Grow Your Sympathy Flower Business w/ Jeanna Furst

Flowers can do more than decorate a room. They comfort families, honor memories, and can sustain a business. For Jeanna Furst AIFD, growing the sympathy side of her family’s 120-year-old floral business introduced a thriving revenue stream, now representing nearly 27% of sales. In this episode, she shares the strategies, tools, and team practices that helped her turn compassion into consistent business growth — and how you can do the same.

How we Bloom podcast is an oasis of flower ideas. Host Sharon McGukin of Smithers-Oasis North America interviews floral guests who dare to do things differently. We listen, learn, explore new opportunities and that's how we bloom!

Transcript

Jeanna Furst: 0:09

"And I just went up and I shook their hand and I asked for their business and I promised them that if we didn't do it right, we would make it right."

Sharon McGukin: 0:23

Welcome to How We Bloom and Oasis of Flower Ideas. I'm your host, Sharon McGukin AIFD AAF PFCI and I believe that every great success story starts with one simple idea. That's why we interview those who dare to do things differently. Inspiring people who plant seeds, grow ideas, and bloom to their full potential. In this podcast, we listen, learn, explore new opportunities, and that's how we bloom. You've heard the old saying when you marry someone, you marry their family too. For Jeanna Furst AIFD that meant marrying into the Furst family business as well. What started in 1905 with Joe Furst Flower wagon at Market? Has grown over the past 120 years through five Furst family generations. Furst Florist has served their community over the decades as a retail and wholesale florist, garden center and gift shop. Jeanna Furst AIFD General manager of Furst the Florist and Garden Center in Dayton, Ohio is here with us today to share their story. While Furst Florist is known for its amazing wedding work, their innovative sympathy business receives equal acclaim. They service 25 funeral homes on average, they deliver 10 to 20 casket covers a day, and they support funeral home websites. Sympathy designs weren't always such a major part of the Furst business plan until Jeanna decided to focus on growing that side of the business. A self-described introvert, Jeanna took steps outside her comfort zone so their flower business could bloom. She's here to share tips on how she exponentially grew their family sympathy flower business, and how you can do the same. Thank you for joining us today, Jeanna

Jeanna Furst: 2:30

Thank you. Glad to be here.

Sharon McGukin: 2:34

We are so excited to hear the tips and ideas that you'll share with us, but let's talk specifically about how you grew your business. We know that energy follows focus, and when we direct our attention to a specific task with intention, we create accomplishment. What inspired you to create the intention to grow your sympathy business.

Jeanna Furst: 3:01

We were at a time in our organization where we needed to have stable business every day, every week, every month, and we had a few funeral homes where the relationship was strong and seeing how that could keep designers busy by counting on that work sparked the idea that we need to be having these relationships with more funeral homes. To keep a staff working, to be able to keep our product mix turning quicker. There were lots of motivation behind it, and I think I began to take on the challenge of how does this happen? How do we go about earning their business? So I just started with a call, a cold call, which is horrible to do. But we reached out and I called a director that I knew a little bit, had a slight relationship with, and I just asked if I could meet with him and they kind of welcomed it. I don't know if a florist had done that before. And I just went up and I shook their hand and I asked for their business and I promised them that if we didn't do it right, we would make it right. I handed him my cell phone number and I said, I don't care when it is weekend evening, you call me if you need something. I went back to the shop, I rounded up all the designers and I said, we have an opportunity to grow. So when you see these orders come through, we have to give them the utmost importance. This is someone's family, their grieving. These flowers are important. And my designers bought into that belief system. And that's how it started. That's one kind of one facet of it. The other part is really the business part who was gonna make money doing this? And we had watched families come into our store and our salespeople would do a beautiful job selling them sympathy tributes. But an hour would go by, an hour and a half would go by, and that family would still be asking to see more samples. And it became such a time crunch for the rest of the staff to operate as one salesperson is tied up with one family. When we talked to the funeral directors and they can in one phone call, give us a five, six, $700 order in a matter of five minutes. Well, gee, that's a lot more advantageous to us. And so I looked at the funeral director as my salesperson and I looked at it as they should receive something in exchange for that, a sales commission, people name it, different things. But that director would be taking the time to sell flowers on our behalf and giving us an order. And so we made arrangements based on the funeral home's volume, what that sales commission could be, and the funeral directors were very happy with this. We were able to set our margins so that it still was very lucrative for us to operate this way with the director. So that's how it started. I mean, very simple. And we were excited because we had one chain that was new to our area. It's a national chain, and they had three locations and we thought if we earned their business, then we were at the top of our game, right? That was gonna be the best thing that could happen, and we had no idea how busy they were. And they still are after all these years, and now they have a fourth location. And so. That was the first step into, okay, this works, this is a good model. I need to go shake more hands. But what we didn't have in place was our own sales book. Of course some of the different, wire services and John Henry, they had sympathy books. Not all the styles were styles that were really good sale items for us. So we developed our first book and it was raw and rough, but we did it. And it worked and we got better at it, and we've probably done about five or six additions of that now. And so the next meetings began, can I come meet you? I have something to bring to you. There was no commitment. They didn't have to order from us. But the goal would be if you have this great sales tool with the prices listed right there, that now this helps you not spend a lot of time on the flower ordering part of the funeral meeting that your families can look at this book quickly, point out what they like and the process be a lot faster. The funeral directors loved it and they asked for more copies and they wanted copies for their, pre-need people that are, you know, planning all the time. And so what went from our first order of books was like 50 books. The next time we order, we ordered a hundred books and. I just gave out my hundredth book about a week ago, and we need new books again. So that tool was huge.

