The Value Of Listening To The Expertise That You Pay For

Jul 16, 2015

Whether you are a bride hiring a florist or a florist hiring a web developer to build a new flower shop website you are paying for their expertise. It pays to listen to it.

Florists have it tough. Especially when it comes to weddings and dealing with brides.

It typically starts with a bride, delighted with the pleasure of planning her dream day, explaining her ideas for wedding flowers to the florist. Florists are great people, and weddings can be fun, and it's nice to have an enthusiastic client.

But sometimes a bride has ideas that just aren't practical – they want flowers that are out of season, or not suitable for an outdoor southern wedding in the summer (some flowers just can't survive that kind of heat). Sometimes there are budget issues right from the start – the bride is looking for flowers they saw from a celebrity wedding on Instagram, but their budget won't even cover one of those centerpieces.

The florist will try and politely steer the bride in the right direction, and that is where things start to go wrong.

Sometimes the bride doesn't want to hear it. This confusing for the florist because, presumably, they bride is hiring them at least in part for their expertise.

But the florist really does want to help the bride have a great wedding, and they patiently try and explain why a certain flower might not work. Again this doesn't always got well.

The bride starts to dig her heels in. She knows what she wants, and if the celebrity can have it why can't she? 

This is now really hard for the florist. Everything they have said has been with the best of intentions. They want the bride to be happy. They want the flowers to be perfect. But they know that what the bride is asking or is not possible/won't last/is way out of the budget. They plead with the bride to trust their expertise...

Which, unfortunately, infuriates the bride. How can the florist dare question her taste? The call ends tragically.

It is, sadly, something florists face far too often. Their attempts to help a customer, and add value by sharing their expertise, and their desire to help a client from making an expensive mistake only enrages the client.

Sometimes though florists are on the other end of things.

Websites for florists are very tricky. A good ecommerce website for florists requires all of the strategies and best practices that are used in regular ecommerce. This alone means real expertise in things like SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization).

In addition there are aspects to retail floral that are truly unique, and a good flower shop website has to address these. This is why florists are always better off with websites that were designed from the ground up with retail floral in mind.

Florists also need to trust the expertise of the people that provide these websites. Too often, like the bride, they are too focussed on what they think they site should look like, and not enough on the expertise of the web developer.

Again the call typically starts with an excited client, in this case the florists talking about their ideas for a new website.

The web developer is excited too. They love what they do and they love the idea of building a floral website that will help generate lots of online sales and make the client more successful. They also respect that florists are tremendously listed when it comes to visual design. They're interested in what the florist has to say about how they would like the site to look. 

At some point things start to go a little off the rails. The florist might mention wanting an all-black background, or having music start playing as soon as the customer comes to the flower shop website. The website designer understands that these things are known "conversion killers". No matter how much the florist might like the idea, the website designer knows that these choices will drive visitors away.

Because they want the new website to be really good at selling flowers online they share their concerns with the florist. They urge them to go with practices that are proven to work.

The florist grows increasingly angry. They point out that they know what looks good, and the website developer should not question them. 

The web developer quickly gets as discouraged as the florist dealing with the bride. Like the florist they have only good intentions. They aren't saying the florist doesn't know what looks good, they are only encouraging them to consider what has been proven to work. Just like the florist they are a paid expert asking a paying client to accept their expertise. 

The florist only grows more upset, and the call ends badly.

 Florists and web developers are both very skilled professionals with a lot of knowledge. When you either try and take full advantage of that knowledge. They know what they are talking about and only want to help you.

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