Floranext would like to say thank you for the overwhelming responses to those who participated in our annual florist Valentine’s Day survey, which shows some definite changes for 2022. Based on florist feedback, It looks like 2022 was a very busy holiday for the retail floral industry. 

 

 

Key Floral Trends – Valentine’s Day 2022

• Valentine’s Day sales were very strong: Despite the flower shortage and Valentine’s Day falling on a Monday.
• 38% of florists stated they had better Valentine’s Day sales compared to last year’s Valentines Day, that’s an increase of 8.4% from 2021.
• Website orders increased significantly: 40% of florists reported more web orders this year, while 37% reported they stayed the same.  
• Dozen roses prices were up a lot:  Average prices were almost $105. 
• Many florist experiences flower shortages:  34% saw shortages, with roses being the most common.

 

Were Valentine’s Day 2022 sales better than last year?

 

 

Not surprisingly, Walk-In-Orders were higher this year, with an increase of 28.3% compared to last year’s results. Phone orders stayed about the same with shops reporting 2.6% fewer phone orders, however, florists reporting higher website orders for 2022 were down by 11.3%. Could it be that customers are tired of being cooped up at home and are out shopping versus shopping online?

 

                    .                        

 

With the shortage of flowers and quality of roses, A Dozen Rose’s price range was very wide, the average in the United States was around $104.58. This was an increase of $13.08 or 14.30% compared to last year’s prices.

 

With the shortage and quality of roses, arranged flowers were overwhelmingly the next most popular item this year. Candy and chocolates once again were the number one choice for an add-on this Valentine’s Day.

 

 

Temporary staffing continues to be an increase year after for flower shops during the busiest holidays of the year. About 74% of shops added new staff, a decrease of 1% compared to 2020. This year 81.9% shops added additional drivers, an increase of 5% compared to last year.  Most shops did not rent vans for the holiday specifically, likely choosing to use driver vehicles.  

 

 

Valentine’s Day orders started coming in early for many shops, with 49% getting holiday orders in January, an increase of 9% compared to 2020 – This just shows that it is important to keep your floral websites up to date and start marketing customers for major holiday and events weeks in advance.

 

Since the pandemic there has been a shortage of flowers, especially during the holidays. This year 34% of florists were unable to get specific flowers from their wholesaler, flower market, and or flower farm. Listed are the flowers that were reported that were hard to receive. 

What (if anything) would you do differently next Valentine’s Day?

Floral Ordering:  “More mixed bouquets using the same flowers!”, “Order fewer flowers so we sell out.” and “Fewer dozen roses and more mixed flowers”

Preparations: “prepare more arrangements”, “limit customer selections and keep cooler filled”, “More things for Galentine’s day – seems to become more popular”, and “green more vases and don’t order Euc till closer to day.”

Hiring: “Secure more employee help”, “Hire faster and efficient drivers”, “More drivers and customer service staff”, and “Extra help on the day of holiday”

Deliveries: “Start deliveries earlier in the day,” “Delivery coordinator,” “Be more organized with routing my deliveries”, and “hire additional drivers and rent additional vehicles”

Marketing: “More social media posts”, “Start marketing in January for Valentines Day”, “More advertising,” and “Market bigger!”

 

___

Thank you florists for participating in our annual floral Valentine’s Survey – we see some definite changes for the floral industry. Wishing you well for 2022 from Floranext – where we continue to help independent florists succeed!

Results were based on the 337 retail florists surveyed by Floranext between February 16th through February 21st. Florists were based in the US (72%), Canada (10%), international (16%), and no response (2%).

____________

Floranext makes great florist software. Florist websites, floral POS, florist wedding/event proposal software, and florist technology. Let us know if you want a free demo or try our software for free here.

 

Using Google Business is one of the best ways to improve your floral business website’s visibility.

As small business owners, we know that florists are always on the lookout for simple and direct ways to stay in touch with customers along with ways to reach new customers with ease. Google Business Profiles – formerly known as Google My Business – is a great way to reach people in a direct and efficient manner.

This platform is easy to use and requires little time investment, yet it can provide your business with wonderful rewards in the form of new customers. Learn more about Google Business Profiles and how you can use it to your advantage.

 

Image of Stem Swag Florist Profile via google.com

What is a Google Business Profile?

Google is one of the first places that potential customers look when they want to find information about florists in their area. More than that, they likely use this search engine to learn more about your business in particular: the products you offer along with other experiences people have had when shopping with you.

