15 Mother's Day Tips for Florists w/ Ralph Giordano

Looking for Mother’s Day tips for florists?

Discover how to prepare your flower shop for one of the busiest holidays of the year. From inventory planning to production strategies, fourth-generation florist Ralph Giordano AIFD shares proven methods to reduce stress, streamline operations, and increase holiday profits.

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

Ralph Giaordano 0:07

It goes to the old saying it's not work if you love what you do." So if you give somebody a task they enjoy doing, they're gonna be happier and get better productivity.

Sharon McGukin 0:21

Welcome to How We bloom, an Oasis of Flower Ideas. I'm your host, Sharon McGukin, AIFD, AAF, PFCI and I believe that every great story starts with one. idea. That's interview those who dare to do things differently. people plant seeds, grow ideas, and bloom to their full potential. In this podcast, we listen, learn, explore opportunities, and that's how we bloom. Holidays can be overwhelming for florist. Day, for example, is one of the busiest flower holidays of the year. your flower shop is exceptionally organized and supported well-trained staff, best efforts can still be challenged by overtime pay restocking flowers goods running out ahead time, having too much, delivery challenges, inclement weather, and honest mistakes made due to the speed required for the day. challenges can diminish your profits. So how do successful flower shops make"cash outta chaos" year after year? Today, we will chat with an experienced florist who his tips for a profitable Mother's Day careful pre-planning of prep and production. Ralph Giordano AIFD, is to be a fourth generation florist as the owner of Giordano's Floral Creations in Fort Pierce, Florida. Along with being a successful flower shop owner, he's active industry as an educator for Telefllora, a presenter who shares his Floralife care and handling knowledge with audiences. award winner who's chosen retailer of the year from the Florida State Florist Association, and he serves in leadership roles such as vice president of AIFD Southern. Having recently worked with Ralph on a design event at the FFA/FCCLA facility Covington, Georgia, know that organization superpower. today we are going to ask Ralph to share with us tips and techniques he uses in his flower shop to create"cash rather chaos." Welcome, Ralph. We're so glad are with us today.

Ralph Giordano 2:56

Well, thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here.

Sharon McGukin 2:58

We want to tap your brain find out a few of the tips and techniques that you've discovered along the way with four generations of flower shops. I know you have a lot of secrets for success there, and we wanted to know if you would share a few with us, like. Do you think that sometimes just too many options are overwhelming to the customer? Is it wise to curate your menu by streamlining your selection of designs, containers, for example?

Ralph Giordano 3:30

Yes, containers can set the mood for your designs on your website. It can set the whole category interpretation. When you're looking at containers, you wanna find something that fits the masses to your personal clientele and occasionally throw in something new and exciting to try to spoof up the website and try to get people interested in new designs.

Sharon McGukin 3:54

you find that your most loyal customers really have have new and exciting ideas pulling them back? Or are satisfied with traditional.

Ralph Giordano 4:09

Yes, we definitely do because the clientele that you have, they get stagnant. And if they see the same thing over and over again, they're gonna lose interest in your particular store. So you do want to bring things in that excite them and make them go,"Ooh, I'd like to have that." But you also want to keep the traditional items because they sometimes will default back to something that they feel comfortable with in their designs.

Sharon McGukin 4:33

Follow the fashion industry light. bring new look every single to tempt us that it trendy and on fashion, and we wanna have the new things. And yet our favorite clothes a lot those that it's our signature style. think the same is true with customers. Yes, absolutely. Try to rotate availability flowers or there some favorites that everybody tends to fall back on?

Ralph Giordano 5:05

When it comes to the holidays, your best option is to actually limit your varieties and buy more in bulk. And what you're looking to do when you do that is you want to cross those same flowers over into multiple designs. You don't have to use every flower that you buy in every single design, but the idea behind it is in order to be able to use that one flower or three flowers or five flowers in multiple different designs and buy more of it at a better price, which would increase your profitability, and then it's less items that you have to manage in your store.

