Overcoming Business Challenges with Positive Perspective
Are people really not spending this year — or did we just decide they weren't? Between Christmas shopping updates and tinsel-free banter, Vonda and Lori tackle one of the most important conversations a shop owner can have in a slow season: how the stories we absorb about the economy become the stories our businesses live out. It starts with a picked-clean Target and a 1991 newspaper clipping about a hot dog vendor.
The hot dog vendor who talked himself out of business
Vonda went to her local Target on December 9 and found bare shelves — five boxes of Christmas cards left, ornament aisles nearly empty. Whatever the headlines say, people are out there buying. Which set up the story she shared in that week's members-only marketing webinar: an old parable from a 1991 Oklahoma newspaper. A man sold very good hot dogs by the side of the road. He put up signs, ran newspaper ads, called out to passersby — and people bought. Business grew until his college-educated son came home and told him there was a big depression on, that the foreign situation was terrible and the domestic situation worse. So the father cut his orders, took down his signs, canceled the ads, and stopped calling out to customers. Sales collapsed almost overnight. "You're right, son," he concluded. "We certainly are in the middle of a Great Depression."
Vonda rewrote the parable for florists: a shop that once collaborated with local businesses, sponsored school events, held open houses, and posted its work everywhere — until discouraging retail forecasts zapped its energy. The owners dropped their community involvement, stopped posting, went quiet. And then it was like they were invisible. The phone hardly rang, customers drifted to another shop, and — just as forecasted — sales fell with no break in sight. As Vonda puts it: we can sell flowers all day, but if we don't let others know what we have, it's over.
Same-size shops, opposite outcomes
Lori sees the parable playing out in real time. Watching shop owners across the industry — similar mid-size shops, three to five employees, a couple of designers and drivers — some are absolutely thriving with weddings, events, everyday work, and holiday decorating, while others are in genuine fear of closing their doors. The variable she keeps coming back to isn't location or size. It's mindset and perspective: who tuned out the fear-mongering and kept showing up, and who let the noise win.
Neither host wants to sound like Pollyanna, and they say so. Real challenges exist, and being a realist matters — maybe staffing genuinely needs to be reevaluated, maybe a pivot is due. But don't lose hope, and don't lose the reason you started: you love flowers, you love to design, you love making people happy. When the energy drains away, dig in, turn off the news, and maybe log off social media for a while. And if you must scroll, skip the comparison game — those thriving-looking shops are only showing you pictures. You have no idea who's behind on their bills.
Your customers deserve a vote (and your artistry deserves a display)
Lori airs a pet peeve: florists — some of the most creative people on the planet — refusing to put something new on their website because they don't like it. When Flower Clique introduced flower totes, plenty of members initially wanted them gone; they went on to become a favorite, easy, profitable product. A stylist at Banana Republic stocks pieces she'd never wear because customers want them. Give your customers a choice instead of deciding for them.
And then there's the flip side: the showpiece that isn't supposed to sell. Lori recalls watching Jenny Thomason present at a Texas State Floral dinner over a decade ago, puzzled by a design with no obvious price point — until Jenny explained that it's the piece that makes customers walk in and say "oh wow." It may never sell; that's not the point. It shows off your gift, proves your shop is the expert, and reminds the customer they're in the right place — quality work worth a premium price. That belongs on your website too.
A Christmas perspective check
The hosts wrap with holiday advice worth taping to the fridge. With houses about to fill up with family, Vonda passes along wisdom from her daughter-in-law Erica: no one will know what you didn't check off your list. Wash the visible things, pace yourself, and let the rest go — because what people actually want is memories, time together, stories, and games. Nobody ever left a party muttering about baseboards. (Though Lori insists the dog hair does have to come off the couch.)
Key takeaways
- Negative forecasts become self-fulfilling when they convince you to stop marketing — don't take down your signs like the hot dog vendor.
- Similar shops are having wildly different seasons, and mindset is often the difference; tune out the noise and keep showing up.
- Be a realist, not a pessimist: evaluate real problems honestly, but protect the love of flowers that got you into this business.
- Stock what your customers might want, not just what you personally love — and keep a wow piece on display to prove your artistry.
- This Christmas, trade the to-do list for time with people. Memories are the point.