What Is Flower Clique, Really?
Every convention, symposium, and trade show, the same question finds Vonda and Lori: "So... what is Flower Clique, anyway?" This week they call a meeting to answer it once and for all, and they bring in two of their favorite coworkers to help: Ellie LaFever and Kami Martin, director of the One Clique program. What follows is the clearest picture yet of what the company actually does — and why it's so hard to sum up in one sentence.
The why behind Flower Clique
Before the what, Vonda insists on the backstory. She grew up in the flower shop — washing buckets, processing flowers, learning to design, earning accreditation, managing, and eventually owning her own shop — so she knows firsthand how hard it is not just to get everything done, but to give your best to every area of the business. Over and over she heard the same frustration from shop owners: profitability. Too many weren't taking a paycheck. When she dug deeper, it often traced back to one thing — stock images on the website with prices that were never adjusted. The fix seemed simple: create trendy, easy-to-reproduce designs priced with profit and perceived value in mind. But owners didn't have the time or the technical know-how to keep a website updated, and new people entering the industry needed education. Flower Clique exists to come alongside shop owners, take weight off their shoulders, and help them not just survive but thrive. Lori's answer when she's asked at a show is cheekier: "What do you want it to be?" — because whatever a florist's pain point is, there's probably something the team does that can help. Her fuller version: think of Flower Clique as behind-the-scenes employees you hire. They don't host your website — they enhance it and merchandise it seasonally, provide online customer service training, supply ready-to-go email and social marketing, and offer a community of shop owners with a safe space to vent.
Three things Kami's team does to a website
As director of the One Clique program, Kami hears "what will you actually do for my website?" constantly. Her answer comes down to three things. First, simplify the inventory. Most florist websites have far too much product — endless flowers and containers with no crossover to what's actually in the cooler — which makes same-day delivery of what a customer just ordered nearly impossible. Customers are trained by two-hour delivery windows to expect exactly what they clicked. Simplifying and creating crossover makes that deliverable. Second, increase the average order value. Instead of a site full of $39 and $49 designs, merchandising puts profitable designs in front of buyers. Third, make sure those designs are profitable — Vonda's department — so nothing is underpriced or undervalued. It all connects to one of the company's founding goals: ending "it didn't look like the picture." Recipes designed to be reproduced, plus sales training on how to professionally offer substitutions, mean the customer gets what they expected — or a well-handled conversation when they can't.
Your homepage is a menu
Ellie's domain is the visual side, and her answer to "why does product photography matter so much?" is blunt: the photos are the product online. They're your salesperson. Dark, dated, or unclear photos tell customers your designs are dark, dated, and unclear. That's why membership includes fresh, on-trend, professional imagery for every season and holiday — a homepage designed to convert, with something at every price point, palette, and size. Kami's favorite analogy: the homepage is a restaurant menu, and customers really do use it that way — they'll call the shop with the website open and say "I love Postcard from Tuscany, but can you do it around $79?" It happens with sympathy work too: families rarely add a casket spray to a cart, but they study the sympathy gallery like a menu before they call. Same with the wedding gallery — a bride mostly needs to see that you do weddings, so she'll fill out the consultation form and let you design her dream wedding. As Kami tells new members worried that "it's not my work": it's a marketing tool, and your own professional photography can be added alongside it.
Don't be invisible
Asked for the biggest digital-footprint mistake florists make, Ellie doesn't hesitate: being invisible. Google hours that say you're closed when you're open, a website link that's wrong, a Facebook page last updated at Valentine's Day when it's now September — customers move on instantly. Lori admits she checks a shop's social media before its website, and if the last post is months old she invents a whole story about the shop's dysfunction, fair or not. Vonda pushes back — with two employees, posting is genuinely hard — which is exactly where the service comes in: two Facebook posts a week, a weekly Google Business post (good for SEO), and proactive check-ins about holiday hours and delivery service areas, which a surprising number of florists never list. Is it SEO? Yes — in a dozen small, compounding ways. The episode closes with the education arm: Sales Prep School and Flower Prep School (built to take a delivery driver to a basic designer), and the sympathy course with Vonda, Julie, and Abby that makes casket sprays less scary for new designers and still teaches seasoned ones something new. Members get a steep discount, and every course is yours forever. Ellie's one-line summary — borrowed for every AIFD conversation: we remove the overwhelm for retail florists. Curious? Book a no-obligation Flower Clique discovery call.
Key takeaways
- Profitability problems often start with stock images and unadjusted prices — sell designs priced with profit and perceived value in mind.
- Simplify your online inventory so what's on the website matches what's in the cooler; fewer, better products beat the endless scroll.
- Treat your homepage like a restaurant menu: something at every price point, merchandised to raise average order value.
- Photos are your online salesperson — dark or dated images cost you orders before the phone ever rings.
- Audit your visibility today: Google hours, delivery service areas, and a social feed that shows an active, thriving shop.