Sharon McGukin 5:39

Bulk buying applies to flowers, containers, and other accessories well. You are very invested in bulk buying, I think.

Ralph Giordano 5:49

Absolutely. It's the way I've been running my business since way before COVID.

Sharon McGukin 5:52

I also know that you're very knowledgeable about proper Floralife post-harvest products and processing steps, and the fact that clearly leads to longer vase life. Tell us a little about how you feel about post-harvest care.

Ralph Giordano 6:07

Sure, absolutely. I am extremely passionate about the proper care and handling of flowers because it really comes down to you can start with a good flower, a quality flower from a quality grower, and have poor care and handling and that flower is gonna die prematurely. You take a good quality and put it through all the proper post harvest product steps, and you're gonna give that botanical its best opportunity to live out its lifespan as long as it possibly can.

Sharon McGukin 6:35

And I think that's important because the number one objection that consumers have flowers is perception that the longevity is not there. And they get flowers and they are long lasting and they do get pleasure out of them, they're more likely to purchase again. Don't you think?

Ralph Giordano 6:54

Oh, absolutely. It is all about the longevity. Even though you have some flowers that are more delicate, like a garden rose, that may only last half the time of a carnation, the idea is when you give it proper post harvest product processes, you'll take that short-lived flower and extend that even longer, so that client is gonna see that higher quality flower and they're gonna see it for longer.

Sharon McGukin 7:18

Do you find that offering design categories three price, points as standard, deluxe, premium, does that give you more options your customers.

Ralph Giordano 7:29

Yes, it definitely does. Having the three price points is good because everyone has a budget in one way, shape, or form. Some budgets may be higher than others. Some budgets may be lower than others. So giving a three set of price points and giving three options for the same style design gives the person the chance to find their budget.

Sharon McGukin 7:50

I find that a lot of florists tend limit their design offerings for a holiday, simply because it makes the staffing more profitable than if you have a lot of different things you're trying do something special for every single one. How do you about that?

Ralph Giordano 8:11

Oh, I completely agree. Our target is to have a dozen or less options in our category for said specific holiday. And it goes back to exactly what you said. It goes back to being able to buy in bulk and mass produce and you're able to put all your labor and energy and efforts into less designs and be able to produce more of them in your set timeframe.

Sharon McGukin 8:33

When you mass produce certain designs, do you go ahead and date and place it into certain section in your cooler you know you have a design that can pull out quickly fill an order that's not so specific?

Ralph Giordano 8:51

Absolutely. The first in, first out method is very critical, even with your fresh flowers that you're working with and your finished designs.

Sharon McGukin 9:03

Do you assign certain designers, some customs, some mass produce, some do specials. Do you apply to your designer certain categories so that everyone's working, assembling line line? If you have enough staff to do, be able to do something like that, I absolutely encourage it.

Ralph Giordano 9:23

Having a few designers working on the mass production aspect of it, staying ahead of what you predict you're going to need, and then having a few designers work on the individual oddballs that take a little bit longer time is critical to not having employee burnout because you're not putting so much strain and pressure on one or two or three designers to do it all.

Sharon McGukin 9:45

sometimes it's easiest if assign designer something they like. Like somebody that enjoys doing custom design. Whereas someone might prefer to on a mass produced they're intimidated to satisfy customer with custom design. And some prefer plants, some prefer flowers that are less expensive. Some prefer premium flowers to work with. How do you discern between the designers? Do you just watch their work, discuss it with them?

Ralph Giordano 10:18

Well,

Ralph Giaordano 10:18

it goes to the old saying it's not work if you love what you do. So if you give somebody a task

Ralph Giordano 10:25

that you know that

Ralph Giaordano 10:26

they

Ralph Giordano 10:26

excel at and they

Ralph Giaordano 10:27

enjoy doing, they're gonna be happier

Ralph Giordano 10:29

doing it,

Ralph Giaordano 10:30

and

Ralph Giordano 10:30

you're gonna

Ralph Giaordano 10:30

get

Ralph Giordano 10:30

a

Ralph Giaordano 10:30

better productivity

Ralph Giordano 10:31

out of it. If you give them something that they struggle with and they hate to do. They're gonna regret doing it, and they're gonna struggle with it the whole time, and before you know it, they're gonna spend hours on a project that should have took an hour.

Sharon McGukin 10:43

very true, I believe that we like to do the things that natural skills innately trained for. So sometimes fall back things we really like, it's because that's the things we're really naturally at. And Mother's Day is not a time to those weaknesses.

Ralph Giordano 11:08

Definitely not the time you'd want to put all that aside and focus on the positives and focus on what you can achieve, not what you can't achieve.

Sharon McGukin 11:17

very important to set daily goals. In fact, I've heard you say" marathon, not a sprint." We that in mind that if are organized, have planned well in advance, if you do have the right materials you to sell menus that highlight are selling to the customer, then it's just another intense workday to a catching up or making up for lost time.

Ralph Giordano 11:50

Yes, absolutely. If you follow all the proper steps and you pro have all the proper planning, then what you can actually have is just a one or two hour maximum. Over above your normal day, and you set those goals daily and it gives your employees a chance to go home, have some dinner, relax, unwind, and recuperate. That's the key word, recuperate for the next day, get re-energized for the next day. If you try to keep them till 10, 11, 12 o'clock at night and expect them back at 7:00 AM and be ready to go and be able to tackle any project. You're pushing them too far and they're gonna break and it's gonna show in their designs.

Sharon McGukin 12:29

None us can. I mean, we can stay and put in the time, can't do it efficiently. My rule was always that when someone started to drop things or knock things over, break things as happens they get tired we all need to go because that keeps us from getting hurt. If you keep pushing people after they're tired, run the risk cuts or breaks or things of that I think it's important to read their body language and keep in touch with them know enough is enough.

Ralph Giordano 13:04

Oh, 100%. You definitely wanna avoid injuries because if you think about it, if you push them too far and they injure themselves accidentally that evening, they're not gonna be at work the next day. If it's that critical and you really need them to be there for the entire stretch of the holiday in order to be able to hit your goals and be able to have a successful holiday.

Sharon McGukin 13:22

you feel the same way I do. Those people much more important than the process of selling.

Ralph Giordano 13:29

Absolutely

Speaker 13:29

100%.

Sharon McGukin 13:31

Talk to me about delivery. How do you manage getting everything out at the right time? In a short period of time. Especially when there's inclement weather or something on, slows down.

Ralph Giordano 13:47

So the best practice that I found was keeping everything in close routes, depending on your area. Some it might be zip code, some it might be town, some it might be subdivisions. But you wanna be able to maximize efficiency with each driver and send them out on shorter bursts of multiple stops versus large loads of full spread out. You don't want your driver gone the entire day and they only deliver 12. You want them to be gone for a couple of hours and deliver 12 and come back and reload.

Sharon McGukin 14:19

Do you do a driver and a runner or do you just driver When

Ralph Giordano 14:24

possible, we definitely have a driver and a runner, especially on the busier days like Valentine's. When you have an influx of orders that have to be done on that day, it's not so critical when you have something like a Christmas or a Mother's Day when it stretches out for the week or two weeks.

Sharon McGukin 14:39

was what I was thinking. A lot of times, even the delivery services packages holidays, they add in a runner where they don't have I think it's practice.

Ralph Giordano 14:51

Oh, absolutely.

Sharon McGukin 14:52

follow delivery configurations and review requests. Can you talk about that?

Ralph Giordano 15:00

Yes. So we definitely want to make sure that the delivery has gone successfully, that they have received the item that they are looking for, It has been received in good quality. There's no broken, there's no damages. And then we ask for a review. We suggest that if they're happy with our work to please let us know if they're unhappy with our work. Please let us know how we can improve.

Sharon McGukin 15:25

After you've had a successful holiday and there's hiccups in it, we all know. that volume of business, there's gonna be some times, hopefully lot more smooth sailing. How do you look back and discern what carry for year, what like to correct year? How do you use this experience plan better experience still the coming year?

