- 2 days ago
Postal Petals Founder & CEO, Talia R. Boone, enters the floral industry after a groundbreaking career in sports, entertainment and social impact. She brings with her over 15 years of experience in brand strategy, communications, marketing, public relations, promotions, sales and strategic partnerships.
In addition to Postal Petals, she is the Managing Director of INTER:SECT, a tactical solutions agency that serves as a catalyst for pioneering ideas, collaboration and creative opportunities that exist at the intersection of sports & entertainment, business, technology, consciousness, culture and the arts to promote socially and culturally relevant conversations leading to collective action resulting in measurable social impact.
Talia’s passion to help drive efforts to achieve long-standing, systematic social justice spills over into anything she does and that includes Postal Petals, where messages encouraging consumers to register to vote and highlighting the frequent injustices against underrepresented communities can be found throughout the brand’s site and its social media platforms.
A native of a Los Angeles suburb, Talia is a graduate of San Diego State University where she earned a degree in communications with an emphasis in public relations. Talia is an advocate of civic engagement and collective social change as well as a lover of facts, experiences, art, culture and of course flowers.
In addition to Postal Petals, she is the Managing Director of INTER:SECT, a tactical solutions agency that serves as a catalyst for pioneering ideas, collaboration and creative opportunities that exist at the intersection of sports & entertainment, business, technology, consciousness, culture and the arts to promote socially and culturally relevant conversations leading to collective action resulting in measurable social impact.
Talia’s passion to help drive efforts to achieve long-standing, systematic social justice spills over into anything she does and that includes Postal Petals, where messages encouraging consumers to register to vote and highlighting the frequent injustices against underrepresented communities can be found throughout the brand’s site and its social media platforms.
A native of a Los Angeles suburb, Talia is a graduate of San Diego State University where she earned a degree in communications with an emphasis in public relations. Talia is an advocate of civic engagement and collective social change as well as a lover of facts, experiences, art, culture and of course flowers.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Shop Essence Live in partnership with the
00:05New Voices family. I am your host, Noni Donovan, and I am so glad to be back to bring you two
00:12new Black-owned businesses that we review with you every single week. I am very excited about
00:18today. We are getting nearer and nearer to the holidays, as you know, so we're going to continue
00:24to put you on to some really, really amazing products and some really, really amazing services.
00:30So today, we are joined by Talia here. She is the CEO. I'm sorry. That's okay, because Marie can help
00:40me. We are seeing... Marie is our editor, so if y'all ever hear me say, Marie, she's going to be editing
00:48this out. So today, we're joined by Talia Boone. She is the founder and CEO of Postal Petals. So
00:58everybody say hello and welcome Talia. Hello. Hi, Noni. How are you? I am amazing. Thank you so much
01:08for joining us. So Postal Petals, the name is so perfect because I can already imagine what the
01:14service is. But if you could just let the people know what your service is and how you even came
01:20up with this incredible idea. Yeah. So anyway, thank you so much for having me, Noni. I'm really,
01:25really excited to be here. Postal Petals is an immersive floral and wellness company that uses
01:31fresh cut flowers and do-it-yourself flower arranging as a tool for creative expression,
01:37self-care, and therapeutic exercise. And what we do is we partner with domestic flower farms
01:43to ship boxes of fresh cut flowers to our customers all across the country for them to create their own
01:50do-it-yourself flower arrangements. And the way that I came to start the company was really by
01:57happenstance, just that, you know, kind of age-old thing of Black women. When you need something and
02:02it doesn't exist, you're just like, okay, cool. I'll do it. I need it, so I'll make it. So I was
02:08introduced to flower arranging many years ago by a friend, fell in love with it, and without kind of
02:13having the language for it, then it really became kind of my de facto form of self-care. Whenever I
02:18would feel stressed out or anxious from whatever was going on, I would just go down to the LA flower
02:23market, mill around, pick whichever flowers just made me feel good, whatever colors, whatever bloom,
02:28shapes I needed for that time. I would pick them, go home for a cup of tea or a glass of wine,
02:34depending on how bad things were. And then I would just put on like a good playlist and just kind of
02:39let myself get lost in arranging flowers and just really started to embrace the way the energy would
02:46just dissipate as I would, you know, just go on to the, get lost in the creative process of arranging
02:51flowers. So then fast forward to the first month or so of the pandemic where, you know, here in LA,
02:57we went on lockdown pretty early. And after, you know, we started at two weeks and we were now at
03:04week six and it was really becoming clear that this was not going to be just a quick, you know,
03:09a couple of weeks in the, in the house. And this was a lot more out of control than what they, you
03:13know, initially thought. And so I started getting stressed out, just anxious. I think what a lot of
03:18people were feeling around the uncertainty, what does this mean for me, my business, my family,
03:22all of these things. And so my therapist was the one who actually said, you know, Talia, I have not
03:28heard you talk about arranging flowers in several months. Why don't you see if you could get your
03:33hands on some flowers, arrange those and see if that helps you to kind of relieve some of this
03:38energy. And I was like, girl, you are down. Like that's exactly what I need to do. And so the problem
03:44was that because I would typically source from the flower market, everything here was closed
03:49because of the lockdown. And so I thought, okay, I'm sure I can find a company that can ship me
03:55fresh cut flowers that I could arrange at home. You can get everything delivered at that point.
03:59So I'm sure that'll be easy peasy, no problem. And so I started looking and while there were so many
04:05companies that shipped flowers, there were none that shipped fresh cut flowers that I could arrange
04:11on my own. They were all still coming as, you know, ready to use arrangements and that's
04:15not what I wanted. And so in that process, I ended up stumbling upon this wholesale flower
04:20distributor who shipped really large volumes of flowers to his retail clients all around the
04:26world. And I just called him. You have to know me to know I will ask anybody for anything. All you
04:31can do is tell me no. And so I called him, you know, really with the audacity to just see, hey,
04:36can I convince him to reduce his minimums enough to ship me essentially a consumer-sized box of flowers.
04:42And while I called him and he immediately said, no, like not, I didn't even think about it was
04:48right away. Like, no, but he was really gracious in his no and incredibly generous in his explanation
04:53why. And he and I ended up on the phone for almost two and a half hours. And it was during
04:58the conversation that the idea for postal pedals came to me because I realized two things during
05:04that conversation. One, that what I was looking for did not exist in the market. So that was a hole
05:09in the market that me as, you know, my background is branding, marketing, PR, brand strategy,
05:14partnerships. I knew that I could, I could create a brand that could fill that need. And then the
05:20second thing that I recognized was that there was an opportunity to enter the floral industry because
05:25the floral industry was one of those kind of, kind of lost industries in the pandemic where people
05:30pay attention, but was quite decimated by the pandemic, especially in the early days where they
05:37were having to lay people off, flowers were dying in the field. It was really bad. And so I asked him
05:42at the end of that, that phone call, like, Hey, do you think something like this could work? And I
05:46described kind of a rough version of what postal pedals is today. And he thought about it for a
05:51moment. He said, you know, if you would have asked me this four months ago, I would have said, absolutely
05:55not. But today there perhaps there, there is something that can be done in that way. And so that was the
06:01first week of May, 2020. And by the end of July of that same year, we launched postal pedals in beta
06:08with almost 20 partners signed up to ship for us. And we have been off to the races ever since.
06:14And so, you know, our offering has expanded to where it's not just our balloon boxes that we're
06:18shipping. We now do, you know, virtual and in-person floral design workshops. We have a really robust
06:23corporate offerings. We've got a strong B2B strategy where we're also doing workshops, virtual or in-person,
06:30but really, you know, as part of like employee team building, employee appreciation, client
06:35appreciation, but, you know, more importantly, corporate wellness, right? And so we have a really,
06:40a really strong strategy in the health and wellness space where we're really actively working to get our
06:47flowers certified as a therapeutic for, you know, emotional, social and environmental wellness. So
06:55yeah, girl, it has taken off so much more than I would have expected. And we are now just
07:00officially three years old. But it's been a wild ride and one that I am, I'm so grateful
07:05to be on. I would never have thought if you had told me four years ago that I have a flower company,
07:10I'd be like, man, you are bugging. Like that has not even, it was not even in my mind. And now I
07:15honestly can't see me doing anything else. I'm fully upset with this company.
07:19Well, look at you now, Talia, there was so much in there and shop essence live audience. I hope that
07:27you guys are really taking this in because there were so many gems that were dropped within there.
07:32One thing I heard is you don't have to be complete, just completely taken out and discouraged by a no.
07:39She heard a no and it turned into a whole other business, which is so incredible. And just taking a
07:44no as a learning lesson and what you can get from that, I love. The other thing is, I just learned
07:50about coloring books as a way to like, you know, de-stress yourself. But flower arrangements, we at
07:57Shop Essence Live are always looking for new avenues of living the soft life, especially for Black women
08:02that carry the weight of everything. Flower, like I love fresh cut flowers around the house. Every time
08:10you see it, it just like lightens, brightens up your day. So being at the genesis of creating
08:18something, it's just a whole other special layer. So I absolutely love that. And you said you also have
08:24workshops as well, which is great. I'm going to throw up this website. So you guys have to go
08:28and find out more information. So are there any popular, like what are the popular combos? Do you have
08:36many that you can show us today? I see one in the picture there, which is beautiful.
08:42Yeah, so we do. So our products come in three box sizes. We have our beanie box, which is named after my
08:47forever dog Donner, Beanie Baby Boom. And that box comes with six bundles of flowers that you then open,
08:54you know, kind of break apart and then arrange however you'd like. Our third box size is our mini box that has
08:59nine bundles of flowers. And then our biggie box, which is our largest box size, has 12 bundles of flowers.
09:05And so the way that it works is we will really thoughtfully curate recipes, flower recipes. And
09:11so the best way to think about it, it's almost like those kind of those cooking subscription services
09:17where they send you the ingredients and then you get out. So they'll send you the flat. We put the
09:23recipe together and then we send you the ingredients, right? And then you put the floral
09:29arrangement together. And so we, our beanie box size is really our most popular size that we have
09:37because, you know, the beanie box comes with quite a bit of flowers. So you either, if you want that
09:42size, if you have a large home with a lot of arrangements that you need to make, or if you're
09:47looking to kind of create, you know, like small hand ties or small arrangements to hand out as like
09:51holiday gifts, host gifts, teacher gifts for the holiday, that kind of thing. And so when you're seeing
09:57here next to me is this is, we've been testing our December recipes all week. And so this is one of
10:04our most popular recipes that we've had for the last couple of years called Let It Snow. It's just
10:08a few elements of it, but it's all like whites. And so you'll see in here, we have some, we have
10:15some white hydrangea. We have some kind of cream color spray roses and a little bit of seeded eucalyptus
10:21back here. And even larger box size recipe. It also includes Dusty Miller, which is like a really
10:27beautiful kind of a gray leafy, kind of a velvety leafy type of foliage. And we've also got some
10:34Veronica, which is like a nice white, kind of a spiky kind of situation. I'm obsessed with
10:40monochromatic designs. I just think monochromatic as an aesthetic, I think it's really beautiful,
10:44but in flowers is just, it's just magnificent. And my favorite is where we are able to do like
10:52monochromatic recipes that are like all green, like not just green, like leaves, but there are
10:58so many beautiful green flowers that people just overlook and don't think about it. And
11:04those end up being some of our favorites. And so this month we have our Let It Snow, which is our
11:11all white. We have Rudolph the Red Rose Reindeer that has a red cedar. It's got, you know, it's got
11:18some hydrangea as well. So we've got a lot of different mixes in the colors in there, like reds
11:24and greens and whites. And then special for, for this month, I see you've got a little purple in the
11:30background. As we all know, near and dear to our hearts for this month, they're doing a musical remake
11:38of Alice Walker's The Color Purple. Just saw it yesterday. It was amazing.
11:45So we have a recipe for this month called The Color Purple. And it's just all of these really,
11:52oh my God, beautiful purple flowers. And so it's just, it's so many different flowers that you guys,
12:00when you see them, you're like, that came in purple. I didn't even know that comes in purple.
12:03And they're all natural. We typically don't do any dyed flowers. So when you're seeing us with like
12:08really unique colors, we are searching high, like low, like wide and deep to find the colors that we
12:15want and the variations. And so the box that we're super excited about for this month is really that
12:21color purple box, which is our, you know, kind of nod to this just classic, like cultural phenomenon
12:28in our community around this film. And it's our way to acknowledge that we appreciate that it's
12:33being remade, that we, you know, are going to support it. And that, you know, The Color Purple
12:37is, is just, it's, you know, again, like, like Suge said to Celia in that field at the end of the film,
12:43you know, God gets pissed off when you walk by The Color Purple and don't acknowledge it. And so we
12:47have a whole lot for you to walk by for a week or two weeks while it's in your house and just
12:53acknowledge it and kind of getting versed in the moment where we, you know, we're celebrating
12:58the release of a new version of a, of a cultural classic. So, yeah, this is so amazing. And one
13:07thing comes to my mind when you're going through this, it's like, if I had known about postal pedals
13:12for my wedding, because weddings, we're trying to find every little shortcut because it's so expensive.
13:18And I remember going to order like floral arrangements and it was like $300 for one
13:25arrangement on a table. I was like, I took a picture to a florist and I'm like, please just
13:30give me all the flowers that it takes to do this. When I tell you, if you are out there and you are
13:36arranging for your wedding, this is such the perfect, and I had a monochromatic that hydrangeas
13:43and different things for, for all white. This is such a great solution for that. This is like,
13:50send this to your friends. If you get married, baby shower, anything, and you want centerpieces,
13:54this is such a great hack for that. Also, as you said, holidays are coming up. Rudolph the red rose
14:01reindeer, you said. That is so smart. This is one of those things where it's like the thought that
14:06counts is such, it would make such a thoughtful gift for bosses, for teachers, you know, for that
14:12person in your life that you want to give them a little dose of like wellness and beauty at the
14:18same time. I wonder if somebody's ordering it for a gift for someone else. Does it come with
14:25any ideas of how to arrange it? What are people getting when they order?
14:30Yeah. So when they, what they get when they order is the box of flowers, it's a huge box of flowers
14:37that comes in. And then when you open the box, it gives you right inside of the box, some really
14:41quick kind of care tips, like, you know, quickly pull them out of the box, give them a little trim,
14:46put them in water and allow them to rehydrate, right? Because we, our boxes are chipped. They're
14:52not like hand delivered, like you would normally do in a florist. And so by the time they get to you,
14:57they will have been out of water for probably about 24 hours. And so they'll need to rehydrate.
15:02So we give you those instructions. And then there's a QR code that is on our box that will then take you to
15:08a page on our website that will give you further instructions. And I should note that this is not
15:13like a range by numbers, right? Like we really encourage people to link into their own creativity.
15:19This is, it's a, it's a creative exercise and it's also an opportunity for you to get lost in the
15:25process, right? It's this idea of, you know, creativity being a proven form of stress relief and,
15:31you know, proximity to nature is a proven, is proven to kind of boost your wellbeing. And so we really
15:37want to encourage people to just become one with the flower. So our, our design tips are more just
15:43kind of, you know, kind of gentle guides on like, you know, crisscrossing stems and, you know, using
15:50floral tape and that kind of thing. And so as you start to think about how you could gift our offering
15:55for the holiday season, there's a few things that we have. We have a gift subscription offering,
16:01which is a prepaid offering where you could get someone a three month subscription, six month,
16:06nine month or 12 month subscription in any of our three box sizes. And those through the holiday,
16:11they come with a free flower arranging toolkit, which includes an apron, garden shears, floral
16:18tape, everything that you need to get started. Another thing, another kind of gift offering that we have
16:24is our gift kits, which are more of a shelf stable offering. So it comes with everything that's in the
16:30flower arranging toolkit, but it comes with a gift voucher for the recipient to then come on to our
16:36website and select whichever recipe that they want. And it can be delivered whenever they,
16:42they actually want to receive it. So it's one of those things where you could give someone,
16:46they essentially get a gift twice. They get the gift, the actual nicely wrapped gift kit that will
16:51ship to you that you can give to them. And then they get a second delivery once their,
16:55their box, their box itself comes. So, so those are the two kind of main gift offerings that we
17:01have. And you, you're of course, welcome to ship someone just a box of flowers directly, which a lot
17:06of people do, but you know, for us try to encourage people to find ways to let the recipient be a part of
17:14the experience so that they are able to understand that it's more than just flowers, that what you're
17:19really gifting them is, is a peaceful experience through the process of, of arranging it. And if you
17:24could give them something, a prepaid subscription, it's one of those things where when the box shows
17:29up, you don't have the luxury of ignoring it. You, these flowers, otherwise they're going to die.
17:35And you may huff and puff that you got to do it right now. But then once you get into it,
17:38you're so glad that you gave yourself the time to just relieve yourself from the obligation of
17:43intellectualizing those moments. And instead just getting lost in, in the creativity. It's really
17:49a beautiful experience once you have it in its holiday season. So you might as well give somebody a
17:54little bit of peace. So good. I forgot to mention, you do have a promo code for the Shop Essence Live
18:01viewers. Why don't you let them know what that is? Yeah. So if you, when you go onto our website,
18:06if you put in S-E-L as in Shop Essence Live 15, you can get 15% off of your order. And that's our
18:14bloom boxes, our gift subscriptions, and our gift kits. And it's now through December 12th. So if you're
18:22watching this, definitely go onto our website, we are, we very rarely do large discounts. So
18:28make sure that you go and take advantage of it while you can. Again, the code is S-E-L 15 for 15%
18:35off our bloom boxes, our gift kits, or our prepaid gift subscriptions.
18:41Ooh, so good. Okay. I'm so excited to dive in to Postal Pedals right after we're done. Before I let
18:51you go, you are part of the New Voices family, who is a partner here at Shop Essence Live. Can you talk
18:56a little bit about what that experience has been like for you to be a part of that community?
19:00Oh my goodness. Yeah. So it, it started with a pitch competition. And one of the things that I
19:07really, really enjoy, because you know, this is one of those things where this is not just,
19:11you know, a hobby for me. This is a company that I really see growing into something really
19:16significant. And it, you know, I don't know for anyone out there who's ever started a company or
19:21started anything, whenever you are going to speak with someone about what it is that you do,
19:27it's very difficult to be concise, right? Because there's so much you want to say,
19:31because you know, all these details and you feel like you got to share every little detail
19:35in order to help people understand. And so this was a pitch competition that, you know,
19:41we've done pitch competitions before, but for whatever reason, this was, this particular pitch
19:45was one of the ones I was most proud of because it felt like my message was told so concisely,
19:50but also so completely. And so I'm grateful to them for that because they, you know, kind of,
19:56you know, you do practice pitches and they kind of help you with refining a lot of that,
20:00that language and content. And so I now have a pitch that I'm going to be able to take,
20:06you know, as we start to raise, you know, outside funding and, you know, kind of go on to,
20:10you know, need to be able to, you know, kind of pitch in a really concise way. I'll be able to take
20:13that same pitch and kind of repurpose it in other ways. But then also there's, you know, there's
20:18coaching, there's mentorship. You know, I just had a call with, with someone from,
20:22with Marie actually from new voices earlier this week. And it was incredible because I was kind of
20:27sharing with her, the call was really specifically about, you know, the ways in which we are very
20:33intentionally looking to expand and really kind of put a stake in, in the self-care health and
20:40wellness industries. And really, it was just a lovely conversation with her where she was really
20:46proactive. She's the one who asked for the meeting because she just said, Hey, I see a lot of what
20:50you're doing in this. We have a lot of resources that can be helpful to you. Right. And so right
20:56away, she's like, you know, I want to connect you to this person and that person. And, you know,
21:00we have, you know, that, that, that have the essence health innovation, you know, that we do
21:05at Essence Fest, we have the wellness house, they have, you know, kind of named all of these different
21:09assets that kind of exist within that, you know, new voices essence family that, you know, that she
21:14felt like, you know, they could kind of leverage to help us kind of get our message,
21:18our message out. And so it was something that I did not necessarily realize when I was first kind
21:24of engaging with new voices and really kind of understanding how vast their network really is
21:30and how, how the community can be tapped into in such a significant way. Even, you know, the fact
21:37that AARP was a sponsor of that pitch competition and how, you know, I've since followed up with them
21:42and she's going to kind of go back and follow up with them because as we start to really think about
21:46how we can engage in, in the healthcare industry, AARP is, you know, in partnership with United
21:55Healthcare is one of the biggest offerings in the silver community. So I can't say enough about
22:00my experience with new voices thus far. It's only been, you know, a short amount of time, but oh my
22:05goodness, I am very excited for what's to come and, you know, fingers crossed, you guys are going to see
22:11a lot more of postal panels alongside initiatives with new voices in essence as a, as an extension of
22:18that.
22:20Oh, I absolutely don't doubt it. You guys heard her. Go to www.newvoicesfamily.com. Join. It is free 99.
22:30And you're a part of this incredible community mentorship at your fingertips. So if you know
22:35someone or you yourself are a person of color with a business, hit up new voices family. Talia,
22:42you have been amazing. Thank you so much for sharing your story here on Shop Essence Live.
22:47I hope everybody takes advantage. You have until December 12th to take advantage of that promo code
22:52and anything you have in your life. Definitely look to postal pedals because they're getting our
23:00mental together. They're beautiful flowers. So thank you so much for joining.
23:07Absolutely, Nani. Thank you so much for having me. Really do appreciate it.
23:11Absolutely. Thank you, Talia.
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