SAF Wednesday E-Brief
Aug. 12, 2015

SAF Elects New Leaders
By Jenny Scala
SAF members have elected nine members to positions on its Retailers, Wholesalers and Growers Councils. New council members begin their terms at the close of SAF Amelia Island 2015, SAF's 131st Annual Convention, Sept. 9-12 in Amelia Island, Florida. Results of the SAF board elections, which take place during the annual convention and via absentee ballot, will be announced on Sept. 12 at the association’s Annual Business Meeting during SAF Amelia Island 2015.

The newly-elected SAF Council members are as follows: 



Retailers Council:


Kaitlin Radebaugh
Radebaugh Florist & Greenhouses
Towson, Maryland


Michael Pugh
Pugh’s Flowers
Memphis, Tennessee


Rachael Martin
Ballard Blossom Inc.
Seattle

Wholesalers Council:


Oscar Fernandez
Equiflor/Rio Roses
Miami


Lee Sorensen
Design Master color tool, Inc.
Boulder, Colorado

Growers Council:


Mark Yelanich
Metrolina Greenhouses
Huntersville, North Carolina


Robert Kitayama
Kitayama Brothers Inc.
Watsonville, California


Jamie Kitz
Sakata Seed
Salinas, California


Diana Roy
Resendiz Brothers Protea Growers LLC
Fallbrook, California

The council members listed below are continuing their terms.

RETAILERS COUNCIL WHOLESALERS COUNCIL GROWERS COUNCIL More

Check Your Mail for SAF's Local Marketing Kit
By Jenny Scala

Along with two posters (above and below), SAF’s Marketing Kit includes exclusive member access to matching customizable print ads and fliers, web ads and Facebook graphics, how-to advice and promotional ideas available for download from safnow.org/kits. Matching postcards and statement stuffers are available for order.

SAF members should keep their eyes out for a big, bold and beautiful tool to promote everyday and special celebration flowers: SAF’s newest local marketing kit is on its way. In it are two new posters promoting flowers for everyday and special celebrations and tips for creating coordinated campaigns using matching materials available free online to members.

The poster headlined “Mood Changer” reinforces the positive impact flowers have on emotions as proven by Rutgers University. Everyday business is so important to local florists, said SAF’s Vice President of Consumer Marketing Jennifer Sparks. “Through this concept, we want to plant the seed in consumers’ minds on the happy emotions a gift of flowers bring,” Sparks said.

The second poster headlined, "Table for Two. Party of Six. Celebration of the Year,” features three monochromatic centerpieces against a dramatic black backdrop. “It is designed to promote centerpieces as the perfect touch for any occasion and shows how florists are key to any event, intimate or lavish,” Sparks said.

SAF’s marketing team worked with freelance designer Carol Caggiano, AIFD, PFCI, of A. Caggiano, Inc., in Jeffersonton, Virginia, who created the featured floral arrangements.

Caggiano used bright colors to paint “Mood Changer.” Hot pink roses, ‘Green Trick’ carnations, green cymbidiums, orange ranunculus with succulents casually grouped in a glass cylinder lined with variegated aspidistra make a perfect gift to send sentiments of congratulations, happy birthday, get well, or thinking of you, Caggiano said.


To illustrate “Table for Two,” Caggiano created casual groupings of reds — roses, tulips, mini gerberas, and mokara orchids — flanked by two loops of lily grass in a textured silver mercury glass container. “The arrangement itself would be perfect for a romantic dinner, sold in multiples for a longer table, or as an accent piece at a wedding such as on cocktail or coffee table, or in a lady’s room vanity,” Caggiano said.

Yellows dominate the “Party of Six” arrangement. Yellow callas, roses, ranunculus, poms, and cream carnations are casually grouped in a glass pedestal lined with fresh moss. “Dusty miller in the arrangement gives the yellow an upscale personality,” Caggiano said, “and sprigs of oncidium orchids give an air of height with openness.” This type of centerpiece would be ideal for weddings, birthday celebrations, corporate events or brunches.

For “Celebration of the Year,” Caggiano designed two tight bunches of purple callas, and placed the bunches stem-to-stem, evocative of an hourglass shape. She then collared the callas with cymbidium orchids and purple phalaenopsis, and submerged them in a tall clear glass cylinder. “This dramatic centerpiece would be perfect for a sophisticated wedding or corporate event,” Caggiano suggested.

Along with the posters, SAF’s Marketing Kit includes exclusive member access to matching customizable print ads and fliers, web ads and Facebook graphics, how-to advice and promotional ideas available for download from safnow.org/kits. Matching postcards and statement stuffers are available for order.

SAF’s consumer marketing programs and materials are possible thanks to SAF retail dues and voluntary contributions to the SAF Fund for Nationwide Public Relations by wholesalers, suppliers, importers and growers. Visit www.safnow.org/prfund or call (800) 336-4743 for information on how to support this important industry initiative.More

Learn How to Hire Top Talent and Inspire Them To Achieve Their Potential
By Katie Hendrick


Nearly 50 experts are speaking at SAF Amelia Island 2015, including Glenna Hecht, who will give tips for recruiting employees, and Tim Huckabee, who will give pointers for coaching your sales team.

Of all the pieces of your business, none is more important than your staff. It doesn't matter how beautiful your flowers may be; if your employees' performance is dismal, your sales numbers will be, too.

At SAF Amelia Island 2015, Sept. 9-12, you'll find hundreds of industry leaders and 48 expert speakers eager to offer their advice to get the best sales team possible. Two educational sessions, in particular, concentrate on how to attract (and retain) workers with the greatest potential, and what you can to do to make sure they continually meet it:

Those are just two of the 37 educational sessions and events taking place at SAF Amelia Island 2015. For details and to register, visit http://safnow.org/annual-convention.More

North Carolina Florist Saves Time, Money With 'Petite' Wedding Line
By Katie Hendrick
Once upon a time, the staff at Julia's Florist in Wilmington, North Carolina spent hours in sit-down consultations and extensive follow up with brides who wanted a la carte items, often for less than $1,000.

"I looked at our labor costs and realized profitability really went out the window [on smaller weddings] when we had a long consultation and then the brides went back and forth with my staff," said owner Dana Cook, AAF.

Something had to give. Cook didn't want to alienate this demographic of brides, but she couldn't let them deplete her resources.

The solution: a practical wedding book with an edited (but still special) menu. Cook called the effort "Petite Weddings by Julia."

The book makes it possible for any employee to step in as a wedding consultant, freeing up time for the lead designer to focus on higher-end affairs that merit more hand holding.

Floral Management contributing writer Mary Westbrook details the effort in this month's Hands On column. There you'll also learn:

Check it out here.More

4 Marketing Techniques that Consumers Completely Ignore
iMedia Connection
As marketers, we are often tempted with a myriad of potential tactics that we can adopt as part of our marketing campaigns. Whether it's a "quick fix" to get a larger audience or an unproven (or disproven) technique designed to boost engagement, these can waste your team's resources, frustrate potential customers, and simply fall flat and return no meaningful results. We are going to look at a few marketing tactics and techniques that consumers are not paying attention to. Some of these are incorrect usages of truly effective tactics and others have passed their prime.More

Brand-Building From the Inside-Out
By Randall Craig
How much does your organization spend on your brand? Usually, this question yields answers in the following categories: logo design, collateral production messaging and ads. For more sophisticated organizations, it also includes elements of social media. But what about the two fundamental delivery mechanisms of the brand itself: people and the online user experience?More

Chat Function Adds To Customer Experience for Florida Florist
By Katie Hendrick

Art Conforti, PFCI, of Beneva Flowers in Sarasota, Florida is using live chat to connect with the many customers who have questions about their flowers but would rather not talk on the phone.

The verdict is in: Most Americans would rather type it than say it.

According to the International Smartphone Mobility Report, Americans send and receive five times as many text messages as phone calls each day, spending about 26 minutes a day texting compared to about six minutes a day on voice calls.

Art Conforti, PFCI, observed this tendency in personal communications with friends and family and wondered how he might use it to improve business at his shop, Beneva Flowers in Sarasota, Florida. He looked at the websites of major retailers, such as Nike and Nordstrom, and noticed they all included a live chat function, allowing customers to ask employees — via text — about a product before buying.

"In the fashion industry, people want to know about fit and fabrics," he said. "In ours, they want to know exactly what flowers are in an arrangement, if they can make substitutions, how big the vase is, etc. And they don't necessarily want to dial the shop to find out," he said. "A lot would rather order online."

For $40 a month, Beneva Flowers is now among the companies offering live chat on his site.

"It's very popular," said Conforti, who estimates at least five customers take advantage of live chat each day. "Live chat's helping us connect with these customers in the manner they'd prefer. Florists have a lot of competition today and using technology can give us an edge."

For service providers, Conforti recommends LivePerson or Zopim.More

Enclosure Card Emphasizes Floral Design is an Art
By Katie Hendrick

Mandy Majerik, AIFD, PFCI, wants customers to know every one of her floral designers at Hothouse Design Studio in Birmingham, Alabama is a professional artist.

When customers in Birmingham, Alabama receive flowers from Hothouse Design Studio, they imagine a talented professional taking individual stems and turning them into a one-of-a-kind masterpiece.

That's because the shop's new enclosure cards bare the phrase "hand selected and arranged by _____________________," with the words "Floral Artist" below the blank line.

That small detail elevates the perception of what employees at Hothouse do — they engage in high-end, personalized designs rather than mass-produced pieces — and it appeals to customers' curiosity about the people behind the business. (A Fast Company feature story, "The Story Behind the Stuff," delves into consumers' interest in the people who make their goods, and how they do so.)

In a recent Instagram post, owner Mandy Majerik, AIFD, PFCI, showed off the new cards, which writes the shop name in a way that emphasizes specific letters ("H," "O" and "T"), conjuring other exclusive, luxury brands (Louis Vuitton, Fendi and Gucci, for instance).

"Branding is such an important part of your business," she said. "[These cards] definitely show that your floral arrangement is a custom work of art!"More

Lifestyle Host Gives SAF Member Powerful Plug
By Katie Hendrick

Julee Ireland, host of a segment called "It's a Glam Thing" on Sonoran Living, a lifestyle show on Phoenix's ABC affiliate, featured designs by Lux, the bridal brand of Arizona Family Florist, calling the shop the state's "premier wedding florist." Marketing and communications manager Eileen Watters credits the cover with good SEO practices.

LUX, the bridal branch of Phoenix's Arizona Family Florist, which won Floral Management's Marketer of the Year Award in 2012. FMSOct12 Feature 1 received a big nod in the local media last week.

Julee Ireland, host of a segment called "It's a Glam Thing" on Sonoran Living, a lifestyle show on Phoenix's ABC affiliate, featured a few wedding pieces by LUX and called the company "the premier wedding florist in Arizona." Ireland told viewers that Arizona brides who want their weddings to have "chic, celebrity style" should incorporate rich colors (specifically, "Marsala," the Pantone color of the year) FMFeb15 Fresh Choices and interesting textures (succulents, dahlias, etc.) — and they better go to LUX to get it.

Ireland sent the shop an email to see if they'd be interested in the exposure. "She was probably Googling wedding florists in Phoenix to find someone in close proximity to the station, then she went to our website and saw all the beautiful designs LUX has done," said Eileen Watters, Arizona Family Florist's director of marketing and public relations.

Ireland emailed the staff a list of specific ideas (like using "Marsala"-colored flowers) "and a bunch of Pinterest images for inspiration," Watters said. "The design team worked from that."

"We've had quite a few phone calls with brides wanting to schedule a consultation based on the segment. It was such awesome coverage!" Waters said, adding she wished she could take credit for it, "but this one just sort of fell in our laps!"

Catch the video here.More

BloomNation Featured on National Radio Show
By Katie Hendrick
Farbod Shoraka, David Daneshgar and Gregg Weisstein, three best friends behind the floral industry's latest floral network startup, got an opportunity to share their origin story and discuss their business plan recently with Kai Ryssdal, host of the Marketplace. Broadcasted on nearly 800 public radio stations nationwide, with an estimated 12 million listeners, it is the most widely broadcast program on business and the economy in the country.

BloomNation, founded in 2011, bills itself as an online platform in the model of Etsy, connecting florists and consumers without traditional gatekeepers, including wire services. It's been profiled in Fast Company, TIME magazine and Floral Management.

Listen to the interview here.More

4 Essentials for Being the Person People Remember Meeting
Entrepreneur
When meeting new people at business or networking events, you’ve probably noticed that some people make much stronger impressions than others. You’re more likely to have more favorable opinions of some and not others. You may wonder what makes some people so immediately memorable and others so instantly forgettable, and whether there’s some secret formula the former use to create such an effective impact.More

10 Inspirational Quotes from Women Business Leaders
Entrepreneur
By 2020, Alexander Hamilton's solemn face will be replaced on the $10 bill with the face of, yes, a woman. Will it be a woman from the world of business? There's no word yet on who it will be but she's sure to be awesome. More

How to Have the Perfect Flowers at Your Wedding
Vogue
Yes, Pinterest can get in the way. On his sixth visit to Australia as a guest of Wedded Wonderland, Jeff Leatham, florist to the stars and artistic director of the Four Season Hotel Georges V in Paris, tells Vogue how to choose the flowers for your wedding day. More

Top 10 Most Beautiful Ceremony Arbors
Colin Cowie Weddings
Your wedding arbor is the center of your ceremony — it's where you exchange vows, have your first kiss as husband and wife, and get some of the most memorable photos from your big day. Whether outside on the beach or inside of a ballroom, say your "I dos" in front of a ceremony structure that stuns. More

How to Improve Open Rates with this Simple Twitter Trick
Likeable Local
Have you ever sent an important email and wondered if the other person read it? Once you press send it's hard to determine what happens next. Maybe you end up in their junk folder or Gmail's promotions tab, or maybe, just maybe, you slip down their chaotic inbox as you form part of the white noise. More

5 Tactics to Make Your Emails More Interesting
MarketingProfs
When was the last time you were excited to take a look at your inbox? If you're like most people — including the people you market to — the answer is probably never. Let's be honest: Most emails are boring. Research backs that up: Social media tends to evoke "excitement" as the prevailing sentiment, but the first word that comes to mind for email is "productivity." Emails are a chore.More

Create a Charitable Protocol
By Katie Hendrick

Linda Pizzuti Henry and Ted Winston of Winston Flowers brought a flower demo to patients at Franciscan Hospital for Children.

Summer is in its waning weeks, and soon civic organizations will be resuming their monthly meetings and planning their fundraisers. That means you should be prepared for donation requests. You can maximize the good karma that comes with giving to a good cause, as long as you speak up.

Ask the organization how it communicates with its supporters. Is there a newsletter? Ask for a free ad or a sponsor listing. Making centerpieces for an event? Include a card saying “flowers courtesy of [your shop]” to sit beside them. Request to be listed on signage, press releases, etc. You’re contributing a living work of art; be sure you get value in return.

Click here to learn how three flower shops give heartily to charities without sacrificing their bottom line.More

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With this cost-effective company, you can:

ing your payroll taxes are compliant. SAF members save 15 percent on basic payroll processing and HR service setup fees. To find out more, call 800-729-2439 and mention code 5743, or visit paychex.com.More