Florists have never had access to more information about their businesses. 

Sales reports. Website analytics. Marketing dashboards. Customer data. Inventory records. AI tools that can surface insights in seconds. 

Yet many shop owners still struggle with a fundamental question: What do all those numbers actually mean — and what should they do about them? 

Several education sessions at the Society of American Florists’ 141st annual convention, SAF Amelia Island 2026, Aug. 18-20, tackle that challenge from different angles, helping attendees better understand what’s happening in their businesses and how to use that knowledge to make smarter decisions. 

Make Sense of Marketing Metrics 

For many florists, that challenge often starts with marketing. Many florists invest in digital advertising or hire agencies without fully understanding how to measure success. 

“Florists go into a lot of these contractual relationships truly blind not knowing what to expect, what the deliverables are,” says Renato Sogueco, AAF, PFCI, of Sogueco Consulting.  

His session, “Are You Getting What You Pay For? A Guide to Digital Marketing Metrics,” will help attendees understand the questions they should be asking, the metrics they should be monitoring and how to determine whether their marketing investments are actually producing results. 

Use Data to Improve Operations 

While many florists are looking for better information to guide marketing decisions, others face the opposite challenge: too much data and too little clarity about what it means. 

Point-of-sale reports, sales numbers, labor costs, delivery metrics, website analytics and customer behavior insights can all provide valuable information. The question is which numbers actually matter — and what to do with them once you’ve found them. 

That’s the focus of “Data Without Drowning: Turning Numbers into Better Decisions,” presented by Dan McManus, founder of the floral consultancy TeamFloral. 

The session explores how AI can help florists quickly summarize reports, identify trends, flag potential problems and uncover opportunities that might otherwise go unnoticed. Rather than spending hours digging through spreadsheets, attendees will learn how to use the information they’re already collecting to make smarter decisions about pricing, labor, website performance, cost of goods sold and profitability. 

Turn Information Into Action 

Understanding the data is one thing. Putting it to work is another. 

In “Build Your Shop’s AI Brain,” Cameron Pappas, AAF, owner of Norton’s Florist in Birmingham, Alabama, and Joe Aldeguer, SAF’s director of IT, will share how the shop is using AI and data collection to better understand inventory, purchasing patterns, waste and profitability — and turn those insights into action. 

“It’s all good and fine to have the data,” Pappas says. “But people can still completely drop the ball unless that data goes somewhere and notifies somebody and it ends up on a checklist.” 

The session will explore how florists can use AI to connect information from across their businesses, automate routine analysis and create systems that help ensure important insights don’t get overlooked. 

The result is a business that doesn’t just collect information — it learns from it. 

Click here learn more about how the programming at SAF Amelia Island 2026 will prepare you for what’s now and what’s next. 

Amanda Jedlinsky is the senior director of content and communications for the Society of American Florists.