Stephen Continues his discussion with Michael Jacobson about how he help save and ultimately revive his uncle's business.

Dave Young:

Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those.

[Travis Crawford Ad]

Rick:

Told you, Brian.

Brian:

Told me what?

Rick:

This is part two of last week's episode.

Brian:

Oh yeah. And it was getting good.

Rick:

And if you missed it, you can always listen to the first one. Just back up to last week's episode. Take it away fellas.

Stephen Semple:

In my TEDx Talk that I did, the very, very first slide, the very first slide is win the heart and the mind will follow.

Michael Jacobson:

That's exactly right. We're humans. We're emotion lead. That's exactly right.

Stephen Semple:

Even engineers make decisions emotionally. We are wired to make decisions emotionally and connect with things emotionally. So you're 1,000% correct on this.

Michael Jacobson:

Thank you. Yeah, I mean, so far so good. So ultimately, the market will decide if that's true or not, but I tend to believe that that is true.

Stephen Semple:

Well, it's already voted that way with you so far.

Michael Jacobson:

Yeah, I mean, it's coming that way. And so we really focus our brand on making the client feel like the hero because they are. Buying flowers from us should feel as good as receiving the flowers. It is a remarkable act to send flowers to somebody. You are literally creating a more loving world.

Stephen Semple:

Yes.

Michael Jacobson:

And I don't know what the meaning of life is, Kay, but when I ask people, a lot of times the response is it's human connection. Or if they want to go even deeper, the meaning of life is love. And so that's the business we're in. And if you're leveraging flowers, the most meaningful gift you can give to tell somebody that you love them, you should be praised for that. And so we make our centers feel very good about that as they should be.

Stephen Semple:

Well, if you think about it, your business is very, very similar. Let's just look at the emotional part. Your is very similar on the emotional level as engagement rings. The person who gives an engagement ring, yes, they want the person that they're giving the ring to feel good, but it's that I give this beautiful ring to this person. They feel good. I feel good in return.

So you're absolutely right. The gift of giving when it's done right both end up getting positive emotional feelings about it. The receiver feels great. And when it's done right, the giver feels great as well. Here's the other thing that people discount in gift giving, it now actually creates a shared narrative.

Michael Jacobson:

That's right.

Stephen Semple:

Because we've actually shared in that gift, even if it's thousands of miles away, even if I never talk to the person, even if the person's in a coma and it goes to the hospital, I still have a shared experience now with that individual through emotionally taking that act. You're absolutely 1,000% correct on these things.

Michael Jacobson:

Yeah, thanks. It bothers me because we would not be doing what we're doing if somebody else was. We never had the ambition. So I want to answer your question on my franchise. We wouldn't franchise, we wouldn't even expand corporate locations if there was somebody in our industry that was doing it as well as we thought it should be done. But nobody is. Our market leader is 1-800-FLOWERS, and my job is not to bash the competitors. We shine our own lamp. But pragmatically speaking, we think somebody can do a better job than 1-800.

Stephen Semple:

For them, it's a commodity that's being moved. I want to share a thought with you, and you may have considered this thought, but you're in an interesting situation because as soon as I hear somebody say, "Hey, we want to educate the consumer on doing this thing, and I want to change the consumer behavior," I always look at that from a marketing perspective as being a really...

Michael Jacobson:

Very expensive.

Stephen Semple:

Well, it's expensive and it's a difficult challenge. However, you've got an interesting strategy that you can do. So if I was working with you based upon a 20-minute conversation, so this strategy is worth the amount of time and effort of money that's been put towards it.

Michael Jacobson:

I know. You can do this for however many years to get to this answer.

Stephen Semple:

Right. But if you think about it, there is a bit of a thin edge of the wedge strategy here, especially where you've optimized and worked hard to make sure the customer becomes a repeat customer. So anytime I'm in a situation where I go, I've got a good long-term value of this customer, and I've got good stickiness, and I've got good return, and I've got to educate them on a behavior that they're not doing today, I can do a kind of interesting thin edge of the wedge type approach.

So in other words, okay, my acquisition strategy is not give a gift you've never thought about giving. My acquisition strategy is lean into the gift you're already giving, but then make it so amazing and make it so incredible, and now that I've got a relationship with you, I can start to talk to you about gifting in other ways. It's almost like that I can use the one to acquire and then I can pivot that customer into a different relationship now that they're a customer.

Michael Jacobson:

Totally.

Stephen Semple:

Is that kind of the strategy you're employing?

Michael Jacobson:

It is. Yeah, no, I mean, I think that it's... I'll add onto that because I agree and to add an additional perspective there as well because I agree with you. On the surface, it looks like we're trying to shift consumer behavior to purchase flowers more frequently and purchase for non-occasions. If our culture right now is to buy for happy birthday and we're trying to say, "No, buy for a random Tuesday," that is a difficult thing to do.

What we're trying to do instead is a little bit more like inspire, educate, motivate the buyer into... It's not educating them on something new. It's something they already know very deep down. Giving flowers, it incredibly goes back to our ancestors. I mean, it's been around for thousands of years that act of giving flowers. It's in us.

Stephen Semple:

It's not a new thing.

Michael Jacobson:

We view our job as reminding people of that. And so it's not necessarily shifting. It's resurfacing something that people already know very deep down, I think. And maybe not deep down, maybe people already really do know that.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah, it's rekindling that, but the interesting place is the easiest place to rekindle that is with the customer who's already had the great experience.

Michael Jacobson:

Yes, exactly.

Stephen Semple:

With you.

Michael Jacobson:

Yes.

Stephen Semple:

Because they've also now experienced how wonderful it is and how superior your product is and how great the experience was is that, okay, well, now I want to do that again. And you're able to communicate them about, well, you don't need an occasion to make somebody feel good.

Michael Jacobson:

Totally.

Stephen Semple:

Right?

Michael Jacobson:

Yeah.

Stephen Semple:

But the interesting thing with that is that type of messaging is a different type of aspirational messaging, and as you were saying, is expensive. Look, it doesn't fit into where the traditional florist marketing is, which is web-based pay-per-click style advertising, because what you're speaking to is doing something that a person isn't searching for but kindling that idea.

Michael Jacobson:

That's right. That's exactly right.

Stephen Semple:

There's lots of really cool ways that you can do it. Look, and this is also how a lot of lux... And I know you're not a luxury good, but you are a luxury good, but it's a lot of how those goods are sold because they're sold around an aspirational emotional idea.

Michael Jacobson:

So I agree with you. I think the perception is that we're a luxury company. Okay, I challenge the floral industry. I challenge the franchise industry. I think most franchises suck. Can I say that?

Stephen Semple:

Absolutely.

Michael Jacobson:

Most franchises suck.

Stephen Semple:

Sure.

Michael Jacobson:

There are a couple of good franchises. I think Chick-fil-A does it okay. I think Orangetheory does it okay. We're following a model like when we say we're franchising, we don't have to get into it. Just know we're trying to flip the franchise model on its head and actually run a great franchise system that puts the franchise on first. And even more than the franchise on first, puts the end consumer first.

Anyways, that's one thing. So we flipped the floral industry on its head. We've flipped the franchise model on its head. And now from the consumer perspective, what does a luxury company mean? We need to design some apparel for our team members to wear. Apparel that's high quality, make them feel really good, really special. I went Rodeo Drive to get some inspiration. Look at Louis Vuitton and Hermes and all these companies, right?

Stephen Semple:

Thank you.

Michael Jacobson:

Okay. This is what I found. Remarkable craftsmanship, I will say. An unbelievable amount of thought goes into those designs. Then you look at the price tag and it's $4,000 for a cotton t-shirt.

Stephen Semple:

Yes.

Michael Jacobson: