What’s up everybody? This is Joe Vega and welcome to another flower shop secret podcast and today we’re speaking with Josh Fredo from Bayberry Flowers in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. I totally butchered that, right? How do you pronounce that city? Rehoboth I totally, I was way off. So, Josh has had four other shop locations of Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. He started in the flower industry just after high school, and was supported by his grandparents, who rented land behind his mentors shop for flowers to grow a garden. Josh, welcome to the show.

Joe Vega  0:00  

What’s up everybody? This is Joe Vega and welcome to another flower shop secret podcast and today we’re speaking with Josh Fredo from Bayberry Flowers in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. I totally butchered that, right? How do you pronounce that city? Rehoboth I totally, I was way off. So, Josh has had four other shop locations of Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. He started in the flower industry just after high school, and was supported by his grandparents, who rented land behind his mentors shop for flowers to grow a garden. Josh, welcome to the show.

What are some of the lessons you’ve learned

Unknown Speaker  0:42  

throughout your years of dealing with multiple shops was some of the struggles you’ve gone through, not everybody has the mindset to be able to stick in with this industry, a lot of people think that it’s easy money in the job is super easy. And that they can just come and go as they want. They don’t think about the long hours. And you have to have somebody that’s going to work with you. And understand that understand, like during holiday times, you’re not leaving till like 839 o’clock at night come in early in the morning. And that the money just doesn’t magically appear overnight. You have to wait for you have to wait to your vendors pay you and stuff like that. Finding a good business partner is like finding your significant other and because you’re financially married at that point, right? Technically,

Joe Vega  1:24  

so finding a good business partner is, is key. If that relationship doesn’t work out, the business isn’t gonna work out period, it doesn’t exactly what you have.

Unknown Speaker  1:33  

I finally after five and a half years have a staff that actually understands that values that sees what’s going on and understands how things work. And then they now take pride in what they do. And understand that the hard work does pay off. It’s not instant gratification.

Joe Vega  1:53  

people outside of the industry think like, you know, if you’re in the flow in your seat, you just think like, Oh, you work with flowers, how nice could that be? You know, it’s just like, you just smell the roses all the time, they have no idea. Like the grunt work like the, you know, you’re a blue collar worker. I mean, it’s, it’s hard. It’s a hard job. You know, people don’t realize that.

Unknown Speaker  2:12  

My favorite is Oh, it must be nice to play with flowers all day.

Joe Vega  2:17  

That’s almost insulting. Just because you see a successful business on the outside, you have no idea how the meals being cooked in the back, right? Like it’s a lot of

Unknown Speaker  2:25  

stress. People don’t see the part, they only see the nine to five part they don’t see the 5pm. So two o’clock in the morning doing book work or ordering things, you’re trying to find out what the next trend and phases are. Flower style is going to be where the continuously learning new design styles or like getting up early in the morning to make sure the funeral gets there on time.

Joe Vega  2:51  

What are some of the things that your mentor sort of taught you that kind of that you still use today,

Unknown Speaker  2:56  

not let the customers lead you, you lead the customers so that way you can provide the best quality product for them. So that way, they’re not just thinking of something that they’ve seen on in a wire service. And just think that you just magically happens, you got to lead them and educate customers with different products and different product knowledge. So that way, they’re making an informed decision.

Joe Vega  3:18  

So it sounds like you try to act as a guide, not just trying to sell them flowers when they’re buying flowers,

Unknown Speaker  3:23  

if you’re really upfront, and that’s one of the things that I’ve learned over time, is being blunt, and telling people exactly how things are actually works a lot better than trying to sugarcoat things. For the most part, our customers are very well receptive if you call them and talk to them. And like a lot of times, we can’t get ceramic Potter’s for our dish gardens right now. Because they’re just not available. So we’ll call the customers and offer a different alternative, stuff like that. Some people are really pressed on it. But then other people are like, oh, okay, that’s fine. We understand. And then we go from there. And we also, if that’s the case, we upgrade the size for them if they’re okay with things. It’s all about the customer service and being honest and upfront with them.

Joe Vega  4:08  

Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s really important just to be as blunt as possible,

Unknown Speaker  4:12  

we actually have classes that I’m teaching all the employees, how to talk to the customers have lead certain questions to ask and directing people. Oh, instead of Oh, what would you like? And like, let’s just say they’re ordering a funeral piece. Would you like that? More of the somber colors? Or would you like that bright and cheerful? Do you like this type of flower? That type of flowers of asking, oh, well what type of flowers do you like? Right? So you just lead it and give specific examples. And then instead of trying to sell something that you don’t have you sell what you have in your store for that moment. For right now you’re going to have in for that day, so that way you’re not over ordering or having an order again, you know what your inventory is and you sell from that.

Joe Vega  4:58  

That’s really smart because You know, a you get to actually, you know, sell the things that you have in stock, you don’t have to go fishing or calling for anything that you don’t have to you don’t want to make the customer feel dumb because if they don’t know the answer to your question, now they’re like, I don’t know. And that’s not a good feeling for them. And you know, at the same time, you can also possibly just get them to buy something a little bit more luxurious or something that that you want to sell. So

Unknown Speaker  5:26  

we even have a program that’s called like them love them and showing off. And each one has a specific price sets for each one. So like them is 50 to 70 love them is 80 to 120 and showing off is 130. And up and nine times out of 10 we’re gonna go with the love them just because it’s love them.

Joe Vega  5:45  

Right. There’s a lot in a name, for sure. Yeah, that sounds like a couple of years ago. So I was talking to a shop and they had in their shop was the opposite it was it was when they got in trouble is like how much trouble you’re in. You’re a little bit a little bit in trouble a lot of trouble or like did you burn the house down? Like those things work? right?

Unknown Speaker  6:07  

Exactly. It’s all about connecting with their emotions and their mental status. Right now we’re working out of our location because our bayberry location had a fire the weekend before Mother’s Day. No way. The restaurant that was connected, burnt to the ground and took out two other buildings. We suffered a lot of smoke damage on all of our wedding products. And we had five weddings that I had to redo that morning. And the whole goal was to have them done the night before. So we can just deliver them in the morning habit smooth and then just start working on Mother’s Day stuff. But that backfired massively.

Joe Vega  6:45  

Oh my god eat although I mean, I think people would understand maybe what they understand is like, Hey, I had a fire in my day. They were like, I don’t care where my flowers

Unknown Speaker  6:54  

some somewhere, but some are very understanding. We even had one bride see. She want me to come help you do them. I’m like,

Joe Vega  7:00  

Oh my God. That’s great. Thank you. That’s one of those instances has got to be all hands on deck. Right? You have you called everyone.

Unknown Speaker  7:06  

Everyone’s got a lot everybody that I knew. Yeah. Friend, friends, people. I’m like you you know what this flower is Go get me X, Y and Z of that. Give me this container. I was just having people running out. I didn’t even move from my spot from six o’clock in the morning until 310. And then we the last wedding was delivered 10 minutes before the flowers needed to be there.

Joe Vega  7:28  

Well, I cannot imagine the pressure you must have been. Everybody looked at me like you’re gonna have a heart attack. You contacted the brides and did you warn them that they you may not make it or what did you had it in your head? Like, no, no, I’m doing this.

Unknown Speaker  7:43  

I told them that wouldn’t be at the time that we planned because most of them had to be there by noon. I said it will be there before you walk down the aisle, but it might not be there at noon. And I explained what happened there like you’re gonna remake all of that as a yes.

Joe Vega  7:57  

Wow. Oh, I you know, that’s that’s pretty hard to follow up with that. That seems like a like a florist. He was a movie, that scene will be in it.

Unknown Speaker  8:08  

Sometimes I really think Netflix should come out and do a show about flower shops.

Joe Vega  8:12  

You know what I always felt the same way. Because it’s like the amount of emotions you guys deal with the amount of stories that you guys hear about? Were unpaid therapist. Sounds like you have a lot of grit to pull through all these things. Make a worrier. I’m just stubborn. I’m gonna call it grit. You could call it whatever you want. Not only did you make it, but you’re thriving. So how did you handle the combat from the struggles, um,

Unknown Speaker  8:39  

a lot of hard work a lot of hours. At one point time, I had a partner that took multiple vehicles and everything after they were supposed to be joint in both of our names. And I pretty much just got a beater car and started delivering through that way less than the staff that I had, and then push through and then another partner just left after that.

Joe Vega  9:02  

Not everybody actually would make it through those things, especially with the business partner because that can definitely cripple you.