Ralph Giordano 15:52

So it really comes down to just detailed notes, is you want to keep a log or a ledger of the events that took place during that holiday. Sometimes it's easier to do it daily. At the end of the night, write down a few little notes of what happened that day, things that you think you did well and things that you think you could improve on. So that way next year when you're pre-planning for the holiday, you can look at that and say, oh, last year we did this and that didn't work out the way I had planned, so let's do it this way or that year. Last year it worked out great. How can we improve that and make it even better?

Speaker 3 16:27

How do you reach out to your customers ahead of time? Having the knowledge of who's bought in the past and how business went for the day. How do you reach out to pull in new customers or to remind your established customers? It's time. How do you market mother's?

Ralph Giordano 16:48

So you really have to take all the different avenues and resources that you have available to you for marketing yourself. In today's market, the best things to do are PPC-SEO, social media. Radio and print work in some demographics, but the focus these days is to your digital marketing. That's where it comes down to it. Then you do your e-blasts to your existing clientele and that is where you wanna start because they're already your customer. They already know what they want from you and what they enjoy from you and your quality. You want to get them to be reminded of the up and coming holiday, so that way they do think of you first and they think of you soon. And then follow it by the digital marketing, which brings in the new clients that you need to survive in long term.

Sharon McGukin 17:42

So after you create your action report where you put all of that information into it, what all do you include in that report?

Ralph Giordano 17:52

So for me, I do a very detailed one, and if you see me on social media, you'll actually see, I will post it live on social media because i'm an open book and I want people to learn about even my mistakes. And everybody makes mistakes, and that's what we do, is we learn from our mistakes. So for me, I always break down all of my delivery numbers. I break down my sales and I make sure that I remove anything that's non-related to that specific holiday. If you had a large funeral, you happen to do another event, you wanna remove those numbers from your sales because they're not part of the holiday itself. They're part of your transactions for the week, but they're not part of the holiday. If you had a$10,000 event or a$5,000 funeral and you see those numbers the following year, you're gonna think your sales were inflated and you may buy or over produce for that number when meanwhile it was just one event that caused you to go over.

Sharon McGukin 18:48

Now when you are pricing for profit so that you have that information to include in your reports, do you remove your profits first before you start adding in the other expenses to see how to follow along with your pricing?

Ralph Giordano 19:06

So I have a breakdown that I follow. I call it the

Speaker 4 19:11

and

Ralph Giordano 19:11

rule. And it's a simple process. It's 30% for your cogs, 30% for your labor, and 30% for your facilities, leaving you 10% net profit. Now, that's just a basic outline, and the idea is to be under all of those 30 percents somewhere in the twenties, low twenties, that way that pushes all that overflow into your profit. So as long as you look at your numbers with that in mind, and you try to produce and target those twenties, then you're gonna have a higher profit margin.

Sharon McGukin 19:47

for our listeners, in case they're not familiar, cogs, is cost of goods sold?

Ralph Giordano 19:53

Absolutely. It's basically anything that you buy and resell in your store. We've had some requests during busy times. We had, for Valentine's Day that just recently passed, We do a large amount of funeral work here at my store, and we happen to have a funeral service that three days before Valentine's, they requested 1000 painted blue roses. With a situation like that. We just didn't have the manpower to do it, so we talked to them a little bit in depth and we actually gave them a mini training session and we got all of the roses and all the supplies for them to paint the roses themselves, and they were extremely happy and extremely grateful because they understood that. Although their funeral was important to them, that we also had other previous engagements that were important to everybody else, and we gave them the most amount of attention as we possibly could for that situation at the time.

Sharon McGukin 20:50

great idea too. you find that the holidays are still as strongly the busiest days of the year, or you find that holidays are lessening somewhat and your everyday needs more attention?

Ralph Giordano 21:06

Yeah, absolutely. The holidays are lessening a little bit each year. Some demographics, they're still exploding and they're getting busier than they were the year before, but in most demographics, they're staying either equal or slightly less, which is fine because you don't want a customer that only buys once, twice, or three times a year, you want that customer to buy as frequently as possible. So if you woo them and you make them happy with what they've received that first time, then they're gonna come back to do the second time, and then before you know it, they're gonna be back weekly, if not monthly.

Sharon McGukin 21:41

them back. That's the main key. Sometimes it's great idea send coupons with Mother's Day arrangements, for example, asking them to come back in the shop and get a free rose, discount or whatever, if you example, wire orders that go to a new person in your area that's currently customer, that allows you to connect with them and have a potential customer from that sale.

Ralph Giordano 22:09

Yeah, we stick to the customer for life, not single sale mentality. And that falls under the fact that if your customer's unhappy, you wanna make that customer happy, because if they're unhappy for any reason whatsoever, even if it's something outta your control, they're not gonna use you anymore. If you make them happy and you go over and above and get them satisfied, they're gonna be a customer for life. There's a lot of places out there that will argue with clients when they have a complaint. That's not the thing to do. The thing to do is to keep your customer happy. You want them as a customer for life.

Sharon McGukin 22:47

easiest way to achieve that is just to say, what would make you happy? How do we make this right? Because sometimes they just want you to share their disappointment. you some way to help, but the whole thing was they wanna know that were empathetic how they felt.

Ralph Giordano 23:06

Oh, absolutely. We, you know, we all make mistakes. There's things that happen sometimes that just are unavoidable. And when you have that customer that brings that to your attention, the first thing that you should do is offer a replacement. The absolute first thing you should do is offer a replacement. In reality, if you've priced your arrangements out correctly the first time, you can still replace the arrangement and still make a profit. Yes, it'll be a little bit less of a profit, but the key there was that you've maintained that customer and you've kept that customer for life.

Sharon McGukin 23:40

is your profit. I agree with that. Is there any advice that you would give specifically to new shops they're just to fight the holiday challenge and learning a lot of things the hard way? If you were giving experienced device to who's just getting started, what to them?

Ralph Giordano 24:04

Don't worry about what your competitor is doing. You have your clientele, find your niche and exploit it. Now, it may take a little bit of time to find that niche and that's perfectly fine. So experiment with a few things. Try your marketing, get out on social media. I've done in the past. When I grew my business 30 ish years ago, I would send a free arrangement out to all the demographic of one professional category. For an example, like all the lawyers in my area, I'd send them an arrangement for free and I would let them know that I'm here to serve them, and I would offer them a discount for any future orders. And then the following month I would do it to all the doctor's offices and so on. So for the course of a year, I was able to double my sales just from doing that one thing.

Sharon McGukin 24:56

And you just continue that around the community leaders till you pretty much hit every group, I suppose.

Ralph Giordano 25:03

Absolutely. And then we follow that up with even our schools. So every year you have typically a new set of teachers that may be there. You have new admins that may be there. So we always like to send an arrangement to all the schools on their opening week to thank them for what they do, and send along some business cards because that admin is gonna see that, and when it comes time for the school to order something, they're gonna say, who is that person that sent us flowers at the beginning of the year? We're gonna call them first.

Sharon McGukin 25:33

speaker also, so you do garden club meetings or civic groups to go and speak to them about value of flowers?

Ralph Giordano 25:43

Do. Whenever I have the time and whenever I'm asked, I do attend and do those speaking functions as often as possible.

Sharon McGukin 25:51

way to make a connection, because then they feel they know you.

Ralph Giordano 25:55

Absolutely.

Sharon McGukin 25:55

if you were giving advice established shop, because y'all have over a hundred years worth of shopkeeping family. if you were reaching out to people who they've done it, it just begins to become a chore, because this is Mother's Day number 50 whatever for a person. What advice could you give to them to update a traditional Mom and Pop shop that would help them to get on track or just bring the joy of it to them?

