Flower Friends SF —

How Square Checking Helped This Floral Design Studio Bloom

How Square Checking Helped This Floral Design Studio Bloom
See how this thriving floral design studio burst onto the events scene.
by Maya Rollings Jan 17, 2025 — 3 min read
How Square Checking Helped This Floral Design Studio Bloom

About this business

Business Type

Floral design studio Locations: 1

Location

San Francisco, CA
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When Emily Yates opened Flower Friends SF, she wasn’t exactly imagining opening a floral design studio. She originally wanted to host floral design workshops and develop a space for the community to create with their hands. Operating under the banner of just workshops for awhile was fulfilling for Yates, but over time she wanted to see a bigger return on her investment — and her customers were ready for her to put together more than just workshops. “We started getting inquiries to do florals for events,” Emily Yates shared, and the business began to take off from there.

Today, the business focuses on beautiful, bespoke, contemporary floral designs for an array of events, including weddings, baby showers, corporate and private affairs, and more. Expanding into events ultimately led to a steady boost in sales, with Flower Friends SF increasing their sales by 126% in three months. 

How a suite of automated, connected tools helped establish efficiency

Shifting her entire business from a workshop-only setup to servicing events required Yates to invest in a number of tools to keep her business organized and leave more time for relationship-building. “We use Square, and it has changed my life,” Yates explained. Yates invests in a number of Square tools, including Square Invoices and Square Banking, that have helped her keep track of her expenses, manage her business growth, prepare for tax season, and plan her budget. 

To keep track of her finances, she uses Square Checking and Square Savings, and she notes there’s a clear difference between life before using Square Banking products and life after. Before she was using multiple cards to pay for business expenses, and with everything on multiple accounts, it was hard for her to budget and plan. Once she invested in Square Banking products, she gained greater control of her business finances, allowing her to see how her business is growing over time, how much she’s saving, and establish clearer taxes for each project.

I use Square for banking, and it has really revolutionized my business organization. I’m able to see everything including my transactions and how much I’m spending per project. Before Square I was not doing that, and it was really [challenging]. ”

Emily Yates founder and owner of Flower Friends SF

Other tools like Square Invoices has been especially helpful for managing client relationships. Because she usually plans for large events, she needs the ability to manage long-term projects that extend over the period of at least a year. “I don’t have to worry about, ‘Oh gosh, this person hasn’t paid their deposit. Let me go apply it to their balance,’” Yates explained, citing features like automatic reminders on Square Invoices. “I truly use it for everything and would not be able to run my business in the way that I do,” she added.

Using time saved to be creative and build better client relationships 

With the time that Yates has been able to save using Square and project management tools, she’s been able to spend more time nurturing client relationships throughout the entire planning process. After clients put down deposits for an event, she likes to cultivate the partnership by sending out a questionnaire to help her get to know them. She uses the responses to craft the perfect booking gift and other opportunities for clients to feel seen at other touchpoints throughout the process. “I try to lean into the interpersonal connection that I have with clients, and just make them feel like, ‘Okay, she sees me. She sees my vision. She really understands what I’m dreaming up and who I am.’”

Yates’ hyper-focus on client relationships has led to a deeper return on investment in marketing because she hasn’t had to invest a large sum of money into marketing efforts. “I really haven’t done any paid marketing to date, which is pretty insane to me,” Yates said. She attributes her brand awareness to her initial workshops, organic social media marketing, client referrals, and pop-ups throughout the city. Between her client relationships and her skills, Yates can let her output do a significant amount of legwork for her business, leaving her time to discover more ways to boost the Flower Friends SF experience. 

For instance, with the time she saved, she was able to innovate with novel ideas like her “Bring Your Own Vase” pop-up. The pop-up featured florals she sourced and set up according to groups, helping customers arrange their own bouquets on-site. “Our sales went up 3x that weekend in comparison to other pop-ups,” Yates said. Between one-of-a-kind pop-ups and carefully executed floral designs, Flower Friends is building on the opportunities that efficiency has created for them, becoming a leader in the industry. “At the end of the day, there are so many other people doing the same thing that we’re doing. You have to think about how you are going to give someone a really special experience.”

Maya Rollings
Maya Rollings is an editor at Square where she writes about all things customer experience, from building a solid customer base to leveraging tools and technology that meets them where they are in their journey.

Products mentioned

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