Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / More Than Flowers: How Michael Jacobson Disrupted an Outdated Industry with French Florist

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More Than Flowers: How Michael Jacobson Disrupted an Outdated Industry with French Florist · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:05
  And flowers, I think are the single best gift that you could possibly give.
• 0:09
  They're like the most immaterial material gift that you could give somebody to tell somebody that you love them.
• 0:13
  I don't know any more powerful gift.
• 0:16
  Today I'm joined by Michael Jacobson, the owner of LA's largest flower shop, French Florist.
• 0:23
  From grinding through a soul sucking corporate job to rescuing a struggling family business and taking it from near closure to to over $9 million in annual revenue, Michael's story is truly one of a kind.
• 0:36
  He's transformed not just his company, but the entire floral industry.
• 0:41
  Pioneering new tech, shaking up marketing, and rewriting the rules on what customer experience really means.
• 0:49
  In this episode, you'll discover how to turn failure and setbacks into fuel for your biggest breakthroughs.
• 0:56
  The power of embracing risk and why relying on the fire in your belly outperforms overthinking every time.
• 1:04
  And real world lessons in supply chain optimization and scaling from a founder who's pushing the limits of what's possible even in one of America's oldest, most traditional industries.
• 1:16
  Whether you're an entrepreneur, a business builder, or just someone looking for that spark to level up, get ready.
• 1:23
  Today's episode is packed with actionable advice and inspiration to keep you moving forward even when things get tough.
• 1:31
  As always, if you found value from this content, please like and subscribe.
• 1:36
  All right, Michael Jacobson, welcome to Beyond Fulfillment.
• 1:39
  Thank you, Dave.
• 1:40
  Such a tremendous, wonderful.
• 1:43
  Dave.
• 1:43
  Sorry, normally we don't take.
• 1:45
  No, we don't need any cuts throughout the whole thing.
• 1:47
  Normally it's like 99.9.
• 1:49
  Good, let's read that intro.
• 1:50
  Okay, yeah, yeah, we'll just redo it.
• 1:52
  My girl will cut it at the end.
• 1:54
  All right.
• 1:54
  Yeah, right after you.
• 1:56
  Hey.
• 1:57
  All right, Michael Jacobson, welcome to Beyond Fulfillment.
• 2:00
  Awesome, Dave, thank you for having me.
• 2:01
  Appreciate it.
• 2:02
  Yes, sir.
• 2:03
  I've been looking forward to this conversation.
• 2:05
  So, Michael, you are the.
• 2:07
  The owner of LA's largest flower shop, French Florist.
• 2:13
  However, you've got a very interesting story there because once upon a time, not too long ago, that shop was struggling and on the brink of closure.
• 2:23
  So can you just walk us through how this journey started and how you got to where you are today?
• 2:28
  Yeah, definitely.
• 2:29
  If you asked me, you know, seven or eight years ago if I'd be doing this, I wouldn't be able to tell you one way or the other.
• 2:34
  Right.
• 2:34
  Life is unexpected in that way.
• 2:36
  I'm sure we all have experienced that.
• 2:39
  But the origin story, I wish it was a little bit more romantic.
• 2:43
  My Work in the floral industry is incredibly romantic, but the origin story is not.
• 2:49
  I feel like it's the similar story to a lot of other folks out there.
• 2:53
  I graduated college, I was working this wonderfully satiating corporate job under fluorescent lighting.
• 3:01
  I had to wear a suit every day.
• 3:02
  I had to shave every day.
• 3:03
  Right.
• 3:04
  It was, it was a wonderful experience.
• 3:07
  Sorry, my humor's a little dry.
• 3:08
  Like, it's.
• 3:08
  It was, you know, it's.
• 3:09
  It was not.
• 3:10
  It was soul sucking.
• 3:11
  Right.
• 3:11
  I feel like I.
• 3:12
  When I grew up and I was in college, it was a ton of fun.
• 3:14
  I had a lot of fire in my belly.
• 3:16
  Loved like the entrepreneurial spirit.
• 3:18
  But yeah, when I graduated college, you hear about the statistics of how many businesses fail.
• 3:24
  You know, the stats are real.
• 3:25
  I didn't want to become a part of that statistic.