Unknown Speaker  9:07  

Exactly. A lot of people just expected me to fold and give up and I because I’m stubborn. I wanted to prove them wrong and prove that I could make it work through

Joe Vega  9:17  

how are things changing? Now that we’ve kind of gotten used to COVID and how are things gonna do you see that things are gonna get better from here on out because things are opening up

Unknown Speaker  9:26  

now. Things are definitely changing. weddings are smaller events are smaller, but we’re working with that. We’ve come up with several outdoor wedding venue ideas with local like farmers and stuff like that to try and get more weddings in. In all honesty, COVID almost killed me. By the time August rolled around last year COVID had us $198,000 in debt. Well, because we weren’t doing our weddings that we normally do. We weren’t doing our normal money. Play sales. And then once I started changing the game a little bit, we offer like snack baskets and spa baskets and stuff like that. And then different types of add ons in the store different services, like we’ll come out and take care of your plants for you. If you don’t want to go outside, contact this delivery when you guys did that, that made things a lot easier. It’s just adapting and changing. And right now, we’re still have a decent chunk of what we’re behind in, but we’re slowly paying it off with the sales that are coming in now. We expect to be fully back on track and 100% profitable by the end of next year

Joe Vega  10:36  

has the weddings and events site picked up a little bit.

Unknown Speaker  10:40  

All the weddings that were scheduled for last year. I am doing them this year on top of everybody else trying to get married this year. So I’ve limited myself for stress relief and health to two weddings a weekend.

Joe Vega  10:54  

That’s it two weddings a weekend. That’s still a lot.

Unknown Speaker  10:56  

I limited myself to that because I’m not trying to kill myself last October, I had three weeks of nine weddings a weekend. I’m never doing that.

Joe Vega  11:06  

And the fire. Yeah. I’m just I’m done. You got it. You got to pace yourself. Right? Exactly. Cool. Do you work closely with your wholesaler local growers? Or do you do any foraging? Like how do you get your flowers,

Unknown Speaker  11:21  

we do a mixture of everything. We grow some of our own flowers now. Especially after the whole COVID craziness. We started planning or have flowers. So next year, we actually have 230 peony plants, so that we actually harvest our own peonies. We also have different things like lilacs that we plan it and working on building a greenhouse this summer for all of our orchids, because we do a lot of work at sales and local wholesalers. In my opinion, they’re becoming kind of a passe thing, especially when you can get dropship directly from the farms. But I still try and work with them to keep them in business because you can’t get everything from a grower and dropship or you have to buy it in such a large quantity. But what we do is we work with other flower shops, let’s say if I need to order in theory, then I can only order 200 pieces of anthurium. And I only need 100 I’ll see if any other local flower shops need in theory and they’ll split it with them. Because nine times out of 10 the price is going to be cheaper than the wholesaler.

Joe Vega  12:29  

So it sounds like you’re diversifying your your sources from where you get your flowers from, you’re actually started planning your own stuff now.

Unknown Speaker  12:36  

Exactly. With the way the world’s going. It’s just you have to have a backup plan for your backup plan. I learned that after March of last year, right? I almost lost my shirt completely. And I just I diversified the inventory when we couldn’t get flowers. Last Mother’s Day, we sold planner pots. And as you guys had on the websites this year planner pots were a big thing. And we double the amount of planter pots that we had from last year and we completely sold out and how to make more.

Joe Vega  13:13  

running multiple shops, how do you maintain quality across multiple shops? Like what’s that process like?

Unknown Speaker  13:18  

We design all out of one location currently. And I oversee all of it right now I am predominantly the main designer. So I pretty much do all of the designs. And then with Melissa, she’s now learning how to design so I oversee her and she’s gotten to the point where I can actually not poker every move into Oh, you need to move this here. And then we have another designer shaylee she comes in sometimes and helps us out too. So we have a good staff and then right now we’re waiting on two more that are gonna start next week to be designers and training. So they have six months to be in training before I left them on their own.

Joe Vega  13:58  

Even you have multiple shops, you designing everything from one location, you got the quality control down, you trust these people, and everything’s working great. Have you ever used something like an alternative delivery service or anything like that? Have you played around with that or

Unknown Speaker  14:13  

that was a complete and utter disaster, I will never ever really write it because it actually cost more than having a $10 an hour delivery driver.

Joe Vega  14:24  

Okay.

