Vonda and Lori ask, "Who will you be, post Covid-19?"
Recorded over Saturday-morning coffee in a week when every day ran together, this episode asks a question most shop owners haven't slowed down enough to consider: not what your business will look like after the pandemic, but who you want to be as a business owner on the other side of it. Vonda and Lori turn a season of anxiety into a planning exercise — because if we can control this one little part of our world, it might just take some of that anxiety away.
A letter that says it all
Vonda opens with a message from Flower Clique member Bonnie Roberts, owner of Bonnie's Floral Boutique in Henderson, Nevada. After weeks of uncertainty, Bonnie got city approval to open for delivery only — and she was so excited she couldn't sleep. After 34 years, she couldn't imagine missing Mother's Day. But the letter held something deeper: time at home helped her finally see what her husband really does every morning before the wholesaler, and she wrote that she'd "enjoyed the time the Lord has given us to pause and shift." That word — pause — becomes the theme of the whole conversation.
Values first, business second
Lori shares the quote that sparked the episode: if you have a real knowledge of what's important to you now, it can guide your decisions and priorities in the future — and you'll probably be happier as a result. The exercise she lays out starts with setting all the business stuff aside and writing down your personal core values. What are you missing right now? Time with your kids, your aging parents, your spouse, heart-to-heart conversations with best friends? There's no right or wrong answer — Vonda points out that some parents are actually better parents in focused blocks of time than in all-day marathons, and that's a value system too.
Then audit the business against them
Once your values are on paper, look at your day-to-day operations and notice what you're relieved not to be doing. If weekend weddings make you miserable because they eat the family time you value most, hand them to a team member who loves them, rebrand that side of the business — or, as Vonda did at her shop in Dixon, Illinois, merge the two by bringing your kids along to help set up. Several shops are having lightbulb moments about square footage: why pay for a huge showroom when ten people walk in a day? One owner Lori spoke with is now exploring shrinking his showroom and adding a coworking space that generates rent without generating work. Vonda also raises the harder question: if a certain employee's absence has quietly lowered your stress level, what does that tell you about who should be there when you reopen?
Busy is not a value
Lori calls out the badge-of-honor busyness so many owners wear. If your priority is looking indispensable, but your busyness never results in anything, your priorities and values are out of alignment. She even retires her own multitasking brag after reading that neurologically we don't multitask at all — we task-switch, and we do none of it well. The goal isn't even "happy," the hosts agree; it's contentment, which you can carry through any mood.
The shop owner who found her plan
The episode's best proof: a Flower Clique member who had been trying to sell her shop for ages emailed with the subject line "I have a plan." The downtime showed her she loves the industry — she just didn't love the way she was doing it. Now she's cutting her footprint roughly in half, investing in her website and social media, and her daughter is excited about the business again.
Key takeaways
- Ask what's important to you now versus pre-shutdown — write down your values and your priorities, and notice what you're missing and what you're not missing at all.
- Bring the two into alignment: delegate or eliminate the parts of your business that drag you down, and rethink big fixed costs like square footage.
- Start now, not when you reopen — practicing new habits today builds the "momentum for the future" that's the antidote to feeling stuck and down.
- Aim for contentment over constant happiness, and stop treating busyness as proof you matter.
Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
Real Life Retail Florist