The Business & Pleasure of Flowers

Communication and Training are Key for a Successful Mother's Day

• Vonda LaFever & Lori Wilson • Episode 175

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Episode 175: In part two of this interview with Jennifer Barnard, AAF, from Tillie's Flower Shop in Wichita, KS, Lori keys in on the importance of communication and properly preparing your people - your staff - to set them up for success, not only for the holiday but year round! 

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

Speaker 1:

That communication leading up to holidays. I do that for Valentine's Day, I do it going up to Christmas and I do it going up to Mother's Day.

Speaker 2:

Welcome

Speaker 3:

To the Business and Pleasure of Flowers. We're your host, Fonda La Fever

Speaker 4:

And Lori Wilson. And we believe that business and fun are a perfect combination, kind

Speaker 3:

Of like us, Wanda<laugh>. So Lori, part two of your interview with Jennifer at Tilley's coming up.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. And so this is the part that<laugh>, this was supposed to be the premise for the entire podcast, but we got a little sidetracked with all these other ideas. Right. So the, we, we talked a lot about how she uses our prep school courses for her business. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> and I, I just, I learned so much and it gives me so many other ideas. Now when I'm talking to shots about, when they ask about the prep school courses, I always bring in her name. I'm, I just assume the world should know her<laugh>.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Right.

Speaker 4:

They're like, um, I don't now, I dunno if I know her. It's like, well, go to her website. You'll learn a lot. Anyway. Yeah. So you liked it? Did you, you think

Speaker 3:

It was good? I thought it was good. And what I really loved is that she gives new employees an opportunity to make sales incentives, extra money from the very beginning when she starts training them, which is like, wow, you know, I wanna work for her. You know, I can get right this, if I do this and that, and then I'm gonna get excited about it because she's excited about it. So I just thought it was really cool.

Speaker 4:

No, I, I do too. And I think every, uh, shop business owner that is listening to this particular segment, I think this is a great one to share. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you know, with your, your entire staff, um, and

Speaker 3:

Left. Of course you're not doing incentives, then maybe you don't want to share it with the

Speaker 4:

Student. Well, that's true. But maybe it's time to have that conversation. Because here's what you and I both know, we've told so many shops that are having attrition problems, right. Uh, when they say, well, so-and-so left, they, we don't really know why you need to find out if it was financial, because to me, maybe you can't change their, whatever, their hourly wages, but you can certainly create a, a incentive structure. Right,

Speaker 3:

Exactly. And if they're making more money for you, then you can definitely pay them more. And I think that's what it all comes down to. And, and I really loved how she took the Sales Prep school and the Flower Prep School and truly made her her own,

Speaker 4:

You know? Yes. Adding to what we have, which is already robust and made it that much better. It was really cool. Yep. Yeah. The sales people, delivery drivers design, all of that. Yeah. How do you make sure they're all prepared?

Speaker 1:

Our designers have been with us for quite a while, or have at least been in the industry except for the three design trainees. So they, they kind of know what to expect already. Um, and so I always say Mother's day's really drawn out. We're already tired by the time we get to Mother's Day, so we always feed'em that week.<laugh>.

Speaker 4:

Yes. That's a Do you feel like Mother's Day is, you're more tired than Valentine's Week?

Speaker 1:

Absolutely.

Speaker 4:

Cause I've heard that before and I would, from an outsider perspective, would think, oh, it's gotta be the opposite.

Speaker 1:

Um, it's really, cuz it's drawn out. Okay.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. Um,

Speaker 1:

We're, we're producing just as many bouquets, but it's drawn out at the tail end of going through prom. You've already worked every single weekend because of prom. Yeah. And, and we're a huge flower shop for prom. You have Easter. You have at like, there's no break Yeah. In between. Yeah. And so it's like, oh, you're exhausted by the time you get to Mother's Day. Right.

Speaker 4:

And you are a shop that truly benefits from prom. Like it's, it is kind of one of the things Tilly's is known for. You have a cool prom bar that you set up. Yes. Right. And everybody knows it. Um, because there's a lot of flower shops that are like, I'm, I'm not,

Speaker 1:

I'm not doing the prom. Yeah. Not doing it. Yeah.