Unknown Speaker  14:24  

It actually for one delivery, plus minus $26. It takes too much time to cost too much money. It’s easier for us to have delivery drivers, which right now we just hired three more so that way we can be on point because once Melissa is fully trained, we’re actually going to have to design locations, one for the northern half of the counties and then one for the southern half

Joe Vega  14:47  

floors have been delivering their own flowers for 100 years. So you got to keep it if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Exactly. So when I could see how it could be a challenge if you’re expanding expanding the delivery logistics. I mean, logistics are a problem for everyone. But like that’s something that you have to own and make sure that and you’re carrying around something that basically can die, right. So you have to insensitive, right? So cool. I needed to ask you this what exactly like you decided to incorporate something called pops corner into your shops can’t What is that?

Unknown Speaker  15:20  

My grandfather was and my grandmother were a very big part of me getting into the floral and arts field. Like I said, they did that garden thing. And then I got into the industry because of that. My grandfather was very supportive the entire time that I’ve been in the industry, even when I went to school for it when other people were when I had my struggles, he was always somebody that I could go talk to. And like he would say, hey, just keep pushing, and you’ll get there, just don’t lose hope don’t lose faith. And I went through a massive depression where I was going to close my stores after he passed away. It took several months and the help of my current business partner, Melissa, for me to get through it. And in order to honor him, I wanted to add on Pop’s corner, because he taught me carpentry as well. And he used to build things like the outdoor reindeers and sleds, he helped me make stuff for weddings like a Cinderella carriage and the wooden horses that we did Garland’s and stuff on, and I want to keep up with that tradition and have those and I do those in a spare time like outdoor furniture. The mangers from Nativity sets sleds out to a reindeer. And a lot of our wedding rental pieces fall out of wood. And I wanted to keep his memory alive by having popcorn.

Joe Vega  16:40  

That’s fine. To me. That sounds great. It sounds like you really, really loved grandfather.

Unknown Speaker  16:46  

I did he is he was a great man. He was always there for anybody anybody in need. But even even animals like stray animals he take in and help and he was good man.

Unknown Speaker  16:59  

That’s a great way to basically honor your the memory of your of your grandfather, keeping that keeping that going.

Joe Vega  17:11  

So what what other ideas are you having, though, in the works to expand your business to grow your business,

Unknown Speaker  17:18  

franchising under the friendly florist name, we’re going to eventually franchise that out with four different models. And then what we’re going to do is we’re going to do site surveys for anybody that wants to buy the franchise, see what their medium income is, what type of people are in that area, what the job types are, what design styles and home aesthetic styles are. So that way we can help them pick out what design of the business style would work best for them. And then what we do is we’ll go down there, we’ll set up the whole dish shop and set up the design, show them what stuff to buy, what’s the best stuff that’s going to sell high sell items. And then they will train with us for a month learning different design styles and different techniques and how to work different systems of which we want to incorporate you guys with as well. Love it.

Joe Vega  18:09  

Let’s go. Let’s do it.

Unknown Speaker  18:11  

Well, franchising for flower for flower shop period has been quite the challenge. Right, exactly. And that’s one of the things that we plan on training with everything as well.

Joe Vega  18:21  

So you got the design part down, and you know what you’re looking for, and there’s certification for that stuff. But how are you going to pick and choose sort of like, people who are smart in other areas, because running a flower shop is not just about making pretty things. It’s not just about designing, it’s about running a business. It’s like what kind of

Unknown Speaker  18:39  

they have to have some knowledge of the business background before we’ll even sell a franchise out.

Joe Vega  18:45  

So you’re going to go through an application process, it sounds like correct, do you

Unknown Speaker  18:48  

have to fill out a questionnaire and you have to explain why you want to do this, what your business background is, so that way, you’re not just doing something and then boom, it’s just going to collapse, because then that looks bad on us. So we were designed in it. And we’re going to be there as a support system as well to make sure that you succeed. And if we don’t think that it’s going to succeed in area, we’re going to tell you exactly, this is why it’s not going to do this in this area. These are the other areas that you need to look at. Our next model that we’re going to be working on is a cafe slash flower shop where all the gift items are things that are made in the cafe and you can buy them in the gift short store as well as buy them free. And then one of the things about the cafe we’re also going to be using a lot of plants and things like that. So that way, like in our one store, we actually have patos and it’s growing across rafters in the front sales area. We’re going to do something like that with a waterfall and koi pond and different types of plants throughout there. Like we have night blooming Jasmine in our one store that blooms and fills the store with fragrance. We’re about two weeks out from doing that right now.

Joe Vega  19:52  

TV reality show idea for you. You know you could start a flower shop rescues can apply though.

Unknown Speaker  19:59  

That’s something That I want it to do. And I’ve been thinking about it. I would like to probably think about that idea in the next two years. Because I think that’d be awesome.

Joe Vega  20:08  

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, there’s plenty of struggling shops out there. So, it, there’s definitely a lot of opportunities to help a lot of them. So,

Unknown Speaker  20:19  

like my business partner, Melissa, she’s really good with sales and the finances of things and being on time with bills and stuff like that, she would be a great one that I could use for like looking over finances for a show like that I’d be in the design aspect of it. Then we have a delivery driver, manager and Social Media Manager, we get it all set up.

Joe Vega  20:42  

Let’s say I’m a struggling flower shop, like what do you do first? What’s your first let’s put let’s do a bit of role playing right now. Like, what do you do first? Why would you look at my books, you look at that my designers, what would you do? First off, I’d

Unknown Speaker  20:53  

look at your books. And then I look at your designs, because they’re directly related. If your designs aren’t on par, and your pricing is not on par, and if you don’t have a handle on your cost of goods and pnls, you’re going to fail. Okay, you’re going to fail, and it’s going to become a great big hole. I’ve watched many shops close because of that when the next generation takes over when they have no clue how to do. So you’ve also

Joe Vega  21:20  

got a dedicated Social Media Manager this past year, right? How has their presidents benefited your shop,

Unknown Speaker  21:28  

with the younger generation all being on social media and now the my age and older are getting on social media via it’s a lot easier because people see that type of stuff. Like she makes meetings and she makes little backgrounds and all sorts of crazy stuff that I have no idea what she’s doing. But since she started doing that a lot of people were ordering the things that she posted, which made things streamline a lot easier. So if you have a bunch of people ordering the same thing, we can knock them all out in assembly line style, and it makes it quicker to dissolve.

Joe Vega  21:59  

I think it’s really smart for you to basically have somebody else do it. Do you recommend that other shops do that as well?

Unknown Speaker  22:05  

Oh, yeah. Because I’ve noticed an intake of sales through doing that.

Joe Vega  22:10  

How do you measure the impact of that people actually will mention it. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  22:14  

they’ll call on Oh, I saw this on your Instagram, or I saw this on your Facebook, or they’ll like it, and then you recognize the light because it pops up on your phone, and then you’ll see the customers name, when they order from your website.

Joe Vega  22:26  

You’re just aware of it because people are pointing out the fact that they saw you on social media and things of that nature. Okay. What else would you look at,

Unknown Speaker  22:34  

you have to be able to talk to people have the personality to be able to sell. And it’s just, it’s all about training. But some people just have the personality where they the trainings not going to help they need to learn how to adjust personality traits deal with situations as they arise, because not every customer is the same. You can if you’re good enough, you can actually turn a negative response with a customer into a glowing review. What do

Joe Vega  23:01  

you look for when you’re hiring someone new and their personality?

Unknown Speaker  23:05  

I look for somebody that’s very blunt and upfront. Somebody that can also smile as they talk. Because if you can smile when you’re talking to somebody on the phone, you can hear that inflection in your voice. Other person can feel that as an emotion, some great advice right there. look towards the future. With the younger generation. If we don’t have the younger generation, we’re doomed to fail. And it’s not just about looking at somebody for if they have a skill set. A lot of the people can train but one of my best designers. She really didn’t have any experience. And I took a chance on her because I saw what she did one day, because I said can you copy this picture? And then she’s learned how she makes bridal bouquets. I like her massages better than I like my own.

Joe Vega  23:51  

Wow. I never know. Right?

Unknown Speaker  23:54  

Exactly. So I say take a chance on the young ones. They’re they’re trainable. If you have the patience and the knowledge to train. There’s no other way around that you need to be able to embrace the younger generation and make it work. Exactly. I mean that they’re the next in line so you have to make it work. So awesome. Josh, thank

Joe Vega  24:11  

you so much for joining us today. Where can people go online and find out more about you

Unknown Speaker  24:16  

bayberry is florist in Rehoboth r e hovoth.com. And then all of our friendly flower store you can find at friendly flowers florist plural.com

Joe Vega  24:30  

Great. Thank you so much for joining me today, Josh. You’re very welcome. Thank you for having me. We want to help your business loan. Check out more episodes of flower shop secrets. Watch now on YouTube. Like Subscribe and ring the bell for new episodes.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai