Who's Open To Trying Something New? What's Holding You Back?
Fresh off a week in Des Moines — a photo shoot, a historic hotel with a very loud train, and a sympathy design program at the Bill Doran Company — Vonda and Lori tackle a question that comes up constantly with Flower Clique members: when a new, trendier product shows up, why do some shop owners say "let's try it" while others dig in their heels? The answer, they decide, comes down to three things: emotion, money, and fear.
A tale of two florists
The team recently added a couple of trendier designs to member websites — tote bags and a sheep bud vase among them — and the reactions tell the whole story. Member Paul, a florist as seasoned as anyone in the industry, was hesitant at first: they won't sell, I'll keep mine traditional. He put the totes on his website anyway — and sold one that very day. He made a point of telling Vonda in person, and his wife said she was proud of him for trying something new.
Then there's Derek (Lori teases him to his face, and hopes he's listening), whose wife Liz is begging him to put the new designs on their website. He's half Paul's age — "but he acts like he's 150," Lori laughs — and he won't even try it.
What's actually holding people back
Vonda breaks the resistance into a chain reaction. First comes the emotional decision — that knee-jerk "nah, I don't like it," which is really making the decision for your customers based on your own taste. That feeds the financial decision — "I don't want to invest in something that might not sell." And underneath both sits fear.
Lori adds mindset to the list, going back to the book she read a decade ago: some of us are simply wired open or closed. And she concedes that some fear is earned. Derek is a third-generation florist who helped clean out his grandfather's barn and found pallets of sale-priced products that never sold — of course he doesn't want to be stuck with bud vases. But as Vonda points out, nobody's asking him to buy a pallet. You don't have to commit to more than six.
The conversation that sticks with Lori came from a brand-new member who saw the totes and sheep bud vases and immediately said, "I'd have those removed — I know my customers." When Lori asked why, she couldn't answer; she actually liked them. So Lori talked through the business case: they're grab-and-go, low labor, inexpensive to make, and carry a high profit margin. One Virginia shop buys the totes in volume just to use as flower carriers and high-end gift bags. By the end of the call, the member wanted to keep them.
Every website needs one "wow, that's interesting"
Lori recalls the first time she met designer Jenny Thomason at a Houston Florists Association event years ago. When an attendee pointed out that her inspirational artwork wasn't something an everyday florist would sell, Jenny agreed — then said every shop and every website should have at least one conversation piece. Customers may not buy it, but it makes them stop, think "look what they can do," and remember you when they want something different.
Vonda ties it back to the Flower Shop of the Future program she was part of at AIFD in 2018: keep one striking piece in your store or on your social media to draw a new audience. The fear of alienating everyday customers is understandable, but the hosts have seen the opposite: changing up the website increases traffic, because fresh is intriguing. Case in point — members recently sold "Total Eclipse of the Sun" designs for the eclipse, and designers like Jenny and Renee Tucci made wonderfully Instagram-worthy versions. Even if a shop only sold a few, it made people smile — and signaled "this is the creative shop I'll call."
Lori sums it up with a Simon Sinek line on failure: the only people who fear it are those who've never tasted it. If you've tried, flopped, and survived, you know it's okay. It echoes last week's mantra: you're either winning or you're learning — and if you think you're always winning, you're not learning anything.
A night of sympathy design (and why it mattered)
The Des Moines trip wrapped with a two-hour sympathy program at Bill Doran wholesale — the first show there in about eight years (the last one, it turns out, was a wedding show Vonda did, with her granddaughters as tiny flower girls). Fifty people came out on a Tuesday night, including seven Flower Clique members and their employees. Vonda and Julie demonstrated designs and mechanics — two seasoned designers deliberately showing different approaches so attendees could pick what works for them — while Lori and Ellie handled sales-and-marketing "intermissions," including empathy versus sympathy.
The moment that nearly choked Lori up: when she asked how many in the audience love sympathy work and take it seriously, every single hand went up. Why? Because it's the last request — the final tribute a florist gets to create for someone's life. Families who come in for funeral flowers are storytellers, and the best florists sit back, listen, and never hurry them.
Key takeaways
- Resistance to new products is usually emotion, then money, then fear — name which one is stopping you.
- Don't decide for your customers based on your own taste; test small. Six units, not a pallet.
- Trendy items like totes can be low-labor, high-margin, and multi-purpose.
- Put at least one "wow, that's interesting" piece on your website or in your shop — it's a magnet for customers who want creative.
- This Mother's Day, challenge yourself to feature one thing you normally wouldn't.