Speaker: 8:25

Another way that is important is not only that it tells the director how to sell, but it tells you how to buy. Because now if they are ordering samples that you have set up in your pictures of your work, then those are flowers you frequently have in house and the hard goods, which types of mechanics you use. All of that you can now more easily predict because you know what, potentially the orders might be.

Jeanna Furst: 8:57

A hundred percent. We keep our inventory rotated so that it always compliments what is in the selection guide. As far as mechanics, Smithers products, all that is always on hand. We have some directors that have certain requests different than the others, so, you know, that's all in place. One of my biggest challenges was because not only was I making a lot of casket sprays, we have a team of designers and I wanted it to be consistent, not that what they got from me looks different from the next designer. And the next designer. So having that book and that picture allowed all of us to have that framework to look at. The directors knew that it wouldn't be identical, but they knew that that would be the inspiration picture that we would use to create those family pieces. And that allowed us a little leeway when it comes to substitutions, if there was any product issues. But, that's worked wonderful for us.

Sharon McGukin: 9:58

The investment you made into the book was financially worthwhile? And the upsell is not all about money. The upsell is also about getting the quality of work that person is really searching for. Sometimes they have to be shown something greater than what they've seen periodically at funeral homes, to know there is another opportunity. But, it's equally important to have something that is a price point for each different category of buyer, you know, the as pictured or do they want to go up the next two steps. That's probably a really great thing that you do the three different pricing and gives them the opportunity to see what they could invest if they were wanting something a little more.

Jeanna Furst: 10:45

I was just gonna mention one thing that I always in conversation with the funeral directors, we know that they get families that are in distress and money is tight and there there's no money for flowers. And I tell every funeral director, when that family comes to you, call me and we're gonna figure it out. Yeah. If they have a hundred dollars, fine. If they have nothing, fine, we don't want you to have a family without flowers. And they don't take advantage of me on that at all. But they do occasionally call and say, can you do it? Here's the circumstance. What can you do? We always take care of him. And that, goes a long way with the director. He knows we care just as much for his client as we care about him and they feel like we're a team and I feel like we're a team, you know? I feel like your kindness will be returned to you. When we take care of others. There's always, in some way, someone who takes care of us, as well. Your kindness will be returned to you. So true. So true.

Sharon McGukin: 11:50

Even just as you said in the respect that it garners from your network of professionals and that tells them who you really are. What percentage of Furst Florist's business would you think your sympathy work is? It's in the neighborhood of 25 to 27% of our gross sales. In comparison, our wedding work is maybe 7%. So as much as we love the parties and the galas and all that fun stuff, the funeral work is what keeps everybody working here. It keeps people employed, it happens every day. And so we have invested. A great deal of training in our employees. So many of 'em when they would come in, maybe they'd never made a casket spray or a standing spray, and making sure that they're taught the skills so that they can execute it so that it's beautiful, but also that it's profitable. It's really fun to see them develop because when they first get here, they think, I'll never get to do that. And it's not that hard. They just need confidence and some skills. And now every one of our designers is making casket sprays and I have about 16 designers right now. We wanna make sure they realize how important good sympathy work is. It shouldn't be shortchanged, it should be quality flowers. It should be the very best designs go into the funeral home. Because when you share that moment in life with your customer, it's almost like you've become their family for life. You were there for them in the toughest, challenging time and they remember that.

Jeanna Furst: 13:34

They do. They do. And we get so many beautiful letters thanking us how much the flowers meant. I'm sure every florist enjoys getting those letters, and I do too. I just, even though maybe I never met with them or I didn't get an opportunity to have the conversation directly with the family. That they took the time to address the flowers. Mm-hmm. And how it, it elevated the space or it just softened the hard feelings or whatever they, those flowers brought to them that day. I always like to be a part of that, you know,

Sharon McGukin: 14:10

A local funeral director and I had a conversation toward the end of COVID and he had grave concerns with people not having their gatherings. He said that if you don't have that immediate sense of sharing your grief with your friends and family, it kind of gets away from you. At a celebration six months down the road, there's not the intensity of emotion that there is within a couple of days of the passing of someone, he worried that cremation was away that ability to come together, give flowers and be supported to that family in those immediate times, somehow the grief wasn't as answered down the road as it is immediately. And I thought that was a valid concern.

Jeanna Furst: 15:02

Yeah, that's very insightful. I can see that happening. I know in our market, cremations have become more popular as I hear they are across the country. What we are seeing that's going along with that is more structured dinners afterwards. They are going to the club, they're going to a restaurant. They want centerpieces for those tables. And even in the last 12 months, more and more celebration of life, flower orders are coming in. Which is wonderful. You know, I'm glad they're still using flowers in that celebration, but they might not have had as many flowers at that cremation service. Yeah.

Sharon McGukin: 15:47

Do those orders tend to come to you through the funeral directors or do they come directly to your business?

Jeanna Furst: 15:53

They come both ways. We just had one earlier this week. It was from the funeral director. Sometimes, a family member will call in separate from the director. So yeah, probably half and half.

Speaker 2: 16:06

Okay.

Sharon McGukin: 16:07

With your sympathy work, what design form would you say is your bestseller?

Jeanna Furst: 16:14

Well, in a standing spray we use quite a few of the Mache Cross and the Mache Wreath. All those mache products we're making them every day. They hold well. You know, as much as I think I've got the inventory under control, we're running out of them. We do a lot of custom pieces as well. So if somebody wants a logo or a name. We'll use the Sculpting Sheets to make those. That just varies on what somebody's asking us to do. Can we do it? And, we do our best to accommodate 'em. Standing sprays, we use a lot of the Jumbo cage and the Tribute cage for our standing sprays. Those work really well and, we use the deluxe foam in all of our casket saddles and we really feel that that holds things together through the delivery process. And, that's important. Yes. Very important. Yes, it is. Is there a color harmony that you've seen emerge that is different Or is do people tend to follow traditional color harmonies of all white. That's a great question. I would say, probably the first color selection would be all the whites, creams, blushes. Still a very strong seller. This summer I have seen, and I just made one yesterday or the day before, and they wanted a bright summer mix. Our choice, they said, feminine but bright summer mix. And so that's a lot of fun when we can create our own without looking at, at a picture. But she loves sunflowers, so it was the oranges and the pinks and then the bright sunflowers, and it was just a beautiful garden, snapdragons and dahlias, and it just looked like a summer garden. So, you know, I hope the family was pleased when they got that. We still see a lot of patriotic in this area. We are very close to Wright Patterson Air Force Base, and a lot of military. So every day there are patriotic sprays, standing sprays, cremation pieces going out.