You may be wondering – why should I spend my time on this? Google Business is important because of: 

Improved Search Visibility: Local Serch Results

Maps Your Floral Business Location: This allows the customer to find and navigate to your brick-and-mortar store and website more easily.

Allows for Customer Interaction: Allows for customers to interact with your business by leaving reviews and uploading their own photos. Every review counts, and every photo upload counts! 

The proof is in the numbers! ​​An interesting statistic is that customers are 2.7 times more likely to consider your business reputable if you have a complete Google Business Profile. In addition to that, seeing a Google Business Profile will make them an astounding  70 percent more likely to actually visit your location.

 

Image via business.google.com

Getting Started With Google Business

Step 1: Sign in to Google Business Manager

To sign up make sure you have a Google account. If you have one and are logged in, you will automatically be logged into the Google Business Manager. 

 

Image via business.google.com

Step 2: Add Your Floral Business

Enter your Floral Business name.

If it does not appear in the drop-down menu, Click Add Your Business to Google.

Next enter and select Florist as the appropriate category for your business and click Next.

 

Image via business.google.com

Step 3: Enter Your Floral Business Location

Select Yes that you have a physical location that customers can visit your location.

Next, enter your Floral Business Address. Google may require you to place a marker on the location on a map.

Then click Next.

Note: If you don’t enter a physical address, Google will ask you to specify which region you’re based in. 

 

Image via business.google.com

 

Step 4: Contact Information For Your Floral Business

Next, Enter your contact information, Business Phone number, and website.

Check over your information and click Next.

 

Image via business.google.com

 

Step 5: Verify Your Floral Business

Enter your real Floral Business physical address, not a post office box.

This information is only to verify your business and is not displayed on your Google Business Profile or shared with the public.

Check over your information and click Next to verify your account. 

Note: Physical location businesses will get a postcard by mail to verify their location, Service-area businesses can be verified through an email address. Once you receive your five-digit code, go back to Google Business Manager to verify.

 

 

Optimize For Local Search Rankings

Now it’s time to optimize your Google Business Profile to get the most value out of it. Remember that Google determines local search ranking based on three key factors:

• Relevance: How well your Google Business listing matches a search
• Distance: How far your location is from the search or searcher
• Prominence: How well-known your business is (based on factors like links, number of reviews, review score, and SEO)

With that being said, below are a few tips for optimizing your page to increase the likelihood that you appear in a search for florists in your area.

 

Image via business.google.com

Google Business Profile Manager

Now that you have completed and verified with Google Business, let’s take a look at the various sections of the Profile Manager that will require some attention.

This will be your Main Hub for your Google Business Profil, here you can do a little bit of everything. Google Business is constantly adding new features, and many businesses, small and large, fail to take advantage of them! The next section is going to examine some of the important features you can access on your Google Business Profile Manager

 

Google Business Profile Information

This is one of the most important pages for your Business Listing. Everything that is in the main column, under the Business Name, should be filled out ASAP. All of this information can be shown with your Google Listing.

This includes:

• Business Name
• Categories
• Business Location
• Service Areas
• Hours and Special Hours
• Phone Number
• Website URL
• Payment Methods Accepted
• Short Description
• Opening Date
• Photos 

We’d like to quickly highlight a few functions from this page that are not utilized as much we think they should be:

Photos: Upload your Photos! This is extremely important. Businesses that don’t have many, or ANY photos will find that they have a harder time ranking highly in the Local Search Results. You should have the following photos that you upload yourself:

• Logo – Your Business Logo
• Cover Image – This is the grand feature photo and should correspond to the services you offer.
• Product – Upload photos of the arrangements that you yourself have created for customers. You can also upload photos of the products as seen in your store.

 

Service Areas: Previously Google prompted Businesses to choose a Radius on their map to indicate how wide their service area could be. Now GMB seems to prompt you to choose from Delivery Areas such as Cities and Zip Codes. It is advantageous to type in as many as are applicable to your business. Be honest, of course. But don’t short sell your business’s reach by only including your primary area.

Opening Date: This one is applicable to up-and-coming businesses, that are still getting their ducks in a row. Our advice to you, start this as soon as you are able! Your Local SEO Ranking can be influenced by how much people engage with your Google Listing. If you start building this momentum before your business is even open, you may find that people in your area become aware of your business and ask you questions before it is even open!

 

Image via business.google.com

Google Business Posts

Google Business Profile is the perfect place to run an offer or promotion for your floral shop – particularly around holidays. Now would be a great chance to try it to promote Valentine’s Day sale! When you add an offer to your profile, anyone who Googles your shop will see this on the search engine page, further enticing them to take advantage of your sale or promo. Here are the steps to add your offers to your profile:

• Click Posts in the left-hand column
• Click the Offer tab in the popup
• Upload your image – this makes the offer more eye-grabbing!
• In Offer details write a brief description or summary of the offer
• In Offer title write a title that will grab the attention of your audience
• Add a Start Date and End Date for the offer
• Add a Coupon Code (if applicable)
• Add a URL the customer will need to use to redeem the offer (if applicable)
• Add the text of any terms and conditions applicable to the offer

Note: Keep in mind, a post made here will only last for 7 days maximum, and can only be 1500 characters MAX. So it is important to be concise, and to have good timing with your posts! 

 

Google Business Reviews 

Encourage and answer reviews and questions on your Google page for further effectiveness. Good reviews are very helpful in allowing new customers to trust your business. Reviews also improve your Google ranking. Remember to ask your customers for reviews. This can be done on email receipts or on other forms of social media.

To share your review request link, follow these steps:

1. Click on the button that says Share review form.
2. Copy and paste the link into a message to customers, or into your autoresponder and online receipts.

You should also take the time to reply to reviews on your Google profile. This makes your overall brand and business seem more trustworthy to those visiting your page. Make sure to respond in a professional manner and in your brand voice. Especially when replying to a negative review, be honest and upfront. Always offer an apology and method of contact when needed. You can view and respond to reviews by clicking the Reviews tab in the left menu of your Business Profile Manager.

Google Business Messaging

Customers can now send messages to your Business directly from the Search page. This is a legitimate way to directly communicate with potential customers! You may find that people reach out to you directly through this Messaging function, make sure to pay attention to your Homepage, to see when you get new messages directly from customers searching online.

 

Image via cloud.google.com

Google Business Insights

From this page, you can quickly get a view into how people engage with your Business Listing on Google Search, and also Google Maps.

When people see your listing from Search or Maps:

• Do they call you directly?
• Do they click on your Website button?
• Do they ask for directions?

Having this information can be helpful while you are getting to know your customers, and learning how people find your business.

 

Florists, how has Google My Business helped your floral business in the past years? Please share your feedback in the comment section below.  If you’re getting ready to create yours, let us know any questions you have about the process in the comments section and we’ll do our best to help!

____________

Floranext makes great florist software. Florist websites, floral POS, florist wedding/event proposal software, and florist technology. Let us know if you want a free demo or try our software for free here.

Now with weddings starting to resume, is the wedding floral industry changing? Floranext surveyed 216 florists to get a sense of changes in wedding floral and how they may be affecting business. Here are the top 4 things you need to know!

• Florists are passionate about weddings! – 77% of florists love working in wedding floral services.

• With industry price increases, florists are raising their prices. – Over 82% of florists are reporting that they have increased their prices for wedding floral services.

• Even with the price increases, customers are still spending money on wedding foral services.– 41% of florists have stated that customers are spending about the same, with 21% of customers are spending more.

• Micro-Weddings are a huge trend! – Over half of the florists surveyed are providing wedding floral services for Micro-Weddings.

---

Do you provide wedding floral services?

---

Do you enjoy working on wedding floral?

---

Are customers spending more or less on wedding floral?

---

Have you had to increase your pricing on your wedding floral services this year?

---

What wedding floral trend are you currently experiencing?

---

What are STILL the most popular themes & color choices for weddings?

---

What are some NEW themes & color choices for weddings?

---

Are you able to order specific flowers or order only by color choice?

---

Any other comments you would like to share about the Wedding Industry?

---

Any comments on why you do not or have stopped providing wedding floral services?

---

Survey based on data from 216 florists (74% in the United States, 7% in Canada, 19% International). 

Thank you for reading the Floranext wedding floral Insight for 2021. We are committed to bringing flower shops the best information and tips to run their floral business. Click here to learn more about our florist software and how you can upgrade your florist website or floral point of sale. 

Have prices increased for floral business? Floranext surveyed 311 florists to get a sense if industry prices are increasing and affecting business. Here are the top 4 things things you need to know!

• Florists have seen flower prices increase over the past 6 months – Over 98% of florists are reporting flower price have increased.

• With flower supply chain hiccups, florists have seen hardgood Prices increase over the past 6 months – Over 94% of florists are reporting that hardrgood prices have increased.

• Even with the price increases, Some florists are still unable to get flowers and supplies from their wholesaler – 51% of florists surveyed stated they are unable to get certain flowers and supplies.

• The increase of demand of flowers, some florists are having a harder time hiring staff – 52% or little over half the florists reporting are having some difficulty in hiring new staff members.

---

For more detailed answers to each question on our survey, see the charts below:

Have day-to-day (non-holiday) costs for FLOWERS changed this year?

---

Have day-to-day (non-holiday) costs for HARDGOODS changed this year?

---

Have day-to-day (non-holiday) costs for GASOLINE changed this year?

---

Have day-to-day (non-holiday) costs for SALARIES changed this year ?

---

Have you been able to hire?

---

Are you able to get the flowers/supplies you need from your wholesaler?

---

Have you had to find a new wholesaler for flowers/supplies?

---

Additonal Comments From Florists

Survey based on data from 311 florists (83% in the United States, 8% in Canada, 9% International). 

---

Thank you for reading the Floranext Floral Industry Insight for 2021. We are committed to bringing flower shops the best information and tips to run their floral business. Click here to learn more about our florist software and how you can upgrade your florist website or floral point of sale. 

As florists, a little competition can be a good thing—but what about televised competition?

With the converging popularity of reality TV, competition shows, and streaming services, should the art of floral design join the trend? Well in 2020, there will be two flower competition shows hitting streaming platforms HBO Max and Netflix.

As a florist, would you compete in one of these shows?

Full Bloom

Full Bloom is an eight-episode floral competition show that will be streamed on HBO Max starting in 2020. This hour-long floral competition show will feature 10 of America’s top florists vying to be crowned America’s best in floral design.

During the floral competition, it will allow audiences to escape into the floral world as candidates design and execute some of the most wondrous floral creations ever seen.

Each episode features a themed challenge focused on a unique area of the floristry world including fashion, art, events, and weddings. Contestants’ designs and creations will be mentored and judged by legendary floral artists Maurice Harris and Elizabeth Cronin with celebrity florist Simon Lycett serving as host. At the end of each episode, the arrangements made will be given away to remind us to stop and enjoy the beauty of flowers.

No announcement has been made yet in regards to signing up to compete in the second season.

The Big Flower Fight

Meanwhile, Netflix has ordered a series of their own titled The Big Flower Fight based out of the UK, like the popular Great British Bake Off series.

This eight-part series will be a little different—this series will see ten duos made up of florists, sculptors and garden designers put to the test as they compete in a series of themed challenges to create very large-scale flower installations. Each episode will test a different set of creative and practical skills, from floristry to woodworking and landscaping.

The materials each team can use to create their installation will vary week-by-week, and participants will be encouraged to think about plants that give back to the environment. Each week one team will be eliminated, leaving just three teams to battle in the finale for the champion’s crown.

Floristry in the Limelight

Floral design has a history as a secretive trade: in the 1700s flowers became a common way to send coded messages. But in recent years, floristry has received a great deal of attention thanks to royal weddings and major films. Will this new mainstream showcase of floristry and floral designs on streaming services boost the demand for flowers? We sure hope so!

 

Florists, what are your thoughts on these floral competition shows? Would you compete in a floral design show like this? Please share your comments below!

____________

Floranext makes great florist software. Florist websites, floral POS, florist wedding/event proposal software, and florist technology. Let us know if you want a free demo or try our software for free here.

 

 

Flowers are beautiful on their own, but that doesn’t mean you can’t dress them up with a clever presentation!

Florists can get creative not just with their arrangements, but with the presentation of those bouquets. Here are a few suggestions you may want to try!

Vintage Tins and Canisters

Vintage cans go well with flowers that have muted hues, making for a great complimentary tabletop arrangement and evoking that vintage feel.

They might not stand out as much as most other arrangements, but they are supposed to fit in and mesh well with an environment that’s peaceful and calming, with the calm hues of both the flowers and the vintage canisters capturing the atmosphere of the days of yore. Spending an afternoon around these arrangements, with matching tea and small talk, is a perfect way to enjoy these flowers.

