http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/ This section is updated on a regular basis with valuable information that will help our users get the greatest possible benefit from the FloristWare POS system. en Copyright 2011 Thu, 31 Mar 2011 18:47:19 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Planning on running extra stations during Mother's Day? FloristWare users who pay on an annual basis can activate an extra FloristWare station in February and May at no extra charge. Users that pay on a monthly basis can add an extra station for one month for $150. In either case it is essential that you schedule your installation appointment with FloristWare Support on or before April 29, 2011. Planning any changes to your FloristWare configuration before Mother's Day? Are you planning to add new hardware like card swipers, printers, etc? If so you need to get the equipment in your shop as soon as possible and schedule configuration prior to April 29, 2011. Getting started with enclosure cards before Mother's Day? If you are not yet using FloristWare to print enclosure cards but plan to start before Mother's Day it is essential that you order them immediately - this is a peak period for the printers in this industry and it will already be hard to arrange for delivery in time. You also need to schedule configuration of FloristWare for card printing prior to April 29, 2011. Special Bonus: We're Covering 40% of The Cost of FloralStrategies Training With Tim Huckabee Would you like a written guarantee that your average sale will increase by 20% or more? Tim Huckabee, the President of FloralStrategies.com makes and keeps such a promise! You may know Tim from his column, Flower Shop: CSI, in Floral Management magazine or heard him speak at national conventions since 1997. As a special bonus to our valued users we are underwriting 40% of Tim's fee for you to get him in your shop during the month of April. The discounted rate is $595 within 200 miles of NYC, $895 outside that range. Contact FloristWare now at 800.983.6184 for further details and to save a date for your shop. This is a one-time special and the training sessions are being filled on a first-come, first served basis. Think about how much more you can earn by adding $10 to $20 more to every sale!]]> http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2011/03/mothers_day_prep_week_1.html http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2011/03/mothers_day_prep_week_1.html Holiday Preparation Thu, 31 Mar 2011 18:47:19 -0500 Improving Your E-Mail Marketing for Valentine's Day. There are a few points that seem especially relevant right now... 1. Keep it short and simple. Don't waste too much time crafting the e-mail. You don't have much time to create a masterpiece right now anyway - you just want to remind your customers that Valentines is here and you are ready to help. 2. Qualify the e-mail addresses and information about the people... Don't carpet e-mail blast every address in your database. The good news is that FloristWare has great tools for helping build targeted lists of customers. 3. Use a third-party e-mail system. FloristWare is great at creating and refining lists and it can also send those e-mails out but ISPs are getting more and more aggressive about shutting down their clients (you) who send large volumes of similar mail. They will assume you are spamming and block you from sending. With that in mind you should consider a dedicated e-mail marketing service to actually send your mail. The two we suggest are ConstantContact and MailChimp. In either case you create the list in FloristWare, export it to the service you select and they look after actually sending it out and keeping from getting in trouble with your ISP. Good luck!]]> http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2011/02/email_marketing_tips_for_valentines_day.html http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2011/02/email_marketing_tips_for_valentines_day.html Increase Sales Sun, 13 Feb 2011 13:34:33 -0500 Improving Your E-Mail Marketing for Valentine's Day. There are a few points that seem especially relevant right now... 1. Keep it short and simple. Don't waste too much time crafting the e-mail. You don't have much time to create a masterpiece right now anyway - you just want to remind your customers that Valentines is here and you are ready to help. 2. ...Don't carpet e-mail blast every address in your database. The good news is that FloristWare has great tools for helping build targeted lists of customers. 3. Use a third-party e-mail system. FloristWare is great at creating and refining lists and it can also send those e-mails out but ISPs are getting more and more aggressive about shutting down their clients (you) who send large volumes of similar mail. They will assume you are spamming and block you from sending. With that in mind you should consider a dedicated e-mail marketing service to actually send your mail. The two we suggest are ConstantContact and MailChimp. In either case you create the list in FloristWare, export it to the service you select and they look after actually sending it out and keeping from getting in trouble with your ISP. Good luck!]]> http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2011/02/email_marketing_tips_for_valentines_day_1.html http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2011/02/email_marketing_tips_for_valentines_day_1.html Increase Sales Sun, 13 Feb 2011 13:34:33 -0500 great article on this very subject at the Inc. magazine website. One of the best things about FloristWare is that it so easy for new employees to learn. We received this e-mail from a user just before Valentines 2008 describing how quickly his temps were able to pick it up: Oh, I did have one great reaction from a temp to the software. She didn’t work with us Christmas, so the last time she has been in the floral shop side as an employee was mothers’ day last year. We were still on pen and paper with cash registers, credit card machines, the whole nine yards. She came in for a hour last week and I gave her her login and password. She then started playing with the software. Taking a “phone order” then a “walk in with customer info” then a complex walk in with customer info and delivery on the same sale. Then finally a walk in with no customer information. It was minimal how much she had to be talked through. She loved the fact that she doesn’t have to write encloseure cards, fight for access to a cash register or credit card machine, or have her hand cramp up from writing three/four/five orders during the same phone call from the same person. She likes the duplicate feature!!! She is thrilled, and I am thrilled that I get another computer friendly person for VD!]]> http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2010/11/seasonal_employees_2.html http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2010/11/seasonal_employees_2.html Increase Sales Mon, 29 Nov 2010 20:59:24 -0500 Improving Product Photos . ]]> http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2010/10/better_product_photographs.html http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2010/10/better_product_photographs.html Increase Sales Tue, 26 Oct 2010 11:07:46 -0500 how you can use a "mystery" shopper to evaluate the performance of your employees when it comes to dealing with customers. You should read the article to understand the idea (having someone pretend to be a customer and reporting back to you) and benefits but don't get discouraged. While they may be talking about some grand and fairly complicated programs you are lucky - you can do the same thing cheaply and affordably. This is one of the great things about this business - most of it is done over the phone! You don't need to hire a service to provide mystery shoppers - you can have friends and family members call to place orders while you listen in. This is a powerful technique that you can implement at virtually no cost. I knew one florist who would visit a different friend or family member every few weeks and listen in while they placed an order to his shop. They would get to keep the flowers and he would refund their payment. Tim Huckabee of Floral Strategies makes great use of the mystery shopper technique - it's one of the cornerstones of his program. If you ever want to hear someone expertly dissect the handling of a phone order and then show you how to do it right you need to try his service.]]> http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2010/10/increase_sales_and_improve_service_with_mystery_shoppers_1.html http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2010/10/increase_sales_and_improve_service_with_mystery_shoppers_1.html Increase Sales Wed, 13 Oct 2010 20:58:59 -0500 Every day you run a daily sales report. Do you also take the time to fill out the information in the "Notes" tab? You should. You don't have to get into a lot of detail but enter information about the weather at the very least and some staffing comments if at all possible. Why? Because you can then use the "Daily Notes" report to make some really interesting predictions. For example: It is Wednesday afternoon and the forecast says Friday will be very cold and snowy. You can search for all cold, snowy Fridays and FloristWare will show you the trends for those days. This lets you plan efficiently. You'll need to stay it for a while - the feature is useless until you have some history in the system. Once it's there you will be glad you did it. http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2010/09/daily_notes.html http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2010/09/daily_notes.html Advanced Features Thu, 30 Sep 2010 20:46:31 -0500 Some users have asked about the process of selecting Product Categories and Products - specifically the default sort order of the lists. Even more specifically they have asked why it is that newer products/categories go to the bottom of the list. The answer is that - by default - FloristWare sorts these lists by popularity. Every time a product/category is selected it's popularity increases. Each time you come to the list FloristWare puts the most popular items at the top. This is a problem when you introduce new products/categories because they will go to the bottom of the list and stay there until they "catch up" to the other older products. Fortunately there are several solutions. The first is changing the sort order of the list - just click on one of the blue column headers to sort the list by that criteria, click again to reverse the sort. You can also reset the popularity: Settings > Lists > Product Categories > Erase Popularity Settings > Lists > Products > Clear Popularity These buttons will clear the popularity so that all products/categories start over and the most currently popular will quickly rise to the top. This is very handy if you introduce seasonal products and want them to appear first. There is a third solution if you don't like the popularity sort and would prefer to go use an alphabetical sort by product name. The advantage here is that the list never really changes - some people find that kind of consistency easier to work with. Settings > Policies > Policy - Default Sort Order This will allow you to choose the default sort order you feel will work best for your store. http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2010/09/default_sort_order_for_products_and_product_categories.html http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2010/09/default_sort_order_for_products_and_product_categories.html Advanced Features Sun, 26 Sep 2010 09:17:39 -0500 support article.]]> http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2010/09/discounts.html http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2010/09/discounts.html Advanced Features Sat, 25 Sep 2010 19:41:26 -0500 instructional video.]]> http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2010/09/progress_tracker_delivery_confirmations.html http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2010/09/progress_tracker_delivery_confirmations.html Advanced Features Fri, 24 Sep 2010 13:57:35 -0500 Reminder Calls Reminder Calls: Set-Up This article will show you how to activate the Reminder Call feature. Reminder Calls: Making Effective Reminder Calls This article will show you to make effective reminder calls that turn into orders. Sales Calls Sales Call: Set-Up This article will show you how to activate the Sales Call feature. Sales Calls: Making Effective Sales Calls This article will show you how to make effective sales calls. Listen in iTunes If you spend any time stuck in traffic you might consider listening to this series of seven podcasts covering these and other FloristWare marketing strategies.]]> http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2010/09/reminder_sales_calls.html http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2010/09/reminder_sales_calls.html Advanced Features Thu, 23 Sep 2010 20:09:09 -0500 Reminder Calls Reminder Calls: Set-Up This article will show you how to activate the Reminder Call feature. Reminder Calls: Making Effective Reminder Calls This article will show you to make effective reminder calls that turn into orders. Sales Calls Sales Call: Set-Up This article will show you how to activate the Sales Call feature. Sales Calls: Making Effective Sales Calls This article will show you how to make effective sales calls. Listen in iTunes If you spend any time stuck in traffic you might consider listening to this series of seven podcasts covering these and other FloristWare marketing strategies.]]> http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2010/09/reminder_sales_calls_1.html http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2010/09/reminder_sales_calls_1.html Advanced Features Thu, 23 Sep 2010 20:09:09 -0500 Accounts Receivable: Adding New Accounts This article will show you how to add new charge accounts. Accounts Receivable: Clearing Credit Balances This article will teach you how to "Tidy-Up" your Accounts Receivable by clearing any accidental overpayments. Accounts Receivable: Default Accounts This article explains how default accounts are selected and "attached" to your customers. Accounts Receivable: Editing An Account This article will show you how to edit the information that you have on file for an account. Accounts Receivable: Opening Balances This article will show you how to record an opening balance when opening a new account. Accounts Receivable: Recording Payments This article will teach you how to accept a payment on account. Accounts Receivable: Writing Off Unpaid Invoices and Balances This article will show you how you can write off unpaid invoices and balances in your Accounts Receivable. It is also a good idea to read up on Deferred Payments - starting with an explanation of how they differ from charges to accounts: Payment Methods - Deferred vs Account What is the difference between 'Deferred' and 'Account' Payment Methods? Defer Payment: What It Means and When To Use It This article explains what the "Defer Payment" option does and how it is meant to be used. Defer Payment: Collecting Deferred Payments This article explains how FloristWare can help you collect deferred payments. Defer Payment: Taking Deferred Payments This article explains how to enter a payment for a sale on which payment was initially deferred.]]> http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2010/09/charge_accounts_deferred_payments.html http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2010/09/charge_accounts_deferred_payments.html Advanced Features Wed, 22 Sep 2010 16:54:09 -0500 receipt, and she encourages them to review it carefully and call back if there are any questions or concerns. The next e-mail will be a delivery confirmation. Here you want to stress that you are adding this valuable service free of charge. Finally she explains that in a few days she will send a follow-up email - just to make sure that everything went well and that everyone was happy with the flowers. Here is the best part - she will also ask for an online review/recommendation! She is putting all this great customer service forward (putting the customer in her debt) and then politely asking for a small favor in return. It is a great idea and a very persuasive technique. Please give it a try!]]> http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2010/09/great_way_to_end_your_calls.html http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2010/09/great_way_to_end_your_calls.html Increase Sales Wed, 15 Sep 2010 16:24:00 -0500 collecting receivables from the American Express OPEN Small Business forum: 5. Know when to walk away The hardest part of the collections process is recognizing when there simply isn't a way left to get a customer to pay an account in full. Whether you're dealing with a customer who has declared bankruptcy or simply disappeared, there is a point where it's simply a matter of giving up — rather than using your time to chase after an unpaid account, using that time to find new customers is just more practical. You don't want to give up too easily, of course. But if you take a good, hard look at how likely your business is to receive payment and it seems to be close to impossible, it's time to consider settling for less or even walking away. There may come a time you have to accept that payment may not be coming. At that point it is better to spend your time and energy collecting on the accounts that are more likely to pay or - even better - by concentrating on building new sales and getting new accounts. Use the reports and notes in FloristWare to help you gauge when an account is a lost cause and then use the "write off" tools to clear it out so you aren't constantly being reminded about it. You also want to be sure to close the account so that no further charges can be made.]]> http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2010/09/collecting_receivables_made_easy_part_5.html http://www.floristware.com/content/users_current/tips/2010/09/collecting_receivables_made_easy_part_5.html Advanced Features Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:18:06 -0500