Episode 175: Communication and Training are Key for a Successful Mother's Day
In part two of Lori's interview with Jennifer Barnard, AAF, of Tillie's Flower Shop in Wichita, Kansas, the conversation gets to what was supposed to be the whole point of the episode before part one ran away with it: people. How do you train, communicate with, and pay your staff so they're set up for success — not just for Mother's Day, but all year long? Vonda's favorite detail: Jennifer's new hires can start earning incentive money from their very first weeks, before they've ever made a sale.
Why Mother's Day is more exhausting than Valentine's
Jennifer says her team is more tired at Mother's Day than Valentine's week, and the reason is simple: it's drawn out. By the time Mother's Day arrives, they've already worked through Easter and every prom weekend — and Tillie's is a huge prom shop, famous for its prom bar. They produce just as many bouquets as Valentine's, but at the tail end of a marathon. Her fix for the final week: feed the team.
And about prom — plenty of florists opt out, but Jennifer makes the case for leaning in. Prom is prepaid and picked up, which physically gets customers in your door, some of whom have only ever ordered online. Tillie's in-store purchases actually increase during prom season, helped along by fun plants in clever containers (her latest: a trailing plant in a face-shaped "selfie" pot she's naming the Wandering Dude).
An onboarding book that pays your staff to learn
Jennifer built Tillie's onboarding around the Flower Clique Prep School courses, then supplemented them to fit her shop. New hires — after a couple of days proving they'll show up — get a book that includes the Flower Clique workbook ("that workbook is like gold"), plus sections she created: the delivery process, a flower dictionary with photos of the flowers Tillie's actually stocks (what days they arrive, what colors), a rose guide with a YouTube video, and a sympathy training guide her dad originally wrote, now being updated as cremations become more common.
The genius part is the incentive structure. Completing the full Flower Clique book — videos and challenges — earns $10. Each supplemental section with its test or challenge sheet earns $5. Once they're selling, sales incentives kick in. As Vonda pointed out, that means new employees can make extra money from the very beginning — and if your shop is losing people and you can't raise the hourly wage, an incentive structure is something you can build. If they're making more money for you, you can pay them more.
Everyone meets with sympathy families — after they've earned it
Funeral work is 30 to 40 percent of Tillie's business, so Jennifer can't be the only person who meets with families — and she doesn't want to be. Every salesperson must shadow an experienced staffer and pass the sympathy test before their first family meeting, roughly a month in. The training covers the reality that in that moment you're part grief counselor: what to say, what never to say. It's addressed in hiring, too, because some applicants picture a Hallmark-movie flower shop and don't realize sympathy is the job. Her standard is blunt: you can't screw up a funeral — she has let people go over it.
Communication that makes holiday meetings take an hour
Leading up to every major holiday — Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Christmas — Jennifer sends her team a written expectations document, then runs a "question of the day" through the team's GroupMe: two or three questions from the document, a dollar per correct answer. By the time the pre-holiday meeting arrives, everyone already knows the information, so the meeting is just last-minute questions and wraps in about an hour.
Her other advice for the run-up: be willing to pivot when product doesn't show up — rework the recipe, re-photograph it on your iPhone, swap the website photo, no panic. Watch your point of sale daily; her sister tracks design and delivery and shifts production toward what's actually selling. And market relentlessly: daily emails are fine, but send them at different times each day so they land in inboxes at 8 a.m. one day, 9 a.m. the next (one 4 a.m. Valentine's send turned out to be one of her most-opened ever). Keep emails visual and short — people don't read walls of text — make every image clickable to your website, preview and test every link, and never send a blurry photo: "We sell pretty. If you don't have a pretty image, you're not going to capture that." On social, polls like "name this bouquet" keep followers engaged.
The Kool-Aid worth drinking: SAF
Jennifer is also a Society of American Florists board member, and she's evangelical about membership: the weekly emails, the website resources she borrows for her own shop, and Charlie Hall's monthly economic round table that informs her planning. Her challenge to every florist: attend Congressional Action Days (every March in Washington, D.C.) at least once in your lifetime to see what SAF does for the industry — because what affects growers and wholesalers eventually lands on retailers.
Key takeaways
- Build an onboarding book: pair Flower Clique Prep School courses with shop-specific guides for delivery, flowers, roses, and sympathy.
- Pay small incentives for completing training so new hires earn extra money before sales commissions start.
- Require shadowing and a passed test before anyone meets with a sympathy family — and screen for it in hiring.
- Send holiday expectations in writing, then quiz daily (a dollar a question) so the pre-holiday meeting takes an hour.
- Email daily before a holiday, vary your send times, keep it visual, and make every image clickable.
Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
Real Life Retail Florist