The Magic of Attention to Detail and Hospitality with Willrett Flower Co.

 

Crystal Vilkaitis: Get ready for another fun and awesome conversation with my guests, Kat and Mary Grace with Willrett Flower Company. Honestly, I said this to them after we finished filming. I was like, I can’t believe I looked at the clock at 40 minutes. I’m like, I can’t believe 40 minutes would buy this. I’m so engaged.

Like I was just having so much fun with this conversation. We covered a lot. We’re talking about hospitality, attention to detail, community involvement, social media. Balancing challenges and tough times in life and things that these ladies learned going through some hardships. So I am so excited for you to hear this episode.

Before we dive in, here’s a little bit more about my guests. Kat and Mary Grace are co-owners of the Willrett Flower Company and are sisters and best friends. They’re passionate about gorgeous flowers, incredible hospitality and community involvement. They grew up on a cattle ranch in rural Kansas and attended the University of Arkansas. After separate careers in separate states, they decided to open a store together. When they’re not working, they enjoy spending time with their families. They both have toddlers. This is a fun conversation. So get ready and let’s dive in.

Welcome to Rooted in Retail. I’m your host, Crystal Vilkaitis. Here, we have engaging and informative conversations with successful indie retailers and industry experts. Together, we learn, connect, and grow. Don’t miss our live after the show every Tuesday night in the Rooted in Retail Facebook group.

Alright, here’s today’s episode. Kat and Mary Grace, welcome to Rooted in Retail. I am thrilled you’re here. 

Willrette Flowers: Thank you, thank you.

Crystal Vilkaitis: This is going to be a great conversation. Before we dive in, I want you ladies to just take a couple of minutes and share a little bit more about you and your store and what inspired you to create this ray of sunshine, which I know you guys have coined this ray of sunshine in DeKalb, illinois.

Willrette Flowers: Yeah. So I’m Kat, this is Mary G race. Our shop phone is ringing, classic. But I can tell you a little bit about our shop. So we have been in business for almost 10 years now, but we were solely wedding and event based for most of that. So we’re a little newer to the retail world. We decided to open up our brick and mortar location and switch from events to kind of your classic, like daily flower shop.

And we have a ton of gifts and things like that too. About two years ago. So fairly recently in this location and in retail in general. So now we have the gift shop, we have our weddings and events based business as well still. And then we do all of your like classic flower shop stuff.

So daily deliveries. We do funerals. We do birthdays, all of those kinds of things. And then we also do, we host workshops and events too.

Crystal Vilkaitis: Very cool. Busy ladies.

Willrette Flowers: Yeah.

Crystal Vilkaitis: some fun stuff going on. How has the transition been to having the retail side?

Willrette Flowers: Yeah, I feel like it has, but there’s obviously a huge learning curve there. We were, we felt very confident and very , you know, knowledgeable in the like wedding space and the event space. So this was a big change for us. I had never worked in retail. Well, I’d never worked in a retail flower shop before.

Mary Grace had some years in a really busy, amazing retail flower shop. So thankfully, she had that experience under her belt. I did not. So yeah, tons of that has been new to us, even having more employees and a bigger team and things like that. So the transition has been hard at times, but we’ve also just really, really loved having the shop. I’m sure you can probably add. 

Yeah, absolutely. I would say the transition as far as like work life balance and just in general, enjoyment of our job has been really amazing for us. One of the unexpected elements of retail that we loved so much, because like Kat mentioned, I do have a background of working like in a retail flower shop, but I worked as a designer only.

So I was only making arrangements and now it’s like when you own a business, you wear all the hats. And so one unexpected thing that we really love about having the store is how much we get to interact with our community. And it’s so funny because like we didn’t grow up in the town where our store is or even in the state, we grew up far away.

And so we didn’t have a large community of people around us here when we opened the store. I had only lived in the area for like six months at the time. And so it’s just been amazing for us to make friends and just make so many amazing connections through having people who find our store to be like their third place that they love to come visit. Yeah.

Crystal Vilkaitis: Yeah. Oh, that’s awesome. What a great way to get to know people is start a business? 

Willrette Flowers: For sure.

Crystal Vilkaitis: I just want to give a plug for you guys because Garcia, who is your ads manager, loves you so much.

Willrette Flowers: We love her! Ha

Crystal Vilkaitis: She wrote this email of just like, I think they need to be on the show.

They’re doing such incredible things, all these points. And just like, I was like, I think they’re going to do it. This sounds amazing. And she’s like, I’m almost crying by how much I love them. Like

Willrette Flowers: Oh my gosh. I love her. We love her, yeah. She’s awesome. 

The unique ways Kat and Mary Grace make sure every customer feels special

Crystal Vilkaitis: Working with you and we’re going to talk about social media. You’ve got some great content.

We’re going to save that for the end of today’s show, but I know that hospitality is a big cornerstone of your business. And so what are some unique ways you ensure every customer feels special and valued?

Willrette Flowers: Yeah, I do think that’s something that we did learn a lot about working in events. And the interesting thing when it comes to, we were just talking to somebody about this yesterday, when it comes to weddings, events it’s very different than your retail shop because you just have one shot.

You can’t really be like, “Oh, you know, we can try and do better tomorrow.” It’s that one person’s wedding day. So I feel like we really learned to lean into those like little special touches and really paying that extra bit of attention and going the extra mile. I think we learned that in the event world, and it has really moved into the way that we interact with our customers, and how we run our store now, and how we train our employees and things like that.

So we do want to make sure that every customer that walks in is having that really wonderful experience. So we’re always telling our team, we don’t care if somebody walks in and we all five are in the back designing and we’re like, hi, welcome in. Like I’d way rather than be like overwhelmed by people welcoming them and talking to them.

Then when you walk in and you’re just like, Ooh, I feel like uncomfortable being here. So we really want to make sure, on that front ,that everyone feels welcome. And then even in just the things we carry in our shop. So that has evolved a lot since we first opened. And when people ask, what kind of store do you have? What is your store? 

We are, of course, a flower shop. But then it’s like we have so many things for so many categories of people that I feel like there’s genuinely something fun in here for everyone. And I was talking to Mary Grace about this question before we started, and a good example was that Mary Grace was teaching this community class for a Girl Scout troop.

A couple of weeks ago. So we had, how old were they? 

I want to say they’re very into Taylor Swift. I want to say they’re like 12, 13. Yeah. A little bit older. 

So they were all just like in the store freaking out over like the Taylor Swift stickers. And we have these like hot dog purses and just like all these things. But the hilarious thing is that some of the dads were there. And after the class they were like, wow, like you have really cool stuff in here. Like I would love to have this. This is like such a good gift. And so that’s something that’s important to us is kind of casting a wide net when it comes to making sure that all of our customers feel like there’s something in here for them and something special.

To piggyback on that too, when we are ordering, we put a lot of thought into the brands that we carry and even the places we source our flowers from. And so like what that looks like for us is, we love bringing in other women owned brands. We love bringing like minority owned brands.

It gets important for us, if we’re buying birthday cards, that they’re representative of all different skin tones, things like that. We want our merchandise in the store to just immediately welcome people, make them feel like they belong here. We’re also really big on like our displays and our decor in the store.

And so we try to do the same thing there where it just calls you in. And once you’re in the store, we just try to create this like immersive experience that really seems to resonate with our customers.

Crystal Vilkaitis: Yeah, it sounds almost like you ladies have this superpower of attention to detail from like the events side because I have my conference EVOLVE, which has a lot of events and I’m getting married soon. So I’m learning all the steps and there’s a lot of them, and you really have to have the attention of detail.

So it’s you’ve taken that experience and when you put it into retail, it allows for that hospitality. It allows for the attention and detail for things that people might not be paying attention to or notice that creates kind of a unique experience. And it sounds like you’re really looking at all aspects of that experience for your customers and integrating it into the store, which is awesome.

Paying attention to the little details that define the customer experience

Willrette Flowers: Honestly, that’s I feel like you hit the nail on the head of exactly what our goal is. We really try to go above and beyond when it comes to those little details and just holding ourselves to a really high standard. I mean, the thing that comes to mind for me is we just started doing this year with our bridal bouquets.

We have really pretty packaging and that’s something we struggled with. Finding a way to package them up and represent how special they are. Yeah, and so now we have this fun little box with a linen napkin to dry the stems off and we do like a Polaroid picture of the bouquet so that they can have that as a keepsake.

We like attach that with a handwritten note, which I mean sounds like a lot for just packaging. It takes five minutes. It takes five minutes and we enjoy it. Our team enjoys it. And then when that’s the first thing that they see on their wedding day, I feel like it helps calm everyone’s nerves. You know, it diffuses like, it sets the tone.

It’s exactly like when a customer walks in. Within the first few seconds, I feel like you’re setting the tone for their experience in your shop. So yeah, we have learned a ton. I feel like from the wedding world that is applicable to the store. And I think for us, there’s little details to like, we have a lot of little kids that come in here with their, we’ve got a lot of like moms with young kids.

That’s a big majority of our customers and we have little kids. So we are like, here’s a balloon. Can they have a balloon? Can they can play with the toys? Like we’re always just trying to make it a better experience for whoever’s in here. And I think we think back, there were some stores growing up and there was one in particular in Tulsa, Oklahoma called the Snow Goose.

It’s just really fun, novelty kind of gift store. And as children, we were just absolutely obsessed. And I remember back to that. And I think, if you can build a store that creates that like lasting special memory. You’re going to have a customer for life. And so that’s something that we strive for, but also we just love creating that environment. So I feel like it comes naturally.

Crystal Vilkaitis: That’s the thing. This is where the attention to detail can work so incredibly well in retail because it does provide the being memorable. And when you are memorable, then of course you’re first, you’re top of mind when people are thinking of whatever they need to purchase. And then even the polaroid, if I got that on my wedding day, it’s just so different.

It’s unique. I’m going to hang on to that. I’m probably going to take a picture of the picture, post it, tag it. Like it’s just so different. And you’re surprising and delighting your customers in simple ways. It doesn’t have to be these extraordinary ways that you’re showing up for customers. For example, it makes me think of.

At EVOLVE, which I know you ladies were at, I shared a video about Stanley cup and how they bought this lady a car, right? If you’re listening to this, you’ll have to go to TikTok or Google.

A a woman’s car caught on fire and the Stanley survived with ice in it. And she made this whole video of how Stanley reached out to her and they bought her a new car. And it was a huge like TikTok campaign, basically, kind of into a campaign. You don’t have to buy somebody a car, like you don’t have to go to that level to be memorable and to surprise and delight.

It can be the little things like giving balloons to the kids when they come in the store. But how are we, we got to be thinking about them and then making sure that we’re showing up in that way. Very cool. I wish I was local and could come into your store. It sounds so fun.

Willrette Flowers: We wish you were too.

Crystal Vilkaitis: I know. Well, if I’m ever visiting it in the area, I will stop in for sure.

And then also you mentioned something about hot dogs, and I feel like I need to get that for Pauline.

Willrette Flowers: Oh, you need this too. This hot dog hair clip.

Crystal Vilkaitis: A hot dog hair clip. Yes, please hold.

Willrette Flowers: I can’t believe I’m saying this. This is our second hot dog purse that we carry. We also have a beaded clutch. This is when people are like, what do you sell? And we’re like, actually literally nothing you need. There’s not a single necessity in this store. No necessity means it’s all like, everything’s a little treat.

Or what do we say? It’s nothing that you need, but everything that you have to have. Yes, I’m sorry.

Crystal Vilkaitis: Oh my gosh. I love it so much. And if anyone is watching this, it’s hilarious because we just got to see the hot dog clip. We got to see the hot dog purse. So please hold those for me. Because if anyone knows Pauline, my COO, she loves hot dogs.

Willrette Flowers: That’s amazing.

Crystal Vilkaitis: Good. All right, back to regular scheduled programming here.

Some of the ways Kat and Mary Grace get involved with the community

Crystal Vilkaitis: Let’s talk about the community. Because like you said, you were new to the community and now it sounds like you’re pretty involved and it’s obviously very important to you. So will you share some of the impactful ways that you’re getting involved?

Willrette Flowers: Totally, yeah. I mean, when we first opened, we would always joke that the FedEx delivery guy and the UPS delivery guy were some of our oldest and best friends in town. Which is still true. We really love them. Yeah, I actually know they are. But it’s just been so cool, funny to see like how many people we’ve met and how we’ve gotten involved in our community.

And I do think some of that happened organically because obviously you’re gonna have interactions with customers, but a lot of it was pretty intentional. Extremely intentional, yeah. I think when you own a business, obviously you’re maxing yourself out a lot of the time. It’s not the easiest thing.

And so for us, I feel like we’ve drilled into what really makes us happy and what really like feeds our souls, and keeps us going and being able to give back with our time and with our money has been huge for us. So we do it in a few different ways. The first thing is monthly, we pick a different organization.

A nonprofit in the local community, and we do what we call a give back bouquet. Oh, For example, for June, DeKalb County Pride is our organization. We’re donating to, and we have these like really beautiful rainbow bouquets. The bouquet changes monthly and it’s always like one of our best sellers of the month.

And it’s great because not only can we, that organization, we can support them financially, but also they’re sharing it. They’re people who are involved, they’re sharing it. And it exposes us to a whole new group of customers. And it really allows us to put our money where our mouth is when it comes to like our values and our beliefs.

So that has been really cool as well. I do feel like anyone who owns a small business, especially like we’re right in the middle of our downtown, we get inundated with donation requests, which I get it. I totally get it. You know, and we’re never like frustrated or annoyed, but we have implemented like basically a donation request form, which has been really helpful for us.

And we helpful in a way that it gets helps us to get to know these organizations. Because everybody can’t donate to everything. And for us, there are a few in particular that we really have chosen and love to support and are like we’ll go to bat for whatever they need. There are always one offs.

There are always like raffles and things that we will donate to almost anything, but implementing that form really helped because we have them fill out: okay, please tell us your mission statement. Please tell us your values. Please tell us how you’ll be using this monetary donation or this gift basket.

Where will this money be going to? How do you work in our community? And I feel like we’ve gotten to know more organizations that we were not aware of that we would like to support and then been able to filter out some that don’t line up with our values. And so I think that’s been really helpful because it’s really hard to say no.

And it’s also hard to even know what’s out there that you might want to be supporting that you didn’t know about.

Crystal Vilkaitis: Totally. And I’m all about systems and processes and that is such a streamlined way to get those requests and an easy way to promote it on social. Like we want, we give back, we believe in giving back to our community so you can apply and here’s how you can do it. I also love the bouquet of the month because it’s such, that’s such great content too.

People are wondering like, what is it going to be? And they’re waiting for that. So that’s really cool. Awesome.

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Willrette Flowers: We do a lot of community events too. So Mary Grace has kind of spearheaded a lot of that. But we have hosted and planned First Fridays and all kinds of things. Yeah, and I love doing the community events because they are so fun.. And it brings lots of new people in our doors And then also we’re in like this little cool like walkable downtown area ,where there’s this large group of like woman owned businesses.

So it’s like a great, a great kind of environment to be in. But the thing that I have seen that really surprised me is the amount of social media, like shares and even coverage, like in our local newspaper that we’ve gotten from doing some of these things. Like we plan an event around Valentine’s Day called the Sweet Stroll,, where people kind of stroll from store to store and combine.

There’s like a sweets vendor in every store. Different sweet treats. And so it’s super fun and we did that because you know we’re florists. We wanted to like drum up business for our first Valentine’s Day is how we started it. But it was amazing because we got on the front page of the local newspaper, which it worked, we didn’t think would be a big deal because it’s a relatively small town.

But then we just had so many friends coming and bringing us like newspaper clippings of our article. And every time we get in the newspaper, we have people who mention it. And so it’s been really surprising to see, especially with our older customers. We have a lot of older customers, how that type of yeah, something we would have never used as marketing has been extremely valuable.

And I feel like the pathway to that for us has been the community events like we do. Mary Grace does a talk at the library like almost once a month on floral design. Our public library is incredible and we host their plant swap. And, man, if anybody has a plant store or anything related to that, they have a hundred people show up every month.

And you like bring a plant and you can take home a plant of somebody else’s switch it up. And so we host and we send I don’t know, 30, 50 houseplants a month for them so that everybody can go home with one if they didn’t bring one. But we get so many people who are like, Oh, I saw your poster at the public library.

And I love that. So it’s been both like Fun and really heartwarming for us to be able to do that kind of stuff, but it has also been really good for our business and like legitimately push the needle forward. And just one quick note to talk about like the plant swap. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: I love it

Willrette Flowers: We feel like doing these bouquets or doing the plants for plant swap. It’s something where we work in an industry where there’s a lot of perishable products, and nothing is more gut wrenching than throwing away buckets of flowers that are just like too old to be used. And so there’s a lot of things we do to prevent that from happening.

But just a slow week is going to happen. It just happens. And so same with plants. We always have a few extras that maybe don’t look good enough to sell, but we can use them. And so we’ve identified some of our lower cost items that are easy for us to move that can be used for like fundraising.

So one good example is there’s a domestic violence, a women’s shelter here called safe passages that we’re super passionate about. And, just casually in conversation with one of their employees, they were mentioning that they didn’t have toys for Christmas, like they were nowhere. They have a huge budget cut from the state.

Yeah, they were nowhere near their goal. And this was like, a week and a half before Christmas. And so we just looked at what’s something that we could easily sell? We have these fun like $15 holiday bouquets. And so we did a huge toy drive where you got a holiday bouquet if you brought in. A free bouquet, if they brought it. And we raised we got van loads of toys, like he had the flower load.

It was crazy. So it was amazing. And we were able to do that. And that was an awesome thing for us to see, but it also just like really helped them out in a time of need. And so it’s just cool to be able to leverage your business to do things like that.

Crystal Vilkaitis: No kidding, that community connection. There’s just something so special about it and not everybody does get involved, and looks at ways that they can connect. But it’s such a amazing way to just fill up your heart and your soul, but then like you were saying, what also happens, there’s always ripple effects.

You do need to be talking about it on social. Cause people do see that and then they want to support your business because they’re seeing that you’re getting the press side of it, which we don’t talk a lot about press and PR here yet on the show. We haven’t yet, but that is so a ripple effect of these ways that you’re getting involved.

And it can create just so much awareness for the business. And it’s a good way to just connect. I love what you ladies are doing. That’s so awesome. And thank you for doing that. 

How obstacles such as health scares and managing motherhood while running a business influenced their business approach

Crystal Vilkaitis: Okay, we’re going to switch gears a little bit. I know that you both have faced significant challenges, from Mary Grace’s health scares to balancing motherhood and running a business.

How have these experiences shaped your approach to business and what advice would you give other retailers facing tough times? And feel free to share as much or as little as you’d like.

Willrette Flowers: Yeah, so to give a little bit of background. So I’m trying to think when it was. So last May, I started having like some health issues. I went to the doctor and I was eventually, after a lot of testing and surgery and some things like that, was eventually diagnosed with DCIS, which is like a non invasive, basically stage zero breast cancer.

And I was 33 at the time. So it was definitely unexpected for both of us. And of course, when I had gone in to start those appointments at the beginning of May, Kat also had a one week old. I think Hattie was like a week old with Mary Grace. And even to go further back than that, Mary Grace has a four year old and I have a three year old.

And then when she found out with her breast, that she had breast cancer, I think my daughter was like a week old. So it was a bit of a chaotic time. It made for a chaotic summer and it was the beginning of our wedding season. Kat had already taken, like I say, a maternity leave, but like I’d planned to be not at weddings and things like that.

And so it was a real eyeopening experience in a lot of different ways. I think we have this amazing benefit of owning a business together and being sisters. So not only do we support each other with the business, it’s nice because if there’s a day where I don’t have child care and I have a meeting for a wedding, that’s Kat takes the kids and vice versa.

We have a lot of support between the two of us. But it definitely encouraged us to start hiring, train our team more. We promoted a team member to a management position. So it made us just get serious about realizing that we can’t do it all. Which is like a very hard pill to swallow.

Yeah, and so we really were forced to learn to delegate and I think personally for me with the health stuff that I had going on because I had pretty much a whole year of like surgeries and radiation and lots of different things. And it was such a like welcome distraction to have work stuff to work on during that time.

Like for example, I finished radiation on Valentine’s Day. It was insane, which when they gave me my radiation, our busiest day of the year, when they gave me their schedule, I was like, you have to be joking. This is hilarious. And so it did just give me something to focus on other than the health stuff and something to get me through it.

And so I feel like it really helped me to like power through. But at the same time, there were definitely a lot of days, especially where I was doing radiation, where I just couldn’t work. I just had to go home and go to sleep. And obviously having two owners really helps with that, but having team members, we felt comfortable with also made a huge difference there.

And I do feel like it kind of made us even more firm on like boundaries. With things and with people because we are such like, yes, girls which I do think is part of how we built our business and is a good thing in most ways. But we had such a bad, like overcommitment problem. So it really forced our hand at setting some more boundaries whether it was saying like no, we cannot do that community event.

We cannot plan this or hey no, we can’t do that like Friday night private workshop or whatever because both of our husbands are amazing, but also have jobs that are very seasonally busy when our wedding season is seasonally busy. So we’re always like juggling childcare. My youngest came to work here at the store with me for seven months.

So from like the time she was like two weeks old. So we are always like juggling that around. But one thing that I think I learned while Mary Grace was in radiation and having two young kids, basically, I feel like we just have three kids between the two of us. Yeah, we always say our kids.

Where’s my three kids? And this is something that I feel like a lot of people might disagree with, and I’m probably past me would have disagreed with too. But one thing that I have implemented with both like the shop and my home and everything is that if something is worth whole assing, it’s worth half assing. And I feel like that is like the opposite of my like perfectionist personality and Mary Grace too. But we tend to really like I think stunt our growth by being like, it’s not perfect.

It’s not ready. We cannot put it out there or something for the shop is not exactly the display we wanted. So let’s not do it yet. And I feel like that whole situation made us be like, you know what? Just put it out there. And it has been worthwhile. And I think it has really taught me that sometimes done is better than perfect.

And there are situations where that’s not the case, but I think it was a lesson that was difficult to learn, but has been helpful, like in the grand scheme of things. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: Yeah. There’s a lot of lessons there and I’m sorry that you went through that. Mary Grace, how are you feeling now?

Willrette Flowers: I’m feeling great. So I’m several months out of radiation now. And thank goodness I have no evidence of disease going forward. So I’m feeling really great. I think I thought I was feeling great through radiation. And now that I’m on the other side of it, I’m like, Oh, okay. This is wonderful.

I’m feeling really great. And honestly, too, I think anyone who deals with cancer or like just a scary health issue like that. It’s a real wake up call to spend time doing what you enjoy. And what lights you up. And so I think if I had that experience while I was still in my days of selling corporate insurance or something like that.

It probably would have led to a career change, but I think for me in my current situation, it helped me just have gratitude for the amazing business that we’ve built and the fact that you get to, we get to come in and make flower arrangements all day. It’s a pretty special job.

I think something that was really wonderful and unexpected too, is I tend to be a little more private, personally. It was hard news to share with people. Like it was very hard for me to tell people what I was dealing with. But we felt like it was important to let our customers know. Just because, our wedding clients. Especially our wedding clients and things like that. Just to know here’s an update. I’m still gonna be at your wedding. You know, we have other people on our team to help. Yeah, but the outpouring of support that I got from our customers in person and on social media was like, it’s going to like, made me cry thinking about it.

It was totally overwhelming and it made me realize I have this amazing support system that I didn’t even know about. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: Yeah. Oh, that’s really special. And that’s the thing, I’m glad that you did share and I get everybody has their own feelings of how much is too much and if you want to let people in. But I really do feel like people are here to support and care and send love and be there for you. And that’s incredible that you had that kind of support and you got a lot of perspective.

It sounds like, I think, during different situations like that, we can. We get perspective and we can make those changes. If anybody is listening to this right now and you’re feeling like, what if something did happen to you, God forbid, or you just wanted to go take a two month vacation, do something fun.

Is your business set up? Do you have the team that can support? Do you have that delegation? Do you have that structure to support you in that time of need, whether it’s health or for fun? I think it’s

Willrette Flowers: Sorry. You’re close. So sorry. So sorry.

Crystal Vilkaitis: no, that’s okay. Did we have a customer come in?

Willrette Flowers: yeah.

Crystal Vilkaitis: Yeah 

Willrette Flowers: but yeah.

Crystal Vilkaitis: we will. I feel like we’ll keep part of that because that’s fun and very relatable to our retailers listening to this.

So we had a customer come in, but you do, you have to delegate and you have to, the whole like done is better than perfect is something I say a lot and we just, it’s so easy to want to wait until we feel like it’s perfect, but it’s just never going to be perfect. And when you are in those situations, you just got to get it out.

You learn from getting those things out. You get better by getting things out. You just have to keep doing it. So these are incredible lessons that unfortunately you learn through going through a hard time. But made you stronger. It sounds and then you’re also able to share with our community here to help somebody listening as well. So thank you for sharing. Okay, ladies, we’re going to shift gears again here, and we’re going to close out before we go to resilience round, talking about a couple of things.

Social media strategies that helped Willrett Flower Co. drive more engagement and sales

Crystal Vilkaitis: One, social media at EVOLVE. I shared some of your posts cause you’re doing some cool stuff. Like I really love the six pack of these little flower, the vases in the six pack that you could grab, like adorable. But will you share some strategies that have worked well for you with connecting with your audience and driving engagement in sales?

Willrette Flowers: Yeah. So back when I feel like you have to almost for us, you have to take it back to the very beginning, which when I started this business, it was starting seeds in my basement in 2015. And I started with the flower farm. And so that was, I feel like Instagram in 2015 was like very different than it is now.

But I was very just like transparent and I feel like it showed everything showed like very. Yeah, and personal and you know it was before I was like even married so like even when I got engaged and like my wedding and all of that. We just shared everything and it was very casual. At that point I was like doing farmer’s markets and you know would show people like my cats. So it was very personal, very fine, very laid back.

And then we started to climb more into the wedding world and even more into the luxury wedding world. And we just got this idea in our mind. And I do think it’s the general vibe of that industry of we got to button this up. We need to like, look more professional. Not even professional, but there was a big trend at the time, for the luxury wedding industry where you would just see everybody’s website looked the same. 

Everybody was using the same like best practices and everything was, it was very, it was very rigid. And you know, that might work really well for some people. It worked fine for us, but it just felt like something was missing from like the way Kat had previously done social media.

It was just a one 80 for us. It was way less personal, way more like just professional wedding photos and specifically wedding content, very little like talking or just like interacting with our customers. And we really were like, no, this is what we have to do. This is how we have to grow in this industry.

And then around the time, I think we started the shop, we were like, wait, this is not us. We’re not even connecting with the people that we want to be connecting to. We don’t want to have this like elitist vibe. So switching that up kind of again, and just Going more back to our roots and like being very personal and showing up and showing ourselves has been like so much better.

A million times better. Definitely. And I think we really stepped back and looked at who are the customers that we want to attract? And what are the types of weddings that we want to do? Cause we had gotten to a place where we could pick and choose what we were working on.

And our vibe is very fun and very personalized and colorful. And so we just really started trying to show that and show like, This is when we were just doing weddings, but like trying to show our dream wedding through our social media to attract those clients. And that’s something that I’m so proud of because I get asked all the time if we have bridezillas that we work with.

And we really don’t because I feel like we’ve attracted this like just amazing client base. Our clients are wonderful. And and same with our customers in the shop, people really come to us for our particular style of design. Our kind of creative, different things, things we carry in the shop.

Like they know they can come in here and it’s going to be like fun and unique. They’re going to have a good experience. So I think actually showing that stuff on social media has worked better for us than anything else we’ve done. And then with the nitty gritty stuff, like Mary Grace is so good about posting reels and just putting, staying on top of things and like new things. And also just trying stuff I feel like has worked well for us and again that like just do it. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just post it and get it out there has been like a game changer for us.

Crystal Vilkaitis: For sure. Well, and that is you do have to try different things because the algorithms do change and you want to understand your customers and you can try the different trends, which I know you’ll use some of those trending audios, and that can really help get more exposure with your reels. And we talk about this a lot on the show, but it, so much goes back to really understanding your customer.

The bride you want to work with, the wedding you want to do, and you’re showcasing that through the content. So it attracts her when she’s scrolling to be like, yes, this is what I identify with. And too often I think that we can be posting things that we think we should be posting versus what’s really going to resonate with our audience.

And then also let them get to know who we are because we want to buy from people that we know and trust. And so that humanized content is so important. And that’s where you’re really shining through too. So congrats. Great job, thank you for being a good student and a good case study for me to use. Cause you guys are crushing it.

Willrette Flowers: Thank you, and honestly we have a lot of fun doing it. I think that’s a thing that’s helped too is just allowing ourselves to be funny and show our personalities because I think we’re pretty funny in real life.

Crystal Vilkaitis: Oh, I could see that there’s a lot of fun happening and if you can capture that and just, and that’s the thing, it’s like, I was recently thinking about a project and I’m like, how fun can I make this? If you just look at stuff like that, right? If you think of your social media, how fun can I make this?

Cause a lot of people don’t have a lot of fun with it, but if we view things through that lens, it can make it more fun and easier and more enjoyable to do.

Willrette Flowers: to tell her your mantra. Oh, yeah. So, I don’t know. Do you watch The Office? Or did you have a lot of it? Okay. No, but so Michael Scott always jokes about how he’s going to write a book called somehow I manage that is not what I’m talking about. But that too, I was talking about Mary Grace always says the more fun we have, the more money we make.

Oh, yeah. So I was going to say we always joke, but we always joke about how one day we’re going to write a book and call it like Selling Silly. So it’s this is silly. We shouldn’t do that. This is silly. And then we’re like, no, that’s the vibe. The sillier the product is, like if it’s a beaded hotdog purse, like the more people weirdly that sells really well for us.

Crystal Vilkaitis: I think you should totally write the book. I think that is a good angle and yeah, the more fun, you’re making more money. Like it’s great.

Willrette Flowers: Totally.

Their goals for expanding the store to a new location

Crystal Vilkaitis: have more fun. It’s so good. Okay, now you ladies are evolving. You have some new stuff that’s coming up. So will you share what’s happening?

Willrette Flowers: Yeah, absolutely. So we’re super excited about this. We are moving to a building that’s almost three times the size of our current building. It’s a major upgrade, and it’s only like half a block away from us. We’re still in our like walkable downtown area. So it’s going to be at the end of the month that we’re going to be moving in.

So it’s happening fast. But it’s just a much larger space that’s really going to allow us to expand, and it’s going to allow us to do more classes and workshops and community events. So we’re really excited about that. And then we’re also doing a little bit of rebranding as well. The shop is going to be split between flowers and gifts and we’re renaming the gift shop Bon which we’re so excited about. That’s the first time we’ve told anybody that. 

Crystal Vilkaitis: Cute. Love it. 

Willrette Flowers: So there’s going to be, it’s still going to be like our one business, but we’re just separating out like our gifts and retail because we want to make that bigger and then keeping like our wedding event business as its own thing. So we have enough space to do both.

Crystal Vilkaitis: Oh, that’s awesome. Congrats ladies. That’s very exciting. I can’t wait to see the content on social media, I’m sure you’ll be taking us through this journey and the transition. I mean, that’s awesome. Congrats on that growth too.

Willrette Flowers: Thank you. 

Kat and Mary Grace’s resilience round

Crystal Vilkaitis: Are you ready for the resilience round?

Willrette Flowers: I think so. Get ready.

Best business book

Crystal Vilkaitis: All right, let’s do it.

Best business book.

Willrette Flowers: So I have to say, I read it first. But Unreasonable Hospitality hands down. That’s mine as well. I love that book. It’s the best.

Crystal Vilkaitis: Okay, awesome. I’m going to have to read that.

Willrette Flowers: It’s a good one.

Best retail technology

Crystal Vilkaitis: good one. Okay, best retail technology, like an app or software.

Willrette Flowers: What were you gonna say? You said Instagram. Did I say Instagram? I love ChatGPT too. Even though I know it’s not like a retail specific app, I do like the ability on Instagram and Facebook that if we have something in the store that we just really want to move or we really want to show, I love just being able to do a live and get people’s attention that way, yeah.

How do you keep up with the ever changing retail landscape?

Crystal Vilkaitis: Yep. That instant access, so good. How do you keep up with the ever changing retail landscape?

Willrette Flowers: We love trying new things. Yeah. To a fault. So we fail fast and then accept that we failed fast and move on to the next thing. Yes. And so if there is like a cool new product, if there’s like a trend in the floral industry, we will jump on it. And if it works awesome. And if it doesn’t, No big deal.

We don’t take it personally and we move on to the next thing. And Mary Grace always says she’s chronically online and she is. So I feel like she knows what’s going on. Helps with keeping an eye on the trends.

Crystal Vilkaitis: Yes, that’s good. Chronically online, I like it. To help retailers be stronger, more rooted in success, what’s a foundational best practice?

Willrette Flowers: I think for me, it’s having that desire to make things right. If you make a mistake, because no matter how big of a perfectionist you are, the mistakes they’re going to happen. I have that kind of natural urge to panic if someone’s unhappy. But instead of doing that, or instead of getting frustrated with the customer, I really just push myself to just ask what can I do to make this right?

We deal with perishable products. So like flowers are going to die. Sometimes it happens. And I always just like to go above and beyond to make it right. Because I think that’s one of the best things you can do to win a lifetime customer. Who’s going to stay with you forever is just be very honest and do whatever you can to go above and beyond.

If you had to start your business all over again, what’s one thing you’d do differently?

Crystal Vilkaitis: Completely agree. It’s awesome. If you had to start your business all over again, what’s one thing you’d do different?

Willrette Flowers: Jokingly, I would say get a third sister because we joke about that all the time. We wish we had a sister who really loved computer work. But it’s just the two of us, unfortunately. No, I think one of the things that I wish I had done earlier would be, in the beginning, I feel like you’re spending so much time exchanging like your time for money.

 I would do any crazy, full night of working so I could have stuff ready for the farmer’s market or whatever. And I wish I had invested earlier and being able to trade that money for my time back. And for us that means like different kinds of training or even just outsourcing things, like having our, like we have someone who does our bookkeeping doing different like social media training, like Mary Grace going to EVOLVE, or like me doing a workshop with like a well known florist.

Like I wish I had implemented that earlier because you can learn to bypass like so many things in like such a short amount of time. So I think that would be, I wish I’d done that earlier. And honestly, I think the. The ads, the Meta ads with Crystal Media are like the perfect example of that because now that I’m able to see the campaigns and see what’s going on, it really makes me realize I could have never figured that out on my own or it would have taken me, I don’t know, two years.

And it was just like such a worthwhile thing to pay for. And we’ve been trying to see other areas in our business where we can do the same thing. Yeah, we’ve never regretted doing any kind of outsourcing like that. There’s never been a time I don’t think where we’re like, Oh, I wish we wouldn’t have done that.

Crystal Vilkaitis: Yeah, I agree. Shortening that gap, like speeding it up and investing and who not how, yep. I so agree with that. 

What do you think the future of independent retail looks like?

Crystal Vilkaitis: What do you think the future of independent retail looks like?

Willrette Flowers: I personally think it looks awesome. I think it’s very promising because to me, the engagement I see with our customers. And I see that they’re willing to come here and buy their birthday cards, or whatever it is that they could get cards at Target. But they come here and they’re like, I recognize you from your Instagram story.

So in that way, I think people are looking for that personalized shopping experience. And also something that, a store like ours that’s always changing and always bringing in new things. So you can go weekly and it never looks exactly the same. And we have the advantage, like we have a lot of younger employees.

We also for a while it was like every single bride and groom were our age and now they’re not. Now we are older than most of them. So we have kind of like that younger generation of people that we have shopping and working with us all the time. And I see the way that they buy things, in the way that they shop, and how much more they care about like brand values and like where your products are coming from.

So I think that’s like a wonderful way to gauge the way that retail is going to be because that younger generation seems to really care about where they’re buying things from.

Crystal Vilkaitis: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. I so agree. Ladies, where can people learn more and connect with you?

Willrette Flowers: The best place to find us is on Instagram. Our Instagram handle is just WillRetFlowerCompany. And then you can also see us online at Willrettflowercompany. com. That’s where we have all of our flowers and all the pretty wedding photos and things like that.

Crystal Vilkaitis: Ladies, thank you so much. Yes, we will link to all of that. Thank you for sharing a little bit inside of your world.

It sounds awesome and super fun, and I hope I get to see it one day. It really means a lot having you here, so thank you.

Willrette Flowers: Oh my gosh, thank you. This was so fun for us. Yeah, and we love the podcast. We’re both big fans. So

Crystal Vilkaitis: Yay, good. Thank you for listening. Awesome to have you here. Everyone. Remember that I’m rooting for your success. Have a great weekend. Bye. 

Thank you so much for being here. It means the world to me. Don’t forget to join the Rise and Shine newsletter, which is social media news you need to know sent via email every Monday morning, go to crystalmediaco.com/rise to join and don’t miss the newest episode of Rooted in Retail, which drops every Sunday morning.