“We help people express themselves and connect with the most important people in their lives.“
Jim McCann is the Founder & Executive Chairman of 1-800-Flowers.com, Inc., which he grew into one of the world’s leading floral and gourmet gifting companies. The company’s namesake was the result of a well-timed purchase during the 800-number craze.
Jim ran St. John’s Home for Boys, a group home for teenage boys, for fourteen years. He also worked multiple side jobs: covering odd shifts at a clothing store, flipping houses and bartending. Jim had the opportunity to buy his first flower shop for $10,000 just after he had sold a building in Brooklyn for $10,000, a serendipitous event he couldn’t say no to.
“There is a universal need for social connections and interactions.” Jim would go on to acquire companies that satisfied this basic need as a way to expand his portfolio: Cheryl’s Cookies, Harry & David and The Popcorn Factory.
LISTEN AND SUBSCRIBE
SPEAKER
Jim McCann
Founder & Executive Chairman
1-800-Flowers.com, Inc.
MODERATOR
Anthony Scaramucci
Founder & Managing Partner
SkyBridge
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
John Darsie: (00:08)
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to SALT Talks. My name is John Darsie. I'm the managing director of SALT, which is a global thought leadership forum at the intersection of finance, technology and public policy. SALT Talks are a digital interview series we've been doing during the work from home period, featuring leading investors, creators, and thinkers. And what we really try to do during these SALT Talks, is replicate the experience that we provide at our SALT conference series that we do in Las Vegas every year, and then internationally as well. And our goal at those events and on these SALT Talks is to provide our audience a window into the minds of subject matter experts and provide a platform for what we think are ideas that are shaping the future of business and policy. And today we're very excited to welcome Jim McCann to SALT Talks.
John Darsie: (00:53)
Jim McCann, if you don't know him as a very successful entrepreneur, business leader, author and philanthropist, whose passion is helping deliver people smiles. Jim's belief in the universal need for social connection and interaction led him to found 1-800-Flowers.com, which has grown into one of the world's leading floral and gourmet gifting companies. Jim's strategy for growth has included an effective combination of birthing and acquiring new businesses and brands that resonate with customers for their gifting and celebratory occasions. Jim is also deeply involved in philanthropy, and especially devoted to helping individuals with developmental disabilities, which includes his continued work as founder and chairman of Smile Farms, which is a 501(c)(3) organization established in 2015.
John Darsie: (01:41)
Smile Farms provides meaningful jobs in agricultural settings to young adults and adults with developmental disabilities, allowing them to master new skills, experienced teamwork, contribute to their community, and importantly, take home a paycheck, and the dignity that comes along with that. In 2018, Jim established Clarim Holdings, which is a private holding company, that expands market opportunities for clients by providing capital along with an extensive network of high tier support partners. Jim also serves as the director for a Amyris and International Game Technology PLC, as well as a variety of private and not for profit board seats that he sits on.
John Darsie: (02:21)
Just a reminder to all of our audience today, that if you have any questions for Jim during today's SALT Talk, you can post them in the Q&A box at the bottom of your video screen. And hosting today's SALT talk again is Anthony Scaramucci, who is the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge Capital, which is a global alternative investment firm. Anthony is also the chairman of SALT. And with that, I'll turn it over to Anthony for the interview.
Anthony Scaramucci: (02:42)
Hey John, thank you. And Jim, thanks so much for joining us. You're Long Island strong, which I love about you. Unfortunately for you and I, I think this is the longest I've spent on Long Island since elementary school, Jim. But before we get started on the business side of this stuff, tell us a little bit about the personal side. I think he just have this fascinating story about growing up in Queens, what the family was like and how you found your way into the flower business, or the floral business.
Jim McCann: (03:16)
Sure. John, thanks for those kind remarks, even if they were too many. My story is a simple one, not terribly different from yours, Anthony. We grew up in South Queens. My dad was a small businessman. He was a painting contractor. I'm the oldest of five children. And in my neighborhood, the kinds of role models we had, were public service workers. So policemen, firemen. We had a shopping area, main street called Liberty Avenue, where we had a lot of retail shops. And of course we had some other characters who were in another business, a family business too, only, they were five families in that business. And that was not a path we wanted to follow. So growing up, I thought, I'd either work my dad did in a small business, or my dream was to become a policeman.
Jim McCann: (04:10)
Along the way, you make life's decisions and it changes your optionality quite a bit. Mary and I married very young. We started our family very young. I've only had two really career kind of jobs. I worked for my dad as a kid, I worked in retail. Working for my dad, I learned how to do that stuff. So as a young man I'd buy a house and fix it up and sell it, or I'd buy a little commercial building and fix it up and rent it out. But both of my real career, so first was as a social worker, and then the second was as a florist. My old came from bartending, which is a genetic requirement. If you're an Irish Catholic from South Queens, that you make your way as a bartender. And working as a bartender in Queens, a good friend of mine was a customer.
Jim McCann: (05:01)
He worked in this home for boys. He ran a group home. Every time he'd come in, I'd ask him all about it. So at one time he called my bluff and said, why don't you come have dinner with me and the guys, in the group home. It's in a very, very tough neighborhood, 10 teenage boys, 14 to 20 years old living in a house. And lo and behold, he challenged me and said, well, if you think you'd to give this a try after dinner, you're on duty tonight and he flipped me the keys. Well, that was the start of a 14 year career at St. John's home for boys, which frankly I loved. And it was terrific for me. I wasn't good at the job at first, but I learned to get along. But the things I learned about myself and people and what makes people tick, are the things that I try and exercise today.
Jim McCann: (05:48)
It was putting small groups together and rooting for them and setting boundaries and trying to get them to see that they could accomplish things that they didn't expect or appreciate that they could on their own. And then rooting for them along the away, setting goals, making it fun, and letting them know that they were cared for and in fact loved. So I had that great career, but the challenge in being a social worker, is that, not-for-profit world, you don't make very much money at all. A lot of good people doing the genuine good work. Lo and behold, now at 24 years old, the administrator of the home, so it wasn't 24/7 job like it was when I lived in and ran the group homes for a few years. And I found myself attending Barney up, recite Manhattan on Friday and Saturday nights to supplement my income.
Jim McCann: (06:40)
One of those bottle flipper guys, and I had a customer, regular, would be in there every Friday, Saturday night and stay late. And he owned the flower shop across street, told me he was going to be selling it. And I thought, geez, flower shop, where I grew up there was a guy had a big flower shop on the corner, seemed to be quite successful. It was retail, you're working with people. So I asked him if I could work there a couple of Saturday afternoons before I went to the bar. And he said, sure, but why? I said, well, maybe I'm a buyer. So I did that a couple of Saturday afternoons and liked it. I liked how you were working with people in celebratory moments in their life. I asked him how much he was asking for the business, and he told me $10,000.
Jim McCann: (07:19)
Well, I had just sold a building in Brooklyn that I had a $10,000 profit on. So I thought it was serendipitous. And I bought that flower shop. Now, I bought a flower shop, Anthony, not just to be a florist, which of course I became, but also to build a business. So I didn't give up my full time job at St. John's right away, I kept that for a few more years, so that everything I had in the flower business, I could reapply and open up more shops. So I'd open another shop every six months. And then every quarter, until I had to leave St. John's, I'd accumulated a chain of shops and realized that there was no economies of scale in owning multiple shops. And I said myself, I got to find a better way to grow this business.
Anthony Scaramucci: (08:06)
Your vision at that time though, was to have small flower shops potentially, or your vision at that time was the mega scale of what you ultimately became an international brand. Explain your vision and the incrementalism of your entrepreneurship.
Jim McCann: (08:23)
I didn't get a good business education. I told you, I thought I'd become a policeman. So I went to John Jay college, which was a wonderful place to go to school, but as a psychology major, it didn't exactly train me for business. But I just thought if I built it big enough, it would get to be valuable. So I had 40 or so shops by that time. And I realized, no economy of scale here. I was playing with small shops and then big shops, what made the difference. It was ancient history, Anthony, but back then on TV, everyone was trying to get you to remember their 800 number, and they'd spend a fortune. I remember Sheridan hotels had a campaign where they'd have singers and dancers and kick lines, getting you to remember, 800-325-3535.
Jim McCann: (09:17)
So one person remembered the number, but I thought, geez, if you could only spell out the number, you don't have to do that much to get people to remember your number. And I found a company that had in it, that assigned ID number. And being a street kid from Queens, the company was in dire financial straits. They were broke, there was nothing left of it. And it was based in Dallas, Texas at that time. And I figured, why waste all that money with lawyers and accountants and bankers and do this diligence thing. So this wise guy skipped all of that, wound up doing due negligence, right? Bought the company to get the 800 number. There was nothing else left in there. And then discovered, because of my naivete, I accumulated $2 million so that I could put my hands on, to buy this company, which I did.
Jim McCann: (10:15)
And then I found out I had another $7 million in debt that I had just signed for personally, that I didn't have any idea about. So I had great motivation to get up in the morning and try and build the business. But I did have this 800 number now, and it changed how we operate the business. So that was our primary access modality. I changed the name of the store, to 1-800-Flowers. Didn't have capital, everything I could accumulate or borrow, I just put into this company, and now I have to market it and pay off this debt. So I started selling the stores or to franchisees who are better suited to be operated to these stores, because fitness is a family business. The economics of it suggest it should be a family business. So I took the capital from selling the stores off, to build up the brand and then had some good fortune and some wonderful accidents that happened along the way, so that we became a brand.
Jim McCann: (11:07)
We became the brand in this small flower business. And we changed the way the industry works. And 10 years, 11, 12 years into the business at that point my younger brother, Chris just graduated. So he's the youngest of the five of us. I'm 10 years, his senior, he just joined the business after he graduated from school, and so I gave him some old bandwidth and we decided to grow it out. But because we had just changed the flower business, with no money, just an idea, and then novel way of approaching the business. We were paranoid that, hey, what's the next technology that's going to come along, that could knock us out of the box. So I think that became part of our DNA. And in particular, Chris being interested in the technology side of things, we're always looking for what's next.
Jim McCann: (12:00)
So in the early 90s, we had our website, and it didn't much matter, because no one could find you. We were the first online florist in AOL. So we became to be, part of our culture is to be early on technology, early adopters, and to try a lot of new things. And that's served us as a culture now for 30 years.
Anthony Scaramucci: (12:31)
I've heard you speak about it, but I'd like you to speak here about it. The flower business, the celebratory business, there's a pretty steady Eddy nature to it. And you and I both know, because we live in this area, whether it's falconers or Manhasset florist. These places I've been here since I was a little kid, Jim, they're not going anywhere. And they have this 30 stability to it. Just describe that to our listeners for a second, the remarkable nature of the business.
Jim McCann: (13:05)
And those are people who are all partners. So we partner with the best florist in each community around the country, in fact, around the world. And so we're their front door, how people can access them, and they can come to us, we still have stores. We have obviously 800 number, but 95% of our business is e-commerce, through the online world. So the way we think of it, Anthony is, we've been through five waves. First, retail stores, then the 800 number, then the internet, when Netscape came along in 1995, and organize the world, those websites we had, really started to matter. And then it was everything about mobile and social. So even back during the recession of 08, 09, and 10, I don't know if you remember that, but there was this little recession thing happened.
Anthony Scaramucci: (13:57)
It was a dress rehearsal for today, Jim. We're going to get into that in a second.
Jim McCann: (14:00)
I think you're right. We remained profitable throughout, but we went backwards in sales, two years, a little bit. And so we had to cut back on a lot of the developmental things we'd been doing, but we didn't cut back on our technology spend and we didn't cut back on our social media spend, or on our efforts in and around mobile. And thank goodness, because when we emerged from the recession, having spent a lot of money and a lot of energy on those developmental efforts, they gave us that fourth wave. So everything social, everything mobile. But right now I think that we're going through the fifth wave, which I think is the most exciting. My brother, Chris turned to conversational commerce about five or six years ago. He's the first person I heard use that term.
Jim McCann: (14:46)
And now we think it's morphing to be more about engagement commerce. So what is it we do? We're a flower and gift company. We help our customers express themselves and connect to the important people in their lives. We do that with gifts and sometimes no transactions. We've been following our customer's pattern. So when you say we've acquired companies and birthed companies, we do that with the idea of following the customer's purchase pattern. If we're there to help them express and connect to the important people in their lives. Flowers are not always the perfect way to do that. When it is fine, we're there. And we have these wonderful partners around the country, around the world, who we've worked with, and we're tied to.
Jim McCann: (15:34)
But sometimes our customers would go to a company like Harry & David to buy a wonderful food gift, fruit peaches or pears. And when that company came available to us, we said, wow, they're already our customers, let's acquire that. And it had been a company that was in decline for 15 years. And when we bought it, we were fortunate. Now we've had it for five years and it's had five years of accelerating growth. And we did that with chocolate businesses and cookie companies.
Anthony Scaramucci: (16:01)
You made some changes to the company though, Jim, tell us a little bit. You bought Harry & David and it was in decline, but you made some changes. What were some of the changes that you made? Because the thing is a major growth engine now.
Jim McCann: (16:13)
Well, we focused on what we know how to do, and where the trend lines were taking us. And that was e-commerce. So instead of expanding their store footprint, we put all our efforts into building a relationship with your customers, expanding your product line along the lines that they tell us they'd like us to, and investing in the technologies to be convenient to them, to improve our delivery capacities. The product was and is terrific. We're vertically integrated there. We're selling our peaches now. We have a peach sets, our own trademark Oregon, because we grow them in Oregon and they're out of this world. So the product was good. It's just as good today may be getting better all the time because our ag, people are doing some terrific things, but we have 5,000 acres of production, we grow the food.
Jim McCann: (17:03)
So we're not afraid to be vertically integrated where appropriate. And so for us, it's all about e-commerce, knowing the customer, engaging with the customer. When we talk about all this technology, Anthony, it's ironic, back when we had one shop on the upper East side, and we had 40 years ago, single shop, upper East side, we had 40 customers who really made that business go. But those 40 customers just didn't come in to buy flowers from us. They came in to have a cup of coffee. They came into ask of a restaurant recommendations, they went in to hang their dry cleaning up in our place, while they ran around the neighborhood on this side. We had a relationship with them. And now the irony is, that we use technology today, because now we have 40 million customers. How do we effectively build a relationship with them?
Jim McCann: (17:58)
Our commitment has changed. Look, you're a business leader. You're a leader beyond business. And you know, and you've taught me, frankly, that vocabulary matters. It matters how people think about what their job is, what their mission is, what they do. And it just clicked for us earlier this calendar year, we were listening to all the people in our shop talk about, how much it cost us to acquire a customer and how we get them to place another order. And it was bothering me that we were losing sight of the relationship. When I was chatting with Meredith, a young lady who's my chief of staff. And we were on the phone. It was back in January. She was home in rainy New York. I'm in Florida with family over new years. And we're having this conversation.
Jim McCann: (18:47)
So she says, "So Jim, what you're saying i, you don't want to acquire customers. You want to acquire or earn relationships." And just when she said it, it changed how we think about things. And Chris now, using that vocabulary to change how we behave. I'll give you an example-
Anthony Scaramucci: (19:06)
That's very smart.
Jim McCann: (19:07)
... market differently, Anthony. As a florist, the sympathy category is important to us.
Anthony Scaramucci: (19:13)
Sure.
Jim McCann: (19:15)
And sympathy has been a declining category for us florists for 20, 25 years. But it's still an important category.
Anthony Scaramucci: (19:22)
Why is that Jim? Because it's charitable contributions. Why is it? Because ever since in lieu of flowers, is that why?
Jim McCann: (19:29)
All of the above, Anthony, plus cremations. Now 50% of the deaths in this country result in a cremation. So, an event, as often as they used to be, so cultural changes, religious changes, geography changes in lieu of all of those things, are making the declining category. So we put our heads together and said, look, how do we market simply, well you say, when you have a death, we have really good flowers. You can't do that. It makes no sense. So we went to a friend of ours, another guy from long Island, John Tesh. John has a radio show, 350 markets. He's married to a wonderful lady. An actress named actress named Connie Sellecca.
Anthony Scaramucci: (20:08)
He used John anchorman here, right Jim?
Jim McCann: (20:10)
That's right.
Anthony Scaramucci: (20:11)
Am I talking about the right John Tesh, CBS?
Jim McCann: (20:12)
CBS. Yeah. Host of entertainment tonight, and a very, very accomplished touring musician. And so no, John, like John, I love that he has his radio show that it's all about making people's lives a little bit better every day. So I went to him and I said, John, here's our issue on sympathy. And we'd to mark it on your show, but I don't want to buy any ads. He said, "What?" I said, sympathies is an important category for us. And what we would to do, is use you in the relationship you have with your audience to initiate a dialogue, with our community, around the subjects that are hard to talk about. So people you would know, I gave him this example, another friend of mine also named John. I called him one night, said, hey, if you guys are getting together at dinner tonight, are you going? I said, yes, it was a Wednesday night.
Jim McCann: (21:00)
I said, but John, I'll be a little late because a family lost their dad in our neighborhood, and I was going to stop at the Fair Child's chapel on the way home, pay my respects. He said, "I was thinking about that. I knew them too, but I didn't think I knew them well enough to go." And I said, John, let me ask you to pause there. I said, my sisters and brothers and I have been in front of the room too many times, and I can assure you, John, that we never once said, geez, that person didn't really know us well enough to come here to pay their respects. They said on the contrary, we'd always say and think, how nice of them to come and pay their respects. It makes us feel so much better.
Anthony Scaramucci: (21:41)
Amen. Very well said.
Jim McCann: (21:43)
10 minutes later. He calls me back and said, "Thinking about what you said, I'll meet you there. I'll tell them we'll both be a little late." And I told that story to John Tesh. And I said, so let's have a conversation with your audience about how do you handle expressions of sympathy when Nadine in the workplace, his dad passes away, he's returning to India for the services. How do we as a group express ourselves? What's appropriate? What's culturally appropriate? So we've been building this conversational massive information and serving it up to our customers on our website. So we never say buy flowers. We just have this conversation. John tells us that in a two and a half years, that we've been doing this together, his audience has never been more engaged on a single topic. So I think the lesson for us was, it's about engagement and about serving your audience.
Jim McCann: (22:38)
If you serve them, if you're doing something with no ill intent or no commercial goal in mind, but doing it in a service kind of environment, you'll earn the due consideration when a purchase is appropriate. And so that's how we've been changing all the ways that we interact with our customers. And in fact, we're kicking off a big new research program, because frankly COVID changes everything. Especially seeing, now, how many people have you known in the last five months, where there's been a loss and you guys would have gone to the service, but now they're telling you, we're having a private family ceremony. And we'll let you know when we're going to do something else. So all the rules are changing here. And so we're going to pull in all the experts and the public and our community and say, what are the new rules? What's the new appropriate ways to express and connect, especially at a sad moment, like a loss? So it changes how we think about quote unquote, marketing.
Anthony Scaramucci: (23:41)
Well, listen, I think it's a brilliant insight. I'm glad you're sharing it with everybody. Because at the end of the day the less transactional we are, the more relationship driven we are, the more we're comfortable expressing our vulnerability to each other, the tighter the relationships get, and then you can ride it out with each other in these periods of difficulty. So, I think it's a brilliant insight. Let's stick on the COVID-19 thing for a second, Jim, because you and I have had conversations, not live like this, but in your backyard, where we've talked about the impact of COVID-19, the impact on the airlines, the impact on New York city, the city we love, our neighborhood here. Tell us a little bit about your thoughts, about how we pull things back together. And what do you think happens over the next six, 12 and 18 months?
Jim McCann: (24:31)
Well, I think everything gets turned upside down here. Let's look at the big macro trends, what's going on. I had a conversation back in March with one of my friends and hero, a guy, well, Henry Kravis. We were chatting on a Sunday afternoon about what's this going to mean? When you get the chat with really smart, thoughtful, nice people like that, you hang on their every word. Now, what we agreed to, we were trying to get to what happens. And we agreed that the three big macro trends that we're going to at least hit the pause button, are globalization, urbanization and the sharing economy. And we see that with WeWork and Uber and Lyft, they're having their struggles. Well-run companies, they'll make it through, but they have to rethink how they do things.
Jim McCann: (25:20)
But those three big trends are put on pause. And then on the other side, what are the other big trends that you've spoken about in this program many times? I've learned a lot from those conversations. So real estate is changing dramatically. That pause on urbanization has closed the suburban, rural flight. I remember in the beginning of this, Adam Hamm, who's one of my board members said, "Second, third and fourth ring suburban around big cities will benefit." I said, you said second, not first? Because we live in the first spring, Anthony. You said, first spring is already too expensive. And the taxes are too high. So the guy who would to live on Long Island, let's say Dix Hills, just into Suffolk County, the reason he doesn't, well, he would to be there, because the houses are bigger. there's more land and the taxes are lower, and the school systems are still really good.
Jim McCann: (26:17)
But he's got this hellish commute. If he or she has to go to Manhattan, it's just a forever commute. So he's forced to go in closer, but now it's not so troubling to commute anymore. If he only has to do it one or two days a week.
Anthony Scaramucci: (26:34)
Or doing it in this period of time, Jim. I'm getting into the city 25 minutes from our town, which is only 17 miles away. So thing things have changed. Is it-
Jim McCann: (26:47)
But now the other trends emerging, nesting, cocooning and faith popcorn, crafted that term back in the 90s. But some of the mental health professionals are talking about it now as being a negative thing.
Anthony Scaramucci: (26:59)
Mary Lou still likes you Jim, or is she just tolerating you at this point?
Jim McCann: (27:02)
We learned that, that we actually like one another. Every once in a while, she speaks to me. We had an anniversary last week.
Anthony Scaramucci: (27:12)
How many years you married, Jim?
Jim McCann: (27:15)
47.
Anthony Scaramucci: (27:15)
God bless you.
Jim McCann: (27:16)
I told you we married young.
Anthony Scaramucci: (27:18)
That's amazing.
Jim McCann: (27:19)
And she's still speaking. I don't get it. And more than that, we have three grown kids, who you know.
Anthony Scaramucci: (27:23)
She lets me in the house. So I take that as a good sign. She's still-
Jim McCann: (27:26)
She did make you take the shoes off.
Anthony Scaramucci: (27:28)
Yeah, that's true. And she did stick me out in the backyard by the bird feeder, but that's fine.
Jim McCann: (27:33)
We got to be careful in this environment.
Anthony Scaramucci: (27:35)
So your future of bricks and mortar retail, Jim. What do you think?
Jim McCann: (27:43)
You and I had that conversation back in the backyard there, we talked about the great acceleration of COVID. We said then, everything that was going to happen in the next five years in terms of e-commerce and place-based commerce, retail was going to accelerate five years and five months. Here we are five months and we weren't great Sears, but it's exactly what's happened. So retail is going to continue to struggle and get crushed. Interesting stories in the last few days about Amazon talking to, about some Sears stores and some JCPenney stores, that they might want to use as distribution warehouse facilities. So you're going to see this ugly gyration of retail being repurposed. So I think stores are going to continue to struggle. I think we're in a situation like we're in now, for probably another year.
Jim McCann: (28:38)
I'm hopeful. I've seen you're reporting on what's happening in treatments and with vaccines. And I'm on the board of one of the big health systems in New York. And so I stay very plugged into it. I think some great things might come from this. We're spending hundreds of billions of dollars to find a vaccine. The first time man will have ever had a vaccine for COVID disease. So I wonder if after that, after we get three or four or five vaccines that we're using, that we're comfortable with, that they test out properly and knock this thing down, that's going to take another year. And we have 45% of us, nudniks, running around here in the United States saying, well, neither are going to take a vaccine. So it's going to take that time to work its way through.
Jim McCann: (29:23)
But in the mean time, the restaurant industry is decimated, hospitality, airlines and retail in general are going to continue to have a very, very tough time. And look, we're about entering this very important season for us. The holiday season, we were just, the team meeting in the last few days at flowers, about Halloween is going to be very different. Back to school is already crazy. Grandparents days in September 13th. All the grandparents like us, I get the weight to my grandkids, but the biggest threat I have now to my grandkids, when they get to see them in person is, hey, you don't watch out I'll hug you. I wonder what the long term effects on kids and relationships are there.
Anthony Scaramucci: (30:09)
No, it's true. In the young words, this is long periods of time, five months for a six year old or a 10 year old, long periods of time. I'm going to turn it over to John Darsie in a second, Jim, but I want you to address this before I do. We just celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Disability Act that was signed by president George Herbert Walker Bush. And you have been an unbelievable champion to helping people with disabilities. And I want you to talk a little bit about that charitable effort of yours and how it's being impacted by the pandemic, and where are things going for you and in that realm of your life.
Jim McCann: (30:51)
I think you're right, Anthony. I think it's having an enormous impact on the disabled community, but even before you think about how hard it is on the people, the disabled community. One of the things that has me concerned as a husband, as a father, as a grandfather, as a business person, is this terrible epidemic that I first became aware of in December of 2018. And it's this loneliness epidemic. And there are a couple of terrific young editors in Wall Street Journal wrote a piece back then, in December of 18. And the story in front page, lower center of the front page was, baby boomers, my generation, the loneliest generation, and then the continued for two big pages inside. I read every word of it and I've read it a dozen times, and had a chance to correspond with them to great thinkers.
Jim McCann: (31:42)
And the journal has been on this theme now for a while. And certainly the big healthcare companies, I think of United Healthcare in particular, Cigna, all realized that this loneliness epidemic has a real consequence in terms of healthcare, healthcare outcomes, and disease. Cigna and United Health will postulate that someone who is suffering from loneliness or most serious one, depression, is 50% more likely to have very serious health consequences, not just mental health. So they have a vested interest in working on this. And I think it's also, their good citizenship that has them investing so much time and research here. So these two editors in the journal said that, boomers were the first generation to have divorce in any great numbers, but to move away from where their family systems were for a better place, to be estranged from their children perhaps because of divorce. We were first-generation that really embraced diabetes.
Jim McCann: (32:44)
You put all these things together and we're living longer in spite of the disease. And so we're running out of money. We didn't save enough, we didn't have pensions. So you put all of those things together and you have people in poor health, without means, living by themselves, the tax from the family. 27% of baby boomers are women, 27% women never married or don't have a spouse or a child. And so the social networks are strained, but not to be out done, the millennials and generation X and generation Z are claiming... So generation Z, the youngest kids, 22 and below, who grew up digitally, Anthony. These are people who are so comfortable with devices and all the social media networks. 79% of them say, they're lonely, don't have any significant relationships in their life. 20% of them say they never had a single friend.
Jim McCann: (33:40)
So as much as we think we're connected, we're not. And I'm concerned because it has consequences for us as family people, as business people. And then if you add on top of that, people with disabilities, so you are fortunate enough to live in a nice community. And we're right near a friend and a hero of mine. He runs a place called the Viscardi Center. His name is John Kemp. And I think of him, when you mentioned the Americans with Disabilities Act, because he worked very closely with Senator Kennedy on drafting that legislation, 30 years ago, which has made an enormous impact in people's lives. But he was telling me just recently, he cares for kids in a vocational training and educational environment. So he has about 120, 140 young people. 99% are in wheelchairs.
Jim McCann: (34:31)
Many of them have to use the breathing to activate the wheelchairs, but he had me emotional about their consequence during this time. School is a lot more than a place to go to learn for them. It's a raise on the edge tray. It's why they get up in the morning. It's their whole, their socialization, so many of them. And he's extremely concerned about their mental health, being in that apartment by themselves now, for five months. Talk about being afraid of not having enough food or healthcare or medicine, nevermind the social interactivity. So I think it's having a devastating impact on people with disabilities. And I think we have to be mindful of that and be overt about doing things to reach out and connect. And I think these holidays are going to be so different. Thanksgiving is going to be so different this year, but if we just say, darn, it's going to be horrible.
Jim McCann: (35:30)
I loved when the family would get together and all the people around, the kids and it's just going to be miserable. All right, I give you a minute or two to have that feeling. But then we have a responsibility to ourselves, to our family members, to our coworkers, to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and say, it's going to be different, but it doesn't have to be bad. We can make it good. We have responsibility for those around us. And so, maybe we were constrained by how many people we could get around the Thanksgiving table, by how much you could cook, or how much room you had. Well, we're not going to be so constrained this year.
Jim McCann: (36:02)
So who else should we be inviting to participate in the Zoom carving, in the zoom preparations, to make them realize that you want them to be part of your community. I think we have an opportunity. I think we have a responsibility to think outside of ourselves and how annoyed we are that it's not perfect, and think about how do we make it good, and how do we make it good for people beyond just us.
Anthony Scaramucci: (36:28)
Just listening to you speak, Jim, it is so obvious why you're so successful in the flower connection, gratitude, sympathy, business. You're doing an amazing job. I'm going to turn it over to Darsie. He's now got big photos with his young stardom, Jim. So just look out okay. But he's coming in strong now with some questions from our viewers.
Jim McCann: (36:53)
It's not bad enough he's young, he also has too much hair.
Anthony Scaramucci: (36:55)
I'm okay on the hair side. Certainly regardless of you. Let's put it that way.
John Darsie: (36:59)
Anthony has invested a lot in that meme.
Jim McCann: (36:59)
So what is it about, $2,500 a month on hair care products that are here?
Anthony Scaramucci: (37:08)
Well, that would probably be at the low end, Jim. All of my hairstylists and dermatologist have signed confidentiality agreements. Let's just be clear.
Jim McCann: (37:17)
Did that happen during those famous 11 days?
Anthony Scaramucci: (37:20)
Well, I was losing hair. That was one of the reasons why I had to go so quickly. Okay. John.
John Darsie: (37:26)
You talked about school and how school is such an important time for young people to socialize. And that socialization is part of their education. For businesses, it also feels like work in the collaborative environments that exist. And a lot of businesses or are part of not just socialization that's good for people's mental health, but also creativity. There was an article. I can't remember what outlet it was in, about how the work from home has allowed people to maybe achieve a little bit more work life balance in some cases, but it affects people's creativity. What do you think the future of work is? Do you think that the migration to the suburbs, the second, third and fourth wave suburbs is a permanent phenomenon, and how do we create a framework for work, that allows people to have that balance, but also factors in elements like creativity, teamwork, and things like that?
Jim McCann: (38:17)
John, I think the essence of your question is absolutely spot. This changes everything. Take me, I'm an old fur here. I never thought I could work from home, but five months in, I get up in the morning, I start working, I stop working, I go to bed. So I've figured out how do it, I do have to figure out how to be more productive and how to spend the time on the right thing. So there's things I have to learn, but I'm never going to be jumping on airplanes like I used. Thank God this technology was here, but how about the third of New York city school kids? One third who don't have access to technology? Are we all kidding themselves saying, the spring was fine, they did remote, pat ourselves on the back. When a third of the kids who live in public housing don't have access to the internet, we're kidding ourselves to say these kids are getting educated.
Jim McCann: (39:07)
And nevermind the socialization part of it. It's extraordinarily painful to see what's happening. I think over the next month or two, you're going to have fits and starts. You have to have a very high tolerance for ambiguity. And as employers it impacts us too, because the girl, who's a digital marketing guru, who has two kids at home, live suburban, and now one kid's school is starting, the other one's going to be remote. This one's doing two days a week. So we have to be a lot more flexible and a lot more creative. And I heard my brother working with the management team on this just yesterday. How do we build constructs that allow people, some people dying to come back to the office. Well, we've reopened, but it's very light in terms of attendance.
Jim McCann: (39:48)
So it changes everything. I will never jump on airplanes like I used to. I won't be going out to dinner five nights a week like I used to for work. I'll eat at home a lot more. So nesting is very much, it has to impact what products we have, what products we sell. Our Harry & David gourmet foods business is exploding with demand. Well, the whole business is, but in particular, the prepared meals. Because by the way, I love having David chicken pot pie, because it really easy to pop. You pop them in. They're delicious. They're not calorie-free, but they're delicious. So it changes everything. How we eat, how we dress. Anthony, when was the last time you bought one of those famous, beautiful suits of yours?
Anthony Scaramucci: (40:29)
Well, I don't even know if could fit into them anymore, Jim, because I've been eating all the Cheryl's cookies that you send me. So I don't know what's going to happen.
Jim McCann: (40:36)
But it changes-
Anthony Scaramucci: (40:37)
My tailor thanks you, because he's expanding my waistline.
Jim McCann: (40:39)
Look, what's happened to the champagne industry, without international travel, weddings, all these celebratory events. Wine business is booming, the booze business is booming, but champagne is considered to be much more celebratory. There's a hundred million bottles of champagne, just in champagne France, in storage that won't be sold this year. So Anthony, if you can do your bit in order a couple of cases, just to help them out there.
Anthony Scaramucci: (41:04)
Well, I'm going to order a couple of cases for you, when the meds get sold, Jim.
Jim McCann: (41:07)
Thank you.
Anthony Scaramucci: (41:08)
We're going to be back at your house, in the back yard when that happens.
Jim McCann: (41:11)
Pick a scab, why don't you. John, I think you're right. It has consequences in every way. So our job as family people, as business people, as community involve people, is to try and get at those changes. Cities, look, old people like me, kids move out, you get an apartment in the city wide. We love pubs, restaurants, live theater, live entertainment, retail, all of which are on their butt right now. So the cities will come back. It'll take a while. It's going to take the fall before they come back. It's going to take some inspired municipal leadership. And I see that around the country. I see it in Providence, Rhode Island. I see it in Cleveland. I see it in Savannah, Georgia. I'm not seeing a lot here in New York, which as Anthony mentioned, is extremely important to us.
Jim McCann: (42:01)
So technology is going to play, and cities will get younger, because the cost will come down. That'll create a lot more residential units out of old retail or repurposed office space off. But I'm worried about an aftershock here. So I said, you got to look to the future. The shocks are coming. And what I mean by aftershocks is, I've spoken in the last month to six or seven CEO friends of mine, who run big companies. And they all telling me the same thing. They have way too much space all around the globe, physical, real estate, and we have way too many people. So I'm concerned. I saw just yesterday that they have been 130,000 IT professionals laid off in the last 30 or 45 days. I'm afraid a lot of people said, I work for this big company, we got this huge balance sheet, I'm in IT, nothing to worry about.
Jim McCann: (42:53)
And all of a sudden in January, they find out that the department is being reorganized to be more efficient, because their company has been challenged on the revenue side of things. And they had to figure out a way to be more efficient. And this guy or girl, is sitting out there going, Oh my God, I thought I was safe, and I'm not. So I think there's a second wave of shocks coming there. We have to figure out a different way to finance the transit system. Sarah Feinberg, who's running the MTA. She's the interim chief of the MTA. Very smart, very sophisticated. But I asked her, I said, Sarah, if half the work is in Manhattan, not New York city, but just Manhattan, our servers work. So they have to come in. And the other half have now found out they can work from home, at least some of the time.
Jim McCann: (43:41)
What happens if they come in one day, a week less, and her concern was, not only is it a multibillion dollar hit for the transit revenue, but what about the shoe shine guy? What about the guy who works on the deli counter? What about the barista in Starbucks? If you have 10%, fewer workers every day in Manhattan, and I think that's unbelievably optimistic that it would only be 10%. So it's going to have tremendous consequences and we need powerful, engaged, incredibly brave leadership now. And I hope we see it emerge
John Darsie: (44:21)
Well, Jim, thanks so much for joining us. You're another one that we could have on for three hours and we would still not get to cover every topic that we wanted to cover. So we'll have you back on, hopefully in a few months and the coming years to see how these aftershocks play out and the next waves of innovation that you drive at 1-800-Flowers, which is sort of the way you drive your worldview and the success of your business. I feel you could be successful in so many other areas. And I know you're investing in some other areas as well, which hopefully we can talk about next time you're on.
Jim McCann: (44:49)
Great John. It was good to be with you. I'll pay attention, because I need ideas from you and the guests that you've been having on to try and guess at where the future will go so that we can adapt.
John Darsie: (45:01)
Absolutely. And that's what we're trying to do. We weren't able to do our in person SALT conferences, which I believe you've been to in the past. And it's been sort of a blessing in disguise that we've started doing these SALT Talks and it's allowed us to expand our audience beyond the number of people that we could gather in an auditorium in Las Vegas or in Abu Dhabi or in Singapore. We've been able to broaden our scope, have a lot more interaction. So it's been a lot of fun.
Jim McCann: (45:24)
I've heard Anthony say this, about this timeout, this pause. It's caused you to think about your group, your attendees, much more as a community now, that you have this more regular contact. And I think that's a positive that's going to come out of this for all of us.
Anthony Scaramucci: (45:41)
No question. I think it's interesting what you said about engagement at your business. We're going to steal some ideas from you as well, Jim. Thanks so much and hope to see you soon. We're going to get you at one of our live events. We got to get you on that stage again.
Jim McCann: (45:56)
Keep that in my backyard.
Anthony Scaramucci: (45:58)
All right. And if you're not nice, man, I'm going to come over to your house and hug you.
Jim McCann: (46:03)
There's a threat.
Anthony Scaramucci: (46:04)
Scare you and Mary Lou. Okay. You be well, sir. Okay. God bless.
Jim McCann: (46:07)
Thank you pal.
Anthony Scaramucci: (46:08)
All right. Bye. Bye.