Teacups and Tableware

Tableware looks gorgeous by itself—its purpose is to beautify the food you serve with it, after all. However, it might come as a surprise that tableware can also work as flower vases. Teacups especially are commonly used for miniature arrangements, taking advantage of their small sizes to put an overflow of blooms to its brim.

These arrangements are best put on a small, circular coffee table or an extra ornament to a larger set-up in the dining table, for example.

Wooden Boxes and Crates

Of course, we’ve been looking at designs largely inspired by and meant for the indoor space, but there is also lots of room to design for the outdoors. One reliable go-to for flower designs are wooden boxes or crates, grabbing that countryside vibe and getting a little bit dirty with the arrangement.

Wooden boxes, or even simply adding rough planks around your arrangement, encapsulate the perfect countryside feel that looks great for designs you can put in your backyard, or just by your windowsill for a flavor of the country.

Baskets and Hat Boxes

Instead of a basket filled with cookies, this basket is flourishing with a bouquet of flowers. Hat boxes also have the same charm as the baskets. Baskets, particularly, have a very unique aesthetic, with its woven design and their seeming appearance to be a portable arrangement. They would also look good with muted hues, as baskets with their usual quotidian colors can be a great complementary addition to any space.

Glassware

Of course, we can’t just skip the original flower vases when speaking about flower designs. The variety of glassware is astounding, and the creative designs most of them have are enough to fit in almost any space of the house. Even basic glass vases can look stunning by adding colored water to the vases. They might be simple, but just like mason jars, this opens up to more possibilities that you can do.

They are many more creative ways to present flowers, like old suitcases, floral shelves, and even hanging arrangements. With enough creativity and effort, almost anything can be used to complement the beauty of the flowers. Most will feel like a do-it-yourself project, and honestly, flowers look best when you know they had a touch of your creativity as they sit around your space, beautifying it as it should.

 

Florists, what are some creative ways you present flowers? Please share your comments below!

____________

Floranext makes great florist software. Florist websites, floral POS, florist wedding/event proposal software, and florist technology. Let us know if you want a free demo or try our software for free here.

Let’s cover some techniques to attract walk-in traffic to your flower shop!

A majority of flowers grow seasonally—depending on your area and the time of year, this will affect the bouquets and designs florists can create at any given time. The ups and downs of a flower shop go along with the seasons. Summer means an abundance of blooms, and the promise of greater walk-in traffic. But that doesn’t mean fall is a lost cause!

Below are a few tips to keep your walk-ins up during fall.

Put Your Best Face Forward

Flower shops thrive on aesthetics, so it should show on your storefront. Put out your best face forward: show off your best masterpieces right at your shop window and focus on the pieces that feature autumn blooms. Some good flowers to feature for these arrangements are mums, dahlias, and amaranths. The clue to having aesthetically pleasing bouquets is to use fall hues of these flowers, making it fit for the days getting shorter and the ushering season.

Have a Stunning Sign in Front

A big, attractive sign at your door with a witty or creative play on words about your shop will attract attention. Of course, it doesn’t have to be humongous, the idea is for your sign to stand out among those on the same block. Trying out the same fall hues or even a bold contrast against those colors can help you make a statement.

Show Off Your Florist Collection

Show off all available flowers at the shop! You can put them together with your bouquets, place them inside cute flower pots with aesthetically-pleasing designs. Hanging them around the store window, coupled with labels and information about them such as blooming periods, possible colors, and its meaning in the language of flowers.

Roll Out the Red Carpet

Yes, we mean literally! There’s a reason red carpets are used on special occasions: bright red signifies elegance and extravagance, and putting out a red carpet gives the customers that impression when they enter your store. Letting customers feel luxurious can entice them to pursue the pricier options in your arsenal, and it makes them feel special about their purchases. 

Aside from that, bright red naturally attracts our vision easily, and weaving some red elements around your windows can help control their attention. If you want to focus on some specific parts of your storefront, you can add some red designs around it so that it can capture the people’s attention right away.

Theme Your Space

The beauty of running something like a flower shop with its dependence on the seasons is that you can run themes depending on the season. Putting effort on designing the outer and inner walls of your shop with things that match either the fall season or a theme that you might have chosen to run can go a long way of beautifying your space and have an aesthetic feel that can make customers enjoy their short stay at your store. Of course, it also showcases your own creativity, impressing walk-in people.

