It's Time for a Reset! What Does That Mean for You?
Most businesses get to reset in January. Flower shops don't — they barrel straight out of Christmas into Valentine's Day prep, and this year mother nature piled a brutal weather week on top of the holiday. Now, with Valentine's behind them and Mother's Day still a ways off, Vonda and Lori say this is the moment: late February is the flower shop's reset. In this episode they talk through what a reset actually looks like — for your shop, your team, and the too-many tabs open in your brain.
Permission to breathe
Between Valentine's week and ice storms that knocked out water and power, plenty of shops closed early or stayed home — and the hosts say that's okay. One Flower Clique member, Abby, went live on Instagram from her couch, karaoke microphone in hand, declaring she was not getting up: her shop was closed, it was gross outside, and she was staying home with her little girl. The number one thing is keeping your employees and drivers safe, and several owners told the hosts it was the first time in twenty years they'd been home on Valentine's evening. Glass half full: sometimes the reset gets handed to you.
Reset the shop — and debrief the holiday
A reset looks different depending on where you stand in the shop. As a designer, it means stepping away from production arrangements and making something beautiful just because. In the front room, it means tearing apart the tired displays and rebuilding them fresh. And as an owner, Vonda and Lori both push for a post-holiday staff meeting — not just "good job, guys," but a real debrief. Vonda shares three questions she learned from Dan Fisher of Fitz Design: What did we do right? What could we have done better? What can we do moving ahead? Don't over-critique — name the wins too. And include everyone, especially new employees whose fresh input you haven't heard yet. Lori did the same thing as a youth group leader, meeting the Monday after every retreat to write down "the good, the bad, and the ugly" so next year's team wouldn't repeat mistakes.
The mind dump: closing your mental tabs
The hosts joke that they always have too many tabs open — on their computers and in their brains. Lori's fix comes from her reading on resetting your brain: the mind dump. Set a timer for 10 or 15 minutes, grab a blank page (pen and paper for Lori), and write everything in your head until you've exhausted it — no grammar, no commas, no editing. Then sort it: knock out the five-minute items (unload the dishwasher, send that email), separate actionable items from non-actionable feelings, and flag what's time-sensitive or tied to a date. Vonda keeps a tabbed notebook — projects for later, things to do in the next 24 to 48 hours — so each item lands in the right place and gets out of her head. As Lori points out, one giant tab has been open in their own brains for over a year: Sales Prep School, which now has an official launch date of March 16.
The checklist that saved 1,500 lives
Lori's favorite reset insight comes from a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine: in 2004, nine Michigan hospitals implemented a simple five-step checklist — the Keystone ICU project, led by physician Peter Pronovost — for avoiding infections when placing central lines. Wash hands, clean the skin with antiseptic, drape the patient, wear sterile gear, dress the catheter site. Nothing doctors didn't already know. No new machines, no consultants. Just a printed list, physically checked off every time. It saved an additional 1,500 lives.
Vonda immediately connected it to her days flying a single-engine plane, where the pre-takeoff checklist was non-negotiable — accidents trace back to skipped steps. And the flower shop parallel writes itself: everybody knows how to process flowers, but at the end of a long day with the phone ringing, steps get skipped, flowers don't last, and the customer pays for it. As the article Lori quoted puts it, "everybody already knows that" is very different from "everybody already does that." You don't always need a new strategy — sometimes you just need to do more of what already works.
Key takeaways
- Late February is the florist's January — take your reset now, before Mother's Day season builds.
- Debrief every holiday with your team: what did we do right, what could be better, what do we do moving ahead?
- Do a mind dump: timer, blank page, write everything out, then sort by quick wins, actionable items, and time-sensitive tasks.
- Put your known processes on physical checklists — knowing the steps isn't the same as doing them.
- A reset doesn't always mean something new; often it means returning to what already works, done completely.
Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
Real Life Retail Florist