Teleflora and Team Floral

[BOSS]

It wouldn't make sense for me to spend precious marketing dollars for walk-in specials unless I felt like I have saturated the online/phone market .

All it takes is a couple hundred bucks for a nice sidewalk sign... if your location allows for one...

 

[lori042499]

I belonged to team floral and had to quit because I was blind during my stint...I raised my average sale from 50-75 and my average funeral from 100-75-100..I am about to concentrate and up these prices, it is a time thing, each and every year or each sale to repeats you go up a few dollars on them and amazingly it gets up there...Team floral generally will not sell you if your sales are below 300 or 350k a year, because it would be hard for you to keep up with it...I belong just long enough to know I run a really tight ship and other than increasing sales I am doing just fine...so now I am doing that..my cogs, facilities expenses and labor were below average flower shop expenses and on paper I was reaching better benchmarks than some shops taking in a million dollars a year..now if only I could get those sales..it is a slow slow process...I loved team floral but love my national strategic marketing class even better, I learned the anatomy of a marketing campaign and how to track and modify it for results...now i just need the motivation to start one and see where it takes me..

 

[FLOWERL8Y]

We have been with Team Floral for years. They DO REALLY have the best interest of independent flower shops in mind. You send them your numbers yes, but charts and graphs on the webinars are displayed in percentages only. They compare your shop with similar sized shops across the country. They do not share your financials with other florists or TF. Actually they work with florists who do too much wire in work to cut it back and to refuse unprofitable orders. They emphasize things like "it's never a good idea to advertize to get wire in work". They work to help you get orders on your own at 100%, get new accounts, increase your average sale, optimize your website, send direct mail and keep your COGS in line including your facilities and payroll. They advise shops when something they are doing doesn't seem to make sense.
I have to think the partnering with TF is simply to get more flower shops involved with their small business. It is a win win. Team Floral wants as many members to be profitable as possible and TF wants shops to stay in business so they have places to send their orders. It doesn't mean any of us have to take them if we cannot make money on them.
TF's new direction is to be the technical choice for florists because they know that is the direction the industry is going. No one is forcing any shop to use them.

 

[FLOWERL8Y]

maybe they meant marketing for walk in business is not profitable. I can see how that statement could be true for most of the industry. After all, if you have a limited marketing budget (like we all do) then you are going to choose to spend the money where flower customers are. Most of my new customers are shopping from home or work and looking at my website while they talk to me on the phone. It wouldn't make sense for me to spend precious marketing dollars for walk-in specials unless I felt like I have saturated the online/phone market .

This sounds to me more like what Dan and the guys at Team Floral probably meant.