Encourage People Online to Stop By

Of course, all your preparations for your shop can be all for naught if you don’t encourage people to visit your place. Since almost everyone is almost always on the Internet, you should also make your presence known there. Invite people through your social media accounts about some promotions you might have on your shop, and encourage them to take a look around.

For your blogs, you can provide readers with a discount code when they make a purchase right at your store. Post some pictures of your shop and storefront that you put the effort in, so that people are also interested to drop by your store. Show off some trendy bouquets there, too.

 

Florists, if you work hard enough to attract your customers to enter your shop, you can make it so that your flower shop sales don’t fall in fall. Please share your thoughts and comments below!

____________

Floranext makes great florist software. Florist websites, floral POS, florist wedding/event proposal software, and florist technology. Let us know if you want a free demo or try our software for free here.

 

Social media marketing gets a lot of buzz, but don’t neglect marketing in your local community!

The local community is your main source of revenue due to its closeness and your ease of access to this audience. Local customers are your first customers, and the immediate intimacy of personal contact gives you instant credibility, trust, and familiarity, making it easier to engage with them. With a low barrier for marketing, converting customers into brand advocates for you will be easy under the right circumstances.

Fortunately, there are very few hoops to jump through, and many ways to engage with your community.

Positive Floral Elements

There’s great power in associating your brand with positive elements. These positive elements can be anywhere in your community, so always be on the lookout with current happenings and public opinions of several things in the locality. Association is the easiest method to generate interest for your shop, but you also have to be smart about it. There are some sure ways to associate your brand with good examples, like events and shared passions among the community members.

Local Floral Events

Liven up the community by organizing and hosting local events. Possible events that you can run are workshops for flower arrangements and an open house that features rare or seasonal flowers. You can also collaborate with other businesses for local events and try to invite as many people as possible. 

Your space size doesn’t matter; being creative with the events can go big or small. You want the exposure from these events to showcase your business so capitalize on this high time. Aside from the close relationships you can foster, this also opens up opportunities to people who might have been new to your place and can become potential customers.

You don’t always have to take the initiative to organize local events, but be on the lookout for them. If there’s an event somewhere close, bring your brand there. Even a small stall can go a long way of promoting and engaging with the people. In the case of florists, you can even donate bouquets of flowers and help with the decoration of local events. A sash bearing your shop’s name should do the trick, but going beyond won’t be much harm.

Floral Teams

Aside from events, you can also sponsor teams in the community. A great example would be sponsoring local sports teams that the community itself supports. Let your brand show on their shirts, or donate some materials like water bottles branded with your shop. It’s a win-win situation: you get to help out people who are passionate about something and let them take their chances to bigger and greater places, and you get advertising not just to your community, but also to the bigger and greater places that the teams will go.

Loyalty Program

In these days of subscriptions and memberships, people appreciate being an honored and special part of something. By implementing a loyalty program and offering memberships, you incentivize long-term customers and keep them to your shop, as well as entice new ones to stay with your shop. People under these programs can also become your strongest patrons and advocates once you do your campaigns right.

As a bonus, adding a referral system in your loyalty program can encourage new customers to try out your services and products by incentivizing their first purchases to be discounted, for example.

Under these programs, you can also have giveaways and special promos, helping to generate buzz and interest around your shop.

Floral Talk

Word of mouth can travel fast, so gather up positive comments among your customers. Ask them what they prefer with your services, highlighting what they liked most. As long as you remind them and thank them for it, the impression lasts.

If you maintain a blog (which we recommend you do), then collate these testimonials and post them there. Since these are all comments from real customers, they are more reliable reviews and posting media that supports their comments (e.g. posting pictures of their bouquets when they liked the arrangement) can generate interest toward your shop.

Know your Customers

The end goal of all these might be to primarily generate interest around your brand, but there is one more thing that you can do while engaging the community: getting to know them. Getting to understand the community and their needs and wants can be crucial to the planning of your products and services. You might want to know when they are most likely to buy flowers and capitalize on that. You can even keep track of best-selling bouquets and flowers. Ultimately, trying to actively know your audience as you engage with them can give very good insights about them.

 

Engagement with the local community is incredibly easy because they’re just there. There is no need for heavy logistics and trying to make a great first impression. You only need to make the effort to approach the people, and once people get familiar with you, they’ll start to gravitate toward your shop. Eventually, your efforts will be repaid, and sales will boost greatly, simply because you treat your very first customers well, and this can ripple toward the rest of your customer base.