Ralph Giordano 26:29

Sure I would recommend that they attend a local floral event, whether it be Florida, their state association, or their national association. What happens is when you go to see other people's creations and their beautiful artwork and designs, it encourages yourself. It lights a fire back in you That has been burning and smothering for years. So if you've been in the industry for a long time and you're just feeling the rut of being here five, six, and seven days a week, and 8, 10, 12 hours a day. Get rejuvenated. Go see some beautiful floral art, and remember why you fell in love with this industry.

Sharon McGukin 27:11

it is a love It's an industry that you've got to feel passionate about to stay in it'cause it's hard work. But something realized, when you and were both in an event for the weekend, just laugh a lot as group so much laughter and that's, keeps drawing us back to the beauty of the flowers. But the beauty of the people and the joy that is there to be shared. I a very industry, even though it's a lot of hard work.

Ralph Giordano 27:42

Absolutely. We say it all the time that it's our floral family. We are family and we laugh and have a good time, and we cry with our family when the time is right.

Sharon McGukin 27:51

it, we do the same with our customers because we share their funerals, their weddings, their births, their dance recitals. See their joy and we see their heartbreak we're a part of think they think of favorite florists that they're very loyal to. think they think of them as family as well. Oh, I definitely agree, especially small town florists, they are on a first name basis with their clientele or should be on a first name basis with their clientele, and that just makes everything so much nicer and more opening and more appealing to shop with them. traditional shops town, a lot of people have been hesitant to embrace social media and online sales and things that nature, but clearly the way of world. Do you have any advice to give someone is just starting to put their water and figure how to swim against the tide social media. Or marketing to your in that way, or reaching new customers just starting to make trip forward, what would be your first to advise?

Ralph Giordano 29:03

So the first thing is definitely posting to social media. Whatever platform you choose, whether it be Facebook, Instagram, or any of the other platforms, is posting a few things from your daily routine. People don't need to have a beautiful, professional, perfect image in order to make a connection with you. They don't wanna see half eaten food and dirty floors, but a nice background, a nice normal day background is perfectly fine on your workstation, relatively clean. They understand that it's work that needs to be done. And by posting social media that way you make that connection, you become more inviting, and they're gonna wanna be intrigued and come to find out more about you.

Sharon McGukin 29:49

customers that are coming in to photos the customer's permission, photos with the customer and showcase that they're excited about flowers or if you have an event that you attended. In fact, this morning I had a dentist appointment and the first said to me is, you just went flower didn't you? Keep track you don't even think be keeping track of your activities. So I think in a small shop, if you were just starting, choose your number one medium, learn it and use well, branch out to the others. But showcase your flowers, staff. If you don't treat them other people aren't going to, but if you uphold them as artists, other people see them in that way as well. Have photo shoots with your customers come in so their friends see the joy that they get buying I think you're right. I think that's a good way start.

Ralph Giordano 30:47

Yeah, absolutely you don't have to have a professional company do it for you. If you get to the level and you feel confident of what you're putting out, then you can start to sprinkle in a professional company that helps you broaden your clientele market. But doing everything internally and in-house is the way to go, especially starting out.

Sharon McGukin 31:07

A in the area or a a family member, that you could hire to help you get started in the shop if you haven't done social media.

Ralph Giordano 31:16

Yeah. Even just after school for a few hours because it only takes a couple of hours a week. In reality, if you can do a couple hours a day, that's even better.

Sharon McGukin 31:24

Very true. We would love to talk to all afternoon long because you have really great tips and we appreciate what you've shared with us. I know that you have to get back on planning predicting your needs for Mother's Day, so we keep you that. But we thank joining us, Ralph.

Ralph Giordano 31:45

Thank you for having me. Anytime I'm an open book, like I said, I'm happy to help.

Sharon McGukin 31:58

And audience, Smithers Oasis, North America, Ralph, I to thank for joining us today. If you've enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend and hit subscribe. You don't 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. next time, I'm Sharon McGukin reminding you that like the unfurling petals flower, we grow by changing form, soaking inspiration in like raindrops, absorbing energy from others, warmth from the sun. growth opens us up to new ideas and that's How we Bloom.