Episode 124: Trending...Mother's Day 2022 Aftermath

Episode 124: Mother's Day 2022 is in the books! Vonda and Lori share experiences of flower shop owners, many of them Flower Clique members. There were some really important   take-aways this year that might be good to have in your knowledge bank for the next holiday. We are firm believers that what we learn we should share with one another and a grateful heart can make us happier and the world a better place.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

That reminds me of your book, Paradox of Choice, right? You control what their choices are. Because if they come in and you say, What do you want? That's what takes up so much time, right?

SPEAKER_01 0:23

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

SPEAKER_00 0:29

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

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Good morning, Lori. Happy Mother's Day, a day after.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Yes, yes. Was yours delightful?

SPEAKER_01 0:49

It's always delightful when you hear from all your children and grandchildren. Get little texts, you know, from the little ones.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

And yeah. Yeah, it was a great day. Yeah, it was for me too. I I think I was telling you earlier, my three adult children have finally realized my love language is acts of service. That's one of them. I think I have many, but that's one of them. So uh they all, you know, did things for me, uh, like made me dinner and the other one made me breakfast. One of them wasn't here, but she sent me a lovely text with lots of words of affirmation, which is another love language.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

It is anyway.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

It was good. One of my favorite things that I look forward to on Mother's Day is I get text messages from kids. Well, they are adults now, but from students that I either taught or had when I volunteered for youth ministry back when I lived in Ohio. And so I wake up on Mother's Day thinking, well, if my kids don't do it right, I know I'm gonna get a text from some of these people, you know, and I get them in my heart, just swells, and then I kind of go through this sadness because I'm like, I miss them. They now have two kids, like I'm so old.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

But anyway, it's because of so many lives that you've touched that you were motherlike to them, you know.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

I don't know, I love it. They are like my kids, but anyway, that was one of my every time my phone dinged yesterday, it's like maybe it's gonna be another kid or adult, they're not kids. I'm sorry. I mean, they're probably some of them are in their 30s already, and so anyway, let's we're gonna talk about the aftermath of the aftermath because that's what's trending.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

So, this is our trending right episode, and so we thought, well, what's trending is the aftermath of the big holiday, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Right. One thing that I think is amazing. I woke up this morning thinking of our web team, our website team, Cammy and her women that do all the behind the scenes. And this year, which I think is smart, but still my heart went out to them, they did shifts through the weekend for our members. Yeah, they had a Friday evening shift, they had Saturday shifts, and they even did a Sunday morning. One of them was on while the other two could go to church.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

I thought that was funny, but wow, beyond what anybody would ever expect. And for our members to be able to reach out, you know, send a quick email and say, This make me sold out on this, or I need designer's choice only, or block deliveries for today. I mean, they were just working nonstop. They really were. They really were. You know, it was great. So shout out to them. Shout out to them, and then I will have to say, yesterday, late afternoon, we got a beautiful testimonial from Mark Johnson at Foothill Flowers. And I think this kind of sums it up, Lori. I mean, I don't know if you read this, but no, I did.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

You know what? Here's the thing Mother's Day, I really did try to stay off of anything phone related unless it was a ding for a text message.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Unless it was aw, one of those great.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Yeah. What did Mark say?

SPEAKER_01 4:11

He said, We have been with Flower Click for two years and it has been great. Our average order has increased. My customers and staff love the library of arrangements and choices. The support from Cami and the staff is stellar, and especially during busy holiday weeks. Partnering with Flower Click has been one of the best business decisions I have made. Wow. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

I was like, that's so nice, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 4:40

And that's what the web team needed to see that time when they're grinding down from like working their tails off for the whole holiday. It was just great.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

It was, they go above and beyond. And um, I had a few email panic emails. Um, I did monitor my emails, uh, not necessarily yesterday. I didn't really get many, but people that are using our email campaign that we provide for a member. So I had a few that were panicky because you know, our emails we we schedule them in advance, and whatever might be on there, they might be out of, right? Just like on their website. And so I had a couple of freak out moments from shops, but then it's so funny because they always come back around and email me and they're like, I'm sorry, I was panicking. I actually was panicking for nothing, I was just on overdrive anyway. I it's like, no problem, I get it, I get it. I'm panicking with you at in that moment.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Oh, you are absolutely, absolutely. You know, I was just reading through Facebook messages from professional florists on Facebook, is one of the ones I like to look through and see how was it, or if there's anything amazing going on, right? Or problems or concerns. And there was one that said they didn't completely sell out, but they beat their numbers from last year, which was their goal. So I thought that was great. Um, that was FG floral. This one was really interesting because they said that it hit so late they had a lot of flowers and they were in panic mode, like you were saying. Yeah, just like, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do? I have all these, and then everything was gone. Oh, gone, gone. And then they said, now I don't have any flowers for Mexican Mother's Day.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Oh yes, that's a very big deal here. No, I for I and not until you just reminded me, I forgot. Yeah, yeah, no, it's here in Tex Houston. It's it is, I didn't even think about that.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Oh and it's May 10th, like the US Mother's Day moves, it's the second Sunday, right? In May, but Mother's Day in Mexico or Mexican Mother's Day is always on May 10th.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Yeah, so that'll be Tuesday. Yeah, I did notice some shops that posted on their social media. Some of our members, like, you know, we're out of flowers. We're however, it's you know, if you want to do one day late, you can call us Monday morning. We can get a new load of flowers on Monday, anyway. So they they were really smart about kind of segueing into we're sold out, we got nothing. You know, we talk about never say no, right? So you maybe push it, say, write mom a real really nice card, tell her your surprise is coming. We you are being super picky, you know, whatever you want to say, but it's gonna show up on Monday.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Well, yeah, and I think some florists were doing that in a sense that you know, we'll take your order, it'll go out Monday or Tuesday, but we can call her and let her know it's on the way. And they were actually making phone calls, right? I thought was brilliant, right? Yeah, it's like okay, it's on its way, but later when we have some fresh flowers in. But at least they knew that Susie was thinking about that.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Right, right. Absolutely, absolutely, and it going back, you're still gonna get the sale. Yes, because the thing is, here's the reality probably your competitors gonna be out also with flowers. I mean, you know, they're gonna if even if they start calling around, their only choice is gonna maybe go to the local grocery store and grab something yucky, and so you know, no one really wants to do that for mom.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

You know, I just also the common thread was I'm very tired. No, I'm a shop owner, I was low on designers. Um, Megan Mills, Brune, who was uh Flower Click member, said she'd been coming in at 5 a.m. and leaving at 11:30 p.m. Just she's just tired, you know, you just get exhausted, and so I think there's a lot of that. So I think people need to be sure and take a little break. Just you know, there were shops that said thank you for a great holiday. I'll see you on Wednesday. They were actually closing Monday and Tuesday.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Did you see those? I did notice that, and it's interesting because our pastor that was our whole sermon for Mother's Day. Um, it was about resting, and that's funny because my mind always goes to our flower click members, you know, and us as people and the importance of rest. I won't go into the whole sermon because it's a podcast, but it was really interesting because I was like, that's so true. You know, it is so important for us to actually rest. And that maybe looks different for other people, but and sometimes we can let's say you're still working and you do love flowers, you're like, Well, this isn't like work for me. It is, it really is. You need to re-remove yourself and actually rest, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

So that you're hard to do when you know, oh, I've got a business, I've got to do this, I've got to do that, right? Yeah, it's just like yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Well, I think a lot of the we're still factoring in unemployment issues. We have so many staffing issues among our flower click members. I think every single member would take in somebody if they showed up and go, hey, I want to work, I want to do this, I want to, you know. So they're having to do double time and their staff is too. So, yes, it's important for you as a business owner to rest, but it's also you got to monitor your people. Like you said, some people are like, We'll see you Tuesday or we'll see you Wednesday, we're gonna be closed. I think that's smart. I know there were a handful of shops that did that after Easter, also. Oh, sure.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Yeah, you know, they're like, we're gonna be off Monday, we'll see you Tuesday, or whatever, especially the shops that worked on Sunday who don't normally um have their shops open on Sunday. So then the Monday, it's just like, well, that's the day you need to take off so you get a little bit of rest.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

So we have a lot of funny posts that are not, but I can't talk about on here. But one of our members um posted a picture uh of the back of her store that like a back parking lot area. She says, when you have an early morning funeral on a Saturday of Mother's Day weekend, and you run out of space inside the shop, you go to the parking lot and she's literally out there. She's got it looks like an ironing board that she's using to create her casket spray. I don't know what it is, but it looks like an ironing board. Um, and all of a sudden, you know what? This is so creative. Yeah, we have to be innovative, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:45

I mean, I think that's what that's exactly what I said on her post.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

I was like, so innovative.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

I love that. I saw that too, and I was like, yep, well, you got to expand to wherever you have a little bit of free space so that you can do it. Yeah, exactly. Well, speaking of innovative prom people were having some great solutions for prom because it was on the Mother's Day weekend. And this one is a shout out to Leslie Rolf, she's a great designer somewhere who she created 75 sets of prom wrist, wrist crissages, boutineers, and some hand tides in silk, had them all set up in colors. 15 of them were white, they were all a little bit different. They were done, ready to go. People could come in and pick them out and take them with 75 sets. On Friday morning, they only had 15 left. You know, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

Wow, so it wasn't like the big bling bar where everyone's spending time going through it.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

They did them, they probably did them the beginning of April, who knows? And they had them done out in the shop. People could come in and go, Well, that'll probably work with my dress because they just advertised. We are not doing any fresh, but we have a great solution. Something will be. So were they silk flowers? Yeah, also with some blooms. So, you know, so it or some bling, sure. Yeah, no fresh. So it was all silk, but different bling, different ribbon. You could see she had posted a picture, and I thought, you know, that's pretty smart.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

That reminds me of uh your book, Paradox of Choice, right? Yeah, you're you you control what their choices are because if they come in and you say, What do you want? That's what takes up so much time, right? And labor. And if they can visually see, here's what you can get A, B, C, D, or E, Oh, I can take this one. That's really smart. I'm surprised more shops don't do that.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

And maybe they do, right? But this one just posted it. But it was so uh innovative to just and the display was beautiful, you know, kind of in colors that people could see. Oh, oh, my dress is this color, so I would probably pick one of these. Anyway, I just thought people are just being innovative when they have those challenges ahead of them, like prom and Mother's Day. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

It's interesting. On May 5th, one of our members posted how our sales looking for everyone, and the majority of the comments were kind of panic, like we're down. I don't, you know, and then those people who I'm not gonna call them out, but I know who they are, I see them. Those were the people over the weekend, like, oh my gosh, we're sold out of this, we're sold out of that. Stop the email. Should you send an email letting them know we're stopped, you know, like it just hit and it hit hard.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Yeah, I think that's the thing that we have realized over the last few years, and even pre-pandemic, is that the holidays are very much more last minute for the florists, for the local florists.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Why do you think that is? I mean, I know we're not psychologists, but I wonder it seems like every holiday right now for the last few years has been kind of last minute.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

If you ask me, I think it has to do with obviously society and the Amazon and the last minute. I can get something, it can be here in two days. Yeah, you know, it's two days before Mother's Day and it's not gonna make it. What other choice do I have? I can call a local florist, and we've done really good at advertising, shop local, you know, we can take care of you. And I think maybe that's what it has to do with.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

No, what do you think, Lori?

SPEAKER_00 15:37

I don't know. That's what I mean. I just I I'm I don't know why people are becoming. I don't know if it has to do, you know, did it start at the beginning of the pandemic or was it even before that? And I just have no memory of it.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

It was before that because I actually remember Michael Martin, who's the um vice president of teleport, always saying, you know, be ready, you know, be ready because it's gonna be last minute. And that's been for several years and before pandemic. And I think that accelerated it more so because now the average consumer who would be going to the store to look for something is ordering online. I mean, the number Yeah, no, I think you're right.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

I think a lot of it is the online easy ease of like I was out of I don't know, detergent or something the other day, and I went on Amazon to get it. It came by that afternoon. Wow, and I was like, I didn't know it was coming the same day, like that's insane.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

And Amazon has kind of spoiled us, but it's made us think that we can get things quickly too. That's what I'm saying. That's why people wait till the last minute. Yes, maybe they can't get it shipped in, but even the mentality is I don't have to order that till a day or two before. Yeah, yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

What holiday do we have coming up next, Vonda?

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Well, we have Memorial Day, which isn't a real big holiday for most most flower shops, and there's dance recitals. May is a busy month, right? So this is a time for our shops to just kind of take a deep breath. Okay, what's next? You know, graduations, a lot of uh college graduations coming up, and then high school graduation, dance recitals, dance recitals, yeah. Dance recitals.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Yeah, now dance recitals is that more they just grab and go type, or do they actually order flowers to have delivery? Is there a lot of delivery in that?

SPEAKER_01 17:38

There's not a lot of deliveries, there's a lot of pickups, but they're not usually a grab and go because grandmas want to make sure that the ribbons on the bouquet match whatever the little girl is wearing. So she's wearing silver and blue, so could you put a ribbon on it that's silver and blue? That's what it was mostly in our years. And I know that I've talked to many shops who do the same thing. It has to coordinate for the little girl to feel really special.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

Oh my goodness, that's so adorable.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

It is, it really is. And some of them want something little, but some are like, this is gonna be her very last one. And they'll spend $50, $60, $100 on a big bouquet to present at the end of the presentation. So my suggestion to to all of our shop owners or shop employees is don't undersell yourself, don't send something that's ten or twelve dollars. Say, you know, we have them at anywhere from a hundred dollars down to fifteen, you know. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Anyway, yeah, that's I didn't even think about the dance recitals. Might yep. So then I do remember, yeah, I do remember when my daughter was like three, her first dance recital, which you can imagine she was fabulous at age three. She was. I remember my husband getting her flowers. I don't remember where he got them, or but it was a big, it was like a dozen roses, like it was she was it could have been three or a dozen, she didn't know, but she thought it was special. Then she moved to sports and we didn't do dance.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

So well, Ellie was in the Wizard of Oz and she was munchkin.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Oh my gosh, that's so cute.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Slot of little flowers from all of her friends, and yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Oh, I can imagine. I can only I can only imagine. So the other thing that I loved about what our members took the time to post were the way they're feeding their staff.

SPEAKER_02 19:33

Yes, wasn't that great?

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Yes, my mouth was watering because all the donuts, like oh my gosh, donuts, and then Ralph had something that was like this food bar for lunch.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

He totally did.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

It was all the yes, he absolutely did. And then Derek stopped to get donuts for his stab, and he showed up, and his dad had already done this basically the same thing, only the healthy version. I love that. I was like, wow, that's awesome. Yeah, so I just I love how they look out for one another, they know it's gonna be busy, we know we have to have food.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

Um, anyway, and then you were sending text about making sure you're hydrated.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

I know yes, yes. And I was cracking up. Here's the thing for those people listening that aren't flower click members. I we sent out a text one like starting Thursday, Friday, so just a quick one to our members, like you're almost there. Hang, you know, just encouragement, nothing exciting. One of the ones was make sure you're staying hydrated and you know, all these little things that Ellie had created. I got on there on our account. Kami and I were kind of monitoring it because some people would respond there and say, like, hey, can you remove this from the website? Which is fine, but we needed to monitor it because that's not something, it doesn't come to my phone, right? It's an it's a program reuse. 90% of the people that responded of our members that responded to the hydration, it was alcohol related. And they're like, Does vodka count? Like, on my second margarita. Anyway, it cracked me up. I was like, okay, all of our members are drunk now because we told them to hydrate, and they're creating flowers, so and then they started posting pictures in our group of they literally had like a bottle of tequila or a bottle of something else in the back room. Anyway, it made me laugh because even in this crazy busy weekend, they still had a such a good sense of humor.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Yeah, that's good. You have to, you know, you have to be able to get through that. It's just great. You have to love it that they share with one another and they kind of feed off each other.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Like he's showing his liquor cabinet. I'm gonna show mine. Exactly. I love it. Oh, it was funny. It was funny. Some of our people um stopped on what was that like May 5th said we are we are well over last year. We actually stopped taking orders this afternoon. And and I I had a got a phone call actually late Friday from a person we had been emailing back and forth, and finally I was like, just call me when you have a minute, because you know, things get lost in translation. And she was saying, she's like, We're sold out, we're literally sold out. And uh she was trying to decide whether to post something on our website about being sold out, or you know, and that's what the conversation I said, how do you feel about that? She's like, We're so freaking excited, we're done, we're done. And I was like, Good, good. I'm glad that you're not remorseful thinking, oh, why didn't I order more? They're like, No, we're done. We're gonna be able to celebrate Mother's Day on our so I loved that they had that mindset instead of oh no, I should have bought more, I should have done more.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

Yeah, that's good to be happy with where you were, you and you were successful, it was good. It was really good, right. The other thing I think was really great, and I'm sure if you will pull it up this morning, you'll notice is how many people were thanking their staff, thanking everybody that works for them for a wonderful help. For the start by thanking their customers for buying from them, and then they go into and thank you, blah blah blah blah for being there and helping me. And it was just so heartwarming to me.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

Yeah, like yeah, well, it's that whole mindset of you know, waking up with a grateful heart, looking at what you have to be grateful for, it really does set the pace for the rest of your day when you wake up looking around. Wow, what can I be grateful for today? Yeah, and so and it fills your heart, you know. It does, it really changes, it can literally change your mood.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

And it changes the mood of the people around you, yeah. The first thing more important, right? Sometimes it's like, hey, it's not all about me. I do need to be grateful for what I have around me and those around me and exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

So speaking of grateful, what are you loving right now? What is inspiring you? You've been traveling around to a little a few different places, and um what's been inspiring you?

SPEAKER_01 24:39

Well, I think the thing that I'm inspired about right now, and I can't do anything until I get home, and I still have a couple more days. I got a card from Ellie with a scavenger hunt. Yes, and I love scavenger hunts, so I can hardly wait. So that's that's what's kind of inspiring me right now.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

I am did she give you the card and say don't open it till Mother's Day, or did she mail it to you out of town?

SPEAKER_01 25:05

No, she gave it to it, it was there for me to so I opened it on Mother's Day, and I can do it whenever I want, but I said I'm gonna wait till I get home because then I can really find that. I'm supposed to go here and do this. So I'm excited about that. That's what's inspiring me.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

I have to tell you, when Tyler and Ellie were here, she was so excited about it. And Tyler was here, they were so excited about the that they planned this whole thing for you because you love the scavenger. That's again your love language. She knows you. She does. So that's my love language. Yep, yep. So I I think that's fun. You'll have to come back next week and give us the what you ended up finding.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

The scavenger hunt, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

What about you, Lori? Um, what's inspiring me? I think just, you know, my oldest child, Davis, is here visiting. He came home for Mother's Day. Um, I so I got to have two out of my three kids here. And just being with family, you know, he lives in Ohio and we don't see him a lot. Uh, I mean, I think we FaceTime every other day, but it's different just having him here. And so it's just making my heart feel pretty whole. Um, he is transitioning to a new job, and he's gonna be a youth pastor. He just graduated, he got his master's, and he is moving into that starting June 1st, and just talking with him and hearing him speak. I'm just sometimes in awe. I I told him the other day in writing, I watched a sermon that he had done, and I was just like tears, you know, because I realized the student has become the teacher. And I'm like, that is a that is a lot of big feelings for me, you know. It's beyond proud, it's like proud, but yet wow, I now look to you for inspiration and and guide. I don't know. It was just a weird, I can't describe the feeling, but it's it's inspiring. I I think is probably the right word, but it's just a it's just a moment of you know, us moms, we work so hard to train up our children and do the best we can, and we're very flawed, at least I am very flawed, and I don't always do it right. Um, but yeah, it's been pretty, pretty cool, pretty cool. It's another one of those gratitude things, right? Yeah, yeah. I'm very grateful. I'm very grateful. So, but then I love also that when he gets with his brother, they turn into the same roughhouse boys that punch each other and do stupid stuff. So I was like, okay, there's the Davis I know.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

There he is.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

So it's good. It's you know, you always revert back, I think, when you're with your siblings. So I love it. Anyway, I love it. I hope everybody listening had a fabulous Mother's Day and feel gratefulness in your heart for whatever you were able to do. You know, think of how many moms got a smile on their face because of you. And I think that's pretty cool. That's pretty powerful.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

That's the most exciting thing I think of Mother's Day or the bigger holidays, is how many other people's lives you've touched by what you've done. So as you're there exhausted and your feet are hurting, just think how much joy you brought into the world. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

All right, you guys, we'll talk to you next week. See you then. 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_01 29:17

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.