Episode 4: Valentine's Day! It's Time to Rally Your Team!
Whoever built the calendar — the Mayans or Hallmark, Lori jokes — clearly wasn't thinking of the floral industry. Valentine's Day is barreling toward your shop, with Mother's Day right behind it, and this episode is about the thing that will make or break the holiday: your team. Vonda and Lori's goal is to transform the days of chaos into organized chaos — and to make it as fun as possible along the way.
You're the head cheerleader
Lori grew up on teams — sports, cheerleading, coaching — and her rule holds in a flower shop just like on a field: you win as a team and you lose as a team. As the owner, you're the captain who sets the pace and the standard for holiday season. (Vonda's team credentials: bench warmer for the Nevada Cubs basketball team, and softball manager keeping the stats — because even at 14 she was choosing the flower shop over practice.) If you're a hands-off owner, Lori says you have two choices: be present more and genuinely know your people, or make sure you have a great manager who can be that leader for you.
Vonda sketches just how many moving parts a Valentine's team has: flower processors, designers and design assistants, sales staff on the phones and the floor, the people running arrangements to the delivery table and refilling the cooler, the logistics person routing deliveries, wrappers for bad weather, drivers, runners. Every one of those roles has to mesh — like a quarterback's huddle where each player knows not just their own assignment but where everyone else will be.
Create a sense of community
Lori builds the episode around Daniel Coyle's book The Culture Code, which defines culture as a set of living relationships working toward a shared goal. Coyle's first trait of successful leaders: they create community, what he calls psychological safety. When employees feel safe, valued, and needed — not just by the boss but by their coworkers — they're more productive, because they want to contribute to something they belong to. The floral industry already has a head start here: as Vonda notes, it's the one industry where everyone from AIFD events to the wholesale house talks about their "floral family." Build that same feeling inside your four walls.
Let them see you fail
Coyle's second trait is harder: your employees need to know it's okay to fail — and the best way to teach it is to model it. Vonda tells the story of a spring open house at her shop: big buildup, advertising, staff working a Saturday afternoon... and almost nobody showed. In the end they all laughed about it together — and Lori's point is that the flop probably brought the team closer, because the owner tried something, failed, and owned it. Saying "I don't know how to do this — can anyone help me?" gives everyone else permission to ask questions too. Lori backs it up with Brené Brown's Dare to Lead: people bring their whole selves only in a culture where they feel safe, seen, heard, and respected — including the student who works ten hours a week after school.
A related habit Vonda learned working with Dan Fisher of Fitz Design: after every class — and after every major holiday in her shop — ask two questions. What did we do right, and what could we do better? Lori's addition: hold a relaxed recap a couple of days after Valentine's, while it's fresh, and keep a binder of what went well and what to change for next year.
Rally the troops around one goal
Everyone needs to get behind the same goal — which means the leader has to actually name it. Manage expectations: each person should know their responsibility and where to go next when their station slows down. Start with your story — last year's win ("we knocked it out of the park, remember?") or last year's lessons. Give the team skin in the game: let designers pitch the Valentine's special, let sales staff vote on which one they can sell and how many. People take ownership of what they helped decide.
One last practical tip for holiday week: assign a floater — someone intuitive who monitors the mental state of the team. When the person who was in the shop until 11 p.m. is scowling at customers the next morning, someone needs to tap them out for five minutes before a tired moment becomes a bad review.
Key takeaways
- Culture is a set of living relationships working toward a shared goal — and it starts at the top.
- Make every employee feel safe, seen, and valued; psychological safety drives holiday productivity.
- Model failure and vulnerability — "I don't know, can you help?" is leadership, not weakness.
- Name the goal, tell the shop's story, and give the team skin in the game on specials and sales targets.
- Hold a post-holiday recap: what did we do right, what could we do better — and write it down for next year.
Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
Real Life Retail Florist