Valentine's Day! It's Time to Rally Your Team!

#004: Vonda and Lori discuss three things flower shop owners should do before Valentine's Day to increase productivity and workflow. It all comes down to teamwork and synergy! From flower processors & assistants, to designers, sales staff and delivery drivers, all of your employees have to work together if you want to have the best Valentine's Day ever.

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Real Life Retail Florist

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:04

[ Music plays ]

Vonda 0:04

Welcome to The Business and Pleasure of Flowers. I'm Vonda LaFever.

Lori 0:08

and I'm Lori Wilson .

Vonda 0:10

We often get wrapped up into the day to day operations of our business and forget the pleasure flowers bring to everyone.

Lori 0:17

including us!

Vonda 0:18

Join us each week as we touch on important subjects that will help lead you to a more successful business.

Lori 0:25

And at the same time remind you that pleasure or just downright fun, needs to be part of your everyday life. So thanks for stopping in today. We're so glad you're here.

Vonda 0:39

Hello everyone. We're back. Lori. Hey, are you here with me?

Lori 0:44

I am here and I'm reading through our notes that we're going to talk about today and I cannot believe we're already talking Valentine's day.

Vonda 0:52

I know. Is that not crazy?

Lori 0:54

Yeah, I was wishing that the people that created the calendar, I think the Mayans, that they would've separated some of these, either the Mayans or hallmark, I don't know who created that, but I wish they would have had a little more separation. They clearly were not thinking of the floral industry.

Vonda 1:12

Except for we do have the whole month of January to kind of regroup and get our energy back. But right now, unfortunately for people who really are tired of working so hard, it's time to get all your ducks in a row and ready for Valentine's Day.

Lori 1:29

Yup, and then turn around and get ready for mother's day. All right , well here we go . We have a lot to talk about today and again, going to keep it at under 30, thats our goal.

Vonda 1:39

So today we're going to talk about teamwork and productivity in the flower shop and overall. You know, I think you can use so many of the tips that you're going to share with our listeners today in many areas of your life.

Lori 1:52

I love the concept of teamwork. I grew up always on a team, a sports team or cheerleading team, and I coached , you know, I , so I'm all about doing things together as a team. And what I've learned is you win as a team and you lose as a team, right? In sports. And I think it's the same way in a store or a shop, whether it's a flower shop or you know you're going to win as a group, you're going to exceed your goals or maybe you're not. And so that's kind of what we're talking about today. The importance of leading a team. Think of it as a flower shop owner. You're the leader, you're the head cheerleader, you're the captain of the football team. You are the one that sets the pace and sets that standard for the holiday season.

Vonda 2:41

You know, something that just came to my mind, Lori, when you were talking about team, when I was in school, I was actually a bench warmer for the basketball team.

Lori 2:53

Woo hoo! What was your team, the Nevada, what?

Vonda 2:55

The Nevada Cubs.

Lori 2:56

The Nevada Cubs. I was a Bartlesville Bruin, the Cubs and the Bruins. Nice.

Vonda 3:03

And then I was in on the baseball or the softball team. I was the manager. So I would be able to write down strikeouts . Everything that was happening.

Lori 3:10

That doesn't surprise me one bit. Not one bit . But you were, even though you maybe weren't on the field, they still needed you. You were a very important part of that team because when it was over, they needed your information to figure out how to get better. Right?

Vonda 3:27

The reason that I was in that position is because I really, I played ball the first two years, then I went to work and I couldn't make all the practices because the flower shop was a priority. I could actually still be part of the team and only be there during the game time.

Lori 3:47

You are so dedicated to this industry from age 14 you choose flowers over sports. I wasn't as mature as you at age 14 I don't think. I'm quite sure of that. I don't know that I'm even mature now. I'm still working towards that. That's my goal. That's my goal. So you know what it's like to be part of a team.

Vonda 4:13

We all know and I think most of our listeners know what it is to be part of a team. The whole idea in what we want to talk about is transforming the days of chaos, which we know Valentine's day can be into organized chaos cause it's going to be crazy. What can you do to make it as fun as possible?

Lori 4:36

Right. As we're going to be talking about here, how are you going to rally the troops? Right? And that's your job as a leader. And I do want to say this because I come across a lot of owners that maybe they're more hands off owners. Maybe they're not in everyday , maybe they don't know their employees that well. I think you have two choices there . Vonda either number one, be there more, be present, get to know them, let them know you appreciate them, let them know you guys are a team or you make sure you have a really good manager. That can be that person because not everyone wants to be a leader. That's okay. You know, again, we've talked about leaders and managers, the difference, with that said, we are going to talk today about cultivating an amazing culture in your shop to get ready for the holidays and to take it on through the holidays and year round , right? But it starts at the top. It starts with the leaders. I did a lot of research as you know, because I love this topic and there is a book and it is called The Culture Code Secrets of Highly Effective Groups and it is written by Daniel Coyle and he defines the word culture as a set of living relationships, working toward a shared goal, let that sink in. A set of living relationships, a set of living human beings, all of us together, and we're all working towards the same goal.

Vonda 6:10

Wow that really is something that's a business, right?

Lori 6:13

That's a business. I think that's super interesting. Here's another quote from his book, and I promise I'm not going to spend the whole podcast quoting books, but even though I could, it says it's, it's, meaning culture is one of the most powerful forces on the planet. We sense its presence inside every successful business championship team and thriving family. We also sense when it's absent or toxic. So we both have helped shops that have an absence of a positive culture and a toxic culture. You know when t here's a lot of drama or there's a lot of just backstabbing and nobody can get control over it, so hopefully our listeners are g oing t o walk away with three things they can do to lead their staff to an amazing holiday and on.

Vonda 7:08

Let me just interject here a second and talk about the team for Valentine's day because the team has so much and when you're going to go through those points, we're talking from flower processors. Thats the people who are processing those flowers when they come in, which is such an important task to designers and designer assistance , sales staff both on the phone and the front rooms, the people who are taking the arrangements that the designers are creating to the delivery table and also those who are refilling the cooler. All of these are so many working parts and then you get into deliveries. The logistics person who is the persons that organizing the deliveries and then somebody if you have bad weather, has to wrap them . Delivery drivers, runners, all of this. So when you're going through this, I think it's going to be really interesting for us. As shop owners or somebody who is involved in a flower shop to say, Oh yeah, I can see where that makes a difference. I just wanted to kind of set that stage, Lori , before you move ahead and talk about what's really important, right ? In the culture of a shop.

Lori 8:10

Right? So as you were saying that I'm visualizing a crazy shop during Valentine's day and I'm also visualizing like a quarterback huddling his team together during a time out of a really important game, you know , that's tied and how he has to go in there and they all have to know exactly what the next move is going to be, not only for themselves, they got to know where the other person's going to be going too. That's very similar I would think. And Valentine's week, you know, we're going to talk later about stations. Do you put your staff in stations? If you have a bigger shop and you have somebody maybe over on the candles or over by your jewelry or you know, whatever. They also have to know if the other person on this side is doing their job, or if they had to go help somebody else you gotta be crossing around. You gotta have eyes open all the time. Right?

Vonda 9:01

Absolutely.

Lori 9:02

That's why it's so important to have that comradery and that culture of, Hey, I'm here for everyone. I want to be a team player. Okay. So in Coyle's book he talks about three things that successful leaders do that create a positive culture in their business. So these are general things. This is for general business, but I do believe you and I've gone through these and it makes sense for a flower shop.

Vonda 9:28

Makes total sense.

Lori 9:30

So number one, they create a sense of community. So they try to make sure that every employee feels like they belong. Coyle refers to that as something called psychological safety. And you know, I love that term because I want to read anything about psychology. We're constantly looking for clues in our job to be able to show us that we're safe or that we belong, or that we're an asset and we're needed. You know, nothing's worse than being in a job and leaving going, do they like me? Do they even need me there? I mean, that's a yucky feeling. So you want to be able to create that sense of community where everybody matters. Because when people feel safe in their job, they're going to be more productive because they want to please their leader or their boss or their manager or their whatever, right? When you feel safe and you feel like you're a contributor, you want to do more to make the place better.

Vonda 10:27

When you feel value, and there's many, many studies on this, if you feel value in your job, you're going to be more productive. Not just to satisfy your boss or your manager, but the coworkers. You want them to respect you. So in this feeling of community, everybody wants to feel value. Not just to the higher ups, but to your coworkers. I think sometimes that's even more important.

Lori 10:51

I agree. And he equates it to like being part of a family. You know? You know you belong, you know, if you do something wrong, you might, they might get mad at you, but they're gonna love you anyway and you're still part of the family, you know? So setting that precedent for community that I can be me, my best version of me and even if I'm having a bad day, they might not like to be around me, but they still love me and want me to be apart. So I do believe most flower shops do this well, how many times have you had a conversation with a flower shop owner and maybe they have too many employees, and you're like, you got to get rid of someone, and they're like, no, they're my family.

Vonda 11:33

That's right. That's right. And the word family, in the flower business comes up a lot. In the culture of a flower shop. But when I go out and travel and I'm at the American Institute of Floral Designers events, or at a wholesale house, everybody talks about, Oh , this is my floral family. It's with such love and admiration for those around them. But again, it's because they are feeling value and we make each other feel valuable and that's what you want to create in the community of your shop. Which is pretty cool.

Lori 12:02

Yeah. No, it is. It's the only industry I've ever been in where they do talk that way. Like it's family, it's family, it's family. It's pretty cool. All right . Let's move on to number two. This one can be hard for people. For someone that's a leader and I will admit as you probably too, this would be tough for me, but it's really important for your employees to know it's okay to fail, meaning they need to see you trying new things and failing at them, or if you're not going to fail at something, maybe it's okay to say, you know what? I don't know how to do this to any of you guys. Can anyone help me? Like for an employee to see an owner or manager model that it gives them permission to not have to know everything too, or to ask the questions.

Vonda 12:54

There's a couple things that come to mind here. Lori . One year we thought, Oh, we're going to have a spring open house because we had some new product in and I rallied the troops I was like were going to have a spring open house and you guys are going to have to work on Saturday afternoon cause we're not usually open. We're going to do it then. And we had this big buildup , we advertised it and nobody showed up. I mean we'd had a few people but it was like not what we expected. And I'm like, okay guys. Well that didn't work in the end we all just kind of laughed about it. And that kind of plays into what you're saying. Sometimes we have these things that we think are fantastic ideas, we know what we're doing and they don't always work.

Lori 13:36

Oh my gosh, that's so true. But don't you think having that experience probably brought your employees even closer to you because you were all in it together and it was your idea and they know how hard you worked to try it and at least you were willing to try.

Vonda 13:56

Yeah. And many times when you're saying you're reaching out to other people, there are so many things that as a business owner I didn't know. Right? So like computers, I am clueless at that point now, Hey I can do it. But you know, certain areas of our business that we don't know about and to show that vulnerability and say I have to go to somebody else to get this information. And sometimes it's another employee that I'm drawing on their talents and expertise. So sometimes we have to look at as owners and managers and say, I don't know at all. And it's okay. And what you're pointing out is it shows others that you're working with, that you're human.

Lori 14:38

and I'm willing to try new things too, you know, because heck, what if the next crazy idea works? Let's keep trying . Brené Brown , I know a lot of people have heard, she's kind of a buzzword author right now. She's done some really great things on Netflix. She's got a great presentation on there and she has a book that's, you know, selling like hotcakes called dare to lead. She's got a lot of books, but that's the one that everybody seems, I know a lot of shop owners that are reading it right now as a matter of fact. So there is a quote in her book and she talks about being vulnerable and being human as a leader. She says, let me read it exact, "if we want people to fully show up and bring their whole selves, including their unarmored whole hearts so that we can innovate, solve problems and serve people we have to be vigilant about creating a culture which leads people to feel safe, seen, heard and respected." And I love that, that safe. I want to feel safe. I want to feel seen, heard that respected. Sometimes we forget. Even the employee that works 10 hours a week after school, she needs to feel respected, right?

Vonda 15:57

Oh absolutely. Lori . Everyone again goes back to the value, respect and value.

Lori 16:03

Right. The bottom line with this one is it's okay to fail and like you said, well that didn't work out when you had the open house, but at least we tried , but we know not to do it next year. Or what would we change? What maybe, did we miss that we should have done, should we have marketed more. Should we have, just have those open conversations, maybe there's someone on staff that's like, Vonda I'm really good at Instagram. Maybe I should have been posting, you know, marketing stuff. There you go, now you know, and you move forward. Right.

Vonda 16:33

It's interesting you were just saying that because I used to work with Dan Fisher from Fitz Designs.

Lori 16:40

he always has prom stuff.

Vonda 16:42

Exactly. But now he has a lot more than just prom things. But Dan would always say, after we got through a class that we were teaching on corsages , he would say, what did we do right and what could we have done better? Because that really helps everyone. And we used to do this after Valentine's day and after mother's day, after all the major holidays in my shop, because I'm seeing some things that maybe I could have done better, but the employees, he's one of the team members are seeing something different. So when you're talking about that, it's okay, what did we do right? I think that sometimes we neglect to point out the things we did right and then what could we do better next time?

Lori 17:23

I love that. And what just sparked in my mind, you know, we're talking about having these staff meetings to get ready for Valentine's day. I think it's a great idea to have a recap at the end when it's over and everyone's taken a couple of days , not too many days, cause you don't want to forget, but when it's still fresh in your mind, have another get together. You know, maybe it's at the owner's house or maybe it's something at a little more where you're , you can decompress and say, do that. Have a binder of here's what went really well and then a binder of let's maybe work on this for next year. I think that's really smart. That's a great idea. Okay. Number three. Rally the troops. You know me love to rally the troops, be a cheerleader, be a motivator, be an encourager. Everyone needs to get behind the same goal. But in order to do that, they need to know what the goal is, which comes from the leader. So it's okay if everyone has a little mini goals that they want to achieve. But as a group, as a shop, as a culture, you all want to have the same vision so you can be working towards it and holding each other accountable and encouraging one another for that goal during that time.

Vonda 18:46

It's so that Lori is why you need to manage the expectations. If they, each one of the employees and yourself, do not know what is expected of each and every one of you, you're setting yourself up for failure. As long as everyone knows what's expected of them, where they're supposed to be, you know, are they supposed to be wrapping the flowers? But if they're not busy doing their work where do they go next? Know each one of the person's responsibilities and what you're expecting of them and everybody's going to be successful that way.

Lori 19:17

Right. And kind of tell a story. If you're trying to draw somebody in, they always say the best way to do it is start with a story. If you're trying to, again, create everybody on the same page. If you don't have a high turnover rate in the majority of your employees were there last year. Start with last year's story. If you did really well, go you guys, we knocked it out of the park last year. Do you remember when we did this or we achieved this and we achieved this. If it wasn't so well, that's okay. Say we tried but here remember we wrote all of these things down that we're going to do differently this year. You guys, we can do it, but they need to know what the goal is. So as we were talking earlier, what my dad always says, they need a little skin in the game, right? They have to be invested in this vision too, whether that means if you reach that goal, there's a reward at the end as a group or an incentive or whatever, that's totally on you. But typically if your culture is run by a healthy leadership, you're not always going to need that reward system because they're going to want to just do it because they want to achieve it.

Vonda 20:26

When you were saying rally the troops and get everybody involved, sometimes that's just having your designers create, what special do you think we should do for Valentine's Day this year? And get them involved in voting for here? Here's three different ones. Which ones do you think are going to be the most successful? Are your sales people ? Which one would you sell for the shop this year and how many do you think you could sell? All of those things are rallying them to be involved in, have skin in the game in a sense because they're helping make those decisions and we all know that when anybody helps on a project, it's so much more successful because they're taking ownership of it.

Lori 21:05

Exactly, exactly. So I think walking away from this , if somebody was listening to this podcast and they walked away, the things I want them to remember as far as leadership, number one, connection, connect with your group. Make them feel part of a family. Number two, vulnerability. Don't be afraid to say, Hey, I know I own the shop, but I don't know how to do that. Do you know how can you help me? It's okay. And number three, tell your story. Tell the story of your shop, even though they've been a part of it. Tell them again of how you guys have achieved what you have now so that you can get them excited and rallied. So if you wanted to walk away with connection, vulnerability, and rally your troops, and by rally your troops, I mean start with your story. I think you're going to knock it out of the park.

Vonda 21:55

Oh, I think so too. We would be in the middle of Valentines, I shouldn't say middle the night before Valentine's day, and it would be 10 11 o'clock at night and everybody was kind of dragging and here comes me Lori. I was the cheerleader. I would say, are we having fun yet? And once in a while they'd throw things at me, some stems, but then we would just start laughing and lighten up again.

Lori 22:18

And you know, that reminds me, we talked about everybody knowing their place. Like some shops, like I said, that are bigger. We talked about earlier, have stations like Vonda, you're gonna be in the station of the cooler. Lori, you're going to be in the station of answering the phone and that's great, but everyone that is in that station needs to be versatile. That needs to be adaptable or they can go, Oh, Lori needs a break. I'm going to go over there because no one's coming over here. I'm going to cross with her. I'm going to change it up. If you are a leader or a manager that's not real intuitive I suggest during that crazy week of holiday that you find someone on your staff that is because someone needs to be monitoring the mental state of your employees because what's gonna happen if I'm the first line of defense when someone comes in and I've been on my feet all day and we were there till 11 o'clock the night before getting stuff ready, I'm may not be the most pleasant person that customer needs to see, right? I may have a scowl, which would not be something I would do, but there's a lot of people that were like, I'm just tired. I don't care what this person buys. Someone else on staff kinda needs to be a floater looking around for that. If they see someone needs to tap out, like take me out of the game coach for five minutes, do it. Then you worry about somebody leaving with a bad experience. The internet writing a review on the internet. I mean, it's just that trickle down.

Vonda 23:51

That's a great tip that really is, and someone does need to be intuitive if you're not yourself.

Lori 23:56

Yeah. Anyway, that's, that's my speech for today.

Vonda 24:00

Those are great tips and we know if you use those and put them into action, you're going to have a really successful Valentine's day.

Lori 24:07

Yup. I agree. Okay. Vonda my favorite question of every podcast. What is giving you life right now?

Vonda 24:16

Oh, Lori , you know what's giving me life right now is my grand puppy.

Lori 24:22

Oh, Roma!

Vonda 24:25

Roma, Ellie's little dog Roma has been with us for the last few weeks and Roma is just, just so much fun. I'm sitting here and I have this little nose nudging my calf. She wants me to play with her. So it's one of those things that you know me I sit at the desk all day or whatever and I just do my work. But now little nudger makes me do something else.

Lori 24:52

I love that. Little Roma's so cute and she's this adorable little rescue dog that Ellie got. And I remember when Ellie was wanting a dog, you were like, Oh, but you travel so much, you know, is it the right thing? And now you're completely become a sucker for her.

Vonda 25:11

I'm a sucker. I am. She's a Chihuahua doxy mix. And so our listeners can know kind of, it's a small dog and she's just adorable.

Lori 25:22

She is. She's a cutie.

Vonda 25:24

So Lori, what is giving you life right now?

Lori 25:28

You know, I haven't even thought about this question. Here's what I will say. The sun , it's been really dreary and gross here in Houston lately, like the past three days, which is very unlike Houston. And today the sun is shining and I turned my desk around to face my window and I'm looking outside and I'm just happy and I'm speaking, you know, speaking of dogs I'm getting ready to take my, my dog for a little walk just around the block and I'm excited that he's not going to get muddy.

Vonda 26:03

That's a great thing to give you life. That's exciting.

Lori 26:05

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

Vonda 26:33

Yes. So please come back and join us and discover how a bit of knowledge and one small change in your mindset can take you to new levels in your life and business.