• 3:27
  And so, yeah, I took this like, boring corporate job out of college and I lasted only about a year.
• 3:34
  I wanted to follow through with my commitment there, so I stayed a year and.
• 3:38
  But really I was looking at other opportunities, had my ear to the ground, right.
• 3:43
  And, and all.
• 3:44
  One day I was working my corporate job and my uncle called me and he said, mike, I've been running this florist for 38 years.
• 3:54
  I'm tired, I'm not making any money.
• 3:56
  I'm working six days a week, 60 hours, and it's time.
• 4:01
  I want to sell the business.
• 4:02
  My background is in finance.
• 4:04
  So I said, sure, like I'm happy to family, I'm happy to help keep my hands busy with something more interesting than my corporate job.
• 4:13
  It was a great company, it was a great job, but it wasn't like fulfilling my soul.
• 4:18
  And so I got involved and looked under the hood.
• 4:23
  I looked at his business.
• 4:25
  And when you go into sell a business, I think one of the normal things to do is go and look at comparables.
• 4:31
  So I went to other flower shops.
• 4:33
  What are they doing well?
• 4:33
  What are they not doing well?
• 4:36
  You know, all in an effort to help my uncle sell his shop.
• 4:38
  That was the intention and what I found that my uncle was struggling with some issues, but it wasn't isolated to him at all.
• 4:46
  All florists were struggling with very, very similar, if not the same exact issues.
• 4:52
  So I was like, whoa, there is a massive systemic issue in this entire industry, at least in the United States.
• 4:59
  And some of those problems are just supply chain issues, lack of technology, antiquated operating systems.
• 5:05
  There's big intermediaries, you know, like some of the dominant market players out right now.
• 5:10
  They, they take your order, they syndicate it to a local florist, but they take huge commissions.
• 5:14
  Right?
• 5:14
  That, that's not a model that needs to exist anymore.
• 5:17
  And I got really excited by that.
• 5:19
  There was a lot of, I hate to say I got excited by like pain, but there, there was a lot of pain in the industry and there still is today.
• 5:27
  And, but, but with that becomes the opportunity to solve some of that pain.
• 5:30
  So, so I quit my corporate job.
• 5:33
  My uncle looked at me a little bit funny when I asked him, but I asked if I could purchase the business from him.
• 5:38
  And so we worked out a deal.
• 5:39
  It took me a couple of years to buy the business, but here we are six years later.
• 5:44
  Okay, wow.
• 5:45
  So you always have this entrepreneurial fire.
• 5:49
  You go to the college route and then right, like you hear the stats and you're compelled to take the safe, secure job.
• 5:56
  Like you said, it was soul sucking.
• 5:57
  It was not for you.
• 5:58
  And then the serendipity where your uncle needs help selling his florist, he's in trouble, you say, sure, happy to help family.
• 6:05
  And interestingly enough, you look at comparables for this flower shop and an outsider coming in with a fresh perspective, younger kid, fresh out of college, finance background.
• 6:17
  And then you see all these systemic issues throughout the floral industry.
• 6:23
  And this, the entrepreneurial bells in your head, I'm sure start going off like, wow, there's an opportunity here to solve a problem.
• 6:30
  And that's.
• 6:31
  And you, you were compelled to buy the business, you worked out a deal with your uncle, and then like you said, you took over.
• 6:38
  All right, so that's, that's incredible.
• 6:39
  So what happens next?
• 6:42
  Yeah, and one point on that too.
• 6:43
  I feel like it's like really, the stars kind of aligned in the sense that it's a sexy idea to do a startup from scratch and build something out of nothing.
• 6:52
  And you know, I'll daydream about that sometimes too.
• 6:55
  But, but I took over an existing business and it's so underrated.
• 7:02
  I think I didn't really know that that was a path at the time.
• 7:05
  Now you have the whole like search funder and entrepreneurship through acquisition stuff and it's like become a more, more of a big deal or more popularized.
• 7:12
  But, but yeah, the stars really aligned where I was like, there's actually less risk in this because it's, there's, it's beyond the proof of concept stage.
• 7:20
  And it had some bones to it that I could optimize and then build on top.
• 7:25
  So, okay, so a question was, what, what, what next?
• 7:29
  Yeah, what happens next?
• 7:30
  Yeah, so you know, it Was again, I, I wish I could, I wouldn't be being honest if I tried to make up some like really romantic story about it.
• 7:39
  It was, it was a grind for the first six months.
• 7:42
  It kind of sucked.
• 7:45
  I wish that, like I could say we transformed the business and I came into it thinking like everything that I know today about how to create like an emotions LED brand and hiring great people and like all of
• 7:57
  that stuff I didn't know anything about.
• 7:59
  So.
• 7:59
  But where it started was I listened a lot.
• 8:02
  I didn't know anything about the industry and so that was a great place to start.
• 8:05
  And we had some folks working for us, about six full time employees.
• 8:09
  And so I spent a lot of time with them and one of the customer service reps came up to me and you know, I asked them, I said, what do you like, what do you not like?
• 8:17
  What's working, what's not?
• 8:19
  And she told me, well, the phone system, it's really hard for me to hear other people on the phone and, and they can't hear me either.
• 8:26
  Our phone system sucks.
• 8:27
  I'm like, okay, cool, that's a really easy lift.
• 8:29
  Like I can win some brownie points with the folks.
• 8:31
  Like here's this like new kid who's coming in who's like family and like, you know, probably entitled to run this.
• 8:38
  Like, you know, I don't know.
• 8:39
  All of those things were because it is family business, right?
• 8:42
  Did I really earn my spot to come in and help a business?
• 8:45
  So I'm like, ok, I need to win them over like the real way and show them that I'm here to create value and hopefully make their lives a little easier.
• 8:51
  So we, I looked at the phone bill, I'm like, shoot, we know we don't have any money to spend on stuff, but I looked at the phone bill.
• 9:00
  We're spending $13,000 a year on our phone bill.
• 9:03
  And the one thing that I've learned is like florists are really great people.
• 9:07
  Like really great people, all of them.
• 9:09
  But, but not all of them have extraordinary business knowledge.
• 9:15
  And, and, and they're, they're such good people that in this case my uncle who owned the shop was like best friends with the phone salesman guy, or he thought he was.
• 9:23
  And the phone salesman guy sold them a garbage phone system and it was really expensive.
• 9:28
  So I was like, okay, like, so we put in a phone system that cost 100 bucks a month.
• 9:34
  We dropped the phone bill, you know, by over $10,000 of savings per year just with one little decision like that.
• 9:41
  So that's where it started.
• 9:42
  I mean, it was like dozens and dozens of dozens of decisions just like that over the first three, four or five months that got the business back into at least break even.
• 9:51
  We started to make a little bit of money.
• 9:53
  Just little optimizations like that.
• 9:55
  It was nothing like revolutionary.
• 9:57
  But after I got to know the business really well and fixed some of those things like I was then, I never lost track of those systemic issues.
• 10:05
  And the goal was to get the business stable so that we could go and work in the systemic issue.
• 10:10
  So about five months in, the business was pretty optimized, and it was time to start building the real.
• 10:17
  The real deal.
• 10:19
  So I'll pause there for any remarks.
• 10:22
  Okay.
• 10:23
  All right.
• 10:23
  So.
• 10:23
  So basic stuff, right?
• 10:24
  You're just looking at all the expenses, making sure they're optimized, and, you know, getting feedback, of course, from the people working in the business.
• 10:31
  Very important.
• 10:32
  And one question, too.
• 10:34
  So clearly I saw these systemic issues and, you know, you.
• 10:39
  You were excited about that, and we'll get into what those are.
• 10:42
  But coming in as an outsider, a young kid, pretty much straight out of college, and then on top of that, really knowing nothing about the floral industry, I mean, what was that like for you in terms of walking
• 10:56
  in there?
• 10:56
  Did you have these kind of these.
• 11:00
  It sounded like you.
• 11:01
  You maybe thought it would go a lot smoother than it did.
• 11:04
  Yeah, you know, there were ups and downs for sure.
• 11:10
  We had little wins every single day, but we had massive setbacks.
• 11:13
  Right.
• 11:14
  A lot of friction that came alongside that.
• 11:17
  And I think, I mean, what, like, got me through that was the fire in the belly, right, Is I was excited to work on it.
• 11:23
  Even through the challenges, the, like, mindset, you know, framing was the challenges that we run into.