Sharon McGukin: 18:26

Is there a design style that you see people favor most, like contemporary or traditional or specialty?

Jeanna Furst: 18:36

In our market, I'm going to say mostly traditional. I do think our customers in general expect something beyond traditional. So maybe traditional with some flair, not just your standard, you know, western triangle. Something with, has a more organic feel to it. We do carry a large inventory of flowers and foliages. We're always encouraging designers to make sure that they add some element that makes someone ask wonder what that is. That's really interesting. Why do you think they use that? That they question and are intrigued by the design. And that's not always easy when you're copying designs from a book, right? You, you don't always get that opportunity. So when they have the designer choices come in. That's a great opportunity for some creativity and, and hopefully the client, enjoys seeing something unusual. But beautiful. Yes,

Sharon McGukin: 19:31

that is important because I think one of the most important uses of flowers in sympathy is that once they fill the room where people are gathered and at a loss of words. They can go to the flowers and discuss the flowers and comment on the beauty. And it just gives a point to change the conversation and be a little more uplifting. That's why it's so sad to me to see a room that doesn't have a lot of flowers. They just have two or three items. I remember years ago, when the sympathy work was massive amounts and rooms would be overfilling with flowers. And then today you can see some that perhaps don't even have a flower because they ask for donations instead. I just think it's sadder when you are in a room without some beauty to redirect the conversation to, and flowers also say to the bereaved, "I loved them too." It gives you a way to speak when there are no words.

Jeanna Furst: 20:37

That's so true. I am so thankful that when we have more than just the family work for a funeral, that other orders have come in. Even if it's only a few. There are gonna be places that family can look and say "they remembered us. They loved him, they cared." Or "here's a keepsake that we get to take home. And we're always gonna know that this person's cared enough to send this." We did get into the gift market a little bit with our funeral pieces, probably 10, 15 years ago when people had this idea that they shouldn't be sending flowers to funeral, everybody wants a donation. Instead, they wanted something lasting. So we, like many flower shops, started using the wind chimes and the afghans and the lanterns. I didn't just wanna sell that standing alone, just a wind chime. I wanted it to ride with flowers, or flowers to ride with it. So, we developed designs, with all those where fresh flowers would be added, and that way they could enjoy those flowers. And then when they're gone, they would have the keepsake. For the family to take home. And those have been popular for us, and we just continue to try to bring more, styles into that line because, that's what people request. You know, they're looking for those things that have a tangible value. The last for the family. Yeah. So. We worked on that. And then we've worked on our, plant offerings as well because with the plant boom in our area, everybody wants to have more green plants in their home. We really focused on the different types of foliage, plants and gardens that we can offer. People are even ordering green plants for the head of the casket and the foot of the casket. They've asked for green plants. Or green plants to sit in front of the casket, which looks beautiful. And it's something entirely different. Or I've had several requests. "Can you include plants in the casket spray?" And so we've done the small plants, or maybe even blooming plants down through the casket spray that they take out afterwards.

Sharon McGukin: 22:46

Are you seeing more plants and centerpieces going to people's homes, especially in terms of cremation services.

Jeanna Furst: 22:55

We do get a lot to the home, but the cremation services here, I mean, they're still receiving other flowers. Even if it's like an hour service, they're still receiving the rest of the flowers, at the service. I think one reason is. For the customer that is going to the funeral home to read the obituary as soon. And you probably looked up an obituary and right away it says, order flowers. Order flowers. Well, we're fortunate enough that with almost all the funeral homes that we service, we've been able to be their preferred vendor, on those websites. And we've been able to put our own merchandise on those websites. You don't have to, you can do the whatever catalog they throw up. But we really want it to be more personable with what we do. We want it to look like our work. So we went in and made a catalog on these websites of our work. And I shake my head a little bit because there is a markup. Now I think the funeral director makes some, and I think the website makes some, and I think "is this too pricey for the customer?" And the customer really doesn't know it's our flower shop, putting this together for them. They don't really know who the end person is, but it's so convenient for them to just say, "yeah, I'll send this. Here's the card, here's my credit card, and it's done." And the amount of business that that has generated for us. It was unexpected. I had no idea that these websites would generate the amount of orders. So that's great because now instead of just taking family work, we're taking family work plus a dozen pieces and, it's makes it easier to go farther from our location. 'cause you know that truck is a full truck going, right? So you feel a little bit better about that and. I think the convenience for that consumer is so strong that they don't mind spending a little bit more and they're getting beautiful product. But a lot of plants. That seems to be the biggest seller off of those websites. We do something called an English garden, and it's a collection of blooming plants and green plants. That's a huge seller for us. Or just the single green plant, the Peace Lily or whatever it is that we have on that week, and those are good price points as well. That's probably why. But those do sell and I would encourage anybody that's working with the funeral home to please make sure you're the florist on that website. And the funeral director might not even know that he can make you a preferred florist. That's right. So, you know, it took a few calls. We have three funeral home groups here in our community that are national funeral home groups. They're all over the country. And so I was calling their headquarters and asking, how do I get to be the florist on your date and locations? It took a lot of calls and it took some patience, but eventually we got there.

Sharon McGukin: 26:06

You set the intention. You made a plan. And even though you say you didn't love making cold calls, no, you did it. I did it. And you brought this sympathy business to life a much greater degree. So there had to be challenges along the way. It, it looks and sounds easy 'cause you laid it out for us so well. But I know there was something, besides having to get out of the car and walk in that first building. Were there other challenges that you might want to warn our listeners about?

Jeanna Furst: 26:42

I believe when I shook their hand and said, we're all in, whatever we could do, I knew that I couldn't do it by myself. I had made a big promise for a lot of other people. And I had to be sure that they were part of this plan as well. Yes, they're employed here, but that doesn't mean that people are always on the same page as you are wanting to earn this additional business. So I think one of the challenges for me was making sure that our entire team formed relationships with these funeral directors. There was no way that I could be the only person doing that. I needed to be sure that my phone people knew, their lingo, knew that when they called and they asked for a, you know, A, B, C, 1, 2, 3, whatever that item number was, that they knew what that was, and they knew how to ask the right questions and that the details were sharp, that they made sure that they got those scripts right. They got the spellings right. And we have a great staff. So that wasn't that hard, but it was so important for me to make sure that they understood what their role was now as salespeople. So every time we brought another funeral home on the word would go out, Hey, this funeral home is now part of our team. They're in our system, you know, welcome them. And so, 20 years later what has happened is that a funeral director now will call and they'll ask for that specific sales person because they've formed a relationship. Yeah. And they'll call, they'll say they're great. They're so great on the phone that Mary, she's wonderful, and I love Susan. I mean, they've really become a team themselves and that, I mean, that's just wonderful. That makes me feel so good that I know that they trust that person just as much as they trust me and they know we're gonna get it right. Because they know that teamwork makes the dream work. So true. So true. And a little funny on the side of all this is, you know, we're not perfect. Right? And I told them, if we screw up, you call me and we're gonna be there and fix it. And you know, it doesn't happen very often, but somebody read the number wrong or you know, it happens, right? But the funeral directors are notorious forgetting to order their casket sprays. Wow. And they will call and they're so sorry you guys, any way you can do this. And we will get a casket spray made and delivered to them in under an hour. Oh wow. And that creates more goodwill than we could buy. They're so happy. So I would say if you ever have an opportunity to go out on a wing for these directors, do something unexpected. Make sure that they look good with their client. Do it because it will come back to you. They will remember that. They'll call you the next time. They'll recommend you the next time.

Sharon McGukin: 29:36

I was in a program, funeral directors were speaking and they gave a short list and they said, "bring us lunch "Let's go to lunch together to discuss." I was with a florist one day and after our lunch, he came back with a handful of gift cards. And I said, "what is that?" Because it was quite a lot of 'em. He said, "Make my Funeral Director Happy Day." They said, share with us what's going on, what you don't have, what you can't get, how we can make it work." Gel as team members, just like you said,

Jeanna Furst: 30:12

We make sure that every Christmas we take good care of all the directors. And then every summer, we usually do either take 'em lunch, we've taken 'em, cakes, we'll take 'em, cookies, we've done gift cards before. Just to let 'em know how much we appreciate them. They'll bring us stuff. And then when, you know, one of 'em has a wedding, I've got a funeral director. Next week his son's getting married and so I sat down with him and have taken care of him and they just so appreciate that one-on-one. Because they're having life moments and when they come to us for that, you're like, okay, the full relationship's been formed here.

