We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ralph Giordano a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ralph, thanks for joining us today. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?

Interview As a 4th generation floral designer/owner, I’ve been given a lot of guidance in running a business in this industry. My family has a rich, colorful history in this field that can be traced back to New York City over 100 years ago. However, times change and the biggest thing I ever had to teach myself is that things that worked back then don’t necessarily work today.

Just over 25 years ago, I was an assistant manager at a very successful shop in the area. Then, the opportunity arose for me to buy a very small 3-person flower shop.
Through hard work and networking, I was able to double its sales within the first few years. I did this by making contacts within the local community, sending free flowers to the local schools, Dr’s offices, law enforcement and first responders, etc.. To this day, we continue to offer them 10% off all their local floral needs. Thus, building relationships that are still going strong after all these years.

After a few more years of concentrating on the retail floral side, I began to build a strong brand for myself, especially with events and weddings. I took many steps to becoming one of the industry leaders of events in my area. At that point, I was doing 10x the sales I was doing when I first became an owner. Along with that came a lot of expenses, and growth is not cheap. I was continuously re-investing my profits back into my business. For example, expanding my shop size and purchasing real estate for future endevours.
Then once again, there came a time when I felt I had reached a plateau in my market. Therefore, I decided to push my business into the local sympathy market. We created a custom book and pitched it to some of our local funeral home owners, and they loved it! In addition to expanding my business, it brought additional value to the service they offered, helping their profits grow as well as mine. Now, I exclusively serve over 90% of the local funeral homes and the families that they touch.

Fast forward to present day, 25 years after becoming an owner, these relationships are still going strong. My shop has served hundreds of thousands of customers, we’ve done thousands of weddings and events, and this list continues to grow as I nurture the rich customer base that I have strived so hard to create.

In floral retail businesses, the repeat customer is your bread and butter. They are consistent with ordering year-round. You must treat these relationships exactly as you would the flowers you sell, because they are just as important, if not more so.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Ralph A. Giordano Jr. AIFD, CFD, CEJ, FSMD

I am a 4th generation florist who’s family came to the United States from Italy in the early 1900’s.
They started out pushing fruit and flower carts down the streets of Harlem until the 1920’s when they opened “Ralph A. Giordano Funeral Home”. They followed the opening of the funeral home with the opening of “Giordano’s Pelham Bay Florist”.
Being born the day after Mother’s Day, I was immediately introduced to the floral industry following the holiday rush, and hasn’t slowed down since.
As I began working in my family’s floral shop as a young child, sweeping floors and processing flowers, and by the time I was a teenager, I was producing wedding bouquets and store-front designs.
At the age of 21, I was working as an assistant manager at a shop in South Florida, until the opportunity to purchase his own shop came along.
In March of 1998, Me and my wife, Leslie, purchased and began running “Flowers by Ann Smith” here at our current location. Two years later the name of the shop was changed to “Giordano’s Floral Creations” to honor My Family’s business in New York.
Since his ownership began, over 25 years ago, We have completed thousands of weddings, served well over 100,000 customers, and has won numerous local awards from various businesses in our community, as well as the countless sponsorship and donations I have contributed to. I’ve spent the past years educating myself in modern design, as well as maintaining my knowledge in traditional floral design. I achieved my AIFD credentials in 2018, Followed by my Certified Floral Evaluator Judge in 2021. I have become a well known staple in the floral industry across the nation, as well as in our community, and currently serves on numerous boards committees and foundations within the floral industry.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

As I was growing my business and becoming a top vendor in the wedding and event business, competition was strong. More and more single person studios and people working out of their homes, started popping up. Since typical that business model has less expenses, they were able to charge a lot less then brick and mortar locations. Driving our profit margins way down. So i pivoted to focus on a part of the industry I was very familiar with, sympathy florals, since my family has owned both florist and funeral homes. I was very familiar with the needs of that industry. Since I had pivoted many years back, when Covid hit and shut down many facilities that hosted large events, they wedding and event industry took and big hit. But because I pivoted early on, I was able to continue to provide a very needed service. Proving the loved ones of a recently departed family with beautiful flowers to help them through a very difficult time.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

Holding your employees accountable for their actions. At my shop, each of my employees have a dedicated job / task they perform. That is their primary responsibility, as well as helping to support their other colleagues in their tasks.
By doing this, the employees have a sense of responsibility, and care more for the task/ service they provide while feeling confident about what they are doing.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.Gfloral.cc
• Instagram: http://instagram.com/giordanosfloralcreations
• Facebook: Facebook.com/Giordanos.Floral.Creations

Image Credits
Ralph Giordano