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Industry News -
Society of American Florists (SAF) News
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The possibility of saving money and making a bigger profit brought more than 75 florists in the St. Louis and Kansas City, Mo., areas out of their businesses for the day – some even traveling five hours to get there.
That’s what happened a few weeks ago, when SAF co-hosted “profitability clinics” with Hortica Insurance and Baisch & Skinner, Inc. in two St. Louis and Kansas City, Missouri, locations.
Our featured speaker, floral industry financial consultant Paul Goodman, CPA, presented two sessions during each of the two day-long programs. I hear he is called the Profitability Czar; I know why now! I was surprised that attendees were willing to spend a full day away from their business — no one bailed! That speaks volumes about our industry’s need for business programming (and Paul Goodman’s rock star status). He tackled topics near and (sometimes not so) dear to a business owner’s balance sheet: controlling costs of goods sold and payroll costs. His approach was very easy to listen to and to understand.
Hortica Insurance’s John Hodapp and Traci Dooley also had a presentation on how to be a good insurance customer. John and Traci joked about how riveting insurance is as a topic (not!), but really, when they explained the different types of coverage and which would be most beneficial in certain situations, it attracted quite a lot of attention from the florists there.
The team from Baisch & Skinner in St. Louis included John Baisch, Bob Baisch, Zach Baisch, Steve Frye, Tom Hofeditz, Sandy Petot and Michael Will. In Kansas City, John, Steve were there, joined by Brian Larkin, Sara Tafolla and Bob Oliva. They had an interactive session on how they make sure their customers are getting the most for their money. One idea that had a lot of people very excited was the “Boot Box,” which they fill with a diversity of cut flowers and greens, from different locations, all the best quality and very affordable.
But people were doing more than just listening. The ideas really started flying during my presentation about how retail florists are reaching out to their customers. Several ideas were prompted from attendees, including promoting at community events, such as county fairs, and reaching out to elementary school kids. Many florists are collecting their customers’ e-mail addresses and have launched e-mail newsletters to keep them updated on what’s going on and on the best deals available. There was much discussion on what SAF does to assist florists in dealing with funeral directors and the dreaded “In Lieu of..”, in addition to how SAF tackles negative publicity of florists and the floral industry.
While in St. Louis, I met one of the featured businesses in the cover story of the August issue of Floral Management: Kris Wittenaur of Diehl’s on Wheels in Waterloo, IL. She has done amazing things with her business. Besides her drive-up window and new greenhouses, she participates in a loyalty program to drive repeat visits from customers.
We hope to do more of these programs around the country. Let us know if it’s something you’d be interested in hosting in your market.
p.s. Wholesalers: If you think it takes a design seminar to bring your retail customers out of their business for a day, call me. Let’s talk.
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Industry News 
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