Sharon McGukin: 30:51

It has been proven that relationship selling is a number one way to drive a business. Now, you talked about the photos, and of course with the photos, there's the descriptions and sometimes we're not good at that. Sometimes we're good at arranging the flowers more so than with the computer working through. So we did a podcast and a blog that I'm going to link to also called AI ChatGPT for Florists with Brandy Ferrer and she's out of Texas and she learned how to put in the information to ChatGPT, tell them the kind of arrangements she was looking for, and it, involves a good bit of tweaking now and then, but once she got the photos she wanted to put on her website, then she would ask them to help her write the descriptive. She said, "what took me so much time it did in seconds." That is something that I think our listeners might want to check out also. How can I do this more efficiently?" I think that that's something you've done is learned how to taper down and how to make the whole process very doable. And I also think one of your biggest strengths is team building. Not only with your own employees, not only with the network of funeral professionals, but with your customers as well. And that team building gives great results because it focuses the energy on the intention that you set.

Jeanna Furst: 32:20

Mm-hmm. I think you're right.

Speaker: 32:25

Is there anything else, Jeanna, that you would like to share that maybe we overlooked?

Jeanna Furst: 32:31

One thing that my next challenge with these funeral directors, I'll share that I, we don't have it resolved yet, but we're working on it is. Many of the directors, when they now sell a funeral, they have large screen up in their sales office and they want to be able to put all the floral images up on the screen and not hand them a book to look at. And our catalog is not set up that we can do that right now. And so our next catalog will be, but we've had several directors asking for that. I hate to put them on hold because it's a tool. I mean, they see the benefit of it, and if that's the tool they want, then we're gonna supply it. So that's a summer project for us. The advice would be always listen to what they're asking for. If you're not giving it to them, they're gonna find somebody along the line that will, and even though if it's just a few funeral homes that operate that way, that should be something easy for us to accomplish and offer it to them.

Sharon McGukin: 33:32

Okay. For our listeners, would you recommend they first do the book or should they skip that step and go ahead and do the screen? Or should they do it such that what's gonna show on the screen is also what's gonna be on a book? So there's both options.

Jeanna Furst: 33:46

I think if you could set it up that way with both options at the same time, you're gonna appeal to the younger funeral directors and you know what they're gonna want. And the more traditional older directors are gonna want to use the book. I think the book was just so important to us in launching into this market and you know, it's not perfect, but we work on it each time and try to make it better, but being able to hand those out very freely. I didn't care what they cost me. If they wanted 10 books, I was giving 'em 10 books. And some funeral homes need that many, you know, the larger groups. But they'll call and they'll say, "our books worn out. Do you got a new one? The corners are tethered and tattered" and what can you do? I would never be stingy with any marketing materials. Give them as much as you possibly can. And, if you can do both the digital and the hard copy, that's wonderful. Yeah,

Sharon McGukin: 34:44

Do both.

Jeanna Furst: 34:45

Oh, yeah.

Sharon McGukin: 34:46

We appreciate you sharing your knowledge with us. When I was asking the Design Director's team, is there anybody you would recommend that's just outstanding in sympathy? Loann Burke said, "oh yeah, you gotta talk to Jeanna. She's amazing." So thank you Loann for the tip. Thank you, Jeanna, for sharing your tips with our audience. And to our audience, Smithers-Oasis North America, Jeanna and I want to thank you for joining us today. If you've enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend and be sure to hit subscribe. You don't want to miss the inspired solutions our upcoming guests will share with you for your personal or business growth. If you have topics or guests you want to hear, please message me. We'd love to hear from you. Until next time, I'm Sharon McGukin reminding you that like the unfurling petals of a flower, we grow by changing form. Soaking inspiration in like raindrops. Absorbing energy from others, like warmth from the sun. This growth opens us up to new ideas and that's how we bloom.