• 11:32
  If we're not running into challenges, we're not doing it right.
• 11:35
  When we run into challenges, those are the points of, like, learning and that they should be leaned into.
• 11:40
  And, like, it's great information that's coming to us that allows us to figure out, you know, what direction to follow and what path we should go down.
• 11:48
  So they were embraced despite, like, it being frustrating and, you know, all the emotions that come along with that.
• 11:54
  There was a recognition, like a higher order recognition, if you will, of, like, this feels right.
• 12:00
  So I wish I could say that it was purely rooted in logic, like, we are humans, right?
• 12:06
  But it just.
• 12:07
  The flowers.
• 12:09
  I liked flowers.
• 12:10
  I wouldn't be able to tell you why at the time, but I liked them.
• 12:15
  And that was, like, enough for me.
• 12:16
  I was like, there's Something special about this industry and that's enough for me to get involved with it.
• 12:20
  So it was everything.
• 12:21
  It was like the opportunity, don't get me wrong, you know, the financial opportunity was definitely there to help turn around the business and grow something.
• 12:26
  But like there just was something that was a little bit larger than life where the, the, the leading market player in our industry is 1-800-Flowers.
• 12:35
  And like, I'm not.
• 12:38
  We're here to make the greatest company that we can.
• 12:40
  We, we spend very little time looking at the competition, but pragmatically speaking, the consumer market right now, if 1-800-FLowers is the leading player in the market, all I'll say is they're not providing a great experience when you order
• 12:58
  flowers from them.
• 12:59
  It's so far away from what it could or should be.
• 13:02
  And so we thought that it would be interesting to take a swing at like, hey, I, I think that we can do this better.
• 13:07
  And I'm not talking about 5, 10, 15% better.
• 13:10
  I think we could do this like 300 times better in order order of magnitude better.
• 13:15
  So there was like this larger thing there too that got me really excited and through the challenges.
• 13:19
  So, yes, even to this day, even in the past few hours, we've had ups and downs.
• 13:25
  It's the journey of entrepreneurship.
• 13:27
  But to have that higher order vision and to be in control of your destiny to an extent and just to take a swing at something big that I think will actually contribute real value to the world that it's
• 13:44
  gotten me through.
• 13:44
  Any ups and downs.
• 13:46
  Okay, yeah, I love that.
• 13:47
  And I'm sure so many entrepreneurs listening can relate to that.
• 13:50
  Like you had that fire in the belly and you didn't.
• 13:53
  I guess the one thing too that we see so often is people maybe overthinking things and analysis paralysis.
• 14:00
  And even though you have a finance background, so I'm sure you've, you've got that, that part to your personality.
• 14:05
  You didn't overcomplicate it, you didn't overthink it.
• 14:07
  You had that fire.
• 14:08
  You followed your intuition, you followed your gut and you took action.
• 14:11
  And that's powerful.
• 14:12
  And the results speak to that.
• 14:15
  So, okay, so five months in, you've got all these, you know, various parts of the business optimized, so to speak, where you can then focus on these systemic issues you mentioned earlier.
• 14:25
  So talk about that scaling process and how you took this, this flower shop that was losing money when you took it over and you turned it into the largest flower shop in the city of Los Angeles.
• 14:37
  Yeah, definitely.
• 14:38
  I Think we're very close to the largest florist in the country.
• 14:41
  I think it's just a matter of time right now.
• 14:43
  We have a few more shops that are opening, but.
• 14:45
  But yeah, for a reference point, the average flower shop does around $350,000 of revenue in the U.S.
• 14:54
  there's, there's tens of thousands of florists out there.
• 14:57
  99.9% of them are a single unit owner operator.
• 15:00
  Mom and pop.
• 15:01
  It's a very fragmented industry.
• 15:04
  Nobody's really been able to come in and like consolidate it.
• 15:08
  So we, we don't really want to do like a traditional private equity rollup strategy.
• 15:12
  But.
• 15:12
  And so we, we're expanding through.
• 15:13
  We have, we're expanding our corporate locations because the unit economics are great and it's good for us to be able to have that bottom line to continue to reinvest into the greater mission that we have.
• 15:23
  But our primary mode of expansion is through franchising.
• 15:26
  So all of this is context.
