Speaker 1: This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. Hi,
Speaker 1: this is Barry Ridholts. You're listening to Masters in Business
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. I have a guest this week that
Speaker 1: I'm really especially thrilled to have on because he's been
Speaker 1: very influential um to me personally in my career. You'll
Speaker 1: hear us talk about this, uh in great detail during
Speaker 1: the podcast part. But Jim McCann as a person I
Speaker 1: saw give a speech at a conference in the I
Speaker 1: want to say mid to late nineties that was really
Speaker 1: fascinating and informative. And he's just a great public speaker. Literally,
Speaker 1: Public speaker of the Year might have been the year
Speaker 1: I saw him UH terrific rock on tour, and I
Speaker 1: remember seeing him speak and saying to a friend, that
Speaker 1: looks like fun, I'd like to learn how to do that,
Speaker 1: and O and behold. Some years later, I'm actually giving
Speaker 1: a speech in Las Vegas about the book Bailout Nation,
Speaker 1: and and lo and Behold. Later that day, I'm online
Speaker 1: to get some food somewhere and they're standing right behind
Speaker 1: me is Jim mccannon. It turned out he's a reader
Speaker 1: of mine. He reads the blog for many years and
Speaker 1: was kind of a little bit of a fan, and
Speaker 1: we started chatting. It turns out we live a town
Speaker 1: or two apart. We ended up going out to dinner
Speaker 1: a couple of times. He's just a really, really interesting guy,
Speaker 1: and he is extremely insightful in how to run a
Speaker 1: small innovative business, how to motivate employees, how to just
Speaker 1: keep some really interesting things happening with your business. And
Speaker 1: you'll hear his approach to building a company was not
Speaker 1: typical and very very successful. I find him to be
Speaker 1: a fascinating guy. Find him to be a person who
Speaker 1: I would hope to emulate eight some of his abilities
Speaker 1: and successes both as a business person and a communicator.
Speaker 1: But really interesting guy who does some fascinating things. That's
Speaker 1: the bottom line. So, without further ado, here is my
Speaker 1: interview with the founder and CEO of one eight hundred Flowers,
Speaker 1: Jim McCann. This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. I am thrilled to have my special
Speaker 1: guest here today. He is Jim McCann. He is the founder,
Speaker 1: former CEO and current chairman. Is that correct, Flowers? I
Speaker 1: didn't get the notice yet about the dismissal, but I'm
Speaker 1: still the CEO. You are Apparently you and the board
Speaker 1: of come to some of the brothers were talking to
Speaker 1: me about this and he said, no, no, Jim, is
Speaker 1: just the chance. I know you guys are up there.
Speaker 1: Actually at the holiday party at your home, I think
Speaker 1: we briefly discussed whether or not you're gonna become chairman
Speaker 1: and give up the CEO. So that was sticking in
Speaker 1: my head anyway. Jim is the founder and CEO of
Speaker 1: one eight hundred Flowers, which is a company that has
Speaker 1: a whole lot of first it's the first company to
Speaker 1: have its name being eight hundred dial up number. You
Speaker 1: were the first company, first retail company really that cut
Speaker 1: a big deal with A O L. Back when they
Speaker 1: were one of the biggest internet providers. They were the
Speaker 1: comer at that time. I think the big internet provider
Speaker 1: was Prodigy exactly. And it was a big decision for
Speaker 1: Chris and I way back when Barry to decide do
Speaker 1: we go with Prodigy? And Prodigy they had an office building,
Speaker 1: they wore suits, they were owned by IBM and c
Speaker 1: S and they were established. Where do we go with
Speaker 1: this upstart UH called A O L. And the decision.
Speaker 1: In your book you describe having a meal with them
Speaker 1: where they couldn't even afford That's right, but there was
Speaker 1: a decision based on people and and in that case
Speaker 1: it was Steve Case and Leonsis. We knew to Chris
Speaker 1: and I knew ted from other careers that he had had,
Speaker 1: so after we met with them, even though I didn't
Speaker 1: understand what Lloyd's name they were talking about, I just
Speaker 1: made a bet on people, and so we went with
Speaker 1: this startup A O L. And it was a very
Speaker 1: fortuitous decision that that, by the way, is a theme
Speaker 1: that I picked up throughout your book about making a
Speaker 1: bet on people. Whether it's technology or what have you.
Speaker 1: It's the people behind it that sell you on that process,
Speaker 1: which I think we do that every day and all
Speaker 1: our decisions. You've got to visit a doctor. You don't
Speaker 1: know really how good they are, but if you feel
Speaker 1: like they care and they have a nice manner about them,
Speaker 1: you feel very good about them. I'd like to review
Speaker 1: the board scores. You've got seventy questions seventy two wrong?
Speaker 1: How did you miss that? I'm not surprised at your response. Well,
Speaker 1: but it's you are a data driven fellow, I am,
Speaker 1: but sometimes you have no choice but to rely a
Speaker 1: little bit on your own instinct and you read of people.
Speaker 1: The problem them that some of us run into is
Speaker 1: that we're gullible and we believe what people listen. The
Speaker 1: only reason I became kind of a data wank is
Speaker 1: that I'm an idiot, and anytime somebody says something to me,
Speaker 1: I believe it, and then I would go to the data.
Speaker 1: Wait a second, that's not what the data. Now you
Speaker 1: say global warming isn't happening. You look at the data.
Speaker 1: You see global warming. It's lower left, upper right. That
Speaker 1: was amazing when you pointed that out back a couple
Speaker 1: of months ago, and you're on your blog. I said, wow,
Speaker 1: that it's irrefutable data. It's only if you believe that
Speaker 1: the n O A A, you know, or NASA. Right,
Speaker 1: they're not they're not faking in. And and look, the
Speaker 1: bottom line is what's gonna be is gonna be this this.
Speaker 1: You know you and I were talking earlier. I have
Speaker 1: a boat, I have too many cars. I'm the last
Speaker 1: person in the world to lecture anybody about being green, right,
Speaker 1: I'm not telling people, Oh, you shouldn't do this but
Speaker 1: I am telling people, if we're going to discuss this,
Speaker 1: at least let's be honest about the data to and
Speaker 1: not pretend you may come to a decision that there's
Speaker 1: nothing we could do anyway, it's too expensive, or we
Speaker 1: can let technology figure out a way to fix it.
Speaker 1: But it's amazing how few times data is the grounding
Speaker 1: principle of our argument, our conversation. But and how many
Speaker 1: times will say I don't care what the data says.
Speaker 1: But now I noticed one of the things that I
Speaker 1: read in your book is how significant data becomes to
Speaker 1: running a large company that has a lot of far
Speaker 1: flung locations, places, retail outlets. Tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about how you guys use data. Well, I would say
Speaker 1: data is frankly more important to a smaller business. Uh.
Speaker 1: We were chatting the difference between entrepreneurs and small business
Speaker 1: people and how lots of times people confuse those things
Speaker 1: in the multiple roles that small business people have to play. Uh.
Speaker 1: But data, data is harder to get when you're a
Speaker 1: small business. But I think much more important because the
Speaker 1: consequence is your decisions are much more leveraged. Right it
Speaker 1: does you can a big company can absorbs and they
Speaker 1: have people who were gathering data for them. It may
Speaker 1: not be the right data, but at least as data
Speaker 1: are available. So now let's let's step back and take
Speaker 1: a look a little bit about your background. I recall
Speaker 1: reading you were in social services, You're working at the
Speaker 1: St John's Home for Boys and moonlighting as a bartender,
Speaker 1: and decided that one day a customer had come in
Speaker 1: was selling his Flora's shop, and you said, yeah, I'd
Speaker 1: like to try that. That's uh, that's pretty much the case.
Speaker 1: I'll give you a little more around the angles there.
Speaker 1: I've been very fortunate. I really only had two careers.
Speaker 1: The first was in the Social services and that was
Speaker 1: an accident that I got into that and h and
Speaker 1: an accident in the sense that being an Irish Catholic
Speaker 1: kid from South Queens, I had a genetic requirement to
Speaker 1: be a bartender, but I don't count that as a career.
Speaker 1: And working in neighborhood place. I had a guy who's
Speaker 1: a friend who worked at this home for boys, and
Speaker 1: I'd asked him about it all the time when he
Speaker 1: came into the bar, and I just thought it was
Speaker 1: really interesting work. And one night he said to me, cheez,
Speaker 1: you ought to come visit us. He had a group
Speaker 1: home with ten young men in it and said, you
Speaker 1: ought to come visit us, have dinner with us one night.
Speaker 1: Sounds to me like you have an interest in this work.
Speaker 1: Well I did, and we had a great dinner together.
Speaker 1: And after dinner he said to me, Geez, would you
Speaker 1: like to give this work or try? I was going
Speaker 1: to school part time, tending Bob part time, and I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd like to give it a try. Bob, you flip
Speaker 1: into keys and said, okay, you're on duty tonight, and
Speaker 1: he left. And how you started literally how he started,
Speaker 1: It's literally how I started. And it was a great
Speaker 1: for a young man. I was just turning twenty one.
Speaker 1: It was a great opportunity for me because look, I
Speaker 1: learned so much more about myself living in a group
Speaker 1: home with ten ten fellas ages fifteen to twenty years old. Uh,
Speaker 1: then I could learn a hundred years of psychotherapy. It
Speaker 1: was I mean, if if you were inconsistent in any way,
Speaker 1: it would be pointed out to you. If you if
Speaker 1: your left bicep was a quarter of bins smaller than
Speaker 1: your right by sap, it would be pointed out to
Speaker 1: you and there was nothing. This mirror was very unforgiven
Speaker 1: and get away with anything with these kids could not.
Speaker 1: We were talking about your experience essentially running a small
Speaker 1: home for boys. How did that impact your subsequent management
Speaker 1: style when you were running a substantially larger company. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's people. People think it's two completely different careers,
Speaker 1: and I overlapped for ten years doing both, you know.
Speaker 1: So I started my flower shop crew, as you mentioned, uh,
Speaker 1: four years into my social service career. So for ten
Speaker 1: years I did both. And it was I found after
Speaker 1: a while that when I got better at my work
Speaker 1: at St. John's, the tools I learned, the the method
Speaker 1: methodologies I employed, those were the same things I was
Speaker 1: doing in the group home as I was doing in
Speaker 1: the office, dealing with people the way you deal with
Speaker 1: in the group home. It was getting people who were
Speaker 1: tough kids from tough backgrounds to realize that we had rules,
Speaker 1: and we had rules because I cared about them, and
Speaker 1: I was going to treat them all well, that I
Speaker 1: really did care about them and uh, and that if
Speaker 1: we worked to a common goal, that they'd be We'd
Speaker 1: measure ourselves along the way. We'd set up some benchmarks
Speaker 1: and some rewards. We try and make it fun, try
Speaker 1: and make it interesting. We'd keep score and there'll be
Speaker 1: a celebration if we hit our goal. That's the same
Speaker 1: things we all do in the workplace every day. Here's
Speaker 1: our goals. Let's let's measure ourselves, let's make it public,
Speaker 1: let's keep track. Let's uh, let's set up rewards that
Speaker 1: are intermittent along the way, and let's have a celebration
Speaker 1: when we get to our victories. So the same things
Speaker 1: I learned working in that group home with ten young
Speaker 1: men are the same things I do in a workplace
Speaker 1: every day, trying to get people to work together to
Speaker 1: achieve more than they thought they could on their own.
Speaker 1: Did you have any early mentors in either venue? Well,
Speaker 1: certainly at St John's the isn't run by an order
Speaker 1: of religious priests and brothers and rockaway beach and queens.
Speaker 1: And the brother who ran the home as a mentor
Speaker 1: of mine and was for many years, even beyond when
Speaker 1: I stopped working in St. John's. But yeah, he was
Speaker 1: a Mentor's name is Brother Tom. He's still he's still
Speaker 1: in that work and a terrific guy. And he told
Speaker 1: me a lot about organization and uh, I just quoted
Speaker 1: him when someone said to me, we had We were
Speaker 1: just talking about a time about a year or two ago.
Speaker 1: My brother Chris and I were looking around. We had
Speaker 1: about four or five projects and we had to pick
Speaker 1: leaders for them, and I had to be sort of
Speaker 1: a quick kind of thing, and we got done. Someone said,
Speaker 1: did you realize that you just picked four young mothers? Oh? Really?
Speaker 1: And we hadn't. And people here remembering this, and I
Speaker 1: hadn't realized it, and he hadn't realized it. And so
Speaker 1: one of them, name was Leslie, turned to his and said, well,
Speaker 1: of course you did, because we don't have time for
Speaker 1: the bs. We don't have time for stuff, you know.
Speaker 1: We just gotta get it done. We gotta we gotta
Speaker 1: get the kids out, we gotta get in the car.
Speaker 1: We gotta make use of that time in the car
Speaker 1: to get all work done. We don't have time for
Speaker 1: nan to be organized. They have to be structured, and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of balls in the are at once.
Speaker 1: And his quote was, if you want to get something done,
Speaker 1: give it to a busy person, and if they're not busy,
Speaker 1: it is a reason. So now let's talk about one
Speaker 1: other aspect of your backgrounds how I first came to
Speaker 1: know you, which was through public speaking. I was telling
Speaker 1: the story not too long ago about a conference I attended,
Speaker 1: and I want to say this was at Silicon Alley Insider.
Speaker 1: It was all the way downtown and I saw you
Speaker 1: speak to a room full of young tech entrepreneurs and
Speaker 1: I remember thinking to myself, what the heck does anybody
Speaker 1: who runs a floral shop know about young tech entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: and venture investing? And you realize nothing, But but you
Speaker 1: managed to craft a compelling story that you know, the
Speaker 1: whole crowd was hanging on your every word. How did
Speaker 1: that come about? So many of us of fear of
Speaker 1: public speaking? And uh? And I you know it was
Speaker 1: for me. It was a part of my ongoing recovery
Speaker 1: from being a shy person. So as a kid, I
Speaker 1: was a shy kid, but I grew out of it
Speaker 1: and and trying to grow out of it. It was
Speaker 1: confronting your fears. And when I got involved with the
Speaker 1: Entrepreneury Year program back in, all of a sudden, you
Speaker 1: had to be on stage a lot and be in
Speaker 1: front of the public a lot, and I realized, Ay,
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the challenge of it, and
Speaker 1: I realized that I could be I could be pretty
Speaker 1: good at it if I just didn't try to be
Speaker 1: a public speaker, if I just told my story or whatever.
Speaker 1: Stories make the point because people, hey, when you when
Speaker 1: you're asked to give a talk, you really has to
Speaker 1: entertain people. And if you come from genetic background, I
Speaker 1: do humor as a part of our lives. And you know,
Speaker 1: look at all the comedians who come from Long Island
Speaker 1: barrier in front of mine just doing a a a
Speaker 1: story on that for a newsday and now just doing
Speaker 1: a little feature film on that. But when you come
Speaker 1: from that background, you learn to use humor and your
Speaker 1: real stories. You found out while this isn't very hard
Speaker 1: because I would tell this around the dinner table. Now
Speaker 1: I'm just telling it on stage. But they had to
Speaker 1: entertain to make a point. And uh, and you don't
Speaker 1: have to remember very much if you just tell a
Speaker 1: story of what actually happened. Right, That's the old joke.
Speaker 1: It's I tell the truth because it's so much easier
Speaker 1: to keep track trying to keep the lie straight. And
Speaker 1: what a wonderful thing here I am. Anytime I spoke
Speaker 1: to an audience or anytime I do speak to an audience,
Speaker 1: I'm speaking to customers or potential customers. You especially because
Speaker 1: of the nature to business we're in, right you. You actually,
Speaker 1: again back to your book, you say, every person I
Speaker 1: meet is a potential who isn't going to buy flowers
Speaker 1: over the next thing, some flowers or any kind of
Speaker 1: a gift that we sell. So so for us, I
Speaker 1: would say, wait a minute, people are gonna pay me
Speaker 1: to come and get to know potential customers. This is
Speaker 1: a pretty good idea. So that's how it came about.
Speaker 1: So from doing the Entrepreneur of the Year group in
Speaker 1: nine seven becoming Toastmaster of the Year. How does that
Speaker 1: progression happen? Well, it went kind of quickly. I didn't
Speaker 1: even know that had been nominated, and it continues today.
Speaker 1: I mean the opportunities I have, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: have time to do it as much as i'd like
Speaker 1: to anymore, but the opportunity to be in front of
Speaker 1: really interesting audience is now. I do it as favors.
Speaker 1: I do it as a favor for a company of
Speaker 1: trying to build a relationship with some good potential partner.
Speaker 1: For us, I just did one for a big technology
Speaker 1: partner of ours. I did their did their conference in
Speaker 1: South Florida because it's a it's my currency that I
Speaker 1: can invest to help build a relationship between our companies
Speaker 1: that I think will be good for us and for them.
Speaker 1: That's quite fascinating. So let's get back to the original
Speaker 1: concept of conversation. And I'm pulling another quote of yours.
Speaker 1: Conversation is the unsung supertool of human interaction. Explain that, Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it sounds so obvious that it's a toss away,
Speaker 1: but I don't think it is. In a sense that
Speaker 1: when we do what you do every day, and what
Speaker 1: you do with this program is you get to know
Speaker 1: some about it. You get to learn about them, you
Speaker 1: get to learn about how they think, and you're imparting
Speaker 1: that information to your audience in a way that's interesting,
Speaker 1: that's informative, that's entertainment. But by the way, it's conversational.
Speaker 1: And uh, and I think that too often we don't
Speaker 1: realize that the conversational activities that we have every day, uh,
Speaker 1: off a little nuggets of learning, off you research. We
Speaker 1: were chatting recently about how long in an interview do
Speaker 1: you have before you realize, Hey, this isn't gonna work out?
Speaker 1: And how much is it? Before you had polite time.
Speaker 1: You guys went public some years ago, and since that
Speaker 1: time we've heard a lot of complaints from venture investors,
Speaker 1: from some entrepreneurs, from some people running companies about the
Speaker 1: burdens of running a public company. How how has running
Speaker 1: a public firm treated you? Well, I can understand, you know,
Speaker 1: lots of times people are going to see the burdens
Speaker 1: of it, and it's like anything else's two edges to
Speaker 1: the sword. We went public, as you say, very a
Speaker 1: long time ago, gust. We were a floral and gift company.
Speaker 1: We embraced the online world early, you know, first we
Speaker 1: were first we went with a telephone when eight hundred
Speaker 1: flowers is our primary access modality. And then just a
Speaker 1: couple of years later, when my brother came into the business,
Speaker 1: we went online and then then barely and it was
Speaker 1: when Netscape came along, created the browser, organized the internet
Speaker 1: and started to really matter to us then and by
Speaker 1: nine we had one finance competitors from zero. Uh So
Speaker 1: we were advised and we took the advice to get
Speaker 1: public because we didn't know how long the fight was
Speaker 1: going to be and whether or not we'd have enough
Speaker 1: powder to do it on our own. So we in
Speaker 1: public in August of ninety nine, just as the window
Speaker 1: was closing on all of the dot com companies. So
Speaker 1: we didn't realize it then, but it was. Yahoo missed
Speaker 1: their earnings that morning for the first time, and the
Speaker 1: market created We limped out. We did well. But the
Speaker 1: good news is, although many banks advisers to dribble out
Speaker 1: the I P O H. Just raise a little bit more,
Speaker 1: now walk it up the ladder, we take everything we
Speaker 1: needed to build out our business at one shot. So
Speaker 1: that was very good advice. Goldman took us public. Lawrence
Speaker 1: scout Cantall, a partner there still a friend, still a
Speaker 1: board member, gave us that good advice. So while the
Speaker 1: rest of the world was going crazy, we had all
Speaker 1: the cash we needed. We built out our business. Those
Speaker 1: twenty of those twenty one competitors disappeared and we were
Speaker 1: in good shape. Uh from a business point of view.
Speaker 1: So being public, well, there are days I'd rather I wasn't,
Speaker 1: But net net the chance for us to share equity
Speaker 1: with our employees. The credibility gives you the public relations
Speaker 1: opportunities that gives you you also have access to capital UH,
Speaker 1: and if you get to be a little bit larger,
Speaker 1: you can use your currency. So for those reasons, but
Speaker 1: mostly for the discipline that it imposes on us, it's
Speaker 1: been a net good thing. That's a very interesting thing.
Speaker 1: Speaking of currency. You recently did the largest acquisition UM
Speaker 1: in company's history. Harry and David, that was your biggest
Speaker 1: acquisitions so far. It's been our largest acquisition ever. It
Speaker 1: was a four million dollar company. We acquired it on
Speaker 1: September two thousand and fourteen. We just went through the
Speaker 1: holiday season. It's a company, Verry, we've looked at four
Speaker 1: times over the last twelve years. The stars finally aligned
Speaker 1: for us. It was a good acquisition for us from
Speaker 1: a timing point of view. We're in the same business.
Speaker 1: We looked longingly at their capabilities and areas that we
Speaker 1: weren't in. We were building our way towards categories that
Speaker 1: they that they were in that we wanted to be in.
Speaker 1: And so when they came available for sale and we
Speaker 1: entered the process and it worked out that we were
Speaker 1: able to acquire to what we hope was a good price.
Speaker 1: UH twelve year twelve year ago, finally accomplished and they're
Speaker 1: a great name brand. People know who they are and
Speaker 1: that should should work nicely together. We've been in a
Speaker 1: flower gifting business now for almost forty years and we've
Speaker 1: been adding different food lines throughout the years. We have
Speaker 1: a company called the Popcorn Factory. We have several of
Speaker 1: different chocolate brands and the most well known Fannie Mae
Speaker 1: and Fanny Farmer, Harry London. We have a bakery company
Speaker 1: called Cheryls which does those great cookies. So we've been
Speaker 1: adding to our food offering as our customers say we'd
Speaker 1: like more food type gifts, and we had a big
Speaker 1: overlapping customers between our one Flowers customers and Harry and
Speaker 1: David customer base, so when it came available to it
Speaker 1: was just a natural and they have so much untapped
Speaker 1: potential for an eighty year old company. They have a
Speaker 1: wonderful brand called wolf Aman's, which are the best English
Speaker 1: style muffins you've ever had in your life. They're just fantastic.
Speaker 1: I know, the the chocolate covered popcorn, Harmel chocolate popcorn,
Speaker 1: the Moose Moose Munch, what a great product. I was
Speaker 1: just doing research on it yesterday afternoon with my wife.
Speaker 1: So let's let's bring it back to while we were
Speaker 1: watching the uh the Grammy's Last Night the So, how
Speaker 1: often does the stock price get in the way of
Speaker 1: your long term planning? You know, a lot of people
Speaker 1: use Amazon as an example. Hey, they don't care about profits.
Speaker 1: They just keep building for the future, and Wall Street
Speaker 1: has been really tolerant of it. Do you do you
Speaker 1: have that same luxury? No, we don't. Very few companies
Speaker 1: achieved that luxury. They frankly have earned it so far.
Speaker 1: I think I heard Bill Gurley, who's a great venture capitalist,
Speaker 1: baumer analyst, being interviewed on this network over a weekend
Speaker 1: just a couple of weeks ago. Betty Lou was interviewing him,
Speaker 1: and she I think she asked him about Amazon, and
Speaker 1: he said, it's not a problem as long as it's
Speaker 1: not a problem. In other words, as long as Wall
Speaker 1: streets buying that there's a that they got the secret
Speaker 1: sauce there, there's not an issue. But the moment they
Speaker 1: start to doubt Amazon, they'll be an issue. I think
Speaker 1: that's probably accurate. He knows a lot more about the
Speaker 1: world than I do, but I think they've earned the currency.
Speaker 1: With Wall Street, we aren't in the same position. We're
Speaker 1: much more judge now by our earnings now. And uh,
Speaker 1: but I'll tell you what, when it's going well. Our
Speaker 1: stock has really performed well since the acquisition, people say, oh,
Speaker 1: my lord, look at the synergies here. Uh, it feels good.
Speaker 1: It's like a vote of confidence from Wall Street that
Speaker 1: you've done something good. My guest today is the founder
Speaker 1: and CEO of one eight hundred Flowers, Jim McCann. We
Speaker 1: were talking about the acquisition you had done um with
Speaker 1: one eight hundred Flowers taking over Barrian David. Let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about what you described as the four
Speaker 1: waves that your company has gone through, and that was retail,
Speaker 1: the eight hundred, eight hundred number Internet, and the fourth
Speaker 1: one being what, well, the fourth one is one we're
Speaker 1: going through right now, Marry. That is you know, we
Speaker 1: started with stores. We changed the name of our company
Speaker 1: to one eight hundred Flowers, changed the name of our
Speaker 1: stars to one eight hundred Flowers, which people thought was
Speaker 1: really nuts. And then uh, and then having changed the
Speaker 1: industry by embracing this new eight hundred number concept, we uh.
Speaker 1: As Andy Grove wrote, only the Paranoid survive. We were
Speaker 1: paranoid about what the next emerging technology would be that
Speaker 1: might disrupt us. So that's why we were early to
Speaker 1: the internet. Right now, I think the most exciting of
Speaker 1: the four waves, uh, is the way that's crashing on
Speaker 1: a beach now. And just like those beautiful waves out
Speaker 1: on Jones Beach on Long Island are oftentimes three headed waves,
Speaker 1: this one is too, and it's what we call it
Speaker 1: is social, local, and mobile, and that three headed wave
Speaker 1: is crashing on our beaches big time now. It's probably
Speaker 1: the biggest of all those waves, and socially and certainly
Speaker 1: having the most impact on us. And mobile is exaggerating everything. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, clearly, the smartphones we all carry now are
Speaker 1: changing all of our lives. They no longer phones. There
Speaker 1: their remote controls for the rest of our life, and
Speaker 1: it's changing how we connect with one another, how we
Speaker 1: express ourselves, and how we purchase anything. So it's we're
Speaker 1: fortunate that we've been investing in mobile uh for a
Speaker 1: lot of years now, and so that's why we're a
Speaker 1: leader in the mobile space. We're a leader in the
Speaker 1: social space because we sort of have it just part
Speaker 1: of our culture now. And not accidentally, Barry that that
Speaker 1: being early two things to new technologies as a part
Speaker 1: of our d NA. Let's let's talk about social a minute,
Speaker 1: because again, back to your book, there's a charming story
Speaker 1: about you writing an email to a number of people
Speaker 1: about what's going on in social or it wasn't even
Speaker 1: cold social then, and you get a scathing response from
Speaker 1: a new employee who essentially marked up your email and
Speaker 1: corrected it and said, I completely disagree with you. You
Speaker 1: don't know what you're talking about. His name is Steve
Speaker 1: lou and he wrote me this note back and I
Speaker 1: went out, I knew where he sat and left my office.
Speaker 1: He was a new employee, right, it was only there
Speaker 1: a couple of months, I think. So I go over
Speaker 1: to him and I put it down on his desk.
Speaker 1: I say, how dare you disagree with the CEO around here?
Speaker 1: And he's like, what the heck is going on here?
Speaker 1: And he was like almost trembling, and I pad him
Speaker 1: on the back. I said, Steve, I'm only again, And
Speaker 1: I said, this is terrific. But I saw that more
Speaker 1: is emblematic not just of social and the tools, but
Speaker 1: of the new millennial generation in terms of how they
Speaker 1: view their place, their ability to say things, their ability
Speaker 1: to participate, and I saw that as a very good
Speaker 1: sign for our culture, the kinds of people we were
Speaker 1: hiring and the freedom of expression that they had. By
Speaker 1: the way, he was right on everything. He corrected me
Speaker 1: on so that. But he got you very involved in Facebook,
Speaker 1: fairly or early for a commercial entity, very early, and
Speaker 1: frankly so early. It was still uh it was still
Speaker 1: only available to you if you had any du address.
Speaker 1: And we I do these dinners all the time around
Speaker 1: the shop, call what have you learned lately? Dinners? And
Speaker 1: we invite you know, a dozen people to sit around
Speaker 1: a table in a restaurant mostly uh I. Half the
Speaker 1: people are going to be very new to the company.
Speaker 1: Half are going to be from different different parts of
Speaker 1: the company. And the idea is you're gonna come to dinner,
Speaker 1: but you're gonna have to sing for us, up us,
Speaker 1: what have you learned? Different? What's new? And one of
Speaker 1: those dinners early on, probably eight years nine years ago, UH,
Speaker 1: young lady who just graduated from Hofster University on Long
Speaker 1: Island was talking about how she spends her time on Facebook,
Speaker 1: and as the first I've ever heard of Facebook, so
Speaker 1: I asked her about it. The next day, I went
Speaker 1: side of the desk, and because I didn't have an
Speaker 1: E d U address, she showed me what she was
Speaker 1: doing on Facebook, and I said, this is going to
Speaker 1: be a big deal. And so that's how we got early,
Speaker 1: early to Facebook. And that's I still do those dinners
Speaker 1: and its still where I get to hear early things.
Speaker 1: And now we've we've formalized that we have a We
Speaker 1: took a group of people who are creative department, a
Speaker 1: lot of young people, interesting piercings and tats and things,
Speaker 1: and great talent, but eager for new knowledge. So I
Speaker 1: asked them to officially be our trends team. And what
Speaker 1: they do is are looking all the time what's new,
Speaker 1: and they put it up on We use Google Plus
Speaker 1: and our shop to gather all those trends and they
Speaker 1: post them with their commentary on why this will be interesting,
Speaker 1: how it's going to affect a lot of conversation over
Speaker 1: this past weekend about Microsoft's new advisors, the focus UH
Speaker 1: and about the new Oculus devices. Yes, yeah, so I
Speaker 1: was reading all weekend long about all these people people
Speaker 1: in our shop. So finally I said, I said to
Speaker 1: the fellow who runs that department, about three months ago,
Speaker 1: I said, who else is reading this? This is great
Speaker 1: stuff coming from your team. And he said, well, you know,
Speaker 1: just you and your brother and to or three other people.
Speaker 1: I said, well, why do I share it with everybody?
Speaker 1: We have ten thousand people work in a company. Why
Speaker 1: don't we share it with Well, I'm telling you, it's
Speaker 1: so rich in content. Now it's almost like sipping out
Speaker 1: of a fire hose. You can't keep up with all
Speaker 1: the commentary. But and and now some of our employees
Speaker 1: kids are commenting because they're at home. They're talking about
Speaker 1: it at dinner. And the kid goes on and as
Speaker 1: a post and says, why he thinks that the Rift
Speaker 1: device is going to be way different than that just
Speaker 1: six months from now. And you realize it's a fourteen
Speaker 1: and a half year old kid from from Medford, Oregon
Speaker 1: who's opening here and has some unbelievably insightful thoughts. That
Speaker 1: that was my criticism of Steve Balmer, who used to
Speaker 1: run Microsoft, who wouldn't let his kids use an Apple,
Speaker 1: iPod or Google Search. Hey, you're just cut off the
Speaker 1: greatest research team in the world, your kids. Why would
Speaker 1: you stop them from that? And that's the power of conversation.
Speaker 1: Let's let's just get it going and you don't have
Speaker 1: to have a research department. Your research department can be
Speaker 1: your fourteen in fourteen and a half year old driver's
Speaker 1: son who's opening on the conversation because he wants to
Speaker 1: be a part of it. So, so we know what
Speaker 1: you think about emerging technologies and how important they are
Speaker 1: to entrepreneurs. Let's talk a little bit about competition. Now
Speaker 1: you've outlasted a lot of your competition, but how do
Speaker 1: you deal with someone fresh that comes into your space
Speaker 1: and its potentially a threat to the company's bottom line. Well,
Speaker 1: I think first and foremost is we were that person
Speaker 1: one time. So we did disrupt FTD, who was you know,
Speaker 1: had a market share, and now we're quite a bit
Speaker 1: larger than they are. Uh So we have it in
Speaker 1: our nature to understand that that can happen again. So
Speaker 1: we take seriously all the competition and we use that
Speaker 1: whole team of people. Is what are they doing? It's good,
Speaker 1: Let's really look at it. Let's not just dismiss them
Speaker 1: and well, wait a minute, we're already doing that. Maybe
Speaker 1: we're not putting enough publicity on what we're doing that
Speaker 1: people think it's so novel that that's the only thing
Speaker 1: they do when it's one of so you have to
Speaker 1: look at it as as good UH as they're all
Speaker 1: going to be successful or going to get funded, And
Speaker 1: you say, is there a lesson there for us? Or
Speaker 1: should we be doing something we're doing differently, should we
Speaker 1: be offering another alternative? And I think that's what keeps
Speaker 1: us whole shop is that anyone can enter any of
Speaker 1: our businesses. But if we're not, if we're not paying attention,
Speaker 1: then someone can get a start. What about one of
Speaker 1: the giants in the space suddenly deciding we want to
Speaker 1: do flowers, like hypothetically Amazon, They have a huge footprints.
Speaker 1: They could sell whatever they want if they decide they
Speaker 1: want that space they do. Amazon's a company we respect,
Speaker 1: a great deal. We work with, We compete with and
Speaker 1: UH and they've been in and out of our category
Speaker 1: five or six times now and we work very closely
Speaker 1: with them. We work a lot with the logistics people
Speaker 1: in terms of delivery. We've been doing same day and
Speaker 1: last mile for a long time, so we're collaborating all
Speaker 1: the time. And if they're going to compete with us,
Speaker 1: we have to be better than they are at what
Speaker 1: we do, and so working with them is a good
Speaker 1: way to keep them close. So your experts in in social,
Speaker 1: your experts in local, what do you do with mobile?
Speaker 1: I think the whole world is mobile. I think it
Speaker 1: changes everything. Uh, and it's changed so fast it's incredible.
Speaker 1: But it also exaggerates social. I remember back in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, you might have
Speaker 1: read about it. There's this little recession thing went on.
Speaker 1: Um it was much younger than but you did predict it. Well.
Speaker 1: There was that. There was a time when we had
Speaker 1: to cut back. We got hit by the recession too,
Speaker 1: and we found out, wow, we are a little bit
Speaker 1: more ephemeral than we thought. And we had a first
Speaker 1: time in thirty something years and we actually went backwards
Speaker 1: a year. Did you have to let people off? We
Speaker 1: did one time and it was painful and we didn't
Speaker 1: want to do it again. And we also had but
Speaker 1: we never were unprofitable, and we had to cut back
Speaker 1: from eighteen different development projects to four. But when the
Speaker 1: four was mobile, because we knew social and mobile, and
Speaker 1: then some internal development projects for for technology, how to
Speaker 1: go on because we were going to survive this, we
Speaker 1: couldn't do all the development projects we want, but those
Speaker 1: are the four that we had to continue. So we
Speaker 1: invested in mobile right throughout that. And our job is
Speaker 1: to be convenient. When a customer wants to express themselves
Speaker 1: and connect to somebody important to them in their lives,
Speaker 1: we have to be convenient. And what's more convenient than
Speaker 1: a device it's on your on your belt or in
Speaker 1: your pocket, whether you can access anytime seven to send
Speaker 1: anything anywhere around the world. So mobile is now the
Speaker 1: primary driver of all of our business. So you say,
Speaker 1: on your belt, that's how I know you're from Long
Speaker 1: Island Because you walk through home depot. They're like hulsters.
Speaker 1: You see people walking out right, So I wanna I
Speaker 1: want to throw a quote back at you that I
Speaker 1: found really interesting about entrepreneurs and small business owners. You
Speaker 1: function as three people at once, an entrepreneur, a manager,
Speaker 1: and a technician, all vying for time in the owner's
Speaker 1: stress field day. The inevitable conflict is the primary reason
Speaker 1: why most startups fail. And then you go on to
Speaker 1: add entrepreneurs need to learn to fire themselves from some
Speaker 1: of these duties. Explain that if you would, well, I'm
Speaker 1: just thinking of all the mistakes I've made and continue
Speaker 1: to make. But in the early days, the biggest mistake
Speaker 1: I made was when I had my first flower shop.
Speaker 1: I was the best designer. Can you imagine, I was
Speaker 1: the best floral designer. I was the best sweeper. I
Speaker 1: was the best uh window tremor. I was the best
Speaker 1: delivery person. I was the best well first because I
Speaker 1: was the only one. And then you know, but I
Speaker 1: wanted to be good at all those things. It wasn't
Speaker 1: until I broke the mold and said, I don't need
Speaker 1: to be the first one in the morning the last
Speaker 1: one every night, which I still do. Uh, but I
Speaker 1: don't need to do that because I was just being
Speaker 1: the best flower shop manager. And that was a waste
Speaker 1: because I could hire someone who is actually better than
Speaker 1: me at those things. And once I realized that I
Speaker 1: could hire people better than I could focus on the
Speaker 1: things that only I could do. And the time I
Speaker 1: look away from doing the things that only I could
Speaker 1: do retarded my business. So for me, learning to get
Speaker 1: out of the way and let other people do what
Speaker 1: they can do well freed me up to do things
Speaker 1: that only I could do, which are about growing the
Speaker 1: business and expanding the business. I've been speaking with Jim McCann,
Speaker 1: founder and CEO of One Flowers. We continue the conversation.
Speaker 1: You can listen to the rest of it on either
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com or iTunes. You can check it out
Speaker 1: my daily column on Bloomberg View dot com or at
Speaker 1: The Big Picture at Dholts dot com, or follow me
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Dhults. I'm Barry Ridhults. You're listening to
Speaker 1: Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. Welcome to the podcast
Speaker 1: portion of the show where we get to throw the
Speaker 1: script away and just shoot the breeze a little bit.
Speaker 1: That one actually went in the garbage. Um, So a
Speaker 1: little background for people. Interesting where you hit that shot
Speaker 1: into the garbage without even looking, without my Tumbo coming
Speaker 1: and batting it away on you. So when I when
Speaker 1: I picked up Jim on the sixth floor, a Kembe
Speaker 1: Matumbo walks by. He's all of seven foot something by here.
Speaker 1: A few times he's you can I don't know how
Speaker 1: you recognize. We can't see his face over the So
Speaker 1: a little background I mentioned I alluded to in our
Speaker 1: earlier conversation. The first time I saw you speak was
Speaker 1: at Silicon Alley inside and do you remember who the
Speaker 1: big star that day was all right. So I remember
Speaker 1: Deb Solomon, who was a woman I knew who was
Speaker 1: doing um pipes and working with a lot of small companies,
Speaker 1: is the one who said you should come to this event.
Speaker 1: So she dragged me there. She may have been the
Speaker 1: only woman in the whole room. That's right. It was
Speaker 1: all the way downtown and it was um. It was
Speaker 1: like you know, flies to honey. It was incredible. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you go through this every time you go to an event,
Speaker 1: just like swatting these guys away. It was crazy. And
Speaker 1: then we saw you speak and I turned to her
Speaker 1: afterwards and said that looks like fun. I'd like to
Speaker 1: do that. She's like, go ahead, No, no, I'm not
Speaker 1: asking your permission. I'm just saying, that's really cool to
Speaker 1: step up, stand up in front of a room of
Speaker 1: five hundred thousand people, and over the course of thirty minutes,
Speaker 1: regale them with a story that entertains, elucidates, provide some information,
Speaker 1: and then sends them off to either forget about it
Speaker 1: or or act on it. It was really intriguing. And
Speaker 1: then I don't know if you recall the next time
Speaker 1: we bumped into each other. Was that the Scarbridge event.
Speaker 1: That's Salt conference, which our mutual friend Anthony Scaramucci puts on.
Speaker 1: I'm online that So it was at the Bellaggio, which
Speaker 1: is huge. The pool, the whole area around the pool
Speaker 1: is the mass. Right. They rope it off. You needed
Speaker 1: your your ID tag to get in, and they had
Speaker 1: this massive barbecue. And I'm standing online afterwards. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you a story about Tim Seymour that's hilarious, but I
Speaker 1: won't tell it on the air. But um, I'm on
Speaker 1: the I'm online to get some food and I hear
Speaker 1: a voice behind me, and I go, I know that voice,
Speaker 1: And I turned around and I had done a panel
Speaker 1: actually on Bailout Nation with Austin Goulsby, the gentleman who
Speaker 1: was a congressman whose name I couldn't remember. I just
Speaker 1: remember he went on way too long, and Asby who
Speaker 1: worked for President Obama in his back at the University
Speaker 1: of Chicago. Right he was the chairman of the Council
Speaker 1: of Economic Advisors. There was a congressman who I recall
Speaker 1: took a breath in the middle of a long diet
Speaker 1: tribe and I requested with the congressman from Oklahoma yield
Speaker 1: the floor and the filibus board was it No, No,
Speaker 1: that was the other one. He was from Tennessee. There
Speaker 1: was the older gentleman with the shock of white hair,
Speaker 1: hefty guy who who was on I think the Financial
Speaker 1: Crisis Investigation Committee. By the way, I love being the
Speaker 1: lightest weight person. Meaning in terms of resume on a panel,
Speaker 1: it means I fooled somebody that I ended up on
Speaker 1: a panel. I'm like, I don't belong here. I wrote
Speaker 1: a book, I I have not. These guys are real
Speaker 1: serious guys. The fact that I got here is is
Speaker 1: either good fortune or or I fooled somebody. But that's
Speaker 1: where I um. That's where we bumped into each other.
Speaker 1: And we started chatting at that event, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: believe that I didn't connect that I was reading your
Speaker 1: blog all the time at that time, and then I
Speaker 1: knew you. I didn't connect the name of the blog
Speaker 1: with you. And it was like a huge revelation for
Speaker 1: us when we're sitting there, choweling down in a on
Speaker 1: a cluster of some couches there right in what seemed
Speaker 1: like decadent world. Well, anytime you go to Vegas, it
Speaker 1: is decadent world. There was no respect for money out there.
Speaker 1: There's no respect for what a great conference has become.
Speaker 1: It's monstrous, it's huge. What I remember about the Blaggio
Speaker 1: this is a true story. So I spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time doing research into behavioral issues and psychology of investing.
Speaker 1: And the Blaggio was famous for having a pair of
Speaker 1: monies in the lobby. And these now go for thirty
Speaker 1: million dollars each and I, you know, there's like a
Speaker 1: lot receiving line to go see them is actually paid
Speaker 1: to go. Look. Oh no, you you go, You just
Speaker 1: walk up. All you have to do is lose enough
Speaker 1: money that so I'm admission. So I'm behind these two
Speaker 1: big tourists that have a little bit of an accent,
Speaker 1: and I'm watching the two of them look at this,
Speaker 1: and the husband says to the wife, come on, honey,
Speaker 1: let's let's go in the casino and win ourselves the
Speaker 1: mone and um, I remember thinking myself, no, you have
Speaker 1: it backwards. They have the money because you're not gonna win.
