Time and Patience: The Struggle is Real
This week Vonda and Lori share a presentation they recorded for the Illinois State Florist Association — back to Vonda's old stomping grounds, even if COVID kept the visit virtual. The topic hits every shop owner where they live: time and patience, and the struggle is real. After a 2020 spent entirely in reactive mode, the hosts lay out how to get proactive, figure out where you're truly valuable, and delegate the rest without losing your mind — or your love for the business.
From reactive to proactive
Vonda's picture of proactive thinking is the fire inspector. When he shows up right before the holidays and flags your extension cords, it feels like he's stealing time you don't have — but if he finds nothing, it means you're safe. Being proactive now costs less than being reactive later. The reactive version of shop life sounds familiar: sell out and figure it out later, not knowing what's on your own website, promising an arrangement and planning a quick run to the wholesaler. Pre-COVID, shops had the luxury of that — a couple of wholesaler runs a day could patch any gap. With flower, container, and supply shortages, that world is gone. Proactive means knowing what's selling, knowing what inventory can replace what, and making sure everything on your website matches what's actually in your cooler — and pulling off anything that doesn't, so customers are never disappointed.
Go back to your why — and find your three things
So many owners are so busy doing everything — wholesalers, scheduling, employees who haven't come back — that they wake up dreading the shop and forget why they hung the "open for business" sign in the first place. The hosts' exercise: without overthinking (you get about 30 seconds), answer this three times — if you could do one thing in your business all day long, what would it be? Those three answers are where you bring the most joy, the most value, and your best work. Ask yourself: where do I bring the most value to my team? What am I best at? What do I love most? Everything else on the list — the other thirteen or fourteen time-consuming jobs — is what you learn to hand off. Because if you let those consume 2021 the way they consumed 2020, you'll end up hating a business you once loved.
The result is the focus, not how it was achieved
Here's where control issues show up. Maybe you love designing — and so does a designer on your staff who's just as good, only different. Vonda admits she builds a display in a strict A-B-C-D-E order; someone else might jump A to C. Her hard-won rule, worth writing on a Post-it in the design room: the result is the focus, not how it was achieved. If the arrangement is beautiful, the customer is happy, and it happened in a timely manner, let it go. The one caution: if your arrangement takes 20 minutes and theirs takes 45, that's a productivity issue — and it deserves a one-on-one conversation, not silent resentment.
Delegate wisely: the secret sauce
Look at your team's actual strengths. The employee glued to their cell phone? Empower them to run your social media posts — with steps, guidance, and your approval. The detail-oriented one becomes quality control at the delivery table. And don't just guess: sit down one-on-one with each team member and ask, "Where do you feel you bring the most value to our store?" You may be surprised — the great phone person may be dreaming of becoming a designer. People want to be heard, and nurturing that answer is how you grow your team.
Then mentor with clear expectations. Most employees fail because they didn't know what was expected of them. Lori's image is teaching a kid to ride a bike: you run alongside holding the seat, you let go when they're ready, you pick them up when they fall — and eventually you're watching from the window, letting them solve their own wobbles. Mentoring takes time up front, but it's short-term time that buys back the long-term hours those thirteen tasks were eating. And if your patience runs thin — like when Vonda and her friend Aleen took turns teaching Lori to make a greens nest — hand the mentoring to someone else on staff. That's not failure; that's knowing your shortcomings.
Free your time for joy, not more stuff
One last warning about time management: the goal of delegating isn't to free up hours just to refill them with more tasks you don't want. It's to make room for what brings you joy — growing the business, family, lunch with friends. And delegating something you love doesn't mean never doing it again. One very successful owner they know delegates deliveries all week, then rewards herself with one delivery afternoon — windows down, Starbucks in the cupholder — because she knows her value is elsewhere but her joy is on the road. Like eating healthy all day and getting dessert at night.
Key takeaways
- Shortages ended the reactive era — know your inventory, your substitutions, and keep your website matched to your cooler.
- Answer fast, three times: what would you do all day if you could? Those are the tasks to keep; delegate the rest.
- Judge delegated work by the result, not by whether it was done your way.
- Ask every team member where they feel most valuable — then mentor them into it with clear expectations and regular check-ins.
- Free your time for what brings you joy, and reward yourself with the delegated tasks you still love.
Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
Real Life Retail Florist