The Floral Hustle

 Hello? Hello, flower friends! It is Jen from The Floral Hustle, and it is the new year, and I know a lot of people go, new year, new me. And what I think is, like, interesting about that, and I actually talked about it a little bit yesterday on Monday Motivation, is that the new year should just be, like, A transition fiscally into one year to the next.

I personally don't like come up with all of these big badass goals to make things happen in another year because I've been doing those things or if I think about one of those things, I make the decision to start moving forward on it. But I do think that right now is a amazing time To audit a lot of things and then from that data, now that you have a year of that data from that data, you can make newer decisions that potentially could help you tweak or mold practices in your business.

That, um, are going to make a difference in 2024. So I want to talk about goal planning, but I specifically want to talk about like starting your goal planning with auditing different things. And there's a couple of things that I audit the first being like a top level CEO audit. So I want to look at everything I did in my business and especially those that were impactful to revenue.

And I want to say what worked. what sort of worked, and maybe it's fixable, and what didn't work. And when I look at things that like worked in my business this year, um, it really worked well that I had someone helping with my social media. It really worked well that I had a person dedicated to pulling vases, cleaning, organizing, uh, the rental inventory, like, has grown that person, even like the storage unit got, um, organized.

So, like, looking at all of those things, you know. Is there one of those things that maybe, um, from a revenue standpoint, let's say that you at the beginning of the year reached out to 10 different planners and you develop some solid relationships with those planners and that booked you 5 weddings. If.

You, for some reason, did let's just say I went on Zola and I, um, you know, booked like 10 weddings from there, or I booked three weddings from there. Uh, and I had this much revenue from there, like, that is something like, did that work? Well, could it be even better? So now is a great time to just sit back and look at all of those numbers.

Look at all of those, um, you know, like feelings that you had, like. One thing that I think didn't work well is me having dedicated podcasting time and dedicated coaching time during wedding weeks. So, like, how am I going to change that for next year? But I had to check in with myself to even figure out, like, that didn't feel good.

That it was something that, um, definitely could have been, um, improved maybe by creating a second studio space, like, in our basement, uh, because people were here. Or should I maybe get up a little bit earlier to do recordings? Because most of the time, the studio starts at 930. So, looking at all of these things, those are all like kind of subjective.

But I also, in this audit of your business, would go and look at your numbers. Most people do not know what their revenue is until they do their taxes. Most people do not know what their profit margin looks like. And tell their taxes. And then when you're trying to write everything off under the sun, um, you know, and literally convince the government that you don't make any money.

And asking people their average wedding. What's your average wedding right now? How many weddings did you do last year? Really understanding foundationally, like, where did your business come from? Uh, the Floral CEO Mastermind starts tomorrow. And I asked everybody, like, where does your revenue come from?

Um, is it mainly daily deliveries? Is it mainly weddings? Is it mainly, mