Jim McCann - 1-800-Flowers Founder | The $1.2B Flower Empire That Almost Failed

Summary

Success Story Episode: Jim McCann - 1-800-Flowers Founder | The $1.2B Flower Empire That Almost Failed

In this compelling episode of the Success Story Podcast, host Scott D. Clary sits down with Jim McCann, the visionary founder of 1-800-Flowers. Released on March 23, 2025, the episode delves deep into Jim's entrepreneurial journey, the challenges he overcame while building a billion-dollar flower empire, and the profound lessons he learned about relationships, leadership, and social responsibility.

Early Entrepreneurial Beginnings

Jim McCann's foray into the business world began with a passion for floristry combined with a strong desire to build a sustainable business. “[01:39] I went into it not only to be a florist, which of course I became, but I went into it to try and build a business,” Jim explains. This dual focus led him to rapidly expand, opening a second flower shop just six months after acquiring his first one. Balancing this venture with his full-time job, Jim exemplified dedication and strategic growth from the outset.

The Birth of 1-800-Flowers

One of Jim's most daring moves was purchasing the 1-800-Flowers number in 1986, a decision that would revolutionize the floral industry. “[02:35] When your name is 1-800-FLOWERS, you're the first company whose name is its telephone number. It screams convenience,” Jim shares. This strategic branding underscored the company's commitment to accessibility and customer convenience.

By the early 1990s, Jim had positioned 1-800-Flowers at the forefront of online retail through platforms like CompuServe and AOL, later launching the user-friendly 800-Flowers.com. This early adoption of digital technology was instrumental in scaling the business nationally and establishing a strong online presence ahead of many competitors.

Lessons in Relationships and Leadership

A central theme in Jim's story is the importance of building and nurturing relationships. Drawing from his experience as a live-in counselor in a group home, Jim learned that “it's all about relationships. And you don't have a relationship with a group of 10. You have 10 individual relationships” ([16:01]). This insight became foundational in managing a growing enterprise like 1-800-Flowers, where personal connections and individualized interactions were key to maintaining a cohesive company culture.

Jim elaborates on scaling relationships within a large organization: “[19:01] ...role modeling, what we want to see, who we hire, who we don't, how we do we reward people, and what do we tolerate. These are signals that influence our culture.” By focusing on these elements, Jim ensured that the company culture remained strong and consistent, even as the workforce expanded to thousands of employees.

Embracing Optimism and Neuroplasticity

Jim delves into the psychological aspects of leadership, emphasizing the role of optimism in personal and professional success. He discusses the concept of neuroplasticity—the brain's ability to rewire itself—and its impact on fostering a positive mindset. “[45:10] ...neuroplasticity, our brains are learning all the time… we can reprogram our brains, and if we don't, it's doing it on its own, but it tends towards negativity.”

Acknowledging that “less than 20% of us are born optimistic, 80% tend to be pessimistic,” Jim advocates for deliberate efforts to cultivate optimism. This proactive approach not only enhances personal well-being but also leads to more effective leadership and stronger team dynamics.

Transition to Social Entrepreneurship: Smile Farms

Expanding his mission beyond commerce, Jim introduces Smile Farms—a socially conscious initiative dedicated to providing meaningful employment to adults with disabilities. Originating from personal experiences with his brother Kevin, who is developmentally disabled, Smile Farms integrates social responsibility with business operations. “[65:59] ...we have 36 people who work full time there, all of whom have developmental disabilities.”

Through strategic partnerships and sustainable business models, Smile Farms now employs hundreds across multiple campuses. Jim explains how these initiatives not only offer dignified employment but also foster a sense of community and belonging for individuals with disabilities. “[73:09] ...your staff is remarkable because they go out of their way to make people feel comfortable, feel welcome and included.”

Impact of Relationships on Business and Society

Jim underscores the transformative power of genuine relationships both within a company and in the broader community. By cultivating an inclusive and supportive work environment, 1-800-Flowers not only excels in business metrics but also enhances employee satisfaction and customer loyalty. “[83:25] ...work is a lot more than a paycheck. It's also very, very social.”

He shares heartfelt testimonials from individuals whose lives have been positively impacted by Smile Farms, highlighting stories of personal growth, improved mental health, and restored dignity. These narratives reinforce the idea that successful businesses can and should play a pivotal role in societal well-being.

Reflections and Wisdom for Future Generations

In the concluding segments, Jim imparts valuable lessons to aspiring entrepreneurs and his own children. He emphasizes the importance of curiosity and resilience, encouraging others to foster an inquisitive mindset: “[86:43] ...I'd encourage my kids to nurture their curiosity streak and feed it.”

Jim also reflects on the significance of being an inclusive leader, creating environments where every individual feels valued and empowered. His advice centers on continuous personal development, maintaining strong relationships, and embracing both successes and failures as opportunities for growth.

Conclusion

Jim McCann's journey from a single flower shop owner to the founder of the billion-dollar 1-800-Flowers empire is a testament to visionary leadership, strategic innovation, and the profound impact of cultivating meaningful relationships. His unwavering optimism, commitment to social responsibility, and dedication to personal growth offer invaluable lessons for entrepreneurs and business leaders alike.

As Jim aptly summarizes, “Work is a lot more than a paycheck. It's also very, very social,” capturing the essence of his philosophy that continues to drive both his business ventures and philanthropic efforts.

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Notable Quotes:

• “[01:39] I went into it not only to be a florist, which of course I became, but I went into it to try and build a business.”
• “[16:01] ...it's all about relationships. And you don't have a relationship with a group of 10. You have 10 individual relationships.”
• “[19:01] ...role modeling, what we want to see, who we hire, who we don't, how we do we reward people, and what do we tolerate. These are signals that influence our culture.”
• “[45:10] ...neuroplasticity, our brains are learning all the time… we can reprogram our brains, and if we don't, it's doing it on its own, but it tends towards negativity.”
• “[65:59] ...we have 36 people who work full time there, all of whom have developmental disabilities.”
• “[73:09] ...your staff is remarkable because they go out of their way to make people feel comfortable, feel welcome and included.”
• “[83:25] ...work is a lot more than a paycheck. It's also very, very social.”
• “[86:43] ...I'd encourage my kids to nurture their curiosity streak and feed it.”

Jim McCann’s story is an inspiring blend of entrepreneurial spirit, dedication to social causes, and the unwavering belief in the power of relationships. His experiences offer a blueprint for building not just successful businesses, but also enterprises that contribute positively to society.

Transcript

[Scott Clary]

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[Jim McCann]

I went into it not only to be a florist, which of course I became, but I went into it to try and build a business. So that's why six months after I bought the first shop, we opened the second shop.

[Narrator]

Jim McCann is a pioneer who revolutionized the flower industry. From a small flower shop in New York to founding 1-800-Flowers. He transformed how people buy and send.

[Jim McCann]

Gifts to force myself to build a company. But we're not at my dream point yet. We're still going. We still have a ways to go. I kept my full time job. When I bought the flower shop, I didn't have any savings or assets. It was important to me that I'd be able to pay the mortgage. So if I was awake, I was working. But I realized there was no economy in owning a bunch of flower shop. I had 40 flower shop when I realized, hey, this isn't really working out that well.

[Narrator]

In 1986, he made a bold move, purchasing the 1-800-flowers number, setting the stage for nationwide expansion. By the early 90s, he was ahead of the curve, making 1-800-Flowers one of the first retailers online through CompuServe AOL and later won 800-Flowers.com.

[Jim McCann]

Still learning every day, which is it's all about relationships. And you don't have a relationship with a group of 10. You have 10 individual relationships. It took a while for me to get that.

[Narrator]

Today, as executive chairman, Jim continues to shape the brand's future. He's an investor, speaker and minority owner of the New York Mets. This episode is about vision, innovation and taking bold risks.

[Jim McCann]

Successful not just defined as business success, but our journey in life is always trying to be our best self. Work is a lot more than a paycheck. It's also very, very social.

[Scott Clary]

Welcome to Success Story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The Success Story podcast is part of the HubSpot Podcast network. But HubSpot doesn't just have great podcasts. If you're an entrepreneur, if you're a builder, they've got your back. Now why is that important? Because if you're building anything, you know that marketing in 2025 is absolutely wild. Now why is that important? Because, you know, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're building anything, marketing in 2025 is wild. Savvy customers spot fake messaging instantly. Anything AI generated, they sniff it out. Privacy changes make ad targeting a nightmare. And everyone needs more content now than ever. And that's why you have to have HubSpot's new marketing trends report. It doesn't just show you what's changing, it shows you exactly how to deal with it. Everything's backed by research but focused on marketing plays that you can use for your business tomorrow. If you're ready to turn marketing hurdles into results for your business, go to HubSpot.com marketing to download it for free. A huge shout out to Lingoda for supporting today's episode. Now, if you're ready to master a new language, Lingoda is the online language platform trusted by over 100,000 students worldwide. Lingoda offers live classes with real teachers available 24 7. You can choose from German, English, Business English, French, Spanish, or their newest addition, Italian. What sets Lingoda apart? The smallest class size in the market. It's just you and up to five other students. Or if you want, you can go one on one for personalized attention. Their native level Teachers don't just teach language, they share culture too. And you'll speak confidently from day one. With Lingoda's flexible scheduling and proven curriculum, students report being able to navigate real conversations in weeks, not years. And if you're using Lingoda for business, their CEFR aligned courses ensure that you're learning internationally recognized language standards that employers value. Between sessions, you're going to reinforce your skills with downloadable materials and bite sized practice exercises. And all success story listeners, they put together a special deal. Try lingoda free with three group classes or one private class plus you save on any course with my link. Try.lingoda.com success story and code Scott25 don't miss this chance to transform your life through language learning. Today's episode is brought to you by Vanta. Now listen up. This matters for your business. In today's digital landscape, security isn't optional, it's essential. Without it, deal stall Sales cycles stretch on and scaling becomes very difficult now. Why? Because investors, customers and partners all expect businesses to demonstrate strong security practices before they commit. If you can't prove trust, you lose opportunities. So whether you're a startup founder trying to land that first big client or an established company scaling your security program, Vanta helps businesses of all sizes prove that they're trustworthy by Automating compliance across 35 frameworks like SoC2, ISO 27001 and HIPAA, the exact certifications your prospects are demanding. Here's why you need to pay attention. Vanta gives you back precious time that you're currently wasting on compliance. Their platform automates up to 90% of the tedious compliance work. It helps you respond to those endless security questionnaires up to five times faster. And it connects you with experts to get your security program running immediately. The results speak for themselves. A recent IDC report found that Vanta customers achieve over 535,000 thousand dollars per year in benefits and the platform pays for itself in just three months. So you're going to join over 10,000 global companies like Atlassian, Quora and Factory who use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time. And don't miss this for a limited time. Only my listeners can get a thousand dollars off Vanta. That's real money back in your pocket. Visit vanta.comScott right now before this offer expires. That is V A N T A dot com Scott.

[Interviewer]

When you bought your first flower shop, if you go back to that moment in time, you invested $10,000 into the first shop. Did you have any idea in Your mind about how big this was going to get.

[Jim McCann]

Yes, I hoped, I dreamt and. But we're not at my dream point yet. We're still going, we can still have a ways to go. So yeah, I went into it not only to be a florist, which of course I became, but I went into it to try and build a business. And so that's why six months after I bought the first shop, we opened the second shop. Because I wanted to force myself to not just run a good shop, it's to build a company. It looked to me like there was no real powerful player in a flower shop, in the florist business. I thought there was an opportunity to build a bigger company.

[Interviewer]

And you had the foresight way back then to see the opportunity.

[Jim McCann]

I mean, I wouldn't give myself any credit for seeing the opportunity. It just wasn't a big player. I found out why it's, it's hard. And you know, I kept my full time job when I bought the flower shop because I had a, you know, you make decisions. I married very young, we started a family very young. And that has consequences. You know, you're not as risk tolerant. And I didn't have any savings or any assets, so it was important to me that I'd be able to buy groceries and pay the mortgage. So I kept my full time job and hired people to run the flower shops. So if I was awake, I was working. Not much has changed, by the way, but the kind of work I was doing then was different now and different from what I do now. And it's a lot more fun now, but it was, you know, really hustling, opening up shops and always doing the, making the last delivery when no one else wants to, you know, they'll do it on the way home and two hours later you're finally rolling home. But it worked out. But I realized there was no economy in owning a bunch of flower shops. There was no economy. Economies of scale, in fact, maybe the opposite. And so I said, you know, I have 40 flower shops now. When I realized, hey, this isn't really working out that well.

[Interviewer]

So I mean, to get to even 40 flower shots, it's still impressive. So something is working. But when you were thinking big, you were thinking nationwide, nationwide. So what was the friction that you were, that you figured out was the issue with flower shops? And maybe not even just flower shops. Maybe just talk about, like to the audience a broader lesson about business opportunities and friction and what's scalable and what's not. Because I think that you know, Paul Graham, so Paul Graham, the famous article, you do things that don't scale and you figure out how to make them scale.

[Jim McCann]

That's.

[Interviewer]

It's very romantic and it's a very nice idea, but more often than those.

[Jim McCann]

And talk about the roadkill.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly.

[Jim McCann]

And in that case, there's a reason why flower shops are often, very often family businesses. You know, Uncle Joe, who works for, who works for Pfizer, the big chemical company, doesn't take his personal day is one personal day a year or one of his two personal days a year, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving so that he can deliver flowers for his cousins who own the flower shop, unless it's family and he wants to be invited for Thanksgiving dinner. And that's what the strain on flower shops is. You have peaks and valleys of business. So that's why the family businesses, who else will work that hard? Who else can you be sure is going to be there and work on those key weeks and months or weekends that are very, very busy? So it's, it's tough to go because your business will go 10x, you know, one week, 10 times as busy the next week. That's hard to manage.

[Interviewer]

Well, it's stressful. And then I'm assuming that a lot of stuff breaks when you have those 10x periods. Okay, so 40 flower shops in. What was the, the, the light bulb moment that allowed you to say, okay, so this is not what I, what I signed up for is not what I'm getting. Or maybe I didn't, I was too ignorant to even understand what I was signing up for at the time.

[Jim McCann]

Yeah, pretty much.

[Interviewer]

How do I, how do I take this and systemize it and build a real business around it?

[Jim McCann]

I think we were, we were learning our way into what you do in a shop and what you do outside of a shop. Because a retail flower shop is complicated in this sense. You're paying a lot of money to be in a retail location where there's traffic, but the majority of the business is behind the curtain. It's the back room, which is where you're really doing the work, where you're designing and making your product and prepping your product. And so you're paying retail rents for warehouse kind of work. And some people who've been successful around the country have figured out how to separate that. So I had to pull out of that retail flower shop, that bulk heavy work, put it someplace else and allow the flower shop to focus on their retail business. That walk in business, have it nicely merchandise because you Have a good looking shop and then the holiday comes and you crush it with. Because you need every square inch of the link to. So it's a. Is realizing that you have a manufacturing, distribution business and a retail business all in the same location, paying retail rents when you don't really need to. So we've started to find efficiencies of taking that kind of work out of the shop, having production facilities that could do it efficiently and do it for 10 shops at a time.

[Interviewer]

Did you come from an entrepreneurial background at all?

[Jim McCann]

I wouldn't say entrepreneur, I'd say small business. And I think there's a difference. My dad was a painting contractor, so his dad before him was too. So I grew up around that business a lot. You know, when I was a kid my father thought old enough to walk, old enough to work and my grandmother inherited the business when her husband died at 48 years old. She made my father in charge of the business at 21 or so, just out of the Navy to say, okay, you run the business because not going to take some little five foot tall Irish lady and she's going to boss around 25 men or so. So she made my father divorce. And so I was around it all the time. Her kitchen table was the boardroom. So I heard a lot about business and so I always, and I worked in a lot of small businesses, mostly retail. So yes, small business background, not entrepreneurial. In fact, I first started this business. Entrepreneurial word wasn't used very often, I.

[Interviewer]

Know now it's, it's only in the.

[Jim McCann]

Last generation, it's true because you had.

[Interviewer]

A, you had an interesting, I would say you had a lot of interesting experiences. So also another experience in your, in your life and your, you know, in your backstory was the group home experience as well. And I'm trying to figure out and tell a little bit about that experience and how it impacted you as well. But I'm trying to figure out and I always like to do this, what are the experiences that lead to your success? And all these experiences obviously impact how you think, how you operate.

[Jim McCann]

Who, who we are, who we are.

[Interviewer]

Do you feel like that small business experience from your parents, your grandparents, you feel like the group home experience, what do you think was the most impactful?

[Jim McCann]

I don't, I couldn't say which was most both extremely impactful. So growing up around a small business has a, a big impact on my mother's side. My, my, her father, her father, stepfather was a, he ran speakeasies. And then when it was legitimate he ran bars and restaurants. So I was around that. I heard all of that all the time. And my father's business was a painting business, so I heard about that all the time. Customers, estimates, problems, challenges, you know, all the things that small business people have to deal with. But from a personal development point of view, getting that first job in a group home as a live in counselor was hugely impactful on who I am, how I thought about things and, and developing my confidence, self confidence. So it had a huge impact on me. And, and frankly, the things I learned working with those 10 kids, by the way, kids, I was six months older than the oldest one when I started the job. Had a huge impact on me.

[Interviewer]

Why?

[Jim McCann]

Explain why, what impact you really learn about yourself. You know, here I am 21 years old and I became my father. I found myself saying the same thing. So I said, oh, to these kids.

[Interviewer]

They were only a couple months younger.

[Jim McCann]

Well, that was just the one was I had them from 14 to 20 years old. And if you're in any way inconsistent, they will let you know. If you show any kind of fear, it will take advantage of that. So they, these were tough kids. They had came from horrible circumstances. And I learned a lesson I'm still learning every day, which is it's all about relationships. And an important lesson I learned because I really wasn't very good at this work, especially in the beginning. I learned to be better at it and I think I learned to be good at it, but it was because I had good mentors, good role models to learn from and watch and observe and, and I really had a passion for it. So I worked hard to get better at it. And the key I learned was relationships. And you don't have a relationship with a group of 10. You have 10 individual relationships. And I, it, it took a while for me to get that. You know, I tried to, you know, herd this crowd.

[Interviewer]

He try and bulk, he try and, you know, group them together. And I'm going to have one leadership style. And I mean, obviously there's a lot of similarities in what you're dealing with in this group home, what people deal with with their companies or teams or whatever.

[Jim McCann]

That's what I learned. I didn't realize I was learning that, but that's exactly Scott, what I learned, which is the management skills I learned to keep kids out of trouble and doing well in life and going to school and growing the same skills I've been using the rest of my life in anything I've been involved in in any workplace for profit, not for profit. It's all about helping people to set goals, measure things, convince them that they can achieve things they didn't think they could achieve. Teaching to work in teams, creating currencies that help you to reward things and incite others to do things and how to show recognition. And so the things I learned working in that group home and then later running all the group homes and then running a home for boys. So we had a main campus with about 175 boys and then group homes of 10 boys each. But as a young person you get a disproportionate amount of responsibility if you're willing to step up and take it because it doesn't pay well. So it doesn't attract a lot of people who can do it for a career. Now where I worked there were many people who did it for a career and God bless them because it was hard work and, and they were good, good people doing good work.

[Interviewer]

You mentioned something that's really interesting. So when you have a group of people that you're trying to influence or lead or do really anything with each one of those people, that's a, that's a personal relationship. It can't be a group relationship. How does that. Because I'm assuming that idea has sort of been a, a really important idea in all the companies you've built, in all the teams you've led, in all the, I mean all the customers you've served. So that idea, what, you don't have relationship with groups, you have relationships with individuals. How do you scale that?

[Jim McCann]

I think, I think it's quite easy in concept. That is people, you can have relationships. We have 5,000 people who work in the flowers companies now. And Harry and David brand, the 1-800flowers brand, Cheryl's, our cookie brand, Schoffenberger, our newest chocolate brand. So 5,000 people all in. So I don't have relationships with 5,000 people, but the people I do know and have relationships know that they're genuine relationships. And I encourage them to have relationships with their people. And so you and I were chatting earlier about the changing place of media. And to run a company you have to be at least media savvy, media sensitive because you only have a few ways a communicating what you're, what's important to you. So from a. You can't. Every group home had a culture. Every office department in the main agency had a culture. It's different. There was one culture for the whole place. But we can't control that culture. The best we can do is influence it. And as business operators or managers, we have a few dials available to us to influence the culture. So we're cultural engineers, but we cannot control it. So how we role model, what we want to see, who we hire, who we don't, how do we do we reward people? And how, what do we tolerate, what don't we tolerate? All of those things are signals that influence our culture. Again, we can't control it, but you can signal. So I think some of the business leaders I follow in most respect are really good at managing the message. You know, I think of people in the public eye like a Jamie Dame, Jamie diamond, who runs JP Morgan, brilliant at simplifying things and letting people know there's a right way to do things and there's a wrong way. He won't tolerate the wrong way. And so. But he has 260,000 people who work in his organization. He can't possibly know them. He'll never even see most of them, but they know him and they have a sense of what his compass is, his moral compass. And it's effective use. He has to be effective in using media to get his message out because he has those 260,000 people all over the globe.

[Interviewer]

When you know, when you know your core, your core culture that you want to create and you can influence, then there's a downline of people building individual relationships with each member on their team through the lens of that culture that you're championing and disseminating and communicating. I think that's very important. I think that that's really the best way to influence 260,000 people. Or, or we're talking internal, even, even building relationships with their customers. I mean, every customer, it's not easy, but every customer should feel like you are building an intimate one on one relationship with them. I, I mean, it always starts from.

[Jim McCann]

Your podcast and vocabulary matters there. You see it every day in terms of really well run organizations. You look at like a Ritz Carlton hotel. If you ask someone directions, they won't say, yeah, it's down there, they'll walk you over there. And so there are certain linchpins that are important to maintaining our culture around the globe again. Or the fact that they always, if you ask themselves, my pleasure, they don't say, oh, thank you, they say, my pleasure. It's all those little signals that says, we do things different here because we're different.

[Interviewer]

When you were building one, 800-flowers and then obviously now there's like, listen, I.

[Scott Clary]

Have a list of a whole bunch.

[Interviewer]

Of other businesses that you've now built since. But that is the one that I think you're most well known for. When you were building one, 800, flowers, what were the things that. Because we can talk about the tactics, we could talk about the, the fact that you had a phone number as a name, which are all interesting stories. I'm sure we can, we can go into any of them. But you just made a good point. You have to do things a little bit differently. When you look at sort of the legacy that you've built, what are you most proud of having done differently?

[Jim McCann]

I think what, what helped us to be successful and it was clearly not.

[Interviewer]

A straight line of it never is.

[Jim McCann]

Never is, is a willingness to say, look, when your name is 1-800-FLOWERS, you're the first company whose name is its telephone number. It screams convenience. And that's been our mantra ever since the earliest days of founding. The business is to let's be as convenient as we can. The attitude we took was we really count on people to be. We're counting on people to be thoughtful and to express themselves and to express themselves with a gift that in, in the earliest days, the gift would we were peddling was only flowers. So if you want people to be thoughtful and act on that thoughtfulness, you ought to be convenient because from the idea to the intention to execution is fraught with interruption. And if you're quick and convenient, then, then you have a better shot at being successful. So that was always our driving influence. And technology was always the thing that we look to, to say, how can we use technology to be more efficient, more convenient, more accessible? So when we realized flower shops limited number of hours, you had to open seven days, of course. But when we first bought the. The company that had the telephone number in it, we had to take a leap of faith that this new convenience would be important to enough people to make it worthwhile. And I assure you that the people who are already in the floral business didn't think people needed to have an 800 number to call that they certainly didn't need to do it seven days a week, 24 hours a day. And they didn't want to use, we were told they would never use credit cards over the phone. All of which was wrong because it was convenient. And yeah, there are people who work overnight and want to call and order something or now do it online or do it on their mobile device more conveniently. And so it was how do we use technology? So for each step of the way, stores, we never walked away from any of those Technologies. What I mean by that is we had stores. We still had stores. We don't own them now. Mostly owned by our franchisees, because I had to sell the stores back then to raise capital to fund this idea of building up this brand when they're engaged.

[Interviewer]

You were always taking risks then. That. That. That's a risky move. Yeah, that's a very risky move. Because. So even at that point, and I want to. I sort of. I think it's important to drop this right now because obviously this is sort of your most recent work. So you wrote the book Lodestar, which are tapping into 10 timeless pillars of success. And as we sort of walk through your journey, I do want to highlight some of those sort of universal, fundamental pillars and how they impacted you. So I think that this is. This is. Well, I mean, if you look at risk taking, evolution, reinvention, disruption, sort of blue ocean ideology, things that I think that you've also sort of alluded to and even this early part of your story, how important are some of these ideals in success? Are these what you would consider like a core principle? Or are these things that worked out for you and may not be the best playbook for another entrepreneur?

[Jim McCann]

I wrote Lodestar with my friend and partner in this journey because I think these are the lessons I've learned that are most important and have been most impactful on my life and the lives of so many other people I know in terms of helping them to be successful. And successful not just defined as business success, but our journey in life is always trying to be our best self. Most people, I think, trying to be their best self. And I'll tell you the story of Lone Star, because tickles me that this accident happened. So at the very beginning of COVID which would have been March of 20, we didn't know what was going to happen to our business. All of a sudden, anyone who could work from home was not all of them had computers. We didn't have the technology in place. Vanguard Zoom was already around, but we hadn't really been using it much. All of a sudden, boom. You got to get people up and running on the network. You got to get. And we didn't know if anyone was going to order anything from us. And for a few days, they did it. When we first went into lockdown, those people were just too distracted. And then all of a sudden, it was a boom for our business because people couldn't get together and they wanted to express themselves. And especially in our food businesses like Harry and David and Popcorn Factory you could sell some nice big tin of popcorn, three different flavors of popcorn in it. And they, especially if they had kids, it had them busy and oh no, I love that.

[Interviewer]

I love that.

[Jim McCann]

So it turned out to be good for business. But in the very beginning, we did not know what the impact would be. So that accelerated a lot of technology changes in our business. But in April of that year, I'm reading an article in Psychology Today written by this professor psychologist at Johns Hopkins. I thought it was brilliant because, you know, we've already talked about my feeling about the importance of relationships in everything we do. And he was speculating how this lockdown, how this Covid experience would impact our relationships. Major relationships, marital relationships, family relationships, and casual relationships. Like not seeing a regular barista who you give a wave to, even if they're not waiting on you because you become a. Developed a little relationship with them. And I thought it was brilliant. So I wrote him a fan letter. I said, Dr. George Everly, I read this piece, I thought this was terrific, but I hope we have occasion to chat someday. So he wrote back to me and said, well, I'd love to chat with you. Why don't we do it? And so we did, and we became friends and we were working together because at the same time when, when business is interrupted like that, I said, what are we going to do with our customers? We're going to advertise to them and say, hey, if you're in lockdown, we have the perfect gift. You can't do that. So a young lady who was my chief of staff at the time, still with the company, but now she runs marketing for us, she said, well, why don't you just write to our customers and tell them what we're going through, what we're experiencing, how it's impacting us. And, and so I did that. I wrote a newsletter we put out on Sundays and never try and sell anything in that newsletter. But four and a half years later, I'm still writing that letter and we now have over 10 million subscribers. And it's all about relationships. I write about it and, and now people, now it's interactive. People are writing, asking us questions. In the beginning, how do I, how do I think about how this is impacting a seven year old who's not in school now and was too distracted to pay attention to Zoom, and maybe the school hadn't gotten to Zoom classes yet, and I wasn't qualified to answer you. So I built a little network of half a dozen, maybe eight great scientists, scholars, psychologists, and I asked Dr. George Eboli if he would be my first member of what we call the Connectivity Council. He said, sure, I'd love to. Then we had the Dr. Dan Willingham from University of Virginia. We had Dr. Angela Jackson from Harvard. We had Dr. Chloe Carmichael from New York, now from Orlando as well. Who are these just brilliant people? I was so enjoying being able to ask them questions that our community was asking us. And we'd create some webinars over some important topics that people were really interested in. But I really was doing a lot of work with Dr. George. So two and a half years ago in Naples, Florida, driving with my wife, phone rings. I answered on the speaker in the car as George and I said, jim, you know, I'm really enjoying this work we're doing and I think we're doing some really important stuff. He says, I have a suggestion. I said, yeah? He says, why don't you and I do a book together on all this work we're doing around relationships. And I'm thinking, wants to write a. This man's brilliant, write a book with me. And my wife's looking at me like, don't you dare. She might think I'm over committed or should be committed, one or the other. And so I said, love to George. She waxed me in the arm. And so it was over two and a half years ago and it started a real long work project.

[Interviewer]

But it was not easy to write.

[Jim McCann]

It's not easy and it's exciting for me because being able to spend that much time with someone who I've already come to like a lot, but now is just so smart. And the work sessions, you know, a couple of few hours at a time, I started recording them because I couldn't keep up with all I was hearing and learning and he could, by the way, let me tell you a little back on Dr. George. I think the best way to tell you about Dr. George is he had severe HD ADHD and he was had terrible dyslexia, but not diagnosed. He's a junior in high school in a nice leave it to be the kind of town. He describes it outside of Baltimore in Maryland. And his dad gets a call from the guidance counselor at the high school, calls his dad in and says, george is not going to make it in high school. He's certainly not going to college. So my suggestion is yank him out now and get him a job before his graduating class gets out of here and they're all competing for jobs. Maybe you can get him a job in the civil service or Maybe a factory worker someplace. But he's not, he's not a student. He's not that right. Well, his, his dad told him that story the day he got his first PhD and George said to him, dad, why did you never tell me that story until now? He says, because I didn't want it to become self fulfilling. So George figured out how to rewire his brain when he talked his way into college and taught. Figured out, got properly diagnosed and figured out how to rewire his own brain so that he could become a scholar, which he is. He's been teaching at the university level at Johns Hopkins, Harvard for over 40 years and he's got three PhDs. And he's also a renaissance man. He. So he couldn't read a note of music, but his dad was a cpa, so he became an accountant. Then he got an MBA because wasn't really challenged by the accounting work. His dad was a musician, so he became a musician. He toured with Gladys Knight and the Pips and the Temptations. Can't read another music. Wonderful saxophone player. He became a bodybuilder. He was a consultant to the US Weightlifting team. Improved their weights one Olympic over the others by the most it's ever happened using his visualization techniques. And so I get to hang around with this amazing guy who, by the way, Lodestar, I have a copy for you.

[Interviewer]

Oh, why did you. You should have told me before. I would have put it on the table. Oh, well, we'll get it out here. It's interesting how the words are so important, right? Like if you think about, I mean, I didn't even, I didn't even know this story going into this. But if you think about, if his dad had just told him that story when he was about to graduate high school, what he would or would not have become.

[Jim McCann]

So Georgia musician, bodybuilder, and made himself an expert in ptsd. So you have first responders, you have. He. He's been to 40 countries working with public health officials, studying and, and working with people on big traumas and how society, a community, a family reacts to that. So the big nuclear reactor meltdown in Japan that happens resulted a tidal wave. George was summoned to come help the government officials there. He studied the impact of the, the Nazi bombings on London in World War II. So he's an expert on stress management of stress and, and PTSD effects. So he created something called the psychological first aid kit that he developed into a program that's still being taught around the world to first responders on how to handle their stress in terms of what they're going to see and what they're going to deal with. And he's created a whole not for profit that does just as training around the world. So he's a remarkable guy. So long story Lodestar was an excuse for me to hang around with George for a few years. I love that, learn from him and really I think do work that right his back on the work that we did which I think is really impactful.

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[Interviewer]

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[Sponsor]

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[Interviewer]

To get 10 answers.

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[Interviewer]

You'Re very, you're very gracious. I'm sure you committed and put a lot of yourself into this good time.

[Jim McCann]

In and I bought some practical lessons of people I've seen that I think use those, these techniques effectively. But what we did was look, we. I certainly not going to say that I know everything there is about how we work on self development, but I've been a student of self development and self improvement for a long time and there's lots of people who I think the world of, who I think are terrific. But this I learned working on this project with George that there are, it's a $10 billion a year industry. There are 85,000 books in print on self improvement, personal development. It's not all good. It's a lot of good, but it's not all good.

[Interviewer]

Were you ever into this growing up? Were you into self improvement, self development? Yeah. In what? So the reason I'm asking is because there's different ways to be into it. I mean you can go to a Tony Robbins event, you can, you can listen to like a Mel Robbins podcast or a Jay Shetty pod. You read books like this and you can, you can look at it from like a personal improvement or you or there's people that are more. I need the tactics and I'm curious just from somebody who's obviously been very successful, what version of self improvement and self development worked best for you? And do you think there's a reason why.

[Jim McCann]

Yes. So I was asked to do a speaking tour 20 years ago. Yep, 20 over 20 years ago. And I agreed to do it. It was a 14 city tour. I agreed to do it because the lead on the program was someone I thought the world of. His name was Zig Ziglar, the prince of, of self help and personal development. And he was just such a remarkable guy. And I was a fan, you know, I have three kids, my wife and I have three kids and if I'd be in the car I'd often have one back then, a cassette of his on the kids swore they weren't listening to it, but they were, even if they tried not to. You know, it was back before they all had individual devices. And so I agreed to do this tour because it was an excuse to work with Zig who was a headliner. I'm 14 stops and one of them was in New York where we live and we were doing a 20,000 seat arena in, in New Jersey and we were doing a 16,000 seat arena on Long Island, Long Island Coliseum. So Zig was going to be in town. So I said Zig, I'd love to have you over the house for dinner. And it was a weeknight, a school night and it was the night before we were doing the Long island gig. So my wife and I, three kids and they're the teens or young teens at the time. And Zig. So we had dinner early but 1 o'clock in the morning, school night, they're still up hanging on every word that Zig has to say. They're asking tell me the Wilma Rudolph story again. Now they swore they weren't listening, but they knew the stories to ask him. And it's his. His. I thought he, he was one of the most impactful teachers that I came across before, before I met George who, who had a. A good and practical lesson. And so many of his teachings are incorporated in these 10 pillars in LOR in terms of just managing your time, setting your expectations, willingness to be self critical. And for him so much of it was attitude. Attitude was everything for him. One story I remember him telling is a fellow walks up to the counter in the airport and checks on his flight and she says oh my goodness, it's going to be delayed three hours. And he's ranting, that's ridiculous. And another guy, 20 minutes later walks up and here's it's going to be the lady. He looks and he goes, he sits down, he takes out a book and he looks quite happy. And Sig goes over and chats with him and said, we said, well, there's nothing I can do about it. She can't do anything about it. It's not her fault. Mechanical problem. It's mechanic better. They found a mechanical problem on the Ground. And yes, it's going to disrupt things, but I could be all upset about it or I can say to myself, there's an opportunity. This book I've been traveling with for the last three months and I really haven't had a chance to read it. Here's my chance to sit down quietly in a comfortable place with air conditioning and read this book. And he just pointed out the difference in what your attitude is and your approach. And I learned so much from Zagan and George is the modern day Zig has passed quite a number of years ago. But. And it's a dear question who is impactful for me.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, Zig.

[Jim McCann]

Zag.

[Interviewer]

I love that when you look at. By the way, what does Lodestar mean?

[Jim McCann]

That star in the sky that guides you, that takes you to where you want to go.

[Scott Clary]

I love that.

[Interviewer]

I've never heard that term before.

[Jim McCann]

It's an old fashioned term and sort of fell out of disuse. But when George and I were looking at different things, we call it, and we came upon Lodestar, we looked at one another. That's it.

[Interviewer]

I like it.

[Jim McCann]

George says the book named itself.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, I like it a lot. Well, now people use the term like North Star. But Lodestar, I like that. I'm going to start using that when you think about. So I want to take it back to when I first, when I first brought up Lodestar. You were speaking about some of like your own journey and what was happening. 1-800-FLowers and now I want to contextualize the question a little bit better than I was asking you. Because talking about disruption and innovation, let's look at the question a different way. Out of all the principles. And I know this is an unfair question, but you have to answer and humor me anyways. But out of all the principles, which one was the most impactful for you? What's a story you can tell about one of the principles and how it impacted you when you're building 1-800-flowers I.

[Jim McCann]

Touched on it already in that. I said that George was able to rewire his brain. When he finally figured out what was the matter with him and why he couldn't read. He made a joke. When we finished with the manuscript for the book, we send it into the publisher, Simon Schuster, and they, we did it through Worth Books and Simon and Schuster's distribution partner and they sent it back to us, said, okay, read this is the final edited version. Read it very carefully for any last minute changes we have to make. And George just laughed, said, are you Kidding me? You know, you're asking to read this carefully. I can't. But the one, the, the, the one that. The one lesson I think that jumps to the front of my mind all the time is what George taught me is neuroplasticity. That is, our brains are learning all the time. So whatever we do, our brains are trying to get better at it. So if you're a worrier or your wife is a worrier, the more she does it, the more you do it, the better you're going to get at it. And if you're nervous about flying, and then you're nervous about getting nervous about flying, you're going to be better at getting nervous at the thought of flying. So the idea is we can reprogram our brains, and if we don't, it's doing it on its own, but it's not going to go in a positive direction. It goes to the easier track, which is to be negative. So what we learned reading the research is that less than 20% of us are born optimistic, 80% are born to be, tend to be pessimistic. It's easier to be pessimistic. Our brains sort of go there. It's harder to be optimistic. But optimistic people at 20% or the larger percentage that train themselves, teach themselves to be optimistic, have more and better relationships in their life. They do better professionally, they have more friends, they're physically healthier. So in every measurable way, optimists have it better than pessimists. So wouldn't you choose a I hope I was born optimistic, or aren't there things I can and should do to reframe things like a Tony Robbins will teach you to think in a more positive vein, paint a picture of where you wanted to be, want to be, and be deliberate about trying to get there. So neuroplasticity, we can. Our brains are changing all the time. We ought to be deliberate about how we want them to change, and we ought to exercise like we would physically our mental functioning so that we're training ourselves to be more optimistic.

[Interviewer]

Now, this is something obviously you wrote about and based on the research, but was, was this something as an entrepreneur that you've done over your life? Because it's not. I think that entrepreneurs are probably tested the most because they have the most opportunities to say, oh, my God, life is not going the way that I wanted it to go. There's fires every day. It's very easy to default to pessimism, not to say that somebody that works a 9-5-W2 does not have opportunities to be pessimistic. But I think that entrepreneurship is very much a roller coaster and every low point is a new opportunity or scientist. Yes, exactly.

[Jim McCann]

So they're going to find, you know, it's like what did Edison say? It took him a thousand experiments to before or I think it was 10,000 experiments. And he said no, that's 10,000, it's 10,000 successes. Because I was learning each of the ways that it didn't work that I could get to the way that it did work. So yes, I think, I think entrepreneurs, business, small business people. It's easy to be pessimistic because I have lots of evidence. I think it's going to go wrong.

[Interviewer]

I was going to say like, like this is like an interesting point because again, you've built not just one business, multiple businesses to a very significant degree. So now like a multi billion dollar business, everything that could have gone wrong probably at some point did go wrong.

[Sponsor]

In your life several times.

[Interviewer]

So how did you not default pessimism?

[Jim McCann]

I wouldn't tell you. It's, it's a, like a light bulb moment. Um, I think I've gotten better at recognizing the signs that I'm going down a wrong path. Not in terms of what I'm doing, but how I'm feeling about it. And by developing with these tools a self awareness. You say, wait a minute, wait a minute, I gotta, I gotta hit, hit the pause button here, I gotta reframe that. And lots of times I'll whip out a pen and a piece of paper. Because I'm a, that's how I learn best, by writing. So I'm always taking notes, I'm always writing lists because it's how we frame things, is how we'll see them. And if we can envision a brighter day, then we have something to work toward. If it's woe is me, it's never going to work. Guess what? It's not going to work. So it's something I'm still learning and I'm a lifelong learner, most of us are. And I would also tell you I'm a better person today than I was yesterday, than I was a year ago or 10 years ago. And I'm trying to be a better person.

[Interviewer]

I think half of it is, is when you understand how your brain works, then you're more likely to pay attention to it. That self awareness is key.

[Jim McCann]

It really is.

[Interviewer]

If you don't, if you don't research, if you don't read, if you don't understand how Your brain works. I mean, you can just drift through life haphazardly and default to pessimism because you don't even understand that you're, you have to go in one direction or the other. Your brain will never be neutral. It will always go down one road or another. So you have to start to think. Okay, now that I know that I'm.

[Jim McCann]

Thinking of a story of a parents who are going crazy because they have a 7 year old son who's the most optimistic kid. It's driving him crazy. And the father in frustration says, I'm gonna, Christmas is coming, I'm gonna, I'm gonna challenge this kid. So he's like a nut. He goes and he piles manure in the kid's floor of his bedroom at night. And the kid gets up in the morning and father says to the mother, let's see how you make soccer matter this. And he is his kid yelling whippy, yippee, yippee. How could he be excited about this? And he goes and says, what are you happy about? He says, with all this manure around, there's gotta be a pony someplace.

[Interviewer]

I love it. Okay, so let me, so when you, when you put this together, let's go through a couple other like key lessons that really, that really impacted you. Like when you're putting together this research, I think that you can, you can to describe some other lessons from the perspective of this is something that if I had known at the time, it would have made my life significantly easier because I think these are, this is what these types of books and these types of works do. So that's why I always love just, even, just skimming through again. When you re, when you go down the road and you buy a book like this, you're not just, well, see.

[Jim McCann]

It'S 10 chapters here, Scott.

[Interviewer]

But you don't just like, my point is you don't need to incorporate everything at once. The goal is to understand, okay, these are some principles. Let me apply one principle. Master that principle and then my life will become 5 or 10% better. So think of a few that are sort of the most impactful for you over your career and then we can go down that rabbit hole.

[Jim McCann]

I think for me, I've already spoken about it without identifying it, and that is the benefit of relationships, not only from a, a social emotional point of view, but from a learning and, and resource point of view. I, I, I'm self aware in terms of my own intelligence. I'm reasonably bright guy, but I'm not the smartest guy in the world. And I, I learned that I could be self aware enough to say I'm excited when I meet really smart people. I made the mistake of going out of my way to expose my kids to these really smart people I was meeting. And it was only several years ago that I was. We were out on a boat and chatting with my two sons. My oldest is a daughter, but three of us were in a conversation and my youngest son Matt said to me, dad, you know, James and I, his older brother James and I were talking about all the times you dragged us to a dinner or to meet somebody and we, it really didn't have the impression on us that you were hoping for. It made us feel less adequate because they're always so smart, they're always so accomplished and you were so excited by them and to expose us to them that it was actually having the opposite effect and that we were feeling more inadequate. And it wasn't until we matured that we realized that you were comfortable knowing that these people are so much smarter than you. And that was a growth moment for us when we got to the point where we could say we felt like you, that we could be excited about putting ourselves around people who are much smarter than us. And that's been. I've been comfortable with that for a long time. Being around, knowing that there are a lot of smart people out there. And I, I find joy in that because I love to love to interact with them and learn what I can. And so I think a, a, a technique is, is that I'm always investing in relationships. Now I'll give you a practical example. One thing that my kids will tell you that I did right with them is that I always impressed upon them. I, I'm a shy person in recovery and overcoming shyness was an important thing for me to do. And I did it because I worked in retail as a kid and if you want to eat, you have to interact with people. And so I always counseled my kids and my, my kids would tell you that I, I still do it to this day and they're grown. I have grandkids and. But I do with my grandkids now too, and I do with the people I work with. We just put on a conference at a Worth Media Group two weeks ago called Teconomy. I told you about Scott and what I was really proud of is that so many people came up to me and said your staff is. Goes out of their way to make people feel comfortable. And two years ago we weren't that good at that. And it's with coaching and training and planning with Josh Campbell, who's the CEO of that company. Paul Stamolis is the CEO of our investment company. Them working with our team to say I don't care if you're shy, you can make believe you're not. Because your job is to look for someone in the crowd who doesn't have they're at the cocktail party and not talking to anybody. They're uncomfortable. Go find them, grab them by the hand, be the host, make sure they're in a conversation. And I was so proud. That was the thing I was content, was great. It was a sellout, standing room only. We had great entertainment. It was just all around great day, day and a half. But what I was most proud of, that people said, your team is remarkable because they go out of their way and it's not an accident they go out of the way to make people feel comfortable, feel welcome and included. Starts when they walk into the building and they go to the reception desk and. And Kim has a big smile for them and recognizes them, gets their name tag, doesn't say okay, it's in there. Walks them in like, like she worked at the Ritz Carlton. And I go out of my way to do that and have for a long time and taught my kids, always be the host. Even if it's not your party, there's someone uncomfortable, you have the power to help them. Go help them.

[Scott Clary]

A quick shout out to the HubSpot Podcast Network for supporting Success Story. Now, if you like Success Story, you're going to love other podcasts in their network. One of my favorites is Create like the Greats. It's hosted by Ross Simmons, obviously brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. You're going to join Ross on Create like the Greats. Ross dissects the genius behind history's most remarkable creators and their legendary work. So you're going to get this blend of history and business and creativity. He has a great voice, always good for a podcast, and he has a decade creative practical experience. He's going to break down some of the best creative processes that built influential companies, brands and stories in a way that anyone can apply. So whether or not you're fascinated by history, creative thinking, or you simply want to improve and systematize your own creativity without sacrificing productivity, this podcast is your perfect listen. Go listen to Create like the Greats wherever you get your podcast. A huge shout out to Lingoda for supporting today's episode. Now, if you're ready to master a new Language Lingoda is the online language platform trusted by over 100,000 students worldwide. Lingoda offers live classes with real teachers available 24,7. You can choose from German, English, Business English, French, Spanish or their newest addition, Italian. What sets Lingoda apart? The smallest class size in the market. It's just you and up to five other students. Or if you want, you can go one on one for personalized attention. Their native level teachers don't just teach language, they share culture too. And you'll speak confidently from day one. With Lingoda's flexible scheduling and proven curriculum, students report being able to navigate real conversations in weeks, not years. And if you're using Lingoda for business, their CEFR aligned courses ensure that you're learning internationally recognized language dance standards that employers value. Between sessions, you're going to reinforce your skills with downloadable materials and bite sized practice exercises. And all success story listeners, they put together a special deal. Try lingoda free with three group classes or one private class plus you save on any course with my link. Try.lingoda.com success story and code Scott25 don't miss this chance to transform your life through language learning.

[Interviewer]

I love that. I think that this is something that has probably made you very successful. You're just a very human first people, first relationship, first leader.

[Jim McCann]

I remember when that was me and I was uncomfortable at that cocktail party. I didn't have any, I didn't know anyone, I didn't know how to start a conversation. So the easiest way to do that is look for someone who's as uncomfortable as you are going.

[Interviewer]

You don't even understand how like it seems so like such common sense though. But it's not, it's it.

[Jim McCann]

You can learn it. Yeah, you can learn to overcome those things.

[Interviewer]

You know, this is why relationships are so important. I mean relationships are what? And again it's like that one on one relationship. It's everything you mentioned at the beginning. It's how the, the, the culture you want to influence. If you do it yourself, then the host that's greeting somebody at the door is going to do it as well. And then it's building one on one relationships with a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand people that come to a conference or ten thousand or a hundred thousand customers all about finding ways to build that one on one. I love it. I've never heard somebody talk about like relationships like that. Even though it should be discussed more because business is relationships at the end of the day and I think that actually it's going to become increasingly important. I'm Just thinking about this as we were speaking because I've heard you speak about AI and, and I think that right now we're in a period where people are over indexing on AI and automation and they're almost using it as an excuse to not focus on the human to human interaction.

[Jim McCann]

You're that guy. Tell me about the phenomenon of people having AI relationships.

[Interviewer]

I don't understand it. I don't understand it. It's not real.

[Jim McCann]

But if it makes, if it feels real to them, I think it's a double edged sword.

[Interviewer]

It was very sad. There was a kid who was. Yeah, a suicide because of an AI relationship. So I don't think, I don't think it's a positive for society.

[Jim McCann]

I don't, I don't know yet. I. In its raw form, no, but what about. There's a company approached us probably a year ago and they were building AI robots that they would put in a home of elderly people who live by themselves. I think that could have some positive potential where they'd have conversation, they'd be reminded to take their meds, to stand up, to exercise. Check. Hey, did you fall? I, I got that on my iPhone the other day. Have you fallen? Should I call him? No. But that's interesting. The technology is that.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, so you're right. There can be good application, but it has to be done thoughtfully and carefully. And I think that if you rush it and you say, oh, we have somebody that can. If, if I, if I speak to it, it's going to speak back to me.

[Jim McCann]

Well, you just deploy IT company here in town, Duolingo.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jim McCann]

I said AI based training, behavioral training, language technology. What if, what if we could take these 10 chapters in Lodestar and develop a workshop that you can take and interact with that doesn't require a human on the other side of it asking you questions, probing you, challenging you think differently. George and I was just talking about this recently. That could be interesting. I don't know, I don't know if the technology say it, but I bet it is.

[Interviewer]

It'll be there soon, if not already. But the second you, for example, say you have a, a whole customer support team. The second you. Because I've experienced this. So the second you remove the human, and right now, today, in 2024, for example, you're replacing it with AI, that's immediately a turn off unless the AI is useful. That's the thing.

[Jim McCann]

Well, I think, I think you're coming. You're, you're young. I would tell you that what we're finding is it's generational. Younger people oftentimes prefer non human interaction. People my age. What do you mean? I cannot interact with a human. So it's, it's very different in those five year increments of, of age.

[Interviewer]

That's so interesting. Oh, maybe I'm just an old, so.

[Jim McCann]

No, you're a nice person. You're a Canadian.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, that's it. That's fine. So I'm just like, like, I, like. I found that most problems can easily be solved when it's like human to human. And, and you know, you mentioned the thing about what you do at your conferences where you get people to, you know, guide people around and if they feel uncomfortable, you go up and talk to them. I think that's a beautiful touch. That's something that AI right now cannot do. That's something that AI cannot do. So you, I think that it is really important to invest in, but it.

[Jim McCann]

Is, it is identifying, warning, vocabulary.

[Interviewer]

What do you mean by that?

[Jim McCann]

So there are AI tools now that'll, that can listen to someone's speech pattern and identify potential problems, depression, dependencies. So that might have some good clinical red flags. I could see that that might be beneficial.

[Interviewer]

Tell me. I mean, okay, so one of, one of the things that you work on right now is Smile Farms and you're working on adults with disabilities. So maybe speak a little bit about. Because I love, I love your evolution. And now that you've branched out from. It's so interesting because you've branched out from small business owner to operator of large business to operator of many businesses to now you're actually back as I guess chairman.

[Jim McCann]

CEO of 1-800-Flowers or I'm chairman and I'm temporary CEO.

[Interviewer]

Temporary CEO. So you, you've dabbled in all the different versions of, of entrepreneurship and now you look at sort of the future and you're building something that helps people that have disabilities. So you've gone through sort of your own evolution and you've gone through multiple seasons of your own life. So think about building out Smile Farms. What, what purpose does it serve? How do you build something like that out properly so that it can still be a viable business? Because I see a lot of nonprofits and, and similar style businesses struggle because they don't know how to build a fundamental business around doing good and altruistic reasons. But then we can talk about how AI can, or technology can play into that as well. But I'm just curious how you see your own evolution, what you work on.

[Jim McCann]

They're all related. There's a common thread here. It's when Covid hit and we're. You know, some people are working from home. I hated it. I'm a social animal. I need to be around other people. There's no question my wife will confirm that I was miserable. But the story of Smile Farms is one where. So I'm the oldest of five kids. I have a youngest. My youngest brother, 10 years my junior, who was the CEO of Flowers. He's still on the board there. But health issues. He had to step down. And I have two sisters. And my middle brother Kevin was born developmentally disabled. So that had a big impact on our lives, of course, on his life, but on our lives, too. And we grew up seeing my parents, who didn't have a lot of means in the. In those early days, struggle because this is the dark ages on. On mental health. And there weren't a lot of programs. And so they'd convene in our community. They'd rent a church hall on a Saturday morning and invite other families who had kids with challenges to come. They'd put on a big pot of coffee. Unfortunately, they'd all be smoking cigarettes at the time, which is why they're not around anymore. But they'd all share. You know, the kids could play in a safe environment. The other siblings. We get to know other siblings who dealt with the same challenges. We weren't the only ones. It was a hardscrabble community. So people weren't always kind to people with disabilities. In fact, often not so. But they sought out social connectivity, my parents, and taught us that it was our responsibility to take care of Kevin and to make sure he was protected and to make sure you helped other families had similar needs and compare notes. Hey, I heard this school is developing a program over here. Maybe you can get your kid into that program or there's a. A law pending that'll change. So it. It was their support group, and they. We learned the benefit of community and. And we learned watching our parents do that. So Smile Farms. So Kevin, good news is he lives a wonderful agency started by a good friend of my brother and I. His name is WALTER Stockton. And 45 years ago, he was teaching in college. And there was a place in New York called Willowbrook, which was a state hospital. And a reporter for ABC News named Gerardo Rivera did an expose on the horrors of the conditions in this state hospital, of how people with developmental disabilities were being abused there. So the governor at the time, the first Governor Cuomo, shut it down. Said, we're going to show all these places.

[Interviewer]

What year was this?

[Jim McCann]

This would be in the 70s.

[Interviewer]

So still the. Not so recent, but recent enough that it should.

[Jim McCann]

Seventies, eighties. Yeah, eighties. Yep, eighties, early eighties. And we're going to get. They're going to be cared for in their communities. Well, they really were services in the communities for them. But that, that changed the attitudes in this country about mental health and delivery of services. And Geraldo river, with his undercover reporting was the. The lit the fuse. And he created a foundation. And my friend Walter applied to the foundation and got a grant of $10,000. And he passed a hat in his local community on Long island and said, hey, owner of the transmission shop, dentist, you know, these people being put out of there, a lot of them come from this community. Let's pass the hat and I'll open up a group home. At least we can help 10 of them. And he did. Fast forward. They take care of 8,000 people a day. They have hundreds of group homes around Long Island. And we're fortunate enough that my brother Kevin lives in one of those group homes and has since 1994 and he's doing well. But 10 years ago, Walter called my brother Chris and I and said, you know, your brother would be doing a lot better if I could find him some kind of a job in the community because he doesn't have enough to do. And. But frankly, I have hundreds of people like him who are in our group homes, in our programs here, all of whom could use jobs in the community. And I can't find jobs for any of them. But I have an idea. Let's have dinner together. Bring your checkbook. And his idea was, why don't we buy this five acres that's available, build some greenhouses on it, because you guys know this business, you know how to grow stuff. Let's grow flowers and plants and your florist will buy them from us. So we no way have a built in market and we'll create work. And my brother Kevin still works there. The original Smile Palms emerges Long island. And we have 36 people who work full time there, all of whom have developmental disabilities. And the program's going great. But if we're going to be involved in something, we want to grow it. And we now are always an entrepreneur at our. Well, if you're not growing, you're fading.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Jim McCann]

And so we have 13 campuses like that now where we employ somewhere between four and 500 people full time. A growing product. And now we're moving into hospitality, too. So I ate At a wonderful restaurant in New York last night called Craft. And Craft is a restaurant owned by a famous chef. He was on TV for. He's been on TV 18 years on Iron Chef. Tom Colicchio. It's a fabulous restaurant. Tom now has about 8 of our people who work in his restaurant. He had one guy who's the best glass polisher in the world. He's the world's best wine glass polisher. Because he'd never wanted any hint of a spot on the glass. Everything had to be polished before it goes on the floor. And that fellow now works, was promoted about a year ago to work on the cooking line. And they have a team meeting every night at Kraft where the whole team gathers and whoever's the general manager explains, here's what we have tonight. We have these many people coming in. We have this many reservations, and here's our specials for tonight. Chef, what do we got here? And the whole team gathers. And our one guy, it was his first night going to be on the line, and he never spoken out to anybody in the place. He just quietly did his work that night. He gave a little thank you. He was so proud that he had been promoted to be on the. On the cook line that night. And my buddy tells me it wasn't a dry eye in the house. So we're starting to move now to train people, work in hospitality industries because they're always looking for people. And we just happen to have a few friends in the Long island in New York area who proprietors of restaurants and hotels that are saying, if you can help me train people, I'll find jobs.

[Interviewer]

I mentioned something before. I don't know if you agree with it or not, but I've personally found, is my opinion that many, again, many companies that support underprivileged, they're not run exceptionally well, like for profits. And I feel like they're always mismanaged. So when you build something like this, obviously successfully, what are the things that you take into consideration when you're serving this group of people so you can actually build a really good business that ultimately will end up serving this, this incredible group?

[Jim McCann]

I think it's the same. It's all about relationships. You have to be creating value. You have to find a way to sustain it, because you can't. Look, we raise, you know, we raise money for our charitable efforts, but our goal is to make each of them get to the point where they're self sustaining so that we can open another because the need is enormous. 80% of adults with disabilities are unemployed. It's crazy. The good news is the tough employment environment that we've seen the last few years has caused more companies to say, hey, it's the right thing to do. And it's a pragmatic thing to do if I can get people, because they tend to stay forever. So it's. The tight employment situation has actually had a benefit, not enough, but some benefit on this disabled community because more and more people are. There's a, there's a agency in New York now, it's a staffing agency that only employs people on the spectrum. And their superpower is that they find out, what is this guy really good at? And they have this one guy, he told me a story a couple of years ago. He's unbelievably good at spatial recognition, which is very good for certain kinds of technologies. But he's most productive. He's frankly only productive from 3pm to 8pm so they had to figure that out. It took a long time, but now they contract him out and he works from 3pm to 8pm Those five hours. He is unbelievably productive and companies really value his skill because it helps them through some difficult issues. So it's, it's happening. But I'll tell you, you're right. There's not enough good business management in the not for profit world, but this is amazing entrepreneurs in that world too. Walter Stockton, my buddy, I told you about one of them. I'll tell you another one that I'm a huge fan of. I, I swear I don't talk to the person next to me on airplanes, but I can tell you about 10 friends I have because I sat next to them on an airplane and one of them is a lady by the name of Monica Block. So this is probably coming up on three years ago, January, three years ago, I'm returning from California, flying to Atlanta and it was a football playoff Sunday and we had a little screens on the plane. Everyone's watching the football games. They were very exciting idea. And she said she's not a football fan, but everyone on the plane's watching the games and she's getting into it. She tells me a story. Young woman, but her husband had died that year and, and what was her concern? Her concern was that her husband started a charity in Atlanta and she was afraid that it wasn't going to keep on going because he wasn't around anymore. And we had already had Smile Farms up and running. So I said, well, why don't you put me in touch with the people who Run it and I'll introduce them to our Smile Farms team and our flowers teams. Maybe there's something we can do together. Name of the company is called First Step. It's a not for profit. But here's how they go about this. They. They focus on a community. So can you imagine if you had the horrible misfortune of being homeless? How do you get out of being homeless? How do you change that or you get a job? How do you get a job? Oftentimes don't have a phone, so you can't call and apply and have you printed a resume? Print a resume. Kidding. You don't have anything to eat. How do you. How do you get showered so that if you show up to work, people aren't running around away from you because you stink? How do you get a shave? How do you get toiletries? So first step, stamping her husband. Monica's husband created this in Atlanta. It's now spreading around the country and they're getting inquiries all over the world because it's the only. I, I'm sure there are others, but it's the one I know that's successfully bending the curve on people with homelessness, other forms of disability, and, and, and people who previously were incarcerated who can't get a job. So they bought a staffing agency, they turned it into a not for profit, and they appended to it a social service component. Social workers, clinicians to help these people. So we have, at Flowers and Harry and David, we have distribution centers around the country. Christmas is our busiest time for all of our gift baskets and our pears and our, our fruit baskets and our chocolate boxes. And so we have distribution centers around the country. And we had just built one in Atlanta. So I said, monica, we're having trouble staffing our center here. We're apparently not in the right spot, easy for people to get to. So she introduced me to First Step staffing. And they're terrific people doing the good work because it's the right thing to do, but they run it like a business. And so right now we have 300 people working in our facility, routing our packages, getting them out to our customers for the holiday. And they're on time. And attendance performance is 94%. The rest of our population, not 94%, they're better, but they have coaches on site. They have facilities where they take the folks in the morning and they get them showered and they get them clothes. And I hear from them when I talk to the people who come through their program and are working for us. The Word they use the most is dignity. You restored my dignity. I'm able to imagine working with this coach of me getting a place to be able to stay on my own. And, you know, ours is seasonal work. So they're there with us for a few months, but they then have a few months under their belt and they have a resume and they have a track record and they have credentials and now they can go to get a job someplace else or they can get back on their feet. And so you're right, they tend not to be the best managed organization in the world. But here's one that I think needs a big old light shown on it because I think they're doing great work.

[Interviewer]

What do you want? What, what would you wish people knew about this population of people in terms of workforce? Like some things that, some myths that you just want to dispel.

[Jim McCann]

I think we, you, you've, you've talked about it couple of times already today, which is relationships and work is a lot more than a paycheck. We can kid ourselves saying, oh, if I didn't, if I didn't need the money, I would never work. Maybe some people, maybe. But I told you I hated working from home for the few days that I did that because I'm a social animal and I think most of us are. And so my, for my brother Kevin, you know, my whole family is involved and has been involved in our business because we're florists. We need kids and relatives and uncles and aunts to help us. And my, my. While my dad had his own business, he worked for me at a holiday time because he wanted to see the rest of his family. My mother ran payroll, my younger brother was running a business. And my sisters are talented floral designers and shop managers. And so if it was a Valentine's Day, my father wanted to see the family. He was our best router of our drivers because he knew every address, you know, knew where everything went. And. But we get together after an hour. So Mother's Day, we gather back at my house now. We gather back at my house now. Late in the day, like 5:30, 6:00. And we have a. The caterer that we use and he makes up some nice platters for us and everyone gathers back and we talk shop. We can't help it, you know, he's just got done with his exhaustive holiday. And my brother Kevin was never a part of those conversations because he was. He's the only one not in the business now. He's part of the conversation now. He's talking about, oh, yeah, but I already. I already planting the crop for the fall. We. We already put it up. We already started our field moms. He's in the conversation. The underlying point he has got is work is a lot more than a paycheck. It's who we are. It's why we get up in the morning. It's about dignity. Yes, it's about a paycheck, but mostly it's social. There's a couple who approached me at a dinner we run in May after Mother's Day. That's a fundraiser for the organization that Walter Stockton runs on Long Island. It's now called Connection. And a couple came up to me to thank me for what my family and I do to help Connection and now Smile Farms. And I said, well, you know, we don't really do that much anymore. Sort of. It's running itself now. They said, well, let me tell you how it's impacted our lives. I had a daughter. They had three kids. One daughter was disabled and she had aged out of school. And there are four programs. And that's what happens. But this population, they're done with school. There's nothing more for them to do. And if they don't have a job, if they're fortunate enough to have a family that they can live with, they start to deteriorate because they're not having social interaction. And they told me about their daughter, that she, her brother and sister who were married and lived nearby, started coming around less because she was annoying to be around. She was depressed and she was complaining all the time. And he's the father confessed to me that he was working late a couple of nights a week. Not that he had to, but he didn't want to be home to dinner. And he said. We approached Walter and they tested our daughter to see where her skill sets were. And she now works at Smile Farms. And they said, our lives have changed so much for the better. She's losing weight. Her health has improved. Her brother and sister reengaged with her because she's not miserable to be around anymore, and her whole life has turned around. They were going shopping the next day because the next week mom and daughter were going shopping. There was a dance, and she wanted to get a new outfit to go to the dance, and she was hoping that one of the guys she works with at Smile Farms would ask her to dance. Work is a lot more than a paycheck. It's also very, very social.

[Interviewer]

I love that.

[Scott Clary]

I think that's an important.

[Interviewer]

That's an important Lesson when you're, I mean, when you're looking to hire people, I've never, I've never had this conversation before with anybody when they're looking to hire people. I think at the very least start to think about how you can give people in this community an opportunity because I don't think that many people do give them.

[Jim McCann]

Well, you know, it has an impact on our workplace. Positive. Let me explain. So with Smile Farms, we depend a lot on volunteers, so we run fundraisers. We had a big dinner couple of weeks ago in Manhattan in New York City. Big success we had. But we had 45, 1, 800 flowers team members who volunteered to work that gala. They're checking people into the door. They're selling food stuffs. They're working with our, our farmers on who's getting the farmer of the year. They just, so they're taking their own time and a rabbit. So they're coming to giving their own time to volunteer to work at Smile Farms. Well, not everybody's going to do that, but those who do are special people and oftentimes they'll bring a friend with them who doesn't work for us. And a few months later, I see that friend walking in our office and I said, what are you doing here? I learned about your company and I heard there was an opening applied. I started here on Monday.

[Scott Clary]

Like what you represent?

[Jim McCann]

Yes. So it's self selecting who wants to be a part of that environment, who's not comfortable. So when you come to apply for us and you and you go to Cheryl's Cookies facility in, in Westerfield, Ohio. Westerville, Ohio. And you come in and use and the first person you see is a receptionist who's in a wheelchair. It tells you something. You may not even register. It's. Something's different here and it may not be for you. So you may decide. I really don't want to. I'm not going to mail in that application after I filled it out or you might say, hey, this is the kind of place that I want to be. So it, it creates some kind of selection criteria and I. And for us that's been a, a very positive dress the right people and their friends.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, I love it. Where can people get the book? I mean, we're going to put it in the show notes. So like the Amazon link.

[Jim McCann]

But so it came out just September 24, hit the bestseller list the first week it was right. Drive it at. Thank you. And it's available at all the Barnes and Noble stores, independent bookstores and a Place called Amazon you may have heard of.

[Interviewer]

Where else do you want to send people? Do you have socials that you like to connect with people on or website?

[Jim McCann]

I post a lot of edited versions of our weekly newsletter which is called Celebrations Pulse, which people can sign up for. And I post them on LinkedIn a lot too. I think LinkedIn is a good self selecting audience of people and it tickles me that the people read our stuff, listen to our stuff.

[Interviewer]

And that's a huge list by the way. That's amazing. It's amazing.

[Jim McCann]

Yeah. I'm knocked out by it. But of course I want it to be 20 million now.

[Interviewer]

Of course, of course. Well, hopefully it's a genetic defect. Hopefully. Exactly. Hopefully a few will find it after listening. I think they will. Last thing I like to ask, I used to ask what would you tell your younger self? But we've sort of gone through your journey, so I like to phrase it differently. I would ask what would be a lesson that you want to leave with your kids?

[Jim McCann]

I already talked about the one of be a host, but I don't. I think I've always been curious and I think it's because of hanging around, you know, being the oldest. So I was exposed, more exposed more to adults than my siblings were because I was working with my dad. I was around him and his brothers and his mother. And so I was around adults a lot and I just always been curious and it's always benefited me being curious. And I could be interviewing someone for a job and sometimes you're five minutes into the interview, you realize it's not a good fit. So you can be rude and end it after six minutes. Or you could say this person has experiences and they've seen and learned things that I haven't. What can I learn from them? How can I make this a focus group of one? So curiosity has always benefited me. So if there's anything I'd encourage my kids to nurture their curiosity streak and feed it.