EveryStem with LuAnn Dickson

Mandy Hess of MJM Designs interviews LuAnn Dickson, founder of EveryStem Software.

from Mandy — EveryStem is a flower recipe software that I learned about a few years ago. LuAnn is very involved in education and webinars explaining to fellow floral designers the magic of how EveryStem can change the trajectory of their business. By giving you more time to focus on the creative side of the business, saving money by not over buying, or even saving you from anxiety and stress of underbuying. I was able to sit down with her and learn more about her program.

Where did the idea for EveryStem come from?

EveryStem was created because I believe that software has the power to change the way florists price and order their flowers for a profit. My background as a florist and small business owner along with my experience as a freelance florist exposed me to just how much money and time are lost through old-school ways of pricing and ordering flowers.

When I purchased my flower shop, Verbena Floral Design, in 2006 the previous owner showed me how she used pencil and paper to order flowers for the business. It was an error prone, frustrating, and time-consuming way to order flowers for multiple events. I turned to my husband Drew for help and he built the spreadsheet that developed into what EveryStem is today, a web-based software where the formulas are built in and can’t be broken! I could’ve just sold that spreadsheet to other florists, but I knew that wasn’t really the best option because a spreadsheet is a one-time purchase, while a software enables automation and supports constant development of new features. Software is lightyears beyond spreadsheets! So, that became my mission and now we have hundreds of farmer-florists and florist members around the world!

Who is EveryStem created for?

EveryStem is for professional florists, floral creatives, and farmer-florists who have a profit first mindset. It’s for floral creatives who want to create beautiful designs for their clients, spend less time on this part of their business using smart software, and make a healthy profit doing it.

This software is for florists who use Honeybook, Quickbooks, or another CRM and have a need for a software that fills the gap when it comes to pricing their designs for a profit and placing accurate flower orders. It’s for florists who use Microsoft word for their proposals and need a stem counting program to help price and order their flowers.

EveryStem is also for florists who use software for their proposals and want to invest in EveryStem because it’s specifically dedicated to pricing and ordering allowing full concentration on maximizing profits!

What is your favorite feature of EveryStem?

I have two! I can’t pick between them! We are adding new features regularly based on our florist member feedback and both of these were added based on requests from our members.

My first favorite feature is one we added last year. It’s called the Notes feature and it allows the user to add links to the event including inspiration images, from Pinterest, Google photos, or even the florist’s own website. It also allows the user to add notes about the client, lists of things to prepare for or bring with them to the venue for an event, lists of which designers will create which arrangements, and even timelines for production and delivery. It’s a super cool multifunctional feature. One of our members recently said “EveryStem has been great! I am using the notes option for my mood boards now so it’s really great! Thank you! – Sophia Gaia Floral –https://www.gaiaflora.com.au/

My other favorite feature in EveryStem is our new Order Consolidation feature. It allows florists to combine several events worth of flower orders into one massive flower order. This feature is a massive time saver, it maximizes bunch counts to save florists even more money when they have multiple events in the same week, and it makes processing flowers for many events at the same time a breeze as well. This feature alone is worth more than the price of the entire annual membership to the software. Many of our members who have large studios and multiple weddings each week, save hundreds of dollars a month using this feature.

Why is EveryStem a need for floral designers?

EveryStem is a need for floral designers because we work too damn hard to be giving away our time and our money because we aren’t working with a software to calculate our pricing and flower orders. It’s simple to learn, user-friendly, and it brings way more value than it costs.

Does EveryStem offer integrations within the program?

There are no integrations within EveryStem. We may consider integrations in the future, but right now we are concentrating on making EveryStem the best it can be by reinvesting our profits into new features requested by our members.

What are the ways EveryStem can be personalized for each member?

There are so many ways EveryStem can be personalized for each member. Members build a personalized list of flowers and hard goods into the Library and can use it to get ideas for new clients, substitute flowers when something they ordered isn’t available or comes in damaged, and to build their recipes for each event. Members can create templates for the different types of events they sell to their clients. Some examples are a la carte wedding offerings, custom weddings, funeral work, retail menu offerings, CSA subscriptions, or even weekly retail standing orders. These templates can be copied and used for multiple events to save time and require less mental energy of the florist!

The markups and labor fee charges can also be personalized for each member. These can be adjusted in every template so the florist doesn’t have to adjust them each time depending on the pricing structure for each type of event!

The beauty of EveryStem is that it’s a simple program that has many different applications. Designers can even create generic flower names in their library like filler flower, dancer flower, focal flower, and line flower to build what I like to call “Functional Flower Recipes” these are recipes that create a general formula for your designs at specific price points without having to think about the seasonality, or specific flower varieties in the design. Then, these recipes can be translated into specific flower varieties by season, or they can be followed by the designers working in a retail shop based on what’s available in the cooler at any given time. It’s a powerhouse software that acts as your financial bodyguard protecting your business from the two biggest money sucking issues we have as florists: under-pricing and over-ordering.

Compared to other CRM’s/Stem counter’s, EveryStem’s cost is so reasonable! How is that?

I love that you asked this! And I love that you are aware of how reasonably EveryStem is priced. The answer is because I want it to be affordable for my clients! This software was created because I want to help other florists make more money and in order for that to happen the software itself needs to be priced fairly. I’ve had many people tell me I should charge more for this game-changing software, but I don’t want to do that. The program is solely for pricing and ordering and doesn’t offer features for proposal creation or payment processing, so I think $24.99 a month or $249.99 a year (those are our two pricing options) are very fair prices.

I also think that for florists who are currently spending too many hours on these tasks each week and are habitually over-spending on wholesale flowers, this program’s value is worth way more than its price. And, that is how I want my clients to feel about their experience with EveryStem. That it’s worth way more than they pay for it.

At the beginning of 2022 I had a client tell me this, “”The rewards have been incredible. 2021 was our most profitable year of our 14 years in business because of EveryStem.” – Ashely, of Ashley Fox Designs

I recently had a client tell me this “”I love using this software program- I have really reduced my tendency to overbuy and have improved my profit margins by at least 10% since starting it. I tell everyone who asks for a better way to do recipes and pricing that it is worth it!” – Kira, All in the Details Floral

And just today another client told me this, “My business is So much more profitable this last season, thanks to you! Up 65%!!! I was stunned at how much money I was giving away in flowers! Serious respect to you for coming up with this system. Thanks so much, LuAnn. ” Millie – Whitemoss & Twigs @whitemossandtwigs on IG

Is there anything else you’d love to share about EveryStem?

I’d love to share that my main focus is on my members having a positive experience with EveryStem. So if you’re a florist reading this and deep down you know you need a program to transform your business, but you’re afraid to make the switch to a new software, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. We can get you on track to quickly increase your profits with EveryStem! I’ll support you every step of the way. We’re growing our community and offering monthly zoom chats with some amazing floral industry leaders and coaches too which is amazing for our members. We’re not just a software company, we are truly becoming a community of profit-minded professionals! And, I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for us!

I’d also like to thank you for taking the time to learn more about EveryStem florist software and to share it with your audience.

Contact Information for EveryStem:

Website: www.everystem.com

To join: https://app.everystem.com/register – EveryStem offers a 90-day money back guarantee, support via email, video tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/@everystem , and via zoom.

To learn more follow on IG: https://www.instagram.com/everystem_/

To reach out directly to LuAnn Dickson, founder and CEO of EveryStem florist software email- luann@everystem.com