7 Tricks and tips to empower your Valentine's Day success
Valentine’s Day is around the corner.
Whether you’ve worked as a floral designer for 20 years or just jumped in head-first for your Valentine’s debut, now is a good time to plan the next few weeks. I’ve listened to a few podcasts and read a couple of blogs about Valentine’s Day recently.
Today I’m sharing 7 tricks and tips for you that I haven’t heard anyone else mention.
Roses, kale and sweetpeas in a Valentine’s Day floral arrangement. Recipe created in EveryStem
Start by simplifying your menu to make it easy for your clients to order from you.
A limited design menu for Valentine’s Day is ideal. When I owned Verbena Floral Design, we had a limited menu that enabled my team and me to design all the custom arrangements very efficiently. We had offerings that ranged from about $65 to $425 and many of our regular clients placed their orders between 2 weeks to 3 days before Valentine’s Day.
Thanks to our postcard mailer and email reminders many of our clients placed their orders early. We sent the reminders out in advance to give everyone a friendly ‘get your order in early’ nudge. Those little nudges work. Our clients rely on them. They love a super helpful nudge. Just like us, they are thinking about their lives, their jobs, their kids. They didn’t want to forget Valentine’s Day; they just have a truckload of stuff on their plates. So, they appreciated the hint and even came to rely on it over time.
They also appreciated our suggestions when it came time to choose a design. Create a signature arrangement at a premium price point. Our average daily order was around $100. So, our Valentine’s Day signature arrangement was $150. It was a no-brainer and we sold tons of that design.
Are you thinking, once the orders are in how the heck do you make them all and keep them organized?
1. Work Efficiently with a Production System for Valentine’s Day
Our design production started with the most expensive arrangements. These are typically the larger and taller designs. We’d make all the $425 arrangements first and work our way down to the smallest at $65 each. Why did we do it this way? We had 3 solid reasons why.
The first reason is that we wanted the highest price-point arrangements to have the most exceptional looking blooms.
We ensured that every design was beautiful, but I'm talking about exceptional blooms. The ones that you use first because you're attracted to them like a powerful magnet. You know the ones. Those exceptional blooms need to go to the clients that spend the most money. Then useable shorter stems can go into the slightly smaller arrangements and so on.
The second reason is flow. That's when you can knock out lots of arrangements at the same price point.
If you know your wholesale cost and your formulas, you can easily bang out a bunch of $300 orders in a row. Now, picture every designer working down the list by price-point, it just gets done so much faster.
Trust me.
No assembly line stuff either. That has been proven to be much slower and in my personal opinion the designs never look as nice when they are pieced together.
The final reason is that you want to use as much of the wholesale product you buy as possible.
I touched on this above, but it’s worth delving into a bit further. You'll break a few stems here and there. Keep a few short buckets and vases around to collect the off-shoots and broken blooms from your large arrangements. Then use them in all the lower price point designs in small vessels!
Not this year due to COVID-19, but in past years we'd have a lot of orders for corsages for dances around Valentine's Day. The small bits of greenery and rouge spray rose blooms that we collected demanded a premium price in those designs. So, maybe this will come back and be another reason to horde those little bits and sprigs.
2. Free yourself from floral foam. Start with Valentine's Day, and don't look back.
I used floral foam in my shop for too long. It’s toxic, but you don’t have to take my word for it. Here are a few very talented floral designers’ blog posts about why it’s gross and how we can avoid using it going forward.
Fountain Head Floral Design's Blog on why she's going foam free.
Johnny Seeds on sustainable design practices.
It’s time to ditch the foam and find the alternatives that work best for you. My favorites are the classic oasis tape grid, chicken wire, and floral frogs like the ones from Harmony Harvest. Made in the USA. Yay!
3. Reciprocate with other local florists. Spread the love.
There's a flower shop in Austin called King Florist. Their specialty is daily orders with a similar aesthetic to Verbena Floral Design’s back when I was the owner. I knew they were reliable. So, I would send clients to them whenever I couldn't fulfill their orders.
Yes, I just said I turned away clients and sent them to my competitor. I heard you gasp. It's okay. I hope you have the same problem. It’s a good problem to have when you are turning customers away.
It can be hard to send clients to a competitor when you first start your business especially on Valentine's Day.
It's scary. What if they never come back?
That's a risk you should be willing to take because as your business grows, you will not be able to take on every single order that comes through your doors. The person on the other end of the phone will order flowers. You can't fulfill the order. You have two choices. Send them to someone who you trust and who will recommend you when they can't fill the order. Or leave them feeling like you weren't as helpful as you could've been because you weren't willing to recommend another florist. It's your choice.
If you choose wisely and build a relationship with a competitor, they will send their clients to you and vice versa.
Reciprocation is the key here. It's important to understand that you can't always accept orders from every potential client, but you can help every potential client by giving them the name of a trusted friend in the industry. You'll be surprised at how many clients give you a chance the next time they order. After all, they called you first, didn't they?
King Florist sent me a gift package one year because I sent them so much business. When I look back on that now, I laugh. We had too many orders coming into the shop. That was a good problem. I distinctly remember that they sent me an assortment of delicious Tiny Pies. That was before I was diagnosed with celiac disease too. So, I enjoyed them with my team!
Community over competition is truly a beautiful thing.
Orchids, hydrangea, and roses make a beautiful flower recipe for Valentine's Day
Your clients called you for a reason. Even if you can't take their order, be helpful by recommending another reliable florist. They will be more likely to call you again in the future if you are super helpful.
4. Cherish your team on Valentine’s Day. You literally could not do it without them.
I often hear stories about business owners not pay their team members fairly. Those stories frustrate me. I'm going to level with you here. Your team is essential to your business success. Treat them well. Treat them with the same respect you'd want to be treated with if your roles reversed.
Valentine's week is a flurry of organized chaos. That is if you handle it well. So, be sure to show your appreciation for the people on your team. They will work harder and sell more flowers if they are fed well and paid fairly.
If you can share some of your profits with your team, monetary bonuses on Valentine's Day are a great way to show you care.
If you can't share profits, be sure to give them something special that makes them feel valued. A paid day of vacation is a great option. Another suggestion is finding a charity that offers a special gift box or fundraiser like the Emancipet sit and stay day kits pictured below.
Check out all the goodies that were included in the Emancipet Sit and Stay Day Kits!
For 6 or 7 years in a row, I purchased these awesome kits for each of my employees on Valentine's Day. The Emancipet team would deliver them to my shop. The charity raised money. My team members got a fun gift package full of tasty food and adult beverages to indulge in after a long week of hard work, and I felt good about participating within my community. It was a win-win for the charity, myself, and my team.
5. Deliver your Valentine’s Day designs early and efficiently.
Remember, your clients all want their flowers delivered early on Valentine's Day.
Don't take the bait and promise a morning delivery time to all of your clients. You can't delivery every flower arrangement on February 14th before 10 am.
However, you can suggest they choose delivery on February 13th to surprise their loved one! So, I recoomend you give that option to all the clients that repeatedly ask for a morning delivery.
On Valentine's Day, aim to complete all the deliveries by 2 pm at the latest. Keep a close eye on your order volume. Staff accordingly and use a logistically based delivery strategy.
Same day or last minute orders do not apply to this rule, but be sure to let your clients know they will be delivered last if they order at 10:00 am on Valentine’s Day. You can always fit them in if you want to be extra helpful and have a few flowers left in the cooler!
Here’s what we did at Verbena Floral Design to make our deliveries fast and efficient.
We routed the deliveries a day or two ahead of the scheduled delivery date. We would group deliveries based on zip codes and then determine how many would fit into a run. Each run was usually between 8 to 20 delivery addresses. Of course, some of the delivery addresses had multiple arrangements. So, keep an eye out for those overlapping orders.
We kept the runs short (somewhere from 2-3 hours each) so that the drivers could take breaks in between runs. It also allowed us to frequently update our delivery records (we were old school and didn’t have a software for deliveries at the time) and inform the senders that their flowers had been delivered.
We'd start at 7 am. We completed all the deliveries by 2 pm. We usually had three delivery drivers that would handle two or three runs each. There were also some last-minute orders every year. We did our best to accommodate those as well, but they understood their delivery would be last. In the morning, we'd pull out all the orders for the first runs.
Anemones, tulips, protea profitable floral design Valentine's Day
Also, don't forget to take a few good photos of your Valentine's Day designs in the studio before you send them out into the world! It's a busy day, but photo time is time well spent!
We’d follow this checklist to get our flower deliveries them out the door early on Valentine’s Day.
Dump water from container
Refresh with cool water
Fluff design
Attach handwritten card
Check design description matched arrangement
Confirm and check spelling of name and card message
Pack in vehicle
We’d make sure every driver had the following.
Water bottle for the driver
Watering can for the flowers
Spray bottle to mist the flowers (dew makes them look extra fresh and pretty, oh la la)
Snacks
Extra cards and pens (in case the misting or watering gets a little aggressive)
Clippers
Towels
I’d quickly run down their routine for every delivery with them. Here’s a quick checklist of our physical delivery process. (This may be helpful if you haven’t done deliveries before.)
Here's our delivery Process Run-down:
Remove arrangement from its packaging in the vehicle.
Refill with water to about 1 inch below the rim of the container (to avoid splashing)
Mist arrangement with water lightly using spray bottle carefully to avoid card
Wipe down the container and fluff the flowers
Carry to door and place in a shaded spot
Record the time and date of delivery
Take a photo of the arrangement on the doorstep
Ring the doorbell and step back
If the recipient comes to the door, let them know the delivery is for the name on the order
If the recipient does not come to the door, text the photo to the recipient phone number and let them know the delivery is for the name on the order
Communicate verbally or via text that care instructions for the arrangement are on the card
Write delivery time and driver's initials on the order form for the delivery log tracking system
Side Note: We had enclosure cards that had care instructions written on the back. Alternatively, you could print a message on your cards along the lines of "care instructions can be found on our website at www.XXflowershopXX.com" and would be a great opportunity to get the recipient to visit your site especially if they haven't received flowers from your business before
Then, off they’d go onto the roads of Austin, TX!
When the delivery drivers were about to head to their last address on their run they'd give us a call. This would give us time to prepare for their second run. We'd pull their route, get all the arrangements out of the cooler, fluff the designs, and attach all the card messages. When the driver would arrive, while they were taking a little break, we’d unload their vehicle, fill their spray bottle, fill their water bottle, and load the vehicle with the second run’s arrangements.
Then, the driver, along with another team member would go through each arrangement and compare the description, name, and card message to make sure it all matched and that the name was spelled correctly. They’d head out and get that run delivered in a jiff.
It’s a bit like a pit crew in a NASCAR race, but with a whole lot of pretty in the back seat! Delivery work can be stressful, so be sure to select drivers who have a calm demeanor and can represent your business with a smile!
6. Team up with other local vendors to offer packages and cross-promotions.
Cross-promotions can be a profit boost for floral designers selling on Valentine's Day. You could consider add-ons like baked goods, jewelry, bath products, adult beverages, and chocolates from other local businesses in your town. Choose complimentary businesses that are interested in promoting your offerings on their website and social media. If you can collaborate with businesses that have a larger or slightly different audience than yours, even better. This will help raise awareness of your brand with more people.
When I owned Verbena Floral Design we partnered up with several companies over the years. My favorite was the Cupcake Bar. We collaborated with them for several years and had a great time!
Cupakes and Flowers are a great cross promotion for Valentine's Day
I loved our Valentine's Day cross-promotions with The Cupcake Bar
Local businesses need to support and uplift each other. It's one of the best parts of being a business owner. I encourage you to find other business owners you admire and collaborate in unique ways as much as possible!
7. Don’t just take notes. Use them.
I’ve been in the floral design industry for 15 years and I’ve learned so much from every sequential Valentine’s Day I’ve participated in. I always took the time to write detailed notes after every holiday. I would ask myself these questions. What sold well? What didn't sell well? How many flowers of each variety were leftover if any? Did I have enough staff? What could we have done better? What was the most profitable? I would also ask my team these same questions to get their feedback. The answers to these questions lead us to brainstorm a list of things we could improve each year, but a list is useless until acted upon.
You know where I’m going with this one now...
Not only did I take detailed notes, but I also took the time to read my notes before I began my planning sessions for the next holiday. So, make a folder that holds all your Valentine’s Day notes, marketing materials, floral design menus, and email templates. Then, put a reminder on your calendar for late November to break out that folder and start planning for the next round!
When I sold my shop, I handed off 12 years of Valentine’s Day ordering, sales, and marketing history to the new owner.
So, if you have an exit strategy for your business that includes the possibility of selling it someday. I highly recommend doing the same. It’ brings value to the sale of your business because written processes and systems are what the new owner will need to continue the success of the business. Systems pay off in the long term if you plan to sell your business down the road.
And here’s a bonus tip because I want to share all my knowledge with you.
8. Follow up. A friendly reminder to keep your flowers lasting longer.
If only I had a dollar for every time a client told me their flowers died too soon!
What is too soon anyway? Frankly, I had a client whose flowers lasted 10 days and still complained they didn't last long enough.
Lady, really? 10 days...
You can't please eveyone. Okay. Back to my point.
My point here is that your clients don’t think about refilling their floral arrangement containers with fresh water. They don’t think about plucking fading blooms and foliage either. So, what can you do about that?
Send them a friendly reminder. Two days after Valentine’s Day send them all an email that says to care for their flowers to extend their longevity and value.
I suggest starting with a polite thank you for their order and then listing a few friendly tips on how to keep their flowers looking fresh. They will be more likely to do these small tasks if they receive a reminder email a couple of days after the excitement of Valentine's Day has died down.
If you can’t get the recipient’s email address during the time of the order. Simply send this message to the sender with a headline asking them to share it. This interaction, although simple and easily automated, improves the client experience. It makes you seem extra helpful in their eyes.
And everyone loves extra helpful service people, right?
You also get the opportunity to solve problems before they become an issue. By being brave enough to follow up you allow them to let you know if something isn't sitting right before they jump on Yelp without thinking first. If they do reach out to say they aren’t satisfied, respond quickly and with kindness, replace the flowers or refund their money whichever makes them happy, and then move on.
The absolute best part about following up is that you get to insert the opportunity for another sale by embedding a call-to-action into this email. Yes, you read that right. Another sale on February 16th.
Here are a few ways to go about asking for another sale two days after Valentine’s Day.
Offer to add them to your new reminder service program. This is an easy way to ensure your clients remember the special occasions on their calendar. It’s also a way for you to remind them to order flowers from you on those occasions.
Here’s how it works.
Ask them to give you a few of the most important flower ordering dates on their calendar like their partner’s birthday, anniversary, and possibly their mom’s birthday. Then, you can set automatic emails that go out 10 days before the special occasions each year. Send a link to your online ordering and word the email to say something like: “last year you ordered our designer’s choice for $200, we’ve got a beautiful new upgraded version for $225 this year”.
I’ve used this system for years and it works extremely well for clients who order for every Valentine's Day, other holidays, and birthday. Give it a try and let me know how it works for you.
If you feel like the reminder service isn’t your thing, you can simply ask them if they have another reason to purchase flowers soon. How simple is that?
I've had hundreds of repeat sales from clients that I followed up with after the sale.
It works because your email reminds them of how their experience with you made them feel so good that they want to find another reason to order from you again!
Dopamine, use it to your advantage. There's nothing wrong with making people feel good and then reminding them of that feeling. That's what marketing is all about.
Following up with a client makes you the extra helpful service person they are growing to like and trust. It does not have to be pushy. You don't have to feel like a creep when you ask for another sale. It allows you to word your email in a way that builds their trust in you and your business. Here's an example.
“Do you have any other special occasions coming up or loved ones in need of flowers next week? Simply order on our website! We take extremely great care of the needs of our repeat clients.”
Then, link your 2nd most expensive flower arrangement from your online menu to a hyperlink for the “website” in the sentence above.
Or refer to this option as “a top-seller” and link it to one of your best-selling designs. You can add another link to your full online ordering menu in the signature section. Trust me, some of the people that open this email will buy another arrangement. They may have been procrastinating until after Valentine's Day to order for their next occasion. This message primes their brain to get it done and to order from you.
Alternatively, you can offer them some small discount to order later in the year. People still love a bargain. While I'm not a fan of discounting your work, I do think offering loyal customers a little price-break now and then is a nice way to keep them engaged with your business.
In this case, I would offer something like free delivery or an offer for a small discount on the next order they place as a thank you for their repeat business.
Any of these follow up emails can be used to invite your clients to re-engage with your business faster than they would have otherwise. A few clients will take you up on your offer. That's a win in my book.
I hope these tricks and tips help you prepare for and make the most of Valentine's Day! Let me know how it goes. If you have any helpful tips to share with our community, please comment below!
Most of all enjoy the opportunity to express love through flowers this Valentine's Day.
We sure do need more of that in the world right now!
Until next time,
LuAnn
