Industry Insider Interview...Christine Martindale, CEO of Esprit Miami
Christine Martindale is the Founder & CEO of Esprit Miami in Miami, FL. She is also the very proud mother of her bright, college student son, Dillon. Christine currently lives in Florida with Boo, her Shih Tzu-Poodle mix.
I worked for a nursery called Pardo Nursery transplanting petunia plants into flats. I got paid .13 a flat. It wasn't the work, it was my grandfather. He was a gentleman farmer, and taught me about the importance of "growing" in the world, and the respected name of "men of the earth" and what they can contribute.He also advised me to get into a business where the products were used once and thrown away. he mentioned toilet paper, film, and oil.
It was a coincidence, or maybe not.
I was a customs entry clerk. I typed all the government papers necessary to clear the flowers through agriculture and u.s. customs. Sometimes I was asked to go to the airport and actually clear the flowers. Sometimes I took my Datsun B210, filled with flower boxes to the domestic airlines.After 3 or 4 months when the sales department needed help, they asked me if I could sell. Of course I can sell! They handed me two lists, one with customers listed, and one with flowers listed. My supervisor told me, "sell these flowers (pointing to one list) to these customers (pointing to the other)." That was my training.
I was hired by Continental Farms as sales manager. My most important responsibility was training Larry Howkins, who, 4 years later, became my boss and is now the owner of Continental. I think I trained him too well! It was our job to contact wholesale florists throughout the country and sell them flowers. Standing orders were especially encouraged. I learned that different sections of the country liked different varieties of flowers. I learned that customers were willing to let me teach them about different types of flowers, and if asked, how to sell that particular flower to customers.
That pink is very difficult to sell in November and December...and that Christmas is the MOST TRADITIONAL of holidays. These two awarenesses were the beginning of the philosophy that shapes our company today.
Not to be on the 33% side of a majority.
I was introduced to Leonardo Salviati whose family is a carnation breeder from Italy. I traveled to Italy to learn about the process of "recovering" old varieties of Mediterrean carnations and breeding them back into the market. The Salviatis introduced me to rose breeders in France and Holland. Then they introduced me to chrysanthemum breeders in England. I learned how long it takes from the recovering of a variety of carnations to selling the flower. At the time, it was 7 years! I also learned about the gowing cycles of different families of flowers, and about the different flowers within each species. Did you know that gypsophila is from the carnation family? I learned that carnations did not have to be tinted to display extraordinary colors. I was able to travel to many countries to learn. What a campus this industry has!
The ability to coordinate all these varieties and families and flowers into the times they are needed, would produce the best possible results for all companies involved. The grower, the importer, the wholesaler, and the retailer. It taught me the principles of supply and demand. I even learned some elements of design, and the importance of combining different flowers to create arrangements. It has become my job at the company to determine which flowers and which colors will combine together for a select time period that will create demand for our company, and for the products that are grown for us. It is my job, to gather information from all segments of the industry and analyze the information so that our customers can spend their time planning their own business, and will rely on us as a necessary vendor.
I felt like a failure from my first endeavor, but I knew I was good at the business, it suited my personality in many ways. It is a beautiful business, it opens doors to world travel, it employs the understanding of how numbers work (i love numbers and am good at them). I had a customer that believed in me, and there was a lot of opportunity for women to excel.
I don't know. I just kept working hard, learning as much as I could, and trying to solve problems that my growers and customers had. I can tell you that I had more acceptance from the growers. They were willing to trust a woman sooner than a man. They trusted me with the sales of their flowers without a contract.It is easier for me to buy millions of dollars of flowers a year than to buy a new van from Ford!
The positives are that this is a business of emotion, and we all know women are more emotional. It is a business of beauty, (and aside from the appreciation of a beautiful woman), beauty and quality are much more important to women (or a gay man) than to men. I hope I am a better listener because I am a woman. Listening, in my opinion, is the most important facet (aspect) to a sale.
Thank you very much but the elaboration is secret! It is based on the philosophy that Esprit:
- Will sell the best selection and quality
- Be a trendsetter in variety and technology
- Best service in the industry
- Right flower at the right time.
I think one advantage is that we have a very small cooler....we sell flowers, not store them. We turn our inventory 3 times a week.We don't have to make money on every sale. If we miss a market and buy too high, we still turn our inventory. We know that we must keep our customers and our growers in business if we are to sustain our businesses.We have an amazing (and the best ) team of people! We personally train them, that means that they are all very experienced and well qualified. We all like and respect one another, and our company. Everyone in the company is encouraged to criticize anything about the company...as long as it is constructive, and they think they may have a solution.Another advantage is that we are always willing to change what we do to improve.We are always looking to our own and other industries to see what they are doing to move into the next generation of business. We have an app!We have developed a demand forecasting system that enables us to predict what will be in demand and what our customers are going to need. We sell in the future, and have a 97% fulfillment rate.Being a certified woman-owned business tells people we are different, and I hope it inspires women in the industry to follow their dreams. We were awarded the recognition of being one of the top 25 woman-owned companies in Florida.