Speaker 4:

Wouldn't that be nice<laugh>?

Speaker 1:

I know, but,

Speaker 4:

And that give them a little bit of,

Speaker 1:

It's done. It gets them in your door. Cuz we make them pick it up. Yeah. They prepay. It gets them in the door and sometimes, you know, they haven't stepped foot in in your door sometimes they just have always ordered online. Actually our in-store purchases always increase in that time period. Yeah. Because they're like, oh, you know, we just got this huge plant truck in, so now we have all these fun plants and these parents are gonna be coming in picking up flowers and

Speaker 4:

Yeah. Yeah. And the one thing I remember from many of your Facebook lives is when you do have the, you've got really cute containers for some of those plants. Like some of them are funny. I mean it's very, I could see parents even wanting to pick those up because teenage boys and girls would want that in their room.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Yeah. We just got this new plant in. Um, I'm really excited about it. I'm gonna do a post here in the next couple days, but we got a wondering Jew. Okay. Which my younger salespeople are like, is that name?

Speaker 4:

Well, I was just gonna say, and I

Speaker 1:

Was like, it's right. I don't, no. So I like Googled it and they've kind of like, they're trying to change the name to Wandering dude. And so I a stuck plant inside of like accent decor, selfie pot that looks like a hidden

Speaker 4:

Oh, how cute.

Speaker 1:

So I'm gonna call it the Wandering Dude.

Speaker 4:

I love it. I absolutely love it. I always thought the name wa Wandering Jew. Jew was short for something like J Lip or j I didn't know. I never, I don't think I've ever seen it in writing. So in my mind I always thought it was, what's the history

Speaker 1:

It

Speaker 4:

I'll now do that. Okay. So I wanna talk a little bit about, uh, our prep school courses. And one of the reasons I wanna talk to you about it is you are someone I tell people about a lot when they're asking me about the Sales Prep School and the Flower Prep School and the Sympathy Design School. Um, but for now we're just kind of talking about those two and you start using them in a way that I, I started loving and we started bouncing ideas off of a, of a each other. And it's kind of as like an onboarding. You use'em both, but then you also took the responsibility, which it is the owners to go, okay, maybe they don't need to watch this one. Cuz we don't do that. But we, I mean, you gotta supplement Right. Because we can't make it specific to everyone in the world. So talk a little bit about how you've made that work for you.

Speaker 1:

So I created, um, an onboarding b book. And so it's all about like onboarding. Um, I make sure that they, when they start with us, they've worked for us for a couple days to make sure they show up

Speaker 4:

The second day. Yes, yes. We've had a lot of the interesting text messages realize

Speaker 1:

It's not maybe that Hallmark movie that they thought it was. Yes,

Speaker 4:

Yes. Um,

Speaker 1:

And so I have the book with the flyer click workbook, which by the workbook is like gold. Yes. The, that workbook is great. Right. And so, um, I really have, so they have to go through all the video sessions for that and then I supplement it really, um, challenged me to update some of our other training guides that we have. Right. So I have a section on our delivery process, just general information. I created a flower dictionary with the flowers that we have in our store. Right. I, our click has one, but I created one with pictures that shows what they are mm-hmm.<affirmative> when we get them what day of the week, what the, what colors we get them in. Right. And they have to learn that and study that. Um, and then I do one on roses. I've even done like a link to a U YouTube video where I talk about all the differences of roses. Yeah. Um, so they have to go through this whole book. The last section is Sympathy, which my dad had wrote a training guide years ago in it. Um, and then I'm actually in the process of updating it as like cremations are more important. Yeah. Right. Now are they're more popular right now mm-hmm.<affirmative>.

Speaker 4:

So I'm kinda, you know, I don't wanna, I I I, when I have a thought about it, I wanna ask you right at that moment so we don't lose it sympathy that section that you have, this is, we're talking about for your sales people. Sales isn't define and so elaborate a little bit about that because there's many shops smaller, you can, you can't mm-hmm.<affirmative> you, you can't do this cuz you're too big that the owner's like, oh no, only I meet or only I talk to those families.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. I believe that they all have to be able to meet with a family and I get that they are not allowed to start meeting with a family until they have shadowed somebody and they've completed the sympathy test. So I have this training guide and then I have a test that they have to pass Yeah. Before they can start, um, meeting with families because it really goes into how you're a grief counselor. Yeah. And it really explains all of that mm-hmm.<affirmative> process with it. So, you know, and this is down the road, I expect them to finish the flower click videos about two weeks, within two weeks of starting with us. That whole book.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. And

Speaker 1:

Then after they've completed that part, then they move on to the sympathy part. So then I expect them to be able to meet with the family after they've been with us for a month

Speaker 4:

Basically. What would, have you had a scenario where one of your employees said to you, I'm not comfortable doing that because you and I both know, not everyone is equipped to be a grief counselor even for 10 minutes.

Speaker 1:

It's part of our hiring process. Okay. Now I, because that's smart. I had hired some people and they didn't realize that they were gonna be sitting with funeral stuff. You know, like again, they, they're buying into this Hallmark story and they don't realize that, I mean, 30 to 40% of our business is funeral work. Yeah. So we're meeting with a lot of families. Right. And you have to be able to empathize with these families. You have to be able to not say certain things. I, I will let people go if they did not handle a, a funeral correctly. Um, I have in the past just because Yeah. That's one, that's one thing that we make sure you, you can't screw up a a funeral. No,

Speaker 4:

No. You can't. You can't. And again, like you said, if if this isn't, you know, they're like, I'm just, it's not in my wheelhouse, then you don't need to be in this business because I don't know of a flower shop, a brick and mortar everyday flower shop that doesn't deal with Yeah. Right. Yeah. And, and talk about a burden if it's the owner being the only one to do that. Yeah. Can you imagine you would get nothing else done<laugh>?

Speaker 1:

I would never get anything done. Now I do have one designated person that does all of our wedding consultations. Well

Speaker 4:

That's a, a whole different,

Speaker 1:

That's all another ballgame.<laugh>.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. Well because you also have to have some design skills to be able to have those meetings.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So going into a holiday to have help with staff training. Um, so I've already had a spring meeting that really talks about training on prom and I kind of touch on all the holidays. Okay. And then I will give a document that talks about Mother's Day expectations. And I'm fortunate we're, my cell staff right now has been through Valentine's Day with me except for these Oh good. Two that I had just hired mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Um, and so like starting next week I do a question of the day

Speaker 4:

And so Nice.

Speaker 1:

They get bonuses and incentives. So if I send it through our GroupMe mm-hmm.<affirmative> communication, that's one way we stay in communication with each other, with this my team. And so I will, I send out that document that they have to read and then I send these question of the days, which is usually like two to three questions. They earn a dollar each question that they answer correctly. Right. And I'll do that for leading all the way up to Mother's Day week. And so then when I have, uh, our real quick Mother's Day meeting right before the holiday, it's really for them to ask me any questions. So it can be, it usually is done in like an hour because I don't have to go through the information with them. Right. They're just asking me any last minute questions that they have. So that communication leading up to holidays, I do that for Valentine's Day, I do it going up to um, Christmas and I do it going up to Mother's Day. Wow.

Speaker 4:

That is amazing. Okay. This, I wrote down what I was gonna ask you. So you said you give'em little bonuses, uh, when they go through the process of the sales training, um, flower prep training, all of the stuff. I know that you do some kind of incentive. Right? I can't remember what you did.

Speaker 1:

Yes. Once they complete the whole book, um, the flower click book, they earned$10. We, I always ask you did they finish the videos? Yeah. Right. And then when they look at the book and make sure they've done the challenges, cuz sometimes they've listened to all of it, but they haven't done the challenges Sure. And the challenges that's

Speaker 4:

Are helps you retain the environment.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So they have to do that. And then I have on the other sections that I've done, I've, I have a rose section that I created a challenge for them to do. Right. Um, for each one of those, they either have to take a test or they have to fill out like a challenge sheet. They earn$5 on that. So it's a way for them to get incentives before they're actually really learning how to sell. Cuz they do get sales incentives Yeah. Um, on what they sell. And you know, when you first start with a company, you're not getting those sales incentives in the very beginning.

Speaker 4:

Right. Right. Words of wisdom or advice you would have for any, um, shop owner that is getting ready to go through Mother's Day. Maybe they have some fairly new staff, kind of some green staff

Speaker 1:

I would say like planning process. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> be willing to pivot. Um, you know, we still through every holiday you find out you're not gonna get a certain product and not be in the moment of panic. Just figure out what you can do. Right. Um, even if it means reworking your recipe really quick and re photographing it. I use my iPhone to photograph stuff and I use avapro to remove the background.

Speaker 4:

Yep.

Speaker 1:

Cammi can teach you all the tricks.

Speaker 4:

Yep. Great. At

Speaker 1:

Showing you tricks. Yep. And just swap out the photo. Cammy would even swap out the photo for you. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So being willing to pivot, um, sales training, just make sure like there's that communication between everybody. You know, we are really, we really watch what we're selling early on. My sister watches design and delivery, so when she starts seeing that we're selling, selling more of one product, she might pivot a little bit and start producing more. So make sure you're using your point of cell really well with tracking your cells. Make sure you're watching that every day. Yeah. Um,

Speaker 4:

You use sales scripts for specific products to feature or they're just No,

Speaker 1:

I don't, I They all follow kind of the flower click script.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Speaker 1:

Tell my staff, pick out three things that you

Speaker 4:

Like Exactly. And get really good at those.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. And it's okay. Like you just push, push, push, push, push those things. We're bringing a bunch of different plants mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you know, just knowing what we're bringing in. Um, and then market, market, market market, market market. I believe it used, people are afraid to send out daily emails. I know. Don't be afraid to send daily emails mm-hmm.<affirmative>, but the trick that I do is I do send'em out every day, but I send them out at different times of the day. So I will send them at 8:00 AM one day, 9:00 AM the next day. So it's hitting people's mailboxes. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> at different,

Speaker 4:

At different times.

Speaker 1:

So at, at different times. That's a little trick that I do. Yep. Um, write out a plan for it and social media do mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you know, as much social media as you, as you can. Right. It really does help. And,

Speaker 4:

And from what I've learned doing email marketing, uh, and, and Ellie to pretty sales. Like, do not send out an email with a blurry picture or I see this all the time, Jen, and it just flabbergasts me why people would send an email out with a picture. It would have been so much better if it would've been just, you can use your iPhone maybe Yeah. Portrait mode or, you know, make sure it's clear because no one, they're going to, they're gonna assume you have bad quality flowers because Yeah.

Speaker 1:

We, we sell pretty, we sell pretty. So you don't have a pretty image. You're not gonna capture that.

Speaker 4:

Capture it. You can remind them all day long, try

Speaker 1:

Different things. You know, it just because one thing didn't work doesn't don't put a lot of verbiage on there. No. People do not wanna read. No, I I get emails all the time and it's just words Yeah. All over the place. I, I mix it up. Sometimes I'll do one day I, I have like, I'll show nine different images kind of similar to what mm-hmm.<affirmative>, my top three bouquets, my type three plants, top three, you know, click. And then the next day I'll just show one image and that's it. Yep. Um, yep. And look at your analytics, you know, look to see when sending is the best. I'm always amazed sometimes with Valentine's Day, I was sending some at like 4:00 AM I thought, you know, I'm just gonna try it. It was one of my most opened emails,

Speaker 4:

Isn't

Speaker 1:

I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 4:

Wow. I have read, I mean, if you send him the same day every time it tells the person, oh, these are like robot schedule A and no one's gonna take you seriously. So that in and of itself is a big reason. Yeah. Um, to not do that. One of the emails that we got, well the ones we get the best response from, from our flower click members because we do it for them, is when it's either a quick funny with a visual, um, or one we sent out, uh, February faves and it was like, all right, we asked our designers, what are your top three faves? Everyone needs to see here. They're boom, boom, boom. We love these. What about you? You know, just quick. Yeah. Quick the word short sentences, make sure every single picture on there is clickable straight back to your website. Nothing's more annoying.<laugh>, when I try to click and it doesn't take me anywhere, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna fight it. I'm not gonna try to do any more work, so I just delete it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Always preview your emails. Yeah. And double click on every single link. Yeah. So

Speaker 4:

Yep. For social

Speaker 1:

Media, like, I don't know if you follow us, but like, we'll do name this spo. Okay. Yes. People love do polls like, oh, oh,

Speaker 4:

Name this bouquet. Hear

Speaker 1:

That one. Yeah.

Speaker 4:

You guys are really good about the bouquet one because every time I was like, Ooh, that one's yellow. What would I call that? I mean, it causes somebody to kind of think. Um, and I loved at Christmas when you would feature, you know, like even new ornaments. It doesn't even have to be a plant. Just something to reflect what your business is about. Uh, whether it's personality or product.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So always mixed up that way. It gives them a reason to keep watching you.

Speaker 4:

Exactly. I wanna talk a little bit, a few minutes about Society of American Floris because number one, that is where I first met you face-to-face. Yes. Back in, was that 2018 maybe? I wanna say was it in Palm Springs? Did you go to the one in Palm Springs or did you go to the one I was

Speaker 1:

At Palm Springs. Yeah. My sister and I both went to Palm Springs.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. That's where I think I met you. And I, I wanna tell you this because I don't think I ever told you one of those. You are sitting, we, we hadn't started a flower click yet, but Vanda and I were teaching. You were sitting like front row. I started talking to you afterwards, um, and I don't remember, I think it was employee stuff. And you said you're like, you and Vaa need to, like, what are you gonna do next? Like, you know, and I said, VDA keeps joking about wanting to do a podcast, which was totally out of my realm. And you said I would totally listen.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah. I listen every single week.

Speaker 4:

You do. But I'm telling you. So when VDA approached me and said, Hey, I really want us to do this, I was like, oh my gosh, do you remember Jen from Tilly? She said she listened. So we don't, well at least have one. And that's the reasons why I was like, I, we can do this. So I, I don't think I ever told you that, but that really meant a lot to me because you were like, oh, I would totally, anyway that Oh yeah,

Speaker 1:

I, I drink the, the Von Laurie Kool-Aid. Yeah.

Speaker 4:

And who knows what we're gonna say. Okay. So s a f that was at convention. Um, you do so much for Society of American Floors and you don't, it's not like you're on their staff, but you do have roles. Tell me why you decided to get so involved.

Speaker 1:

Um, you know, I always knew about S A f I always like loved the magazines, used their website, they have great information and, um, a friend of mine nominated me to be on retail council, so Okay. I had, I think I had been to a convention years before, but that one in Palm Springs was the first one my sister and I had gone to in years. And the only reason why I went was because I was supposed to be nominated for retail council. And I was like, oh, I probably should go to,

Speaker 4:

Wow.

Speaker 1:

So I went there and immediately like fell in love. Yeah. It was really hot. Really

Speaker 4:

Hot. That is what I was gonna say. And we had to walk outside to get to inside, remember cuz the hotel was so spread out.

Speaker 1:

Um, but I just fell in love with that. I really like being there in person and being involved on the volunteer side really showed me how much they do for our flower industry. And I never really fully understood it and I appreciate them so much and they're a small staff. I know, I

Speaker 4:

Know.

Speaker 1:

It's amazing what they get done with such a small staff. So I served on retail council and then, um, now I'm on the board. I was, you know, I'm grateful that Yeah. I guess people like my ideas, I was yes they

Speaker 4:

Do voted

Speaker 1:

And to be on the board. So I just finished one year on the board. I have a couple more years. Um, I just, like, I drink the flower clip Kool-Aid, I drink the S A F Kool-Aid. Yeah. I'm always amazed how many flower shops are not part of S A F and they've really have revamped their membership and what you can do. So I would encourage anybody mm-hmm.<affirmative> to like re-look. They even have like a free version. Right? Um, yep. They're, it's, it's amazing to me when people say they are not an s a F member and they don't see the benefit of it because I get so much information off their website, you know, sometimes I just like copy and paste stuff off of them. Their weekly emails, their weekly, their

Speaker 4:

Weekly emails are so informative.

Speaker 1:

I had, it really has helped really being a, not only an a f member, but just a volunteer member as well. Yeah. It really helps me stay ahead of the game. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, I know what's coming. I know what weather product's going on. They have this ultimate round table every month with, uh, Charlie Hall. I

Speaker 4:

To that one. I

Speaker 1:

Listen to Charlie Hall every single month. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, his economic impact and outlook on things makes a huge difference with us in planning. So Yeah. You can tell I drank the essay of Kool-Aid too. Yeah, we

Speaker 4:

Do too.

Speaker 1:

Um, yeah. Um, there's just so, so many great people there, lots of flower friends there. Um, if you've never done Congressional action days, I'm not a political person. I think as a retail florist you don't really think that it matters to you Yeah. To be part of it. But I always say everyone should do it once in their lifetime. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> because you really see what s a F does, uh, for the floral industry. It's so important for the growers being at C A D cause a lot of that stuff really affects the wholesalers and the growers. Right. Um, the funding and all of that. And that really does, at the tail end really, it really does impact retailers. Oh

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. You should definitely do that. Um, well that's

Speaker 4:

On, that's on our list. Uh, Ellie and I both really wanna go next year. Is it always in March?

Speaker 1:

It's always in March. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 4:

So you can, you can start planning now. Um, yes, because I, I've told so many people about it too, just cuz I follow all of the, the social media when y'all are there mm-hmm.<affirmative>, but I've never been. I was like, I've, I I really wanna

Speaker 1:

See that. It's a lot, it's a lot of fun. I mean, you're walking the halls and Yeah. It's just, it's really, it's very

Speaker 4:

Cool. You have to wear big people clothes, like fancy clothes. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> like you're business and

Speaker 1:

You gonna be in DC Yeah.

Speaker 4:

Well I didn't mean Tim Farrell all about it and he was just like, oh, everyone needs to at least go once. You just gotta try it. It's unbelievable.

Speaker 1:

And there's cool things to do in DC Right.

Speaker 4:

Love DC

Speaker 1:

But oh, it's become one of my favorite sets.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. So, all right. Thanks for coming. Thanks

Speaker 1:

For having me. This has like always been on my like bucket list. Like when are they gonna ask me?

Speaker 4:

<laugh> so excited. I would love to have back. Well, one thing I wanna do is if we do go to Congressional Action days, I think it would be cool to have a podcast while we're there, you know, and talk with

Speaker 1:

Oh, that'd be fun. Yeah. Like the fresh guys do. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 4:

<affirmative>. Yep.

Speaker 3:

Boy, Lori, Jen has some great tips for selling. That's all I can say. Those last one you said, anything else you'd like to add? And then she just like, so like, wow, that was really good.<laugh>,

Speaker 4:

This rolls off her tongue.

Speaker 3:

And I know that next year you will be going to S a f Congressional Action Days because the two of you just kept talking about it.<laugh>.

Speaker 4:

Well, I, you know, Ellie and I, it has, and you know that it's been on our kinda radar. The problem has always been time, timing.

Speaker 3:

Mm-hmm.<affirmative>,

Speaker 4:

You know, it's not dis for lack of desire, but, um, God, what a cool, just what a cool concept. So I'm, I'm very excited. It's definitely on my bucket list and she's obviously passionate about it. She

Speaker 3:

Is. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1:

<affirmative>,

Speaker 4:

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 3:

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.