 

Florists, what is something you do to stay engaged with your community? Please share your comments below!

____________

Floranext makes great florist software. Florist websites, floral POS, florist wedding/event proposal software, and florist technology. Let us know if you want a free demo or try our software for free here.

Everyone has the same 24-hour day, but some people can achieve so much in this span of time!

The key to this mystery is time management, and everyone from students to business owners like us florists can benefit greatly from managing our time wisely.

Time management allows you to increase productivity by streamlining your processes into manageable bits. Aside from that, it makes work less stressful because everything you do is managed in a way that’s most efficient for you and your team. Ultimately, time management improves all aspects of a flower shop and it will show in your books.

Daily Planner for Florists

One of the simplest ways to time management is to get a daily planner, whether it be physical or digital. For individuals and self-management, physical planners give you a tangible reminder about the planner so that you will not forget about having it in the first place. However, electronic planners have the advantage of being able to manage not just your time, but also your team members’. Many checklists and team collaboration tools are available on the Internet, but the larger concern is not which platform you should use, but how your team uses it.

SMART Florists

No matter which tool you choose, make sure that the tasks you delegate to your members and to follow the SMART approach.

SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. 

Tasks need to be specific and straight to the point so that everyone else will know what it means and what to do when it is delegated to them. A good example is that instead of saying “Arrange inventory,” it’s better to say “Move the old stocks to the back storage.” Being specific also helps in clarifying possible ambiguities.

Measurable tasks make them easier to manage because it clearly shows progress in the task. If they are put off or cannot be finished within the initial timeframe, it is easy to pick it up the next time because you know specifically where to start with it. Instead of saying “Finish orders,” saying “Finish 10 orders” makes it easier to know how many orders you need to finish and how many you need to do if ever you can’t finish it right away.

Attainable tasks mean that they can be attained easily with the given timeframe reasonably. This might need your knowledge of the team’s strengths and you can delegate tasks to people who can do the tasks better than others and before the deadline. This is largely dependent on your team but a quick tip is to delegate smaller tasks or break down big tasks into smaller bits. Instead of saying “Finish a bouquet,” saying “Propose a design,” then “Design the bouquet,” then “Arrange the flowers,” can be so much better because the bigger tasks can be delegated to multiple people at once.

Relevant and timely tasks refer to the urgency of the tasks. During high time of flower orders, it might be more relevant and timely to prioritize orders, while during the low time it’s better to prioritize shop expansions. Being able to properly recognize the urgency of the tasks to be delegated is a great help in this regard.

The SMART approach is a really good way of managing your tasks, and ultimately, your time. However, there are still many other ways to improve your productivity.

Florist Time

With the tasks you have, try to measure how much time it takes you to do specific tasks. Identify possible slowdowns or roadblocks in these tasks, then try to improve that regard. For example, if you find yourself taking way too long in finishing a single order, try to find what makes you take too long in an order. Is it the lack of inventory, or the time it takes to move around the shop to get the items? If so, try to order ahead for the former reason, or try to rearrange the shop for the latter reason. Always aim for a measurable improvement in tasks.

Florist Priorities

Prioritization is also crucial in time management. This might be the most important part of it, even. Try to mark urgent, non-urgent and repeat tasks differently, then prioritize them in that order. Urgent tasks can be those which are highly time-constrained, such as express orders. Non-urgent tasks can be those tasks that need not be done right away and are those that you do not do on a regular basis. Repeat tasks are those tasks that you do on a regular basis, although some repetitive tasks can be delegated to urgent tasks, depending on the situation.

The Pareto principle. Being able to identify the “vital few,” or the 20% that produces 80% of your outcome, from the “useful many” and prioritizing them properly is key to successful time management. To stay on top of all your responsibilities, you should also always try to check all your to-dos and remind your team to check their to-dos. With this single reminder, all your other reminders will fall into place.

With proper time management, not only will your productivity around your shop increase, but you will also have time for yourself, to relax and chill after having a successful day at work, since you have everything at work tidied up.

 

Florists, what are some ways you prioritize things at work or tools you use for time management? Share your comments below!

____________

Floranext makes great florist software. Florist websites, floral POS, florist wedding/event proposal software, and florist technology. Let us know if you want a free demo or try our software for free here.