Just a couple of things today...

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Rhonda

Rhonda

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Nov 1, 2002
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#1 was reading the FTD Newsletter which came in my statement...(first time in over a year I actually earned rebates??)..I read the comments on Vancouver Flower Company...hooray apparently more than a few of us knew of their bad reputation (Italo..good going)... And then in the Upcoming Events...April 9 & 10th...Spring Design Show in Bangor, ME I got my name in the newsletter, wow, that's a first !!
#2 In our state assocation newsletter was an excerpt from the Teleflora Blog. Seemed to be interesting to me...
"Sending orders is where the profit lies utilizing a wire service. Receiving orders should be limited to profitable arrangements and remarket those deliveries with a PROFESSIONAL mini catalog or marketing piece of beautiful flowers. Professional printing is important. Teleflora offers a large selection of products and services that you can find all on one statement. There have been arrangements added for lower prices. Let me know if there is a specific order that was not profitable so I may be able to look into it further please.....
Teleflora did not make computers popular. We are just trying to adapt and/or stay ahead of the market........If you do not change, the industry will change around you....."
This blog was written by the New England Teleflora Rep.
 
No matter how many times I've heard it, I have to laugh.

The philosophy of the WS has never changed. "Sending order is where the profit is. Receiving florists should be limited to profitable arrangements & remarket those deliveries with a PROFESSIONAL mini catalog or marketing piece of beautiful flowers."

This reminds me of an old classic study that has been done on mice, rats and chickens to study trained behavior. They took a chicken out of its surroundings were it had to find its food and put it in a large box. At one end of the box was two large buttons and a small trap door. The chicken quickly found out that if it pecked at the button on the right, a bell would ring and the trap door would open and food would come out. If the chicken pecked the button on the left, it would get shocked because it was standing on a small metal plate and when it stuck the wrong button the circuit was completed and electrical shock was provided. The chicken learned quickly which was the correct button and knew as soon as it pecked that button, it would get food.

The study even found that when they put the chicken back into it's own environment to find food for itself, it would always go back to the box and hit the button. They concluded the behavior had been altered and the chicken now found it easier to back to the box then to find food for itself.

This study is much like the relationship between the WS and the florists. The WS continues to stimulate trained behavior within florists by telling them about marketing to those receivers. They do it so often, that many florists believe it. It is just easier, isn't it? The bell rings and the florists runs to the printer to get fed with an order. They will even sell you literature that will help you chase that allusive recepient.Too bad they never told you how many orders you had to fill to get any payoff!! There are some awful skinny chickens around these days, but the florists keep going back to peck that same button, don't they??
 
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Griff said:
There are some awful skinny chickens around these days, but the florists keep going back to peck that same button, don't they??
Click to expand...

Some do...some don't...
Great analogy Griff...
 
CHR said:
Got a URL?
Click to expand...
No idea, I'm outta Teleflora as of last month and was never informed about any "blog" for Teleflora. Geez, that would be close to a message board of sorts wouldn't it... I have no clue, sorry. The story was reprinted from the blog.
 
first of a few found blog items regarding Teleflora

from footnoted.org:
There's no love lost this Valentine's Day between two of the nation's largest floral services. In its recent 10-Q, FTD Inc. (FTD) disclosed that Teleflora had filed a lawsuit against FTD on Dec. 30 claiming that FTD had hacked into Teleflora's floral delivery software. Most florists subscribe to either Teleflora or FTD, both of which provide proprietary computer networks that enable florists to deliver worldwide. The lawsuit, filed in San Jose, also claims that FTD sales representatives induced Teleflora florists to cancel their agreements with Teleflora and switch to FTD. In the Q, FTD, which later this month is expected to be taken private by Leonard Green & Partners, said it may file its own claims against Teleflora, a privately held firm. Teleflora is seeking "in excess of $5 million" as well as punitive damages and injunctive relief.
thought that was funny...two companies crying foul...sheesh
 
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As my friend (Jerry) in Illinois has said many times..

Keep sending in those checks (cheques). The lawyers thank you for it.
 
Theory on Chickens

Boss and anyone else that is reading this thread, I only brought up this old study because it dispel the theory that many florists are FWOAC as we so often suggest. Maybe the real problem is that so many florists were contacted by the WS at such an early part of their business life, that it became easy for the florists to not be able to think for them selves and rely only on the WS to tell them what ot do and what is right.

Afterall, if a local person waits for kids on the street corner and gives them free drugs to get them started and then begins to charge them for the same product until the kids are completely hooked, then who should you blame, the kid for being nieve or the person who sold the drug and knew what would happen?

Here's a simple number game that looks at marketing to the recipient on incoming wire orders. Let's say that a florist gets in 100 wire orders in a period of time and all are valued at $50 <$5,000 in business>. The total discount on these orders is approximately $1,400. Without investing any more money into these receipients and if you were able to get even 3% < a good direct mail program whould get 1-3 percent return> of them to purchase flowers, how many $50 orders would that 3% have to generate to pay back the $1,400? I'll make this easy. Figure that the $50 order should provide about $38 of gross profit.

The sad thing, we all know some florists that still believe this theory. So who do you blame, the florist or the WS?
 
Griff said:
So who do you blame, the florist or the WS?
Click to expand...

Not sure you can "blame" either... I see and think that it's amatter of not looking "outside the box" and not adapting to the changes that have taken place over the last...maybe 10 years...

When envisioned and started the WS's were FOR the benefit of the florist, it was not until greed and lack of florist involvement brought into play, changes that were not in the florists best interest.

Sure, marketing the recipient is a crap shoot at best, unless you can thru the recipient get to the original customer. I think this only works (at best) for orders going back to the same recipient in the future, however that said, depending on the marketing included, perhaps there is some merrit in changing that consumers actions the next time they order for anyone, and maybe they can be driven to any Real Florist instead of a gatherer.
 
This relates to what I brought up to my TF rep the last time I talked with him. He was telling me what a great opportunity incoming's were to market to that customer and make are real 100% local customer out of them. He didn't quite know what to say other than "good point" when i pointed out that poor old "aunt Susie or Grandma" receiving those flowers wasn't nessecarily a flower sender just because they were receiving flowers. You can gues what the response was to how about giving the receiving florist the name and address of the sender to market to was. Seems only fair. since on a dot con order the WS has the name, address, and phone number of both. Don'tyou think?

Have a great day ,
Bob
 
I blame the florist.

I'm sorry, but business owners are business owners because they want to think and act for themselves. Otherwise, they'd be working for someone else.

Everyday I have someone phone me or drop in the shop with the latest advertising gimmick or some new business model. Sure, I could believe them, then blame them when the efforts fail and I lose money ... Or, I could apply some wisdom and try to make the best decisions I can.

And then take responsibility for MY decisions.

I'm an alert, functioning human being, not a button-pecking chicken. :)
 
Infinite I agree with most of what you said but,

" ... in your drug analogy, blame the parents."

In that senaio of blaming, I could blame my parents for not teaching me to make sound business decisions now couldn't I. Would that be rediculous.
 
No ... ongoing drug-related behaviour as a child is much different from business related decisions as an adult.
 
I think that Griff presented this with the perfect analogy. Just like Pavlov’s dogs: Little “rewards†given infrequently keep the behavior going. I saw that same behavior from my “inherited†staff when I bought the business. They just jumped on those incoming orders. We had two WS and they seemed to live and die with the incoming. I, too was told to market the receiptant and we did. We kept good tack of it. We sent good-sized discounts for 4 months and less than 1% used them. It was not WORTH the cost in fees, etc to do this! I often wonder if many florists really have any business sense at all.

Judy
 
The answer to the math question is....

you'd need thirty-seven $50 orders generated from those original 100 incoming orders just to break even with the discounts previously granted. That means you need at least 37 percent of those 100 recepients to each give you a $50 order <and not a wire out> or if you want to use the 3% return factor, 12 ORDERS from each of 3 recepients and still be short by one order. Does anyone still believe this is a good rate of return or even doable??

Some of the blame probably does fall on the shoulders of the florists for not doing their homework, but the major share of blame rests soley on the WS. They did DO their homework and know exactly what these numbers are and yet continue to sell florists this as an economical way to to obtain new customers. The WS has continued with this sales pitch for years now. WS continue to sell themselves as providing the best business solutions for YOUR business. This is just another example how their solution benefits the WS and not the florists. While you are spending money chasing those receipents, the WS are spending YOUR money chasing your full value customers and trying to convert them into THEIR customers. It's your money. You can spend it however you see fit. If you continue to accept the concept of chasing the recepients, however, be aware that you will only please one entity - the WS!
 
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Griff said:
WS continue to sell themselves as providing the best business solutions for YOUR business. This is just another example how their solution benefits the WS and not the florists. While you are spending money chasing those receipents, the WS are spending YOUR money chasing your full value customers and trying to convert them into THEIR customers.
Click to expand...
So well said.

IMO, the most pernicious are the rebates paid to some of the successful order gatherers that employ 'by any means necessary' advertising tactics. In some cases, are these rebates not simply bounties earned for doing a good job of fooling consumers?

At the same time, local florists are pitched a large array of marketing products - co-op ads, direct mail services & websites - ostensibly to compete with these same gatherers; and large a selection of containers to be ready to fill for them.

I don't remember when the scale of it all finally hit me, but I do remember the sinking feeling - to this day.

Leona Helmsley famously said "only the little people pay taxes." In the WS world, "only the little florists pay for websites, receiving fees, directory ads, and a whole host of products and services."
 
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Good job Griff....

Griff said:
The sad thing, we all know some florists that still believe this theory. So who do you blame, the florist or the WS?
Click to expand...

I have continuosly laid "the blame" at the feet of the florist (who in this day and age had better be a business person FIRST)
IF you were to "backdate" this conversation ONLY 6 years, you'd find MOST florists with more than 2 WS's some with 6 and 7 JUST to get those "incomings", HOWEVER, the difference between THEN and NOW, is THE COST PER ORDER of thos incomings.
It was ONLY that long ago, when ws "membership fees" were peanuts compared to TODAY, and almost EVERY ORDER was f2f generated, and there WAS profit to be made...even on wire orders.....
Along comes the NEW CENTURY....consolidation is king, and the net bubble has burst, and there are now a WHOLE BUNCH OF LOSERS out there, that can't make a legitimate living at what THEY were doing, so they "target" an easily susceptible industry (WE ARE THE DORKS for making it this susceptible), and flip out "units" instead of orders, and call them "boxes" instead of "hand crafted" by skilled florists.
We are SO DORKEY for NOT ENFORCING CERTIFICATION...for NOT FORCING PROFESSIONALISM, so STUPID for buying goods and services from the SAME MORONS that deficated on our industry, and NOW, the "norm" by virtue of the fact that everyone is doing it, though it's wrong, is a much tougher task to enforce!!
I, like Ryan, have little good to say about what WE ALLOWED to happen!!
 
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