Welcome to the business of Houston Hospitality, where we visit with and learn from the people behind Houston's vibrant and diverse hospitality industry. Each week we speak with owners and operators of restaurants, hotels, venues, attractions, museums, theaters, and more. Please welcome your host, president of the Houston Hospitality Alliance and founder of Convive Hospitality Consultant, Jonathan Horowitz.

Greetings from Houston. I am your host, Jonathan Horowitz, and welcome to the business of Houston hospitality. Today I will be speaking with Sharonda Scoggins from KC Events and Florals. We're going to talk a little bit about her history and then her business here in Houston. just kind of the current state of the Houston hospitality industry. So welcome Sharonda. Thank you for being here. Thank you, Jonathan. Thank you for having me. Yeah, it's great to hear you. Great to see you. And I hope business is fantastic. So let's kind of get started a little bit on your background. Tell us a little bit about you and your history and how you came to be in the Houston hospitality industry. Okay. I'm Sharonda Scoggins. I am a mother of seven. I've been married now going on 27 years in July. Starting this business, I really didn't think that this was actually going to be a business for me. I would say this business found me. I didn't find it. I used to decorate just for our church, just for, you know, Helping out doing things around the church. And there was a lady at our church that always said when my kids get married, I am going to call you. And I was like, Oh, okay. They're in elementary and middle school. Sure. You're going to call me when they decide to get married. But literally her daughter was graduating from medical school and got engaged. And she literally, she did, she called me. She called me and when she called me two weeks later, after I say, yes, I would do this. Cause at first I was just like, I'll just help. She's like, no, we're going to pay you. We need two weddings, a Nigerian ceremony and American ceremony. And we need you to do everything. I was like, oh, I don't do everything. She's like, yeah, you do. You just don't get paid for it, but we're going to pay you. And I was like, okay. And so two weeks after I say, yes, I found out that I was pregnant and I had been trying for like six months. six years. And found out I was pregnant and literally for planning this wedding, I immediately went on bed rest. So I had to do everything from my bed and go out just on the times that I had doctor's appointments. So if I had a doctor's appointment, I knew I could be out of bed. So I was like, okay, let's schedule everything on this day when I could be out. And unfortunately I spent that whole pregnancy on bed rest and six hours after my daughter was born, I lost her, which was a few weeks before this wedding was supposed to take place. And so I literally, I did the wedding. And when I did the wedding, the catering manager and the venue owner asked me how long had I been doing weddings because they'd never seen a wedding go so smoothly. And I was like, Oh, this is my first wedding. Besides the one that I did yesterday, the Nigerian ceremony that I did yesterday. And so they were like, well, baby, is this, if this was your first wedding and it went this smoothly, you have a future in this industry. And literally even Jonathan, at that point, I still didn't think that I was going to do this as a business. I literally had gone and got a DBA and everything because I was planning it. She was paying me everything and I wanted to make sure I did everything right. I didn't want to mix my funds with their funds. And so I had done that, but not for the purpose that I was actually going to do this as a business. And how long ago was that? What, what year was that? My daughter would have been 19 years old. So 19 years ago. Wow. And actually when I started, when I actually got my DBA and started to do this, that was, it'll be 20 years in September. 20! Fantastic. 20 years in September, but I got referral after referral. And I turned them down literally because I was still kind of going through the grieving process. But one wedding for somebody asked me to do a destination in Dallas, someone that I knew, and I was like, well, I'll do this one. And, but I'm not doing this again. But. After I did it, I was just like, maybe I could actually do this. But yeah, almost 20 years later now, I'm still doing this. So, so the industry truly found you, whether you liked it or not. Have you always been in Houston? I've always been in Houston except for well, while I'm doing this business in Houston, but I've lived outside of Houston. I'm born and raised here, but I was gone for a while. I'm Air Force. Air Force veterans. So I was gone for a little while. Biloxi Anchorage, Alaska. What did you do in the Air Force? Information management systems, which basically means I dealt with computers, I dealt with coding, I dealt with highly classified information for the military. That is quite a background. It doesn't sound like something that would automatically lead you right into events and florals. Not at all, but I can say I'll, I've always had a love for flowers. I had my first job when I was 15 and I would buy myself flowers every paycheck. I would buy flowers for myself. So that's a great way to do things. I love it. I love it. That's fantastic. So now you said seven kids currently, are they also involved in the business? I have my oldest three are gone off to do other things. They grew up in the business, helping with the business. I still have four at home and two of them work here in the business. I have a third one who just kind of helps out. The fourth one kind of sweeps floors and things like that when they're in the office, but they're all currently involved in this business. It's a family owned business. Truly it is. That's fantastic. And so, and so there, there, and you've got your succession plan, right? You know, sometime in the future, it's going to be their business. It will definitely be their business. We're definitely teaching them every aspect of this business so that they can take it on and run with it. That's fantastic. So why don't you tell us a little bit about exactly what you all do, right? So it's KC events and florals. Obviously, you know, we know that the, the florals and the flowers, but, you know, in terms of the types of events, what else, you know, beyond just weddings and things of that nature. Well, we are a daily florist, which means that we do same day delivery. So if somebody works to order flowers by 12 o'clock, we can get them out the same day for funerals, special occasions. You know, just because we do that, but we also do a lot of corporate events. So we do corporate events for like show Exxon we are the in house florist at the Hilton Americas downtown. So we do lobby installations. We do restaurant installations for flowers where they can get them on a weekly, a weekly basis. Another another proud Houston hospitality alliance member at the, down at the, uh, downtown Hilton. That's fantastic. I'm Hilton. And so for us, we do probably more corporate than we do business, but we handle anything from small intimate parties to large scale events from anywhere from 800 to about 2000 people are the average sizes of our corporate events, and we do everything from florals. We are a rental company as well. So everything from linens, draping, lighting event furniture, the whole nine. Man, that sounds like a lot. So how do you, you know, one of the, one of the questions I actually had for you was talking about the difference between what I call social events or personal events, you know, things like the weddings and the birthdays and the anniversaries versus corporate, you know give us a little, give us a little the difference and and what you've experienced over the years and you know how you go about finding those clients and then. Because I would imagine that those two types of events, the social versus the corporate can be very different in all of those aspects. It is very different with social. That's more we find that a lot of our clients find us. Find us on social media Instagram, a lot of times for the social events. And those are a lot of detail usually for those events. A lot of hands on with, with brides and the clients for that. And I come from a planning background. I don't, Planning events anymore. We start planning events about maybe 10 to 12 years ago, but from that aspect, we're doing everything because we're usually the sole vendor besides the caterer and the DJ, but it's very hands on in that aspect when we're doing corporate events, it's a little bit different. A lot of our business comes from word of mouth. On actually on both ends, but a lot of it's word of mouth. One corporation tells another corporation or individual that we've done something for tells a corporation, maybe that they worked for we are certified business through WBA and also through the city. So a lot of things would work in and like, even with the Houston hospitality allowance, we get referrals from there, Houston first, we get referrals from there. So working within the city referrals go from business to business. A lot of times and I'm thankful that we haven't had to do a lot of marketing that word of mouth has actually spoken for. Itself, but doing a corporate event, it's detailed, but different types of details. You're actually usually working with a person or a board for all of their needs. And we're usually a lot of times the sole vendor, because we're bringing in everything from their florals to their lintel, their linens, their rental furniture, and there's a lot of load in, there's a lot of logistics involved. And you may be working with several people. To make sure the logistics are right. And sometimes, you know, other companies are always on the same page. So you have to read between the lines of things. And you need to ask a lot of questions when you're doing corporate events, because if the logistics aren't right, it can derail a whole event because you're having to work with the AV team that may be doing something. And when AV is involved, if there's trusting in those things, and you don't know all the back end details of those events, you could literally be there for To set up for an event and can literally do nothing. Yeah. Yeah. No, I can, I can imagine that there's a, there's a heck of a lot of moving parts in, in all of those things. So yeah, I would imagine, you know, you mentioned a minute ago social media and the impact of social media. So, you know, you've been doing this now almost 20 years. How would you say that? Social media has impacted your business or changed your business or changed how you do things. How much do you rely on it? You know, all of, all of those things that go into sort of that marketing advertising universe for a business like yours. For me, everything is very visual with our company because we come in, we bring the pretty social media has helped us quite a bit because people get to see the pretty of what we actually, you know, do for corporate and for social events and people I tend to see now that are on social media, they are visual. They're very visual in what they actually see. And I, it helps because a lot of times people aren't visual when you are laying out the details for them, you're laying out the details. And it can even be a sketch, but people really like to actually see. What it is that you do, and it gives us the opportunity to show what we can do and showcase our work where before people really relied on just word of mouth and they had to trust us what it is that we were going to do to bring their vision to life on social media. I can actually say, Hey, you can go take a look at this event that we did. And people can actually see details. They can actually see our rental items that we have, even our corporate, I can actually send them there and we have a a page just for like all of our events, but then we just added a rental page so they can see some of the items. They can go to our website and actually pull up our rental inventory. So it's helped a lot for people to visually be able to connect the dots. Sure. Sure. Yeah, I, I, yeah, yeah, I would imagine. And, and obviously, you know, the beauty of, of social media to some extent is that it's immediate, right? It's real time. You know, you can see that, I guess I would imagine on the downside, you know, you have to be on top of everything all the time, making sure things are up to date, keeping things fresh, you know, replenishing all of that information and that, and that data because people want. Accurate information at all times it is and that has you really need a second or third person To be able to handle those details and that's been a small business We haven't I guess more haven't been comfortable with letting another company take on our Social media only for the, the fact because there's so much going on cyber wise body to be on the back end of my website and because in the military, that's a lot of what I did of coding. So I handle my own back end of my website. And so for my social media, I handle a lot of that too. And I know there's companies out there that will take it over. For you and actually post, but I do find too that in order for them to take it over for you, you're still supplying them with so much details, so much information. And at the end of the day, it's like, okay, if I have to supply them with so much of the pictures I've just supplied them with so much information, I might as well just be in there at the time it takes me to send that to you. Doing that myself. And so I do find myself in all of my downtime. I'm in the car. That's the beauty to have social media and phones and technology in the car. If we're taking a road trip, or we're just in the car. My husband's driving. I'm literally working on social media because we no longer do a lot of advertising. We don't do any more print advertising because I feel like people are just not reading. And then the social Sites that gear towards my industry, as far as the wedding side of things, they don't have the presence. On social media or on the web that I need to actually boost us as much as it would be from just our own site. So we don't spend money there. So we spend the time running ads on social media ourselves and putting in the time to upload all the work. My phone has probably 90, 000 pictures and about 70, 000 videos. I always have to have upgraded my iPhone to have the most storage because you take a lot. And so that we can have that content, but it is a challenge to find the time to be able to update that on a regular and an ongoing basis. To be able to do that. It's it's challenging. I can imagine I can imagine it's great that you have all that content, but I I i'm sure it takes a lot of time and energy to to keep it current. Are you are you ever not working? No in the few hours I get to sleep that's probably the only time but my husband probably would beg to differ because my brain still Tends not to shut off because I can literally wake up at the middle of my sleep remembering something that needs to be done and get up and jump up and be right on it or email that I needed to send out or something. I needed to respond to. But as a small business owner, you tend to wear a lot of hats. And even though I've given away some of those hats pre COVID, since COVID hit, I am back wearing a lot of those, those hats. And I literally, when COVID hit, I felt like I was back at square one, at day one of my business. Because it's like, oh, I didn't have to be in the office so much before. Now I'm really having to be here a lot. I'm having to be more hands on than I was. You know, before, but that's the nature of the beast too, of being a business owner. Sure. So, you know, that, that brings up an interesting point. I was going to ask you kind of how things have evolved and grown over the years, you know, for you, let's say, let's say the first 15 years. And then what the impact was obviously of, of the shutdown and the changes. And I'm really curious to know from your perspective how the industry for you has changed post COVID in, with regard to how people are spending money or you know, have, are they doing fewer events or bigger or smaller events you know, things like that. I mean, I want to get kind of Houston specific here because obviously the entire country and the world has gone through a lot of changes and evolution. But, you know, first off that, that, that first 15 years or so, how did you see the Houston hospitality industry growing and changing? And you know, what was it like for you as you continue to grow your own business in that environment? And then after that, we can, we can talk about the impact of COVID and kind of where we are now. Well, I'll tell you that first 15 years, the first 10 probably was the hardest. I think after the first 10, we were in a groove. We were scaling. We had, you know, more people working in the office. So we were scaling at that point. Everything was on an uphill. Houston itself was on an upline just several years ago when the restaurants were booming. In Houston, you had a restaurants going up all over the place. You had more businesses doing a lot more than I tell you pre COVID. I think the year that COVID hit that in that January, we probably had did in January, February, we had done more business in those first two months. That was going to probably be our best year ever with this. What we thought we would doin. In six months. We've done it in the first two months. We were on track for an awesome year that year. And then everything just kind of went downhill from that. It went from that. And during that time, we were, we were in The red for a little while when things went to a shutdown, and then we picked back up only because we are a daily florist. Everybody was sending flowers gift baskets because they couldn't be with their loved ones. And so everything shifted from doing events to more. Focus on the daily part of what we did. But by that time we had already, you know, let employees go and we didn't really know what it was going to be. And my husband was a school teacher. So he's like, well, I can help in the office. So literally I was designing flowers. My husband was delivering flowers and it was like, What if he couldn't deliver? I'd deliver. So it was like a two man team in here doing COVID because we were essential at that time. Floors were essential. We were doing funerals. We were doing so much there that it carried us out of the red into the black. So that's you it sounds like you joined so many other businesses around that time and the key word being pivot, right? Didn't everybody was all about the pivot. They were, and it made me. Step back and look at my business as well, because we had other parts that we did in our business that we didn't really mark it out to other people. Like, at the time I had bought my husband two years prior a vinyl machine cutter, all these things to do his own line of shirts to see where that would go for him. Is that something you want to do? But for me, I literally went in with that equipment. Picked up that equipment and I was doing mass custom for businesses. And we had like our shirts, we were doing our own shirts. And so a lot of companies have been shut down at that point. Other companies were asking us to do custom uniforms for them and doing custom mask and mugs and all this stuff I had equipment for. That I wasn't using for everybody else. It was just something personal to me that I was able to offer. So that was kind of my, I guess you can say my pivot, but it was already a part of my business. It just wasn't something that I was using to make money elsewhere for other people. And it's like, okay, we had to get creative at that point. You know, to do that. And then all of a sudden events open back up, events open back up. And it was like, okay, it was a lot of last minute, but I think when events open up, we probably had some of our biggest years because of the fact that everybody wanted to party, whether that was social, whether that was corporate, everybody wanted to do something. They probably weren't spending as much, but it was a lot of small events. And it was so many, we worked harder. I feel like we worked harder than we ever had. In our business, because it was smaller events, people, we weren't having the big events, but it was a lot of small events. And so we have a lot of small events. There's only spinning this much here, but you're doing a lot of them. So much to the fact that we were literally sleeping in our offices because we had so many events on the books, that by the time we go 12, 1 o'clock a. m. event, unload our trucks. We had to be back here at six o'clock to do it all over again. So there was no sense in making a 40 some minute drive home. We had to stay here. We slept on air mattresses to get up and do it all again for the next events that were, that were happening. And because people wanted to party, we literally one weekend, we had quotes out. And nobody was signing their posts. They were just holding on to them. And I literally woke up one morning and said, Dang, we have, on this day, we have four events. And the next day after that, we have five. And then on that, it was like a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And then on that Sunday, we have four events too. And they were scattered all over Houston and outside of Houston to make it work. And I mean, we did, but I mean, talk about people who are tired and we literally from probably September for these next few years, from September to December, there were no days off taking any days off except for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We literally work Monday through Sunday, several events a day. To make it, to make it happen. And so exhausting. Yeah, I can only imagine. I can only imagine. Have you seen kind of that trend of more smaller events or have we sort of reverted back to the large corporate things that, that you were doing previously? I mean, where, where do you see things going now based on kind of the current trends and, and we're sort of allegedly out of. The COVID years seem, it seems to be that, you know, there's a lot more activity and I know people haven't necessarily gone back into the offices like they were pre COVID in terms of occupancy but are you seeing the bigger corporate events come back or are they, or, or is the industry still being a little bit more cautious about what they're doing and how they're spending and things of that nature? We are seeing larger events come back. What I am seeing is that people are having events. But they're holding on to their money. It seems like to the very last minute of booking last minute. We're still in so much of last minute bookings to the point that people are booking events for 500 800 1000 people. But literally, we are having weeks to have to plan and put this together. We have done an event, a couple events here just recently for 500 and 800 literally had a week. A week. That's incredible. How, how many, how can they even invite or, I mean, you know, get people to show up or, or, or, yeah, yeah. For their decor to last minute, even our partners in the hotels are saying that people are waiting. To the last minute to book even the the venue and if a books anything there as a deposit, they're not giving their money and any details tell like the very last. And that's a, that's a new thing, right? Yeah. That's a new thing. That's crazy. We did an event a few weeks ago for 800 people, and they literally had their tasting at the hotel the week before. And it's like, what kind of crazy is that? And literally for us, the details, the final of the details, we literally had less than a week with all the details to finalize everything that needed to happen. For this to be talking about scramble because we literally, I mean, cause I, and no, and no contracts had been signed and we were literally going back and forth and it's like, I can't even, or I need two weeks usually to order flowers. I need to make sure that. Staffing is in place because sometimes we have more than just your event. We may have an event the day before we may have another event, the day of that book to say, okay, this is all that is going to take place now within a matter of days and the last minute just has not stopped. It was last minute during COVID. And we understood that it was last minute because people didn't know where the things are going to be shut down. Is it going to be open or people got to come or they're not going to come? Sure. That is still the case. It's still last minute. Very interesting. Yeah. So that's definitely a shift in, in the overall industry. I wonder, you know, if you have the, the opportunity to talk to other folks in the industry, you know other vendors, suppliers, et cetera, that, that deal with all these things, are they seeing the same thing? I mean, is this just common everywhere? They're seeing the exact same thing. And for us, cause we are a rental company, we have other. Forest. We have other event people that come to us that want the planners that come to us for their event. And it's like, okay, you just came to me at the last minute for your things. Okay, that's already booked to some somebody else. And there's something else that I can get, but they're calling around scrambling the same way because they're getting it the same way. They're getting it the same way that it is very last minute bookings for them and they are scrambling to make it happen for their client. I had somebody call me and I was just like, I'd love to help you with this event. That is on next Tuesday. And we're talking on Thursday. For all these people, but literally I have two other events already booked, so I can't help you. But let me send you to these companies and see if they can actually help you. And for planners, it's kind of worse because they're taking on the event and then they have to find somebody to pull all these things together and everybody else is scrambling to because they have taken on so many last minute events. And so I have planners that have to go back and tell their client they can't get them what they're asking for. That's interesting. So a couple of other questions, you know, I was going to ask you generally what your feeling is of your biggest challenges right now, but it sounds like that's, that's a pretty big challenge right there in terms of the last minute aspect of things. Are there, is there anything else that stands out to you right now? Again, kind of, we're in this post COVID environment. Other than sort of that last minute change, the way things that are, have evolved into sort of last minute bookings, anything else that jumps out to you or sticks out to you as a significant challenge in your industry? Staffing. Staffing. Yes. It's crazy right now. A few of the companies I know are, some of them are kind of sharing staff. Per se, that if they don't have any event that another company can call them and say, Hey, do you have team members available to be able to do this? You know, for us, because we have an event on this date for our company, because we do all of it. We have actually contracted our stuff out to like other floors and under, you know, Other event companies to come in and do everything, but it's not that we don't have a staffing challenge. Is that because we are family owned the people that are in the office. Now we've gotten so good at being able to do large events and execute quickly. And I have Several contractors that have been with me over the years. Some of them are my old staff that have gone on doing COVID had to find other jobs elsewhere. We'll come back and actually work for me, you know, contract to actually put events together that I can actually call on, but staffing is an issue for everybody. Sure. And so in your business in particular so a couple of different questions along those lines, what was the most, the, the highest number of employees you ever had and. Where are you currently, in terms of comparison to that, in terms of employees, and then how do you balance between sort of full time and then kind of part time or contractors, you know, how much do you utilize sort of temporary workers in that regard? Gotcha. Previous to COVID, I had three assistants in my office working with me. I had an actual organizer to organize us in here. And then I had two warehouse workers on top of our contractors. We would have anywhere from 14 to 15 regular contract worker workers that work with now it is four of us in the office. The office, the warehouse, it's all of us and that's family. We're doing everything in here. And then with my contractors, literally, my contractors are more like six to eight contractors that I can literally call on for an event. And, and that's even hard to find sometimes too, because they are off doing other, Other things. So I actually I've been referring other people to other companies that do that type of work. We're good and handling the events that we have, but I know I have in my back pocket that I can call a staffing service if I have to, or I can call on a couple other companies that have do what I do that may have workers that are willing to come and work. So that is where we are now compared to having somebody always Yeah, it's it sounds, it sounds like you're doing more with less. And I think, I think a lot of folks, a lot of businesses, particularly in the hospitality industry. And I know from talking to a lot of folks in the Houston area restaurants in particular have streamlined their operations. They've, they've tried to be more efficient. And so many folks talk about doing more with less than they ever did. And, You know, on the good side, in theory if you can streamline and, you know, create more efficiencies, then in theory you should be more profitable. I know it doesn't always work that way and it can certainly create additional challenges. But we, we all know that staffing in this industry is has become probably the number one issue for most businesses in hospitality since, you know, the COVID years, for sure. And I don't know, I mean, I think it remains to be seen whether things normalize and get back to pre COVID levels, or this is just kind of the new normal. This may be the new normal. I am hoping there's some aspects that it's not because Since COVID has hit, things changed for us with doing, like, installations in hotels and restaurants. We lost quite a bit of our corporate contracts during that time, and a lot of our clients have not picked up to put flowers back in those places. Even where I am at the Hilton, everything scaled back. It scaled back. I was, I was fortunate enough to be back, and I was blessed enough to be back to do the lobby flowers. But we did flowers all over the hotel that That's not the case anymore. Most corporate people have really scaled back their budgets for what they do in the offices how they, you know, how they, how they spend their money, because even with us doing the larger events that we're having, what we are finding is that even though the large events have come back, people are tending not to spend as much money as they used to spend. For events. That means they may want a smaller centerpiece. They're going to use the house linens at the hotel or the venue instead of bringing in the nice linens. We even have people asking, well, you know, you did this event for us at this year. Can we get those same prices? No way. Heck no, you can't get those prices. Everything's got us that I can't, I can't do it. Or they're opting to where they had flowers on every table that they may be saying, okay, we're just taking whatever the venue or the hotel. Has at this point, or if we do flowers, can we do flowers on every other table or just in these areas, or it has to be something really small. So they're still having the parties. They're just not it. And at the same size, they're just not spending as much money as they spent. Before sure, and so one, one last question about the industry and what you've seen over the years, you know, there's been a lot of talk about this progression towards people wanting more experiential, right, everything needs to be experiential and. More of a show, right? And, and we're seeing that, you know, as restaurants open and it's this vibe dining sort of thing. And, and there's a lot more going on than just the food and the service. And it's all about these experiences. I'm curious from your perspective and in your industry, specifically in hospitality, how have you seen that progression or evolution towards people wanting more experiential things beyond just nice flowers? Right. And I think in our industry, it's always that people have wanted and experienced. When they come to an event, I think what I'm finding now is that a lot of times people want the experience, but by the time they get the quote and see the price tag that just quickly kind of goes out the window because people don't want to really pay for the experience when they're having the large events. And if they do decide that they're going to pay for the experience. It's that one thing that they're going to focus on and then they're cutting everything else. And I think for a lot of people it's becoming underwhelming because you're expanding to get the experience on the one thing, but the overall event is not what people have expected in the past. So much to that, some of the people that are having, you know, gala's because they're raising funds that I think when the whole thing is not the experience, they're losing the crowds of people of the ticket sales. People wanted to buy in to actually go, you might've had that one thing that you thought was the big experience, but when you're losing out on what they're used to, as for what the tables look like, what the decor looks like, people are not willing to want to spend their money because they're thinking, is this what I paid for? Is this what I paid for? So companies are having to rethink the whole thing. How can I get this still look and still try to get the experience? Our 360 booth is has been very popular because it gives an experience without them paying for the experience everywhere else where they really want to have the experience because the funds aren't there. They have to really think about. Budgets and where they're spending the actual money for to give people this type of experience and and you're you're referencing that really cool 360 photo booth thing where you stand there and it spins around you and yeah, it gives you a really cool 360 Photo video etc. Exactly and that and that also I mean, that's Great for social media, right? I mean that that's one of those things That's kind of a social media phenomenon where everybody loves to post those, on their facebook and instagrams afterwards Exactly So, you know, we talked a little bit about your, your marketing and a lot of word of mouth, you know, where you get the business. Obviously you are involved in the Houston Hospitality Alliance, which we love. So, you know give us a quick overview of, of how that's been helpful and why, you know, you have continued to participate and we certainly appreciate your board service and, and all of that great stuff and, and attending all the events, which, which we love. But you know, how, how has that been beneficial to you and the business overall? I think since I've been a part of the Houston Hospitality Alliance, it gives me the opportunity to network with businesses that I wouldn't otherwise get to network with. And so, I think it's very important to be present in the community because with a small business, community is everything. It is. And it gives me the opportunity to build community with doing community service projects in my community. But it gets me to build community with other people in my industry. And where I probably would have never met these individuals had I not been out to network. And I think it's important to be visible and to be seen. And the Houston Hospitality Alliance has allowed me to be able to do that, to get in front of other businesses and actually be able to meet, actually be able to mingle and for people to know what I do as a business versus them never being able to ever hear about my business because word of mouth will take you so far, but it's nothing like networking with others in your community to know what you actually do. Because I find it's a lot of times, even though it says case events and florals, people's like, Oh, y'all do events. Oh, florals. What kind of do you do funeral flowers? It's like we're florists. It's in our name. We do flowers. But when you actually get to be in front of people and give your elevator pitch or what you actually do for people to actually know, because people don't always make the connection. Sure. They don't always see. Okay. Oh, you. Oh, I didn't know you do rentals. Oh, I didn't know this was so much of your business of what you do. So for me to be able to be the face and put a face with other businesses and they get to see my face and they, I get to actually tell them what I actually do has been a big benefit to our business. That networking is so crucial. And the other people in the industry in HHA, who actually introduced you to other people, because now they know what it is that you do when they hear. That somebody else needs something. They, they immediately do the connection that they remember and that they are willing to make the connection because they've met you, they've talked with you. They seen what you do. They heard what you do. It's a big thing for that word of mouth piece to somebody to make the connection with somebody who actually needs what you do. Sure. We love the referrals. That's for sure. And, you know, we know Houston hospitality industry is vast and incredibly diverse, which is awesome. And, you know, we, we love to be able to bring all those different elements together and in one place in one organization. So we certainly appreciate that and that you're a part of it. So in wrapping this up, I will have three specific questions for you that are the easy ones, the easy ones. So number one for you, a favorite travel destination, any place you've been that you would go back to at the drop of a hat. Brazil. Brazil. Brazil's like home to me. Awesome. I will travel there over and over time and time again. So without a doubt, Brazil. I love it. I have never been there, but now you're, you're, you're encouraging me to go. From your perspective, The best reason for anybody to come to Houston to visit. Oh, to come to Houston to visit. Besides the hospitality. Hospitality is awesome. In Houston by far. And I'm not just saying that because I'm a Houstonian. But it is. I think hospitality is excellent. In Houston. But just for the experience of the restaurants, the art district, just the things you get to see, the hotels, and I always shout out to Hilton Americas, it's one of my favorite places. I stay there even when I am staycationing. You're staycation? Yeah, it's my staycation. I think the hospitality industry itself is, No other reason to want to come, but even if it's just for that, if it's just for that to see all that we have to offer for restaurants the venues, the hotels, everything that makes up the hospitality industry here, I think people will be very pleased to be here and stay and come time and time again. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I hear a lot of people say I, I wasn't really. planning to come to Houston or I had to come to Houston for some other reason, you know, it was a convention or business or whatever. And once they got here, they realized how wonderful it is. And, and, you know, I think we're a little underappreciated for museums and theaters and all these other great things. So we certainly want to encourage folks to come. And so last final question, what is. One of the most important things you have learned over the course of your business careers. What, what is the one biggest, bestest piece of advice that you would give to somebody coming up in your industry in Houston on how to, how to survive and how to do it better? The one piece of advice I would have that I always give is have integrity and value people over everything else. Relationships. Relationships are number one key. In our business. If you value relationships and you put the work into relationships, I think that's why our word of mouth comes in from people because we value people. We value relationships. That's awesome. I wholeheartedly agree. I think that is a great piece of advice. Well, Sharonda Scoggins from KC Events and Florals, thank you so very much for your time today. We really do appreciate it and your insights and your background. And we certainly thank you for your military service as well and wish you all the best. So again, Many thanks to the Houston Hospitality Alliance for continuing to connect, educate, promote, and advocate for the entire Houston Hospitality community. We encourage you to go check out HoustonHospitalityAlliance. com. Please join us next time as we continue to explore the people and businesses behind Houston's amazing hospitality industry. my name is Jonathan Horowitz. This has been the business of Houston Hospitality.