Ep. 153: Semia Dunne: The Floral Reserve's Newest Chapter

Botanical Brouhaha Podcast

In this follow-up episode, the hosts reunite with Semia Dunn eight years after her initial appearance to discuss the evolution of The Floral

Key takeaways

• The Floral Reserve expanded its warehouse space from 1,200 to 3,200 square feet in Providence, Rhode Island.
• Semia rebranded her design studio from Flowers by Semia to simply SEMIA.

Main topics

• Wholesale business expansion
• Destination wedding logistics

Notable quotes

I will not accept failure.

Conclusion

The episode offers valuable lessons on scaling a creative enterprise t

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:22) Good afternoon. Speaker 1 (0:25) Welcome back to the country. Thank you. I am barely back. Mentally, I'm not back. Speaker 1 (0:33) But you're going to try really hard Speaker 3 (0:35) for the next hour and a half to Speaker 1 (0:36) jump in. Speaker 3 (0:37) Yeah. This is like my first thing. Speaker 1 (0:40) I did a half day at work yesterday. It's like, Speaker 3 (0:44) it's Speaker 1 (0:45) so embarrassing to tell, like to be on a two week vacation and then come back and be like, I need a vacation from my vacation. Like that's really annoying to me, but it's true. The jet lag is so real. Okay. So you were in Speaker 3 (1:00) Italy, right? Speaker 1 (1:02) I went to Italy for my best friend from childhood. It was her wedding. And then because we went so far to get there and we brought our kids and we brought my mom and my stepdad to help, we decided to stay another, like do a two week vacation. So we went to Tuscany for Six days. And that's also where I studied abroad in college. So that was really fun to get to show Steve and my mom where I studied abroad. And that in Siena was beautiful. So fun. And then we went to Sicily for a week and that was incredible. It was so beautiful, but it was also. so hot so humid they Speaker 2 (1:47) also stay Speaker 1 (1:48) up so late their dinner reservation started like 10 p.m it was what crazy i'm serious so like in the like touristy spots where you know it was beautiful to walk around and be the stores stay open till 11 p.m Because that's just like normal time there when people are out and about and kids are out and about. And then restaurants open at like 7 p.m. But to get a dinner reservation at 7, which is when we did because our kids are not used to the schedule, like is like nobody's there yet. And then as we were leaving restaurants at 10 p.m. because they're all like three hour dinners, then the streets would be hopping with people like going out to dinner and stuff. It was. wild, but it was so beautiful. We ate so much pasta. We ate, by the last day of the trip, Hazel told me, I was like, do you want to go get gelato? And she's like, no, I am. I don't want any more gelato. My stomach hurts. I was like, all right, we did vacation. Well, so. We did Speaker 3 (2:57) vacation. So what time did these people start their Speaker 1 (3:00) day if they're eating that late? I don't know. But like on the last day, I needed to go to the grocery store before we got to the airport because I needed stuff for the flight for the baby. And I couldn't find a grocery store that was open before 830 in the morning. So I think that. Speaker 1 (3:17) Maybe stuff opens at nine, like a pharmacy or a grocery store. But I don't know. It was just such a different culture. And everything was so beautiful. And the landscaping and stuff was so beautiful. The plants, like it was really, the Mediterranean Sea is beautiful. And I just, and it was so nice. My mom got to come with us and she hadn't been to Europe since she was 13 years old. So it just was really cool. And that's amazing. Speaker 1 (3:52) That's Speaker 3 (3:52) amazing. And it was just so nice. I Speaker 1 (3:54) didn't even, I brought my, Stephen didn't bring his computer and I brought my computer because I was like, I will freak out if I don't have my computer, but I never even turned it on. I really did not work for the first time in over a decade. And it was really nice. I made a list on my phone of other things that I want to explore with my life. And it's really good Speaker 2 (4:15) to Speaker 3 (4:15) not just be a one dimensional person, you know? Yeah. Well, I think we should probably give a shout out to Meg. If Speaker 1 (4:23) you didn't Speaker 3 (4:24) open your computer one time in two weeks. Nope. Nope. Thank Speaker 1 (4:27) you, Meg. I know. Everybody. I mean, her, really. She did payroll for us. She handled so much stuff. She handled our book launch by herself pretty much and just did everything. Yeah. Amazing. Speaker 3 (4:43) So now she gets to go on a two-week vacation and you can handle it all. Speaker 3 (4:48) You want me to cut Speaker 2 (4:49) that Speaker 3 (4:49) out, don't you? Speaker 2 (4:52) I will Speaker 1 (4:53) defer. I will defer. I don't know how to do it. Yeah, I will defer. But she can go. Speaker 3 (4:59) All right. Well, I'm glad you made it back. You took a Speaker 1 (5:02) long Speaker 3 (5:03) plane ride with two little bitty children. I bet that was a blast. I'm glad that you made it back alive. Speaker 1 (5:14) Yeah. It was interesting. I Speaker 3 (5:17) bet it was. Well, okay. So you're back. We are catching up with Samia Dunn today on the podcast. She has already been on the podcast, but it's been eight years and things have changed a little bit for her. Just, I mean, not changed drastically, just kind of grown and. gotten better and better, I think. So I'm really excited to catch up with her here, what she's up to at the Floral Reserve and at her other company, Samia, where she does weddings. And also, I'm glad that she's going to get to meet you and you're going to get to meet her for the first time. Speaker 1 (5:57) I'm excited. Speaker 3 (5:59) All right, let's go talk to her. Speaker 1 (6:01) Okay. Speaker 3 (6:14) Okay. Welcome back to the podcast, Samia. Speaker 1 (6:17) This is going to be so much fun. Speaker 3 (6:19) I actually had a conversation with a floral designer this last week. Actually, it was in a group and she said, I just want to tell everybody, listen to this podcast. It's so amazing. And she was like, and sometimes they go back and they do like follow-up episodes and you can see. And I was like, oh my God, they get it. They get it. So that's what we're doing today. We're going to go back and we're going to pick up where we left off eight. years ago, I think. Wow. Isn't that nuts? I can't believe we've been doing it that long. Speaker 2 (6:48) I know, but you have, and it's been tremendous. And what happens in eight years? And it's exciting to go back and revisit. I know it's so much Speaker 3 (6:57) fun. And I actually have some quotes from you from eight years ago. So we're just going to see how those have aged. Okay. Speaker 2 (7:04) All Speaker 3 (7:05) right. Speaker 2 (7:05) So, so we've got Samia. Speaker 3 (7:07) Samia Dunn's here and she's the owner of Flowers by Samia and the Floral Reserve. And she was actually on our podcast episode 35 back in 2018. Go back and listen because it's her whole backstory from the time she started in the flower industry until about a year after she started the Floral Reserve. Speaker 3 (7:31) You'll hear her background, but in a nutshell, you'll hear how she bought a shop when she was 22. Now you're going to have to correct me if I tell anything wrong, Samia, but you bought a shop when you were 22. You changed the name of the shop to Flowers by Samia four years in. And then you had added the Floral Preserve, which is a wholesale company, one year before we talked to you the first time. So you weren't a full year in. You were still doing retail and weddings in addition to the floral reserve. And at the time you had six team members working your weddings plus freelancers. And you had four employees at the floral reserve. Speaker 2 (8:15) And Speaker 3 (8:16) you told us that 80 % of your business at that time was wedding work. Okay. So that's where we were. And you described how. you knew that your market could actually support a new wholesaler. One of the parts that stuck with me was that you got a lot of pushback from the local wholesale community. So it wasn't without a few bumps along the way, but you were so determined and you said, I will not accept failure. That's what you said. So here we are. Speaker 2 (8:48) That's great. Yeah, you did. And, and it was a, Speaker 3 (8:52) so I really do encourage you to go back and listen to that. You can hear the whole story about how this all transpired. So here we are eight years later, catch us up. What's changed? Speaker 2 (9:03) What stayed the same? Speaker 2 (9:05) Oh, well, all the good things have stayed the same and some good changes on the horizon too, right? We still exist in this beautiful place called the Steel Yard in Providence, which is kind of a maker's community. And my floral studio, Samia, which we rebranded maybe about four or five years ago. So the floral studio was always, since the beginning of time, Flowers by Samia. And then a few years ago, Speaker 1 (9:32) we rebranded to just my name. Speaker 2 (9:35) And I would say that 90 % of our work now is weddings and events, 10%, you know, small parties and intimate gatherings and things that we do in our state and things of that nature. So not much has changed there other than the fact that within this eight year time period, we learned the art of travel like so many florists around the country. And we got bit by that travel bug. So. So much where we started taking the show on the road, doing events in Florida and Arizona and North Carolina and Maine and wherever our good fortune took us to do work. And that's been a beautiful addition to the design side. We love a good travel job. You get to experience a new landscape, new culture. A lot of times, you know, new surroundings, you meet new freelancers. new farmers, all of that. That's been a real joy for me. And that's probably been the biggest change in the design side for the past eight years. We're going to keep going strong with that. And then with the reserve, we were just a little baby, little baby when I first talked to you. And we were in like a, I don't know, I think we had like a 1200 square foot spot. We were We packed every square inch with flowers that we could. And since then, we took another location in our same building. So we moved out of our tiny little floral reserve, which was so beautiful. And then we moved into another space right next door, literally two doors down. And we connected the studio. and the floral reserve so that I could just walk back and forth between the two businesses all day, which has been great, amazing for me. And we have about 3,200 square feet now for the floral reserve and, you know, bigger cooler and bigger processes and operations and things like that. But the mission has stayed the same in the sense that getting flowers into the hands of talented, passionate designers, both your imports. but to always have that local represented, right? So more and more farms, more farms than we could ever imagine eight years ago are now a staple here. And we love that so much. We have customers from eight years ago today. We have a whole brand new set of new ones. We started to ship in COVID, right? We learned the whole thing about... FedEx and UPS and putting flowers on planes and doing all the things that we could do for people around the country whose market maybe shut down and they didn't have any access to flowers. And we were in this weird niche where we were small enough that we were able to operate on a small scale and still get some volume out. Speaker 2 (12:47) We may, you know, one day it may have just been me inside of here shipping things. We were leaving stuff on sidewalks. We were doing, you know, contactless transactions through windows. I mean, you name it, we were doing it. But it was during that time that we really perfected the shipping game. And that has stayed with us and obviously opened up a whole new beautiful market of florists and designers around the country. who can receive plural reserve product because we have those means now, which is great. A lot of pushback in the beginning. We know that. That's a big part of our first episode together. And I would say some of those people have turned around and some of those people haven't, and that's okay. I think that I was never going to let it hurt us and affect us. Speaker 2 (13:42) I often think sometimes when you're doing something that everyone's getting a little huffy and puffy about, it might mean that you're doing something right. So that's kind of the attitude we go with. And we have great, great, great floral wholesale friends. And we stay in our lane and we know what we're doing and we do what we do best, which is finding the premier local product for our designers. Speaker 2 (14:11) finding all the cool imports should they want those two for them to be able to have access to. We're just a lot better at it now. Speaker 3 (14:18) Maybe Speaker 2 (14:18) I should say that. Right. Speaker 3 (14:19) I think you had started, you must have just been dipping your toe into shipping when we talked to you because you were like, we're doing it because people really want it and we're doing it. We talked about how difficult. That is figuring the whole system out. So good thing you kind of had a jumpstart probably on 2020 and then you were able to perfect it. Yeah. Speaker 2 (14:41) Yeah. We did dip our toe in it, but then it was like, you couldn't run a wholesale business without it. I, at least I didn't think so. And it really did expand our reach so much. And even just using social media and showing beautiful images of stuff that we had gotten in on Instagram, we would sell off Instagram like two seconds. during that time. We still do. Yeah. I mean, everyone does. I think anyone does that now, but I don't know. Every year you learn something new, right? And how to reach an audience and what the need is out there in the community. What kind of role can you play fulfilling the needs of your industry? Speaker 2 (15:21) And I think that some of the new needs of our industry are the fact that more and more florists are traveling and they are doing jobs all over the country. And how are you going to get them their product? And how are you going to make them feel confident that the same flowers that they always feel so good about when they come to the reserve, how can you get those to me in a different state? So we've, that's been one thing, right? That's a need, I think, more than ever. Florists are all over the place, which is cool. Really, really cool. We still, I guess one of our biggest developments this year has been Speaker 2 (15:59) us really knowing that we needed to embrace some serious technology. And, you know, technology comes with a lot of different things. You finally learn a new system, like we learned today, right? You finally learn a new system and you realize it doesn't work for you. It actually doesn't work for you. Speaker 1 (16:19) We Speaker 2 (16:19) automated to a certain system a couple of years ago that we felt was really going to be perfect for the reserve getting. showing customers what we had. And it was one of those things, it was a trial and error. And we really made a system that didn't work for us and didn't work for the customer. So ever since then, we've been thinking about what a great system looks like. And for me, as a designer thinking about, okay, I want to go shop at my wholesaler. I want to go online. I want to see what's available in real time in my cooler. And I want to be able to just look at all of my options a week out, two weeks out. What is out there? Maybe all the local stuff isn't up for two weeks out, but it's there a week out. And I want to