Weathering the storm ⛈ of forced changeYvette

In January I wrote a post about the floristry industry being recession-proof, which I still stand by today. That doesn’t mean your business will be recession-proof but the industry will. How can you be one of the survivors? There is no doubt there will be casualties in all industries, and I predict a great deal of them to be within the floristry sector. How could I say such a negative thing? Because I’ve seen it before, over the past 30 years I’ve witnessed waves of good times where flowers, florists and clients have been plentiful. On the flip side, I’ve also witnessed multiple downturns, scarcity in blooms, jobs, and clients. Yet this current, or should I now refer to as ‘previous high’ was the biggest I’ve seen. Equally, I have yet to be apart of a downturn to the extent that is hitting us smack in the face today. So if the casualties where there in the past you can be sure they will be here in abundance today and in the coming months. 

So why do some businesses crumble never to be seen again and what makes others survive and the few thrive? 

Is it just the luck of draw? Hell No! It ain’t nothing to do with luck. It’s all about execution, you must learn how to ride the waves of change and weather the storm, be agile and pivot, pivot and pivot some more. This is where your creativity comes into play, less about the flowers and more about strategy. Allow your mind to be creative by allowing yourself to be excited by the changes rather than scared. For me, this is where the true secret lies. Those who get stuck and bogged down in fear will cut off their flow of creativity. In turn, this cuts off the mind to see new possibilities, opportunities and a connection to their soul purpose, ‘your why’! 

For too long now many businesses have been riding on the coattails of others, whilst others have just been getting by doing the same old thing. The first group that we will refer to not so kindly as ‘copy cats’ do exactly as the name suggests. They see a creative business doing their thing and think wow that’s a winner, it can’t be that hard, I’m going to do that too. Whilst the original florist coming up with original ideas has to continually keep adapting and changing to stay fresh and original in her/his designs. The copy cats simply wait, watch and you guessed it, copy. Often the copy cat offers a lower price and markets directly to the original florists’ clients. Let’s come back to the story of the copy cats later on… Remembering there is another type of business I mentioned who did the same old thing. This type of business has been in existence for a very long time, some of them have even survived previous storms. Change is a word that makes them shudder and I like to refer to them as ‘Dinosaurs’. The dinosaur is often the only florist in the area, they often display a faded ‘Interflora’ logo and sometimes the customer service is old school lovely and sometimes it simply is not. 

“Jack be nimble, Jack be quick”  would be a great mantra for any of these business owners to adopt right now, sadly though we know many of them will not. But why? What makes them so different?  I wholeheartedly believe it’s their mindset and how they have trained it. Not everyone was brought up to believe that change is good, in fact, it makes us all feel uncomfortable. We work so hard to create things in one environment and often don’t consider the consequences of that environment changing.  Many people will survive this by hanging in tight and utilizing savings, they are often the people who can learn to live simply or frugally. But these people will not thrive and it’s my prediction that at the end of this storm they just might be our new dinosaurs. The ones I’m excited about are those who embrace change they will not merely survive, they will thrive. So how do they do this? Again it’s all in the mindset, this does not mean they will not feel pain and sadness for society as a whole, in fact, they possibly will feel it so much it will inspire them to keep moving with their mission. The mission is a very important part, you must be driven to serve others and not just yourself. This is the juice, that one necessary ingredient that allows you to be supported by the universe. This where those that will watch, the ‘copy cats and dinosaurs’ this is, and they will say “look at all the luck you had, it’s not fair blah blah blah”. This is when they will refer to themselves as ‘victims’ and we will refer to them as ‘casualties’ 

• Learn to train yourself to thrive on change and enjoy the unknown 
• Listen to what your clients and the world needs so you can pivot sooner rather than later 
• Look after yourself mentally, emotionally & physically it’s a survival of the fittest in every meaning of it
• Believe in yourself and the universe 
• Be creative in all areas inc. marketing 
• Be quick 
• Be nimble 
• Be unashamedly YOU 

Notice my suggestions above are mainly to ‘be’ as opposed to ‘do’. This is because who you are about to BEcome is linked by the extent of how much you will evolve, grow and ultimately thrive. Lean into the discomfort. Stand strong yet flexible, keep your heart open as much as your mind and know we are all in it together, how you come out the other side is entirely up to you. 

I see a lot of posts lately that show flowers being bulldozed, with a message that instills fear into the reader such as ‘buy flowers or our industry will not survive!’  I can’t see this as a positive or sustainable way forward. The fact is the Industry will survive as a whole. We need to inspire people to have flowers in their lives by promoting the various ways in which they will benefit personally and the community as a whole, not our industry. Sending them messages of fear and shaming them into buying will not work, it might keep the dinosaurs in existence but will not be the strong foundations we need moving forward to form a higher quality and sustainable industry. 

Times such as this have previously been described as ‘a clearing of the deadwood’, don’t be the deadwood.

May you grow, prosper, inspire, thrive and be a new sprout ready to blossom in the coming season. 

I invite you to stay connected with me and other like-minded florist professionals in our private Facebook as we navigate this new challenge forcing us to grow or shrivel up, the choice is yours.  If you would like to stay connected please be in the group each Monday for our LIVE Q&A sessions at 12noon. 

With gratitude, love & blooms,

Yvette x