Speaker 1: You gotta understand. There's a reason why it's on the wall.
Speaker 1: It's talking about data that's pretty firm evidence. Hey, forty
Speaker 1: million dollars hanging on the wall behind glass. They have
Speaker 1: to be doing something, and that includes not paying you
Speaker 1: a lot of money in the in the casino. But
Speaker 1: I found that that conference was a boatload of fun.
Speaker 1: It's um filled with hedge fund managers and others. Um
Speaker 1: the letter. That year was the year I actually saw
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton, after his bypass surgery, walk into a very
Speaker 1: hostile room of three thousand hedge fund managers who were
Speaker 1: all not fans of his. It was like the golf applause.
Speaker 1: He walked out to a like the definition of a smattering.
Speaker 1: Later he walked out to a standing ovation, and if
Speaker 1: he would have asked for money, they would have broken out.
Speaker 1: I remember saying to myself, Oh, that's how that guy
Speaker 1: became president. If he said I need ten thousand mills
Speaker 1: from each of you, he would have walked out of
Speaker 1: there with andrew million dollars like that. He no notes,
Speaker 1: He's completely extemporaneously had a conversation and then the Q
Speaker 1: and A whatever was asked. He knew this stuff dead
Speaker 1: to right. So much details. He's amazing, And we're gonna
Speaker 1: see a lot more on them again pretty soon, anythink,
Speaker 1: probably in the next in the next election. Although um
Speaker 1: our mutual friend Scaramucci. I think he at one point
Speaker 1: in time was a fan. I don't think so anymore. Well,
Speaker 1: he was a big order from last time. I think
Speaker 1: he was an Obama supporter, lost faith and then became
Speaker 1: a Ronnie Sport. Will be interesting to see what what
Speaker 1: happens with this. So aside from the SULT conference, what
Speaker 1: other events like that do you end up going to?
Speaker 1: Not A lot is one that I'm going to coming
Speaker 1: up soon that Allen and Company puts on out in Arizona.
Speaker 1: That is uh. It started as a small and MidCap conference,
Speaker 1: but it's now been taken over by the technology folks. Uh.
Speaker 1: So it's a big Silicon Valley crowd, but I find
Speaker 1: it to be very stimulating. They run an amazing event
Speaker 1: and it's not a lot of people, but you get
Speaker 1: to hang out for a few days in the desert
Speaker 1: down the north of Tucson, uh, down a Dove Mountain,
Speaker 1: a rich Calton on that and the conversations are all
Speaker 1: unbelievably stimulating. I remember sitting, uh i'd say two years
Speaker 1: ago at lunch with Alex Rampel, who created trial pay
Speaker 1: and Max Levchin, who's the prince of payments in Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: UH Max created a company called Slides, sold it to
Speaker 1: uh Facebook and other company sold to Google. He became
Speaker 1: Google CTO for about six months and said I don't
Speaker 1: belong in corporate. I start companies. And he left there
Speaker 1: and then the launched Yelp and uh and now he's
Speaker 1: got a new company. So I'm sitting there at lunch
Speaker 1: and then we we had it just came from a
Speaker 1: great presentation on everything mobile and he said to me,
Speaker 1: how importantly think mobile would be for you? So I
Speaker 1: told them and and he said it's massive, massive, and
Speaker 1: uh he said what's the big return? And I said, well, geez,
Speaker 1: I'd like there's a whole audience of teenagers who were
Speaker 1: carrying mobile devices and if they don't have a credit card,
Speaker 1: they can't be a customer of mine. So he started
Speaker 1: sketching on an envelope assume me on the back of
Speaker 1: a place. Matt an idea for a business plan. Now
Speaker 1: we which he launched about a year and a half ago.
Speaker 1: But I watched him created on this on this so
Speaker 1: you got, we got, we invested. We did, and it's
Speaker 1: company called The Firm and it uses social media to
Speaker 1: make a credit decision. So he said, So, if someone
Speaker 1: presses a button on a mobile device that they want
Speaker 1: to buy from you, how do you confirm with the
Speaker 1: credit that put it in? Now you don't have to
Speaker 1: do that. They just said, you want to you want
Speaker 1: to pay through a firm, and an algorithm doesn't computing.
Speaker 1: What they look at is what's your behavior in social media,
Speaker 1: what are your friends behavior in social media? What kinds
Speaker 1: of interactions, what's the qualitating interactions? And this algorithm that
Speaker 1: he wrote can make that determination sub second and then
Speaker 1: take care of the building information later on. So it's
Speaker 1: opening a whole new world of customers. And they're not
Speaker 1: using traditional scoring data at all. They only using social
Speaker 1: profile bare. So the thought process of who's going to
Speaker 1: go through the process of faking cre in an entire
Speaker 1: social profile and behaving and having people interact with them.
Speaker 1: That sounds really difficult to ford to save a bouquet, right,
Speaker 1: do you think about You could create that with bots,
Speaker 1: but you should be able to tell what's real and
Speaker 1: what's fake. That's amazing. But but to see we were
Speaker 1: sitting in the same conference, listening to the same speakers
Speaker 1: and just to see how their minds work. It's an
Speaker 1: example of why I locked like that event because you're
Speaker 1: with people who think differently and think openly and open systems,
Speaker 1: and it's just a stimulating to ask you a question.
Speaker 1: You run a business, why can't you sell to teenagers? What?
Speaker 1: What do you need? That that's really tremendously in The
Speaker 1: question is really insightful, as is the answer. You know,
Speaker 1: I go to this conference every other year in San Diego,
Speaker 1: just because it's overwhelming to go every year. And it's
Speaker 1: a bunch of literally kids in college and all their
Speaker 1: new projects that they want to have funded and they
Speaker 1: want to and you cannot go to one of these events.
Speaker 1: And I remmember being there, right, And you mentioned the
Speaker 1: Great Recession, right in the middle of the Great Recession,
Speaker 1: and you come out of that thinking, I don't care
Speaker 1: how bad the economy is, There's no way we have
Speaker 1: a bleak future. What's coming out of these kids. Look,
Speaker 1: I'm a churmudgeon, I'm a skeptic. I'm not you're not.
Speaker 1: Nobody's going to confuse me for a happy, go lucky cheerleader.
Speaker 1: But you go to one of these events and you
Speaker 1: look at the new technologies coming along, you can't walk
Speaker 1: out saying, well, you know, we might have screwed it up.
Speaker 1: They got a better shot at running the country than
Speaker 1: we did. It's it's that sort of optimism. And all
Speaker 1: you want to say is, let's make sure we don't
Speaker 1: screw up that flow, that creativity. Let's not narrow the
Speaker 1: broadband availability, let's not put any rules up. The only
Speaker 1: way that the Internet has had such a big impact
Speaker 1: on the lives. And we'll continue too because we know rules. Well.
Speaker 1: The last bit of administrative announcements about the Internet very
Speaker 1: much was pretty much what the big tech companies were
Speaker 1: looking for, which is you can selectively um retard broadband.
Speaker 1: That's right, and I think that's gonna be huge. You know,
Speaker 1: you don't realize how so many of the companies that
Speaker 1: exist today, think YouTube and Facebook and go down the list,
Speaker 1: how they built on what came before. And the only
Speaker 1: reason they were capable of doing that is there was
Speaker 1: zero restrictions and never ending increases in bandwidth. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: the first time at this conference that I go do
Speaker 1: I heard it was less than six months old, Airbnb present.
Speaker 1: And you hear that, and then you see also probably
Speaker 1: within its first three or four months of birth, I
Speaker 1: saw them present was Uber so you see companies like that,
Speaker 1: and you say to yourself, you could never have been there,
Speaker 1: you Barry Ridholts, who never could been there at the
Speaker 1: start of those companies because you have a law degree,
Speaker 1: and those companies could not have been born if there
Speaker 1: was someone in the room who was a lawyer, because
Speaker 1: they would have tell you, oh, that's not impossible. The
Speaker 1: insurance exposure to risk, and they went ahead and plowed ahead.
Speaker 1: And now these companies are reshaping how we think about
Speaker 1: stuff and about transportation. Well, let me tell you something
Speaker 1: that a very wise man one said to me, which is,
Speaker 1: whenever anybody says never, say why never, why not, let's
Speaker 1: let's let's try it. Let's see what happens never. And
Speaker 1: from a stock and investing perspective, I can't tell you
Speaker 1: how many times I've had a conversation with someone about
Speaker 1: a given stock or a sector and when the response is, oh,
Speaker 1: why would anyone want to own that? Piece of that? Terrible?
Speaker 1: So what's so of the iPod? Is the new Sony
Speaker 1: Walkman Apple is toast? They're done. Whenever you get that response,
Speaker 1: that never response, he usually means that there's a lot
Speaker 1: of negative stuff already worked into the stock price. Something
Speaker 1: I've heard you say before, though, is the best ideas
Speaker 1: that you've heard of the first time you heard of them,
Speaker 1: you thought were a joke. Oh yeah, absolutely, So stop
Speaker 1: and think about Uber right as an example. So not
Speaker 1: I just actually had a debate with someone about this
Speaker 1: and it's it's a whole long conversation. But what Uber
Speaker 1: did that was fascinating was identify a market where there
Speaker 1: was a limit of competition, almost a monopoly limit, posed
Speaker 1: by some regulatory scheme. So here in New York City
Speaker 1: we have the Taxi Limousine Commission and they get to
Speaker 1: set a limit on how many medallion cabs there were,
Speaker 1: which at one point in time we're worth a million
Speaker 1: plus dollars. Since Uber and Lift came to town, oh
Speaker 1: they've dropped and every city they go to they end
Speaker 1: up impacting whatever the restriction is. So I like to
Speaker 1: use the New York City cabs because they're so awful
Speaker 1: as an example. But stop and think about it. There's
Speaker 1: there's rarely a cab when you really want one. The
Speaker 1: second it starts to reign, the supply is immediately gone.
Speaker 1: You can't you can't get one. And because there's not
Speaker 1: true competition, the cab industry has decided, you know what,
Speaker 1: even though it's rush hour, we're gonna turn the shifts
Speaker 1: over at five o'clock, seven, five o'clock. Sorry, I gotta
Speaker 1: go back to Queens or the Bronx to swap drivers. No,
Speaker 1: it's rush hour, pick people up and take them places.
Speaker 1: You could. You could do it at four o'clock. You
Speaker 1: could do it at eight o'clock. Five o'clock is right out.
Speaker 1: Make it midnight to noon. Pick some rational five. You
Speaker 1: couldn't pick a worse time. And the only reason they
Speaker 1: get away with that is there wasn't true competition. Uber
Speaker 1: has forced that competition. So let me ask you a question.
Speaker 1: Since you're always looking at technology and always looking forward,
Speaker 1: what other industries might be ripe for that sort of
Speaker 1: artificial restriction of supply being broken? Well, I I think
Speaker 1: I think when you look at Uber, it's clearly not
Speaker 1: going to stay in the transportation space. The technology to
Speaker 1: concept works in all different kinds of spaces. Read in
Speaker 1: all article over the weekend UH by fellow uh Reid
Speaker 1: Hoffman sent out a list of things here from from
Speaker 1: LinkedIn sent out a list of things he'd read recently
Speaker 1: over the weekend. UH and one of the articles I
Speaker 1: read that he pointed out was about the uh not
Speaker 1: the blue collar workforce, not the white collar workforce, but
Speaker 1: the collar is workforce, and that is using Uber like technology,
Speaker 1: that you're gonna have a world of independent producers all
Speaker 1: carrying their own badge, which is their rating and their
Speaker 1: list of capabilities and its transparency and UH and and
Speaker 1: customer comment their own ratings, and you can have all
Speaker 1: these people task grabbing kind of people. They're driving Uber
Speaker 1: four hours, they're doing errands this other hour, they're a repairment,
Speaker 1: and so they're selling their skills in a very efficient,
Speaker 1: frictionless kind of marketplace. So I think if you look
Speaker 1: at that, that's going to happen to a lot of industries. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know why can't And you're starting to see it
Speaker 1: now in pet care. You know, if why do I
Speaker 1: have to take my dog to a kennel that I'm
Speaker 1: a little concerned about with with a message board, I
Speaker 1: can find out who in the community does it in
Speaker 1: their home with maybe only two dogs and has a
Speaker 1: great rating from their customers because they really do care
Speaker 1: for the dogs and they take great care of them,
Speaker 1: and it's in a home setting. Isn't that something? So
Speaker 1: I would say, if I'm a kennel operate, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have a little bit more concerned as this could start
Speaker 1: to erode my business where I'm competing with everybody else
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood as they should. We haven't put a
Speaker 1: dog in the kennel and since the first time he
Speaker 1: came back with cannel cough, that was it. There you go.
Speaker 1: So you're you're you know, no, you're gonna get thirty
Speaker 1: or forty dogs and you know everybody's had their shots. Um.
Speaker 1: We also, and I don't know if you do this,
Speaker 1: we also find someone from the vets office who wants
Speaker 1: the house hits. So this way the dogs are where
Speaker 1: they are. It's but I love the idea that technology
Speaker 1: is enabling just a disruption of industries that aren't really
Speaker 1: servicing their clients. All well, what might and we didn't
Speaker 1: know that, we weren't a shrug it. Look, I'm waiting
Speaker 1: for the airlines to get disrupted. You we tolerate so
Speaker 1: much nonsense when we flot you fly a decent amount.
Speaker 1: I fly all over the country. You kind of just
Speaker 1: grit your teeth and bear with it. Or you could
Speaker 1: pay ten thousand dollars and and do a net jets
Speaker 1: or one of those and fly a couple of times.
Speaker 1: But unless you're gonna pay, and why barely steep dollar amounts.
Speaker 1: I guess it's not something popular to talk about, but
Speaker 1: that the whole private jet industry is not quite been
Speaker 1: uberized yet, but it will be. It will be. There's
Speaker 1: a company called Blade Yes, that's trying to uberize helicopter
Speaker 1: travel from New York City to the Hamptons or New
Speaker 1: York City to the airport. So not quite a full
Speaker 1: on uber it's it's aiming at a real narrow slice.
Speaker 1: So in your business, are you worried about being uberized?
Speaker 1: Are you concerned that someone could come along and disrupt
Speaker 1: floral delivery the way you did? I'd say yes and no.
Speaker 1: The yes is yes, we watch for everything that we
Speaker 1: think can be disruptive. The no is I think what
Speaker 1: we see is this more opportunity. So we've been crowdsourcing
Speaker 1: deliveries for forty years. That is, Uncle Joe, if he
Speaker 1: wants to be invited for Thanksgiving dinner, is going to
Speaker 1: be at our shop and take a personal day from
Speaker 1: IBM on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, to help us do
Speaker 1: our deliveries. Well that's sort of crowdsourcing our deliveries. But
Speaker 1: now the ability to use that technology. What I get
Speaker 1: excited about is we have these floorists all over the
Speaker 1: country who are part of our network. You know what
Speaker 1: a shame on us, But grub hub gets busy about
Speaker 1: six o'clock at night, When do all our trucks come
Speaker 1: back and get put down for the night? Put away
Speaker 1: from the evening six o'clock. We have this fleet, what
Speaker 1: else can we do with it to serve our customers,
Speaker 1: to serve our florists, to leverage assets. We already have
Speaker 1: it and paid for, so we spend more time thinking
Speaker 1: about what can we do to disrupt ourselves? What can
Speaker 1: we do to serve our customers? Differently, what can we
Speaker 1: do to serve So if we're in if we have
Speaker 1: the end cap in a shopping center in uh in
Speaker 1: Sioux City, Iowa, and we'en cap being the in cap
Speaker 1: of retail store, so you're the last. So we have
Speaker 1: a franchise e in the last beautiful two thousand square
Speaker 1: foot flower shop there and he's got three trucks. And
Speaker 1: then there's a dry cleaner who has a truck that
Speaker 1: he uses once or twice a day, and then the
Speaker 1: food shop doesn't have a truck because it doesn't really deliver.
Speaker 1: So my conversation with that franchise he recently was what
Speaker 1: if we look differently about having those trucks on the road,
Speaker 1: what do we do service the whole center and became
Speaker 1: the delivery operation. Same number trucks, same number drivers. We're
Speaker 1: just gonna be much more efficient now, and that rolling
Speaker 1: inventory of media, of inventory of those trucks, that will
Speaker 1: be much more president in those communities now. And there's
Speaker 1: a new revenue source for us. So we're starting how
Speaker 1: do we disrupt ourselves? That's really quite fascinating. Let me
Speaker 1: shift gears on you and let's talk a little bit
Speaker 1: of baseball. So you are a is that right? I'm
Speaker 1: a small owner, a small investor in the New York Mets, right,
Speaker 1: So let me do we want to start talking about
Speaker 1: the pitching the hitting? Where do we want to begin
Speaker 1: our list of complaints? Well, not complaints, Let's look about
Speaker 1: how exciting this is now. Next week is pitches and catches,
Speaker 1: but who's counting? And we're going to have a fellow
Speaker 1: by the name A Wheeler, a fellow by the name
Speaker 1: of Harvey to Grum the Rookie of the year. Returning
Speaker 1: veterans like nice and uh uh g, what an exciting
Speaker 1: spring this is going to be for us. How did
Speaker 1: you ever find your way into the Mets ownership? Well, uh,
Speaker 1: been friends for a long time. My wife Marilyn and
Speaker 1: I have been friends for a long time with Fred
Speaker 1: and Judy. Will pond this on Jeff and when they
Speaker 1: went through their challenges, obviously post Bernie made off that
Speaker 1: persona made off problems that they confronted. There, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously we're close, so we're gonna be talking about it.
Speaker 1: And uh, we were helping him. I was helping him
Speaker 1: think through his alternatives to whatever extent I could. And then, uh,
Speaker 1: finally when they decided to syndicate the team, Fred invited
Speaker 1: me to think about says, I know how much you
Speaker 1: love the team and how how close you and I
Speaker 1: r B. I'd be thrilled to heavies to partner. So
Speaker 1: it was a wonderful phone call to get one. That's
Speaker 1: been great fun for my family that I can imagine.
Speaker 1: I know a number of people, including David Iinhorn was
Speaker 1: hoping to pick up some or all of the Mets
Speaker 1: and the Wilpons managed to um. Some people said they
Speaker 1: pulled a rabbit of the hat. It looked like they
Speaker 1: just did some pretty basic blocking and tackling, not to
Speaker 1: mix sports metaphors, to basically unwind that that mess that
Speaker 1: and now they're good for them. They're a good family
Speaker 1: and they're back on top and UH, and they're very
Speaker 1: excited about spring. We're just chatting UH on Friday about
Speaker 1: the dates we're gonna be together down at spring training,
Speaker 1: you know. And I can bring my two grown sons
Speaker 1: down and we can spend the weekend just talk baseball
Speaker 1: and watch the players train and sitne stands and watch
Speaker 1: a game. It's such good clean fund for a family.
Speaker 1: And you know, when you have grown sons who have
Speaker 1: their own families now, or one of the two have
Speaker 1: started his own family, when you can get time away
Speaker 1: like that, it's just sort of like a whole renewal
Speaker 1: ritual and the whole rebonding. When you get back and
Speaker 1: you're at the airport and you're go in three different
Speaker 1: ways and you say that, how is a good weekend?
Speaker 1: They give you a hug and say, no, Dad, this
Speaker 1: was a great weekend. You say, baseball has been verty
Speaker 1: verty good to me. So the Mets have always been
Speaker 1: in the shadows of the famous New York Yankees. That's right,
Speaker 1: and we played one another twice this year. Serious, but
Speaker 1: it looks when you look at the prospects of the team.
Speaker 1: We have Jeta retiring, we have a number of very
Speaker 1: well known people on the Yankees a little past their
Speaker 1: sell by date. Are we actually looking at a possibility
Speaker 1: of the Mets significantly outperforming what the New York Yankees
Speaker 1: can do? I think what the Mets are gonna do
Speaker 1: is they're going to outperform what they've done in the past. Well,
Speaker 1: but now you're setting the bar very love. And I
Speaker 1: say this, by the way, I say this as a
Speaker 1: long suffering New York Mets I know, I know. So
Speaker 1: it's we improved our win record last year by five games.
Speaker 1: We had the gold Glover of the Year in center
Speaker 1: field who came out of the system, and one La Garris.
Speaker 1: You had the rookie of the year out of your
Speaker 1: farm system, and you're pitching, which you've got in a trade,
Speaker 1: by the way, a thoughtful trade and trading away are
Speaker 1: a Dickey. So you had good things to come there.
Speaker 1: So you had Rookie of the Year, you had the
Speaker 1: center Fielder of the Year, you had development of other
Speaker 1: kids coming up, Like hitting is gonna be weird challenge.
Speaker 1: But I think I think David Wright is going to
Speaker 1: have a better year. He's going to be healthy this year.
Speaker 1: Grandison had a pretty okay year last year, not as
Speaker 1: bad as people said. But I think it's gonna be
Speaker 1: a very good year this year. The dimensions are now
Speaker 1: back to Shay Stadium dimensions now in the new City Field.
Speaker 1: Can I tell you something, and I know everybody always
Speaker 1: raves about Yankee Stadium. I've been to both stadiums, both nice,
Speaker 1: both different, more comfortable. City Field is much more comfortable.
Speaker 1: The food is the Yankee Stadium is a stadium that concrete.
Speaker 1: It's pretty impressive. No, listen, it's Yankee Stadium. Don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong. Shay Stadium, the Mets Stadium was always the
Speaker 1: weaker system. Now it's as nice. If it's nice, wholate
Speaker 1: They're both nice, very different. You're very diplomatic, you know.
Speaker 1: I That's how I feel. I I feel I really
Speaker 1: like City Field. I think very Can I tell you
Speaker 1: they did a burgers are very good. Well, they just
Speaker 1: won public and the food is as far as fast
Speaker 1: food goes, that's gonna be your best burger. I saw
Speaker 1: the it was it might have been the first concert.
Speaker 1: Um I think it was the first concert after it opened,
Speaker 1: because he had said on stage that they were the
Speaker 1: last concert ever at Shay. It was Paul McCartin and um.
Speaker 1: So beforehand we were hanging out and one of the
Speaker 1: lounges I forgot which one it was. They all have
Speaker 1: different names. The space was fantastic and it was a
Speaker 1: great place to see a show. It was just a
Speaker 1: I came away saying, I gotta go see a ball
Speaker 1: game here because this was really so much fun and
Speaker 1: used to by the way the old Schase Stadium if
Speaker 1: you were unless you were behind first play home plate,
Speaker 1: the way the stadium was shaped, and how long and
Speaker 1: flat the bleachers were off of from your a long
Speaker 1: way from the field. You were thousands of miles away.
Speaker 1: The feld there is there's almost like there's no bad
Speaker 1: seats in the stadium, and there's a lot fewer seats
Speaker 1: on really that explains why there were no so you
Speaker 1: got rid of the sixteenth that well back then half
Speaker 1: the seats were terrible, but but this is just look,
Speaker 1: Yankee Stadium is a cathedral. That's right. This is just
Speaker 1: a fast once a stadium. Win's a field, I think
Speaker 1: it says at all, and that's that's exactly right. But
Speaker 1: it's gonna be fun time in that field this year.
Speaker 1: Uh to say the least that any blockbuster trades coming up,
Speaker 1: any thoughts of I don't you know, to see the
Speaker 1: nature of the team away has been built and I
Speaker 1: think Sandy Oldison's and his team have done a remarkable
Speaker 1: job of saying, look, we have a game plan, we're
Speaker 1: gonna stick to it. And they have and all these
Speaker 1: young people coming up are coming up through the system.
Speaker 1: And by the way, the system is the healthiest it's
Speaker 1: ever been. Uh if the minor league performance best of
Speaker 1: any team in baseball. Uh number of wins, strikeout ratios,
Speaker 1: every way you measure. They've really stepped up in a
Speaker 1: money bowl? Guy, do you like very much? Very much,
Speaker 1: very much? And uh? Because Sandy introduced that out in
Speaker 1: Oakland many years ago and taken to other levels by
Speaker 1: other people. But Sandy his team to say, as an example, yeah,
Speaker 1: well Boston they moved away from it a little bit,
Speaker 1: but certainly every team now has embraced every team. So
Speaker 1: Sandy has had a huge impact on the game, and
Speaker 1: we think a huge impact on the Mets. So why
Speaker 1: don't we um, I know you have places to go.
Speaker 1: I don't want to keep you too much longer. Why
Speaker 1: don't we um leave it at that that we're gonna
Speaker 1: actually theoretically have a plus five hundred winning season for
Speaker 1: the Mets this year. I think so, all right, and
Speaker 1: I'll see you at City Fields, at and at some
Speaker 1: other places around town. Uh, go forward. My guest today
Speaker 1: has been Jim McCann. He's the founder and CEO of
Speaker 1: one eight hundred Flowers and a minority owner of the
Speaker 1: New York Mets. Jim, this was great. Thank you for
Speaker 1: spending so much times. Always fun to be with you. Berry. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, and be sure and check out
Speaker 1: all of our other interviews that will be If you're
Speaker 1: listening to this part of the show, you're listening to
Speaker 1: the podcast, so look like a half inch up or
Speaker 1: half inch down on Apple iTunes and you'll see all
Speaker 1: the rest of these. I'm Barry rid Holts. You're listening
Speaker 1: to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. You're listening to
Speaker 1: Masters in business with Barry rid Holts on Bloomberg Radio.