently, since COVID, um we were shut down and almost having no funeral for four months. Um, you know, no one was really sending anything out. But uh ever since last July, everything has been picking up. And since COVID, we've been kind of going gangbusters, mostly because people can't travel or their uh size limitations, and people want to send the flowers in put in lieu of actually being there, whether they send them to their house, which still counts as sympathy, or to the funeral home.

SPEAKER_04 9:26

Those are just amazing numbers from both of you. And what have you done to cultivate that? There's obviously something that has gotten you to really cultivate that business from the funeral home directly.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

So for me, it's the relationship that you make with the FDICs, with the um, which is the funeral director in charge, for people who don't know what that stands for, and the the owners, the managers, those types of people regarding the funeral home. It's go there, make the connection with them, make sure that you can provide them with a service that they desperately need at this time and going forth. Now, with that being said, a lot goes into it when you're servicing a funeral home. Just like Steve, I service 15 different chapels in my area, and basically I have 15 out of 20. So it's the relationship that you make with the funeral directors and the service that you provide them and going above and beyond what they need on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. And that goes as far as being available late at night to take calls or take family orders or be available on the weekends, um, being able to stock inventory for forms that they might need the next morning. It's just that extra customer service, that availability that a lot of shops aren't willing to take the risk and chance of doing is what you need to do if you really want to get into the sympathy market and get a good chunk of your local market.

SPEAKER_04 10:58

I think what you're hitting on that makes the biggest difference is the relationship is really important. You have to be able to really work on that relationship and give them above average, I mean, exceptional customer service. You know, some people are just like, oh, well, you know, I'm just gonna do this. You really have to go that next mile, like you're saying, Ralph. It makes all the difference in the world for sure. And Steve, I'm sure you have something to add to that too.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Funeral directors, each one has their own unique likes and dislikes, how you need to treat them. You can't just, you know, do a blanket. This is how I work. You really have to turn that around and say, How can I work with you? If you want to work with multiple different funeral homes, uh you you have to be flexible, like Ralph said. Uh, you need to be able to be responsive to unique needs. My one funeral director, they're very philanthropic in the neighborhood. They run different kinds of fundraisers, whether it's shoe collections for schools during the holidays, we participate in that. We help them advertise for that. They have a dinner every year in which uh it's a little fundraiser, and we attend that. Uh, we make sure we're in their face as much as we possibly can, because if it's important to them, it's important for you to show that you care as well. Uh and you should care, but even if it's just showing that you care, uh that's really important, and that's has strengthened our relationship a lot. Another one specific was one of our funeral directors' mother just passed this year, and the father who was the original owner, or not the original, because they've been here since the 1810s, um came to us and said, uh, I need you to do this casket piece, but it's gonna be different. It it's like how we used to do it in the 50s and 60s. And I said, Okay, uh that's the 1950s and sixties. Uh do you have any examples? And so we just kind of like explained that it's not something that rests on the casket piece itself, but it's uh half open and it has to be a square that is to the side and mirrors the half open piece and the exact shape of the lid. I was like, oh God. And Ralph, I questioned uh, you know, a couple of folks online, and Ralph helped me out with that how to how to put those things up. Um, but the exact shape was pretty specific to how they used to do it. But it was responding to his father, who's now retired, really deepened our uh relationship with this other funeral director. So it's finding out, you know, how you can work with them, what besides just the funeral home uh they were involved with or interested in, just like any other sales relationship, if you want to strengthen that, you need to go beyond just answering the phone call. And also specifically, another example was this same funeral director. I was asking him, you know, hey, how come you sent me some orders from outside the flower click book? Because he hasn't happens to have a couple of books in his shop. And he says, Oh, well, we were calling another shop and they put us on hold for too long, and the family already picked everything out, so we hung up on them and called you. So I said, Are you kidding me? I mean, God knows what happens in a shop that you would you know leave a customer on hold for too long, but these are your big ticket items, you know, they account for so much, they can account for so much of your business that you really need to treat them as VIPs. That's really what I found to be able to strengthen that relationship because it it's not just once or twice a year, it's you know, once or twice a week sometimes or more.

SPEAKER_04 14:44

Yes, I can't imagine somebody putting the funeral director on hold or somebody at the funeral home on hold when they're placing an order. I mean, gosh, but you're you're right. We don't know what that situation was, but it's like, hey, so-and-so's here from the calling from the funeral home. It's like I would stop everything I'm doing, right? But I'm sure the two of you would too, and go, okay, I gotta get this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:08

That's a really good point, the whole VIP concept, because you know, like you both are saying, it's 50% of your business right now.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Also reflects on your ability to handle uh multiple things at once, whether you're staffed enough for them, whether or not you're yeah, yeah, you're able to do the work, or you know, is it is it just you in the shop, and then you have to stay extra, and whether or you have to pay someone overtime for it, that cuts right into your margins. So, you know, you want to be able to show VIP or our funeral home that you know you can handle adversity.

SPEAKER_03 15:44

That is one thing I'm I'm picturing like our sales training program, our course that we do, and I'm thinking, wow, we need to make another little click tip in there. When you are onboarding a new employee as an owner or manager, you better make sure they understand. Because some new think if that was just a new employee, she had no idea a funeral home from Frank, the guy down the street, right? Like it did she didn't realize the importance of that. She might have put on hold and forgot about it and lost a huge sale. So we need to make a little mental note.

SPEAKER_04 16:22

Yeah, that's a great point. I made that note because it is so important. Oh, unbelievable. So our next one is what trends are you seeing in sympathy work, sympathy design, if any.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

So in my area, particularly, they're doing a lot more cremations, which is all over the industry, all over the country. But in my area particularly, it has risen a lot. So, again, to capitalize on that, to be able to offer something for the funeral homes, you know, we've come up with different designs, and and the flower clickbook, you know, has many different designs that can work in that scenario. So, you know, lots of times when people say, Oh, well, we're just having a cremation. Well, even if it is just that one piece that's there, it's gonna help to dress up the room, the presentation for the immediate family, and then it's it's the the way they get to display their loved ones, even if they're not displaying them viewing-wise in a casket, they're still able to get that beautiful floral bouquet around their urn and still have that last vision in their mind for that last service.

SPEAKER_03 17:31

You know, you guys have both brought up the book. Um, and I just started thinking, Wanda, people listening may not know what a book is. Do you want to talk about our flower click Celebration of Life book? That's what they keep referring to.

SPEAKER_04 17:44

Yeah, the Celebration of Life book is something that we've created with custom designs that you take to the funeral home and you don't just drop it off, right? You guys know this the routine on that. It's all about the relationship. And then you take that and present it to them. It has the funeral home name on it, it has the flower shop name, and what you're doing is you're building that partnership further, offering them some type of a commission if they're giving you those orders from the family. So that's kind of it in a nutshell. Um, anything you want to add to that, Ralph or Steve?

SPEAKER_00 18:17

We have it in the uh one funeral home that has two locations, and working with the Flower Quick team was so easy. Audrey was amazing. Um, we were able to customize the book because their selections are enormous. The book is put together beautifully, very well organized. I've gotten great feedback. No matter what I think about it, the funeral directors like it. It's professional looking. It's not just uh it's not a three-ring binder, you know, with little stickers on them. The ladies have done an excellent job with it, and I couldn't be happier.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

The only little thing that I'll add to that is some people may be a little hesitant because of the costs, but both of us can verify that basically once you get that book into those directors' hands and once they get familiar with it, usually within the first order, maybe two, three at most, you've paid for that book. And now for the entire time going forward, it's all profit, it's all covers your costs. If you set the book up correctly and you set up the costs correctly, um, everything's worked into those pricing, and you'll make money, they'll make their volume buying discount. So I had one funeral home that, if memory serves me correctly, they saved $15,000 in the course of the year by sending me the work. So that was $15,000 that they put back into their business to help their business grow, and I still made the profit that I needed.

SPEAKER_03 19:47

That's amazing. Did you tell them that or did they know that? I would share that.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

At the end of the year, I run some numbers and my top funeral homes, I do send them all a personal message via text saying, you know, I appreciate your business, just wanted to let you know these are the numbers we ran, and I hope you're satisfied with the uh roughly whatever it was number that you were able to save by ordering through me.

unknown 20:14

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

So I remind them that they're making money by ordering through me.

SPEAKER_04 20:19

That's brilliant, actually, Ralph, that you give them that information because most of the time they're just like, all right, I'm doing this, I'm doing this. But what a nice reminder at the end of the year. It's like, oh, there is a reason that I'm working with Giordano is because not only the great service, the relationship, but look at this money.

SPEAKER_03 20:37

The money. That's amazing. Talking about this the book paying for itself, it reminded me of one of our flower click members. She's a smaller shop than than both of you guys, but she hadn't never ordered a book. She was very leery, and like you said, the cost. Anyway, she bought one. She bought one. She's like, All right, I'm gonna try it. She got it on like a Friday. The following Monday, we had a meeting that morning. I was like pumping her up to go take it to the funeral home because she was very nervous, and that's understandable. This was her first time. She did it, she emailed me afterwards. She said, I don't know if it went well or not. I did what she had told me. So she was setting me up to where if it didn't work, it could be my fault. Anyway, the following Friday, so that was Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, she called and she left me this voicemail, and she was beyond excited because she had received like three different orders already, which had you know way more than paid for itself. Anyway, I just I love that story because it just she had to have the courage to look at it as okay, this is marketing money I'm putting into this, and she did it, and boom, within the first week, and now. Going back to Audrey, she's like, Yeah, she's ordered like five books now. Um, but I love I love that.

SPEAKER_04 22:06

I love that too, because it took courage, right? You you know that it takes the relationship, and sometimes it's even hard. I'm guessing you could talk into this, Ralph, when you get started, is to start that relationship with the funeral director and trying to find out what they like and what they don't like.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Yeah, absolutely. It does take a little bit of time. Um, the book is great because they're picking a photo or the family's picking a photo. And even though a lot of people say, well, you're just copying photos all day long, well, that's fine because I'm providing the family with what they want, what they like. It's hard sometimes at that family when they're grieving to really make a decision on what they want for their loved ones. And by seeing an image, by seeing a book that's beautifully displayed, it makes that part go a lot easier for them. So you're designing a photo that they chose, you're creating a quality design, quality flowers, and excellent service. And then from there it just snowballs into a great relationship with your funeral home, and they just keep sending you more orders and more orders.

SPEAKER_03 23:08

Right. So that's a perfect segue to our next question, which is the one I'm most excited about because of you guys. You were saying making the same thing over and over from the book. And yes, you both do that, but you also both kind of have found your niche in some interesting ways. And I'd love to talk about that. Steve, I'm gonna start with you.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

As far as niches, what I've found at my shop, uh, not just myself, both my sister and I have done is the custom sympathy work. I don't know if you've seen like the stuff that I've posted all over the place. It's creating a floral tribute that is specific to someone's passions. And I actually did uh an online course with Renee Tucci, it was pretty cool. We create these sympathy pieces that are unique to the person's likes, because what we like to say is sometimes flowers for flowers' sake is beautiful, but when they actually mean something, um it targets, you know, a small a specific memory or you know the person's personality. So we've become very good at you know creating a lot of different kinds of these custom pieces. And so I've on my website I've created a categorized section for custom custom pieces that are broken up into like sports or vehicles or logos or things like that. And then I've reflected that into creating a shutterfly book. So I've created my own book as well of the custom pieces, along with the flower click book. I have given it out to the different funeral homes so they can sell those as well, whether or not we participate in a group, or they just, you know, show people the book and have them call me directly. That's something that we've done a lot lately. Actually, I have three other shops in the area, the outlying areas, who have subcontracted out to me to do specific pieces for them because they didn't want to do the work or they were too busy or they couldn't, you know, they didn't have confidence in doing it as well. So uh they've sent me the work and I've you know actually brought the flowers to their shops and then they've delivered it out with my card and and logo on it, branded for me.

SPEAKER_04 25:28

You and Ralph both are really good at taking an idea or a personal item and really creating that with flowers. That's what you're talking about when you're talking about that niche. So tell me two or three of your most proud moments, I guess is what I'd say it on your designs that you've created for those personal pieces.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

One that really sticks out to me is you know, I did a grand piano, and that was one that was subcontracted out to me that the the other floor sent me a picture of something the family wanted, and the picture was was okay, but I said, you know, let's really blow this out of the water. And uh the grand piano was was really cool. Another one that I did that really stands out to me was uh for my uncle, I did a pipe, uh tobacco pipe, and that was really cool because uh I made it a 3D completely all-around pipe, but then I also put lights in it so it looked like inside the bowl it would be glowing, and then I took some um some tobacco from uh the the shop down the street and sprinkled it in the bowl. I put like red carnations in the top of the bowl, the lights underneath to make it glow, and then I sprinkled the tobacco in. So when my cousin would walk by it, she would smell the the tobacco. Um so you'd add an extra scent to it, the olfactory sense, besides the sight, the texture, the touch, um the feel of it. And you know, it just added that little extra, and it was force, you know, for my uncle, so it was as it was very personal thing. So that was one that I was really, really proud of.

SPEAKER_04 27:10

Wow, those sound really amazing for sure. And I'd love to see it that you post those pictures on Facebook too, so everybody can kind of enjoy them and really get a good look at those. And are those on your website as well, or would people find those on your Facebook page for the store, Steve?

SPEAKER_00 27:24

Uh, you'll find it pretty much everywhere. Okay, good. On my website, we have under the sympathy section, Cammy. Oh, Cammy is fantastic about helping out and creating specific portions of your website uh specific to sympathy. She helped me create a whole other section for custom sympathy work and then breaking down into categories. So instead of looking at you know, one list of 80 different pictures, and you have to keep scrolling through, you know, you break it down into you know animals and characters, and then the logos and sports and vehicles and hobbies, occupations, hobbies. You would find the music and the pipe section.

SPEAKER_04 28:08

Okay, okay, great. So cool. Okay, Ralph, what about your niche?

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Well, first of all, I want to say that was that's a great idea about the uh tobacco. I love that. That was a good one. You got me on that one. That was a great one. You know, I same with Steve. You know, I've been doing it for a long time, you know, even way back, way back when. Um, a few that stand out for like size-wise. I did like a six-foot-tall pineapple. Um just really, really detailed. It's a simple design, but it's just enormous in size and very detailed, very clean lines. Um, that went over really well. And then a couple of smaller designs, but again, highly detailed, like uh an acoustic guitar done. And yeah, we get all sorts of different requests, just like Steve. Um, we're in a little bit of a different area for being able to produce them on short term because of where our suppliers are. We typically, unfortunately, as much as I want to put them on my website, like Steve has done, I'm torn a little bit between the availability and the time frame. Usually I have 24 to 48 hours notice for a funeral. And that's usually not enough time for me to get product in to do a custom piece like that. But when we do have that three to five-day advanced notice, sky's the limit. You know, we'll sell them on any type of design that they want and we'll figure out how to make it. Um, and that's really what it comes down to. Once you tackle your first one and your second one, you start learning all the tricks that you can do to enhance these designs. And they're they're relatively simple. So a lot of the people out there that don't want to try them, reach out to either me or Steve, and we will walk you through the simple steps of doing it. And it's really just take the time, play around with it, have some fun doing it. Um, because they're really simple to do. It just takes a lot of time and a lot of product for larger pieces.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

As a follow-up to that, I just want to shout out to Kanya, our uh fellow clicker out there. Yes, your stalker.

SPEAKER_03 30:06

That's what she refers to herself as.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

She's uh she's come to me with a few pieces that she was working on and it advice on how to enhance it, or she's getting a little frustrated on how to do it. So I you know gave her some tips as she was doing it, and she's doing fantastic. She did a crown, she did some kind of bulldog, uh, I think with a crown on it as well, and they came out great. Um, and like Ralph said, the more you do it, yeah, just like with anything else, the more practice you get, the more tips. There's not one way to do everything. You find out what way works best for you and you go from there. Uh, you know, we can give as much advice as you know, this is how you do something, but it's really, you know, okay, if you have this available, this is the way you can do it. If not, there's another, probably three different ways to do it. So it's uh, you know, just like with any floral project, you have to look at it with a you know creative mechanics and um product available. Um, yeah, I know what uh Ralph was saying about what you know product is available. Um, you know, fortunately, we're we are able to stock a lot of that.

SPEAKER_03 31:13

I just want to go back to uh Kanya real quick, just so people are like, who's Kanya? So Kanye is one of our flower click members. She has a flower shop in Tennessee called Miller's Florist. Unlike both of you guys, she was not raised in this industry. She actually bought the business and then kind of called us and was like, Help. I'm not a florist member, but man, she's phenomenal. She's a perfect example of a person with the courage, like we were saying earlier, to find the smart creative business people that she wants to model after. And she wasn't afraid to reach out, you know. Um, she I remember she emailed me. She's like, Do you think it's okay if I reach out to Steve? Blah, blah, blah. And I was like, Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

So yeah, so I'll I'll reiterate, you know, me and Steve both we're both mentors in the industry. So you don't really need to ask permission from anyone. Um, we're all on Facebook, we're all on Messenger. If you ever have a question, just message us. We'll be more than happy to answer them to the best of our knowledge. Right. Um, and if we don't know, we'll refer you to the person that does. Absolutely. Right. So don't be afraid to ask questions. That's the only way you learn.

SPEAKER_04 32:27

Yep. I agree. I love that. And I think the two of you would totally agree that it's a privilege to do sympathy work. And whether you're doing the real total personalization of it or just being able to have that last tribute for the family, to me, that was just such a privilege, you know, to be able to do that last thing for the family.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

Yeah, absolutely. I feel the same way.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

It's tough though. You know, it's it's not necessarily easy. We do this every day, no matter whether it's custom work or not. But um, having empathy and yet still being able to continue on and not getting sucked into the sorrow. Um, you have to really look at it as what you're doing is giving the person one last send-off. Like my tagline whenever someone calls on the phone, at least they say, you know, I want to send something, no matter what it is.

unknown 33:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

Um, I say, okay, you know, we're gonna send them off in style. So like Ralph said, it's an honor to work on these things for folks. They're choosing you a lot of times, you know, over someone else because they're trusting you.

SPEAKER_03 33:34

So during the pandemic, uh, even Steve said he was shut down for a while, you know, and there were zero funerals and you couldn't do any of these. I'm curious, are you seeing the people that weren't able to have funerals? Are they coming back and doing memorials? Because that was kind of the concept, right? Like we can't do a funeral once this is over, we're gonna have a beautiful memorial. And I was wondering, is that really playing out, or are people just going, eh, you know, uh we're not gonna do anything? So, Ralph, start with you.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

In my area, we um we got shut down, but our funeral homes are still allowed to see families, but they were limited and they were only to the immediate family. So we didn't really lose too many uh funeral services at that time. There were several people that did postpone for personal reasons. Um, and since they did postpone, yes, they have had memorial services now. So I was fortunate enough to continue working straight through and wasn't shut down. Um, but the few people that were, we are doing those now.

SPEAKER_03 34:38

Okay, okay, great. That's I just was curious. Steve, what about you?

SPEAKER_00 34:43

We were shut down for a little bit longer of a time as far as them only have being able to have a media family. Um that lasted for about two months before they started opening up to like 10 people or maybe you know 20 people uh at a time. So we saw a longer stretch of time where you know maybe people were just ordering a casket spray just so they didn't have that that lonely experience. Um but as far as people coming back to have services out of all the folks from last year, I would say maybe one out of twenty or one out of thirty. Um people who said, Oh, yeah, we're gonna have another memorial service. Most people in my area, the feeling is the ship has passed.

SPEAKER_03 35:31

Okay. That's what I was wondering. Vonda, before I ask the you know what question, anything else?

SPEAKER_04 35:39

No, I think this is great information. I'm so excited that you guys were able to join us and and really share with the the clickers all this great information. So yeah, yeah, I think it's time for your question, Lori.

SPEAKER_03 35:50

All right, all right, right. I just want to piggyback on what Vonda just said. We're so grateful for the two of you. I always think of you guys as our ambassadors, like that, you know, just even for the industry, not just Flower Click, but just for the whole industry as a whole. Um, and so the question I ask at the end of every podcast, every guest we have, is what is inspiring you right now? It can be work-related, it can be anything in the world, it doesn't matter. So uh Steve, we'll go ahead and start with you. Oh, outside of work? It doesn't matter, it can be anything.

SPEAKER_00 36:27

It can be anything. I think what I'm seeing as a as a trend that I want to start capitalizing more in my particular area is doing other than flower options. For a very long time we've had uh requests uh from people out of state wanting to send things like wind chimes specifically, and none of our wholesalers in in our area were selling wind chimes, and and it just isn't something that is done here in in New Jersey. Um, so one supplier started carrying them. I've sold six since January. So when we brought them to the funeral home, they're like, okay, well hang them on a needle or something, and you know, just kind of do an afterthought kind of solution. I said, This isn't good. So I found that they had um the windsheim hangers, the shepherd's hook hangers, uh, specifically for these. So I bought a case of them and I called around, and all the funeral directors uh agreed to keep them in their their easel inventory. So they said, sure, you know, if you ever send one to us, we'll use it if we can find it again. So I said, okay, next time I get it a winchime order, I'll bring it with with the wind chimes and then display it, and you can then keep it in your your closet for next time you need it.

SPEAKER_03 37:51

All right, Ralph, what's inspiring you right now?

SPEAKER_01 37:56

So my answer is gonna be a little bit different than Steve. Um I'm getting more inspired about wanting to see our industry survive, helping the younger shops, if you want to call them that, the younger owners, the younger managers. You know, our industry's been shrinking for years. And eventually, if we don't do something about it, our industry that we all love so much, there just may not be one left in 20, 40, 50 years. So, what inspires me the most is to be able to help the younger new florists, whether that be a younger person or an older person that's just getting into the industry and help them navigate through our industry, whether that be from a design standpoint or financial business standpoint. I personally want to see every single flower shop out there succeed. I want to see every single one of them make money so they can be here tomorrow, the next day, a generation. You know, I'm fourth generation. My bit my family's been in the industry a hundred years, and I want to see that continue. I want to see other families bring their children into the industry or bring employees up in the industry and just keep surviving. So that inspires me the most is when I see shops that have struggled and have taken advice from any one of all of us and are now on the road to success and on the road to making money and paying their bills and going on vacation and enjoying what they do every day as opposed to hating what they do every day because they're struggling so bad. Um that's what really inspires me.

SPEAKER_04 39:39

And that's why we created Flower Click, right? And that's why you're such a great advocate, the two of you, for that, because you know, it's learning what you need to survive in business and not only just like going, well, I don't know, I don't think that'll work. It's like you you take that, you embrace it, and look where you are. I mean, I I'm just so proud of where you are. And now you're just like, I'm going on vacation, or I'm going here, I'm going there. And I'm like, way to go, Ralph, way to go. I'm just like, that's so exciting for me. I think the key to what you're saying and helping others is first they have to realize that there is a solution. You can get back to loving what you're doing again. Because sometimes you get down and then you don't think so, do you?

SPEAKER_01 40:23

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, you get you get that burnt out feeling. Um, and it's not so burnt out about the the design work that you're doing, it's burnt out about the feeling of struggling and paying bills and employees, and it just it just tears at you. Um, and then you lose all your will to create, in a sense. So to help people get back and get past that that negativeness that they have and get back to loving the industry is really is really the the key, I think.

SPEAKER_03 40:56

I love that. I do too. I do too.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

I mean, I always say I always say it all the time, and I've said this to Vonda numerous times as well on different uh different podcasts and and different videos that we've been on. I always say that you know, we're all artists in our industry, but wouldn't you rather be a successful, profitable artist than being a broke artist? It's as simple as that.

SPEAKER_04 41:21

Well said, and that's a good way to end it. Thank you guys so much for being here.

SPEAKER_03 41:25

Thank you guys so much. We appreciate you.

SPEAKER_00 41:28

Thank you. Thank you for having us. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_03 41:32

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_04 41:53

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.