• 15:27
  I'll answer your question.
• 15:28
  And then, so we have the average florist doing about 350k in revenue.
• 15:32
  We got our first location doing over 9 million in revenue out of one location.
• 15:39
  So how did we, how did we do that?
• 15:40
  Right, that was solving systemic issues.
• 15:43
  Well, let's let.
• 15:44
  That's.
• 15:44
  That's massive.
• 15:45
  I mean that's like, what is that, 25 times the average?
• 15:50
  Something like that.
• 15:51
  So let's just talk about that.
• 15:52
  Because if the average mom and pop, and that's what you took over, a mom and pop single unit florist, the average does 350k and you turn that shop to.
• 16:02
  Into doing 9 million within a couple years.
• 16:06
  How does that happen?
• 16:07
  Yeah, I wish I had like a silver bullet answer to that.
• 16:12
  There were three major buckets of systemic issues.
• 16:15
  I kind of mentioned them earlier.
• 16:17
  The technology infrastructure sucks in the space.
• 16:19
  There was no technology that we could purchase or license that was out there.
• 16:24
  Like we looked at developing on Salesforce or Shopify, but like it wouldn't accomplish really what we wanted it to, especially on the back end.
• 16:29
  So we built our own proprietary tech.
• 16:31
  It allowed us to operate way more smoothly and allow our designers or florists, for example, to do a lot less administrative work and just focus on designing a lot of that kind of boring stuff.
• 16:42
  The financial infrastructure, like so all the operating technology and infrastructure work, that was like one systemic issue.
• 16:48
  All florists were operating with like papers flying around and fax machines.
• 16:51
  So like tech was a big part of it.
• 16:53
  The second aspect of it was marketing.
• 16:57
  So we Built our own website, invested in like an incredibly strong, you know, SEO web architecture, foundational kind of level stuff.
• 17:06
  So adjacent to technology, but really kind of to when we're.
• 17:10
  When people are searching on Google or now that's shifting to ChatGPT or even like TikTok is becoming somewhat of a search engine, you know, how do we make sure that we're showing up in those results?
• 17:21
  Investing into different types of paid media, so like Google, Facebook, Yelp, all the traditional channels as well.
• 17:27
  But investing in a conversion rate optimization, investing in like client experience to make sure that we're not just acquiring customers because that's an expensive activity, but we're also product so that we can retain those customers.
• 17:39
  Right.
• 17:40
  So all the like marketing infrastructure stuff that was the second bucket and then the third bucket is actually supply chain where the supply chain right now is wild.
• 17:48
  You farm flowers and in all these different countries like Ecuador and Colombia and Holland and Canada, Thailand, all over and some local farms in the States too.
• 17:59
  But you know, it takes a long time to grow these flowers.
• 18:02
  And just again as a reference point for some shock value like an orchid can take seven years to grow an orchid, seven years before it gets.
• 18:12
  So once it's on the farm level, then it goes to a processor, then to a consolidator, then to a logistics agency in the country of origin, then to.
• 18:21
  Then it flies in an airplane, cold storage.
• 18:23
  You can ship them via freight, but we like to fly them to reduce the amount of time to get it to the client by a pretty considerable amount.
• 18:31
  And then it goes to the logistics agency in the receiving country, to a wholesaler, then to the retailer.
• 18:38
  We process the flowers again, do our, create our magic with it and then to the end consumer.
• 18:42
  That's an insane supply chain, right.
• 18:45
  So we're like, wow, that's kind of messed up too many players.
• 18:49
  So we, as soon as the volume started to increase, we really looked at how can we source flowers directly from the farm.
• 18:55
  And so we cut out a lot of those intermediaries were not only are we getting way higher quality product because we're getting it from cut to our facility in a week sooner than what other florists are getting it,
• 19:08
  which translates to the consumer lasting at the consumer's house for an extra week.
• 19:15
  Not only are we getting way higher quality product in terms of the vase life, but we're also getting in it at a better price because we're cutting out intermediaries.
• 19:23
  And so we could take that additional margin, reinvest it into other activities like tech, like Marketing, like client experience, but also deliver a higher quality result too.
• 19:31
  So there wasn't any silver bullet.
• 19:33
  It wasn't any one thing.
• 19:34
  It was like building all of the things that tackled each of those three buckets.
• 19:38
  And there's a few other smaller things too.
• 19:39
  But those were the huge main leverage points that we had.
• 19:42
  And just by kind of relentlessly focusing on those three major systemic issues, again, nothing revelationary, just kind of stuff that made sense.
• 19:54
  We went from doing, know, losing money to, you know, profitable, doing about 600k in revenue to, I think it was like 1.4 million the next year to 3.6 to 7.
• 20:06
  Yeah.
• 20:07
  All the way up to, I think 9.6 in 2023 out of our one location.
• 20:11
  And then we started to open a couple more locations to test if what we were doing was beginner's luck or if we really had something real.
• 20:19
  So we opened a couple more locations.
• 20:20
  They.
• 20:21
  The first one did about 900k in revenue in the first year.
• 20:23
  Next one did about just shy of like 1.2 million in the.
• 20:25
  In its first year and have continued to grow a lot.
• 20:28
  And so I'll pause in a sec here, but where we're at today is we were like, okay, what are we doing here?
• 20:35
  Like, we, we've clearly solved some systemic issues.
• 20:37
  The market has been receptive to our offering.
• 20:40
  We think we're develop delivering a much better product than anybody else in the floral space.
• 20:45
  And that feels like a nice thing to contribute to the world.
• 20:48
  And what are we doing?
• 20:50
  Or do we want to continue to open corporate locations?
• 20:52
  We did develop some great tech.
• 20:54
  We could license it to other florists, become a tech company.
• 20:58
  And we, we stumbled across this thing called franchising, which.
• 21:01
  Franchising is a very dirty word in my mind still to this day.
• 21:04
  I think a lot of franchises suck.
• 21:06
  As a matter of fact, most franchises suck.
• 21:08
  There are a couple good franchise systems out there.
• 21:11
  I think Chick Fil A is an interesting franchise.
• 21:13
  I think Orange Theory Fitness is an interesting franchise.
• 21:15
  There are some folks that are doing it in a slightly different way.
• 21:18
  So similar to how we look at the floral industry and we kind of kicked up a little bit of dust and do it differently.
• 21:23
  We're looking at franchising as well and trying to do it with best practices and trying to build a company that can be around 100 years from now that's contributing real value, puts the franchise owner first.
• 21:32
  So that's.
• 21:33
  Our kind of.
• 21:34
  Our focus has shifted there currently and for the foreseeable future.
• 21:38
  Okay.
• 21:39
  Wow.
• 21:39
  Yeah.
• 21:40
  And so you mentioned those systemic issues and how you solve them.
• 21:43
  And it's hearing you explain all that is kind of mind blowing because an industry like the floral industry has been around so long and it's such a big part of everyone, especially, I mean, us men are always getting
• 21:58
  flowers for the, the, the, you know, the women in our lives.
• 22:01
  And at so many levels, flowers are a part of it.
• 22:04
  And so hearing you talk about these systemic issues and these problems and no one like the supply chain issue, I don't know how many touches that was.
• 22:13
  12 maybe.
• 22:14
  That's a lot.
• 22:15
  Yeah.
• 22:15
  And no one had solved that.
• 22:16
  And you came in and look at the impact you made on a single unit location and how you scaled that with, with just these changes.
• 22:24
  And now you're expanding.
• 22:25
  I just want to dial in on one other part of that too, because I'm sure everyone listening, no matter what they do, can relate to the customer experience of buying flowers.
• 22:35
  Where you want to have something online and you look and they give you a low price, and by the time you check out, it's like three or four times that.
• 22:42
  And then it may or may not get there on time and, and whatever.
• 22:46
  But can you talk about what you did to solve the, the customer experience of buying flowers?
• 22:52
  Yeah, I mean, I'm happy that you said that because I feel like I've really like, said the, the systemic issues that we solved, like created the success that we have today, kind of.
• 23:04
  But all of the solving those systemic issues, there's a root reason like why we wanted to solve those issues.
• 23:13
  Ultimately, our absolute, nothing higher thing that exists is to create a better client experience.
• 23:24
  Right.
• 23:25
  It's actually our mission, our North Star mission is to create a more loving world, but it's centered around our consumer, the folks that interact with our brands and get to experience the product.
• 23:36
  So like, we want to create a better supply chain so that the clients that we work with have a better experience.
• 23:41
  We want to have better operating technology because it allows our florists to be happier, to dedicate the time into focusing on client experience as opposed to administrative tasks.
• 23:49
  And when we have a happy florist, that's going to translate into a happy experience for the client.
• 23:53
  Right.
• 23:54
  We want to have better marketing and so folks don't get stuck ordering from 1-800-FLowers and they order from us and have a better experience.
• 24:02
  And so everything is at service of the client experience.
• 24:04
  Like that.
• 24:05
  That is really the root of, like, every decision that we make really is rooted around the client experience.
• 24:11
  I think there's.
• 24:12
  When I When I look at the client experience, how do I look at it?
• 24:16
  I think that there's two ways of looking at it that layer on top of each other.
• 24:22
  The first is you have to offer a good product.
• 24:24
  We have to have a good supply chain.
• 24:26
  We have to have a good customer service experience.
• 24:28
  We have to have a good experience overall.
• 24:33
  But that's not great, right?
• 24:35
  Like, that's table stakes.
• 24:36
  You can make a good company from doing all of those things good.
• 24:43
  So that.
• 24:44
  That's the foundation.
• 24:45
  And it's like we.
• 24:47
  I don't know if it's just by nature, we're pretty restless.
• 24:49
  We want to continue to innovate.
• 24:51
  Even if we do become the number one florist, that's not really the goal.
• 24:55
  The goal is to like, just continue to enhance the client experience.
• 24:58
  We're not going to stop there.
• 24:58
  Right.
• 25:00
  And so there is this, again, this like higher order thing where it becomes a little bit more emotional and it's.
• 25:08
  How do we take it from good to great?
• 25:11
  It's.
• 25:12
  And that's a little bit where.
• 25:13
  Where branding has come in for us.
• 25:15
  Like, we deliver a good product.
• 25:16
  And what I mean by that here I'll give you like the tactical exactly how we look at who we are as a company.
• 25:24
  If you take the culture for what it exists today in America, our name is French florist.
• 25:28
  We borrow a lot of thinking from the European way, okay?
• 25:31
  But we operate in America.
• 25:33
  And if you look at American culture, we buy flowers for occasions.
• 25:37
  Happy birthday, happy anniversary, congratulations.
• 25:40
  Even if it's for something sad like somebody died and you want to send your condolences, right?
• 25:45
  There's all of the occasions and all of them are beautiful.
• 25:49
  What you're telling when you buy somebody flowers, what you're telling them, you're telling them that you're thinking about them, that you care about them and that you love them.
• 25:58
  So at the root, at the root.
• 26:00
  Root.
• 26:00
  Flowers are a way to tell somebody that you love them.
• 26:04
  And there's all different types of love.
• 26:06
  There's romantic love, but there's all different types.
• 26:07
  There's family, there's friendship, there's.
• 26:10
  You know, I want to say thank you to my administrators or the teachers that are teaching my kids.
• 26:16
  Right.
• 26:17
  Like all different sorts of very pure forms of love.
• 26:20
  If your business is an E commerce brand, this message is for you.
• 26:24
  Logistics can make or break you.
• 26:27
  If you're tired of being just a number to those big box 3pls, you need to check out our team at Easy DC3PL.
• 26:35
  We're a different kind of partner.
• 26:38
  Built specifically for growing brands that ship between 1,000 and 10,000 orders per month.
• 26:44
  We offer warehousing, fulfillment, and transportation with a focus on personalized service and flexibility.
• 26:51
  Our Central Kentucky location gives you nationwide reach, turning logistics into a competitive advantage.
• 26:58
  So if you're ready to partner with a 3PL that actually gets your brand.
• 27:02
  Visit EasyDC3PL.com and flowers, I think, are the single best gift that you could possibly give.
• 27:10
  They're like the most immaterial, material gift that you could give somebody to tell somebody that you love them.
• 27:14
  I don't know any more powerful gift.
• 27:16
  And because the root emotion of flowers is love, and love, again, like that, that is the.
• 27:21
  The most powerful human emotion that exists on Earth.
• 27:24
  That's insane that that's the industry that we get to work in.
• 27:27
  Like, we feel very lucky to work in our space, and we understand the weight of when.
• 27:32
  When somebody gives flowers to somebody else, that it's not like something that should be treated without care or weight.
• 27:39
  And it's frustrating to us that 1-800-Flowers and some of these other brands out there are treating these like transactions.
• 27:46
  They're not.
• 27:46
  They're like moments of love.
• 27:47
  And like I.
• 27:48
  I told you, our.
• 27:49
  Our North Star mission is to create a more loving world.
• 27:51
  And so when we get to infuse that level of thinking and like, kind of leading our organization with that emotion, and we have a good product and a good foundation and a good experience and good customer service, and
• 28:02
  we pick up the phone quickly and like, all the normal things that make a good company good, but we get to layer in this, like, emotional aspect of, like, we get to share our philosophy with the world.
• 28:11
  And.
• 28:12
  And that allows us to not have to, like, sell our services where it's like, buy from us.
• 28:17
  We have the best quality, we have the best service.
• 28:19
  Like, who cares?
• 28:20
  It's super boring.
• 28:20
  People who say that don't mean it.
• 28:22
  And that's not even our place to say it.
• 28:23
  We earn that reputation through the market.
• 28:24
  We don't get to dictate it.
• 28:27
  So what.
• 28:27
  Where does that leave us?
• 28:28
  What we can say is, like, this is our philosophy on flowers and reminding people how special they are.
• 28:34
  And if they feel attracted to that, maybe they'll trust us a little more with their order as opposed to anybody else out there.
• 28:41
  Wow.
• 28:42
  Love that.
• 28:43
  All right, well, clearly that philosophy has worked out incredibly well for you.
• 28:46
  As you said, you continue to rapidly scale with the corporate locations.
• 28:50
  You're getting ready to expand much further through franchising.
• 28:54
  And already, as you are you're very close to becoming the largest floral company in the United States.
• 28:59
  All from a young.
• 29:02
  A young entrepreneur with a fire in his belly that took a chance.
• 29:05
  Taking over a strong.
• 29:06
  A struggling single family.
• 29:08
  Single family, single unit location from a family member.
• 29:10
  So what an incredible story.
• 29:12
  And congrats on what you've done and what you continue to do, Michael.
• 29:15
  We're all, I'm sure, just much respect and we're all rooting for you.
• 29:21
  So if people want to connect with you, find out more about what you're doing, maybe look at how they can get a franchise or connect with you for any other reason, what's the best way people can find you
• 29:30
  online?
• 29:31
  Sure, totally.
• 29:32
  I am always accessible.
• 29:35
  A lot of folks have given to me.
• 29:37
  I'm like riding on the backs of giants, right?
• 29:38
  If you see me trying to give advice, it's probably not my own.
• 29:41
  It's probably other folks that have taught me good things.
• 29:43
  But I'm always happy to pass that advice through.
• 29:45
  So my email is michael frenchflorist.com if you wanted to learn more about the franchise without reaching out to me, you can go to frenchfloristfranchise.com there's info on there.
• 29:56
  And then, if nothing else, here's my real agenda for the podcast.
• 30:02
  You ready?
• 30:05
  You don't have to wait until Mother's Day to buy your mother flowers.
• 30:09
  And you can replace mother with your friends, your girlfriend, your.
• 30:12
  Whoever it is, anybody.
• 30:14
  You don't have to wait until a special occasion.
• 30:16
  As a matter of fact, I'd go so far as to say that if you gift somebody flowers on a random Wednesday or a random Thursday for no reason at all, that's going to drive the highest impact compared to
• 30:28
  waiting for, like, this, like, Hallmark holiday.
• 30:30
  That feels like an obligation, right?
• 30:31
  Like, buy flowers for no reason at all.
• 30:34
  Feel how profound it is.
• 30:35
  You'll.
• 30:36
  You'll never think of flowers in the same way again.
• 30:38
  Okay.
• 30:39
  That's great advice.
• 30:40
  All right.
• 30:41
  Well, Michael, thank you so much for being here.
• 30:44
  Greatly appreciate it.
• 30:45
  And thank you so much for sharing all this valuable wisdom with our audience.
• 30:49
  Awesome.
• 30:50
  Thanks, Dave.
• 30:54
  Sa.