Wow! That is a subject!Its all about change, and about each bride, or event, or arrangement, or variety making their own mark. As a population, we like to be trendy. The colors in fashion, the shapes, and textures change all the time, and our customers change with it. I look to the fashion magazines, home decor, and, well...all magazines...trying to find dominant trends and marry them with flowers. I look at what has happened in fashion, and our market for the past three years and pair history with the trends I find. Then we work with the growers to deliver the right flower at the right time. It seems to work well for us.
A new variety, once we see it, has already had a lot of time in development. From the time I select a flower, it can take from 20 weeks to 3 years before it is brought to market. Then sometimes, it takes 2 to 3 more years until the market accepts it. Hearts rose is a perfect example of that. Sometimes, I get out too far. I first planted David Austin garden varieties in 1986, 20 years before they became popular. My grower still talks about that disaster. I make mistakes. Taking the risk is the only way to get it right and the only way to be considered a trend setter.
I was with people who had much more experience in the flower industry, from all segments of the industry. We sat in a room for 3 or 4 hours, 4 times a year to plan marketing ideas that would draw attention to our industry. The discipline of those meetings taught me: First, that marketing requires a plan. Second, that it is not all about MY business. We had to consider the special interest of each segment of the industry...growers, importers, wholesalers, florists, plant growers, hardwoods, bedding plants, news paper...all segments of the industry with very diverse interests. Each segment expressed their interests and made their case why marketing should be "this way". But at the end of each of those meetings, we had to agree on a course of action that would benefit us all. We each had to compromise and come to a consensus...and it worked!How often in education does one have the opportunity to sit with so many people, for that length of time, who are out there DOING IT? Additionally, I learned by listening to my "competitors"....because we were all competing for the same marketing dollars.Being ABLE TO SIT ON THAT COMMITTEE FOR 3 YEARS WAS an honor, and an education.
"Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning." (Gloria Steinem, American journalist and women's rights advocate)I had my son at 42 years of age. I had to get into all that "New" stuff, so I was like his mother, not his grandmother. Seeing what the young people are doing, the advances they are making is frightening and wonderful. I am determined to stay young and connected to youth. That means learning about and embracing what they do. How they act and react. I have tried to introduce the excitement I have for the "new" to all the people I work with. I have tried to be courageous to change, and teach my people not to fear change. It is exciting to change, and it keeps people engaged in their work. It makes us all feel young and successful, and like we have a little edge.
My goals for the company are for my successors (employees) to make Esprit a better company than the company I started. I want them to surpass my abilities. My strategy is to enable them and let them do it.
My son Dillon is phenomenal! He is brilliant, artistic, handsome, kind...and a handful! It seems he will not follow me into the flower business. It may be because I often lamented that there are easier things to sell than something that dies in 3 days.He wants to be a fire jumper for the military...go figure. From a hippie/pacifist mother to a career in the military. He has great respect for the environment as many of our children do. He has the voice and leadership quality's to exact positive change. I will love him and support him in whatever he does. He has been the greatest gift in my life.
J and I were children when we met in 1979 or 80 - anyway, a long time ago. We were both invited to Greenleaf Wholesale in Houston for a show. He was designing, and I was showing my flowers (roses, carnations, pompons, minis, statice and callas - 5 types of flowers). He helped me set up, and although I have no recollection of what we talked about, I do remember we thought the same about the flowers business. I'm sure our criticisms of everyone else in the flower business were the same, and we were going to change the flower world. Well, we both got busy, stopped criticizing everyone else, and started learning from them, ever looking to change the flower world in our own world. I would see his name in the floral news from time to time doing this and doing that, but then when he got really famous. I decided it was time to be his friend again...LOL! Not really, but this is how it went..."UH hi, J?""Yes""This is Christine Martindale from Esprit Miami. Do you remember me?"And guess what? He did! It made me feel so important! We made arrangements to meet and spent hours talking about the flower business, and what we had been doing for the past 25 years to trying to change the world. We still thought the same, and each of us had become more sophisticated in the way we thought about the flowers business. We began planning ways on how we could "influence" the flower business and see what we could do to contribute to it. Same philosophy - totally different presentation. (and a little less naïveté and arrogance) And now...with experience.I love what he does...and the way he does it. My sister has had him do 2 shows at her wholesale house in Salt Lake City. Everyone LOVES J! He is so attentive and humble to everyone he speaks with, we all feel important. Some people just have that amazing ability. J is also entertaining...and knowledgeable and clever and creative...outlandish, and LOYAL. I think all your viewers should know that. He is a favorite of mine.Esprit has over 300 types of flowers and over 2000 varieties within those types, and J is our spokesperson.
I really forgot all the other things I enjoy, as the company and my son have consumed me for the last 30 years.I am sort of retiring in order to have more time to discover what I do enjoy. The people who work with me are taking up the slack, and allowing me to do that. It's amazing. The more I let them do, the smarter and more creative they get. AND I have a new boyfriend! So, we'll see...
- It isn't easy. It takes a lot of planning and manpower to discover, plant, nurture, grow, ship, sell, and ship to them that one stem of desire that their customer wants to buy.
- We need their input
- Thank them for their creative input and allowing us to to be a part of this wonderful business