An industry leader in business education and sales training, Floral Strategies has hit a milestone and is celebrating by overhauling its popular webinar series to better serve florists.
President Tim Huckabee, AIFSE, founded the company in 1997 after his tenure at Surroundings, a high-end flower shop in New York City. He wanted to pass on the best practices he learned for handling telephone sales, customer service issues, dealing with walk-in customers, taking advantage of POS systems, and more.
To date, Floral Strategies has worked with more than 5,000 florists through intensive in-shop training programs and its webinar series. (Additionally, Huckabee writes the “Ask Tim” column for Floral Management and “Rising to the Occasion” for Canadian Florist, and gives frequent presentations at industry conventions.)
In recent years, Floral Strategies has added new trainers in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, and expanded into training the wholesale community. Back in December, Huckabee surveyed florists for ways to improve the company for its 20th anniversary. He’s responded by making the following changes:
- More time to watch recordings: In addition to the traditional streaming option (available for one month), Floral Strategies now offers downloadable copies of webinars that florists can watch indefinitely.
- Advanced topics: This year’s series will cover such matters as training new hires, hidden opportunities to get more business from customers and strengthen their loyalty, talking with a funeral director, and easy ways to cut your costs. Registering for the new webinars includes access to older webinars, so florists can review the basics before diving into the new content.
- More tools to enforce training: The Valentine Bootcamp, for instance, includes two secret shopper calls Huckabee made last year, as well as a week-by-week worksheet to keep florists organized and on-track.
- Accrue credit for an in-house training session. Every paid webinar registration earns a $50 credit toward a training visit to your shop, anywhere in the world, from Huckabee or a Floral Strategies trainer.
- Staff members can earn points toward the international FSC accreditation: FSC accreditation acknowledges that an individual has been trained in the Floral Strategies approach and is proficient at selling and serving to a higher standard. (Floral Strategies will make the complete curriculum, testing process, fees and annual review procedures available online soon. Stay tuned for more information.) “Ultimately, the FSC letters after your name will tell a potential employer that you come to the store not with the standard bad habits (‘How much do you want to spend?’) but as an asset, ready to engage customers, use the POS software smarter, and perform in a whole new way,” Huckabee said. “FSC members make more for a shop from the first day! Additionally, FSC membership tells the industry that you are a well-rounded floral professional, as concerned about sales, service and the customer experience as you are about great design and using the best product.”
Huckabee is offering a special deal. Register by Saturday, Feb. 4 (read: tomorrow) and you pay only half down and get all seven workshops for the price of six, as well as complementary access to the Valentine Bootcamp (a $49 value). Click here and use the coupon code HALF at checkout.