Barbara Keller bought All A’Bloom Flowers & Gifts in 2017 and tapped SAF resources and other floral industry professionals to help her improve and expand the Lees Summit, Missouri business.
The Society of American Florists’ membership includes all segments of the industry — and that community is the heart of SAF. This bi-weekly feature spotlights SAF members sharing inspirational stories, professional insights, and the opportunity to form new industry connections.
Barbara Keller had no experience in the floral industry when she bought All A’Bloom Flowers & Gifts in 2017. The 13-year-old business had no standard operating procedures, no website and no point-of-sales system.
“Somehow the phone would ring, we would scratch some needed info on a piece of paper and then take a payment with a little credit card machine,” Keller says. “Flowers would come in, arranged in any vase available, filled up with water then sent out the door. As you might imagine, our flowers were probably dead on arrival to their recipient. It would keep me awake at night worrying about complaints.”
Desperate to improve, Keller joined the Society of American Florists, and upon exploring the resources available, she realized, “we needed help.” She also called a local floral industry veteran, Christina M. Burton-Fox, AIFD, and “shared all of our dirty laundry and asked her for help.”
Burton-Fox helped them develop their processes and procedures and taught them about sourcing flowers, processing flowers, flower food, cleaning, flower math, design techniques — everything they needed to be able to confidently send out the highest quality product possible.
Within the first year of Keller’s ownership, All A’Bloom created and launched a website, sent their 1982 cash register to a thrift shop, and implemented a POS system. Over the next few years they started winning local awards, became more involved in their community and grew their flower shop with three employees into the blooming business they have today.
“Today we have a staff of 15 and two delivery vans running non-stop most days,” she says. “We purchased our building in 2022, implemented a new website and marketing team in 2023, and are currently updating our POS system to provide more robust reporting.”
Keller’s hopes to keep growing the business by opening a second location.
Best Tactics to Engage Customers
Keller has invested heavily in the shop’s online presence and loves the flexibility the website gives to provide customers with an exceptional gift buying experience.
She also enjoys participating in the community by sitting on various boards, working with local non-profits, and participating in events such as an art walk, ladies nights, and open houses.
Best Sales Hack
The shop hosts a “Flower Happy Hour” every Friday and Saturday.
“Customers can come in and shop our buckets for half-price to make their own hand-tied bouquet for the weekend,” she says. “This event has been very popular and brings a lot of foot traffic in to our shop.”
Plans to Drive Sales this Fall
SAF’s annual goodwill initiative, Petal It Forward, is one of Keller’s favorite days of the year.
“We generally invite three non-profits to participate with us, and last year with their help, we passed out over 600 bouquets in our community,” Keller says. “It’s a very special day.”
They also enjoy creating curated gift crates, such as a baby gift crate paired with flowers and back to school teacher gift crates that include desk plants. For the holidays, they will offer a gourmet food crate.
Why SAF?
Keller has been an SAF member since 2019 and values all the resources on the SAF website, especially Floral Management magazine, because it helps everyone in the shop learn from others.
Her staff also enjoys attending SAF’s events, and this will be their third year attending SAF’s annual convention. This year, Keller is bringing her general manager and their creative brand manager.
“Each year we try to implement at least two or three things we learned at the conference,” she says.
Keller was recently featured on SAF’s Facebook and Instagram accounts.
Do you know a member who should have a chance in the spotlight? Email Stephanie Brady, project manager for SAF.
Stephanie Brady is the project manager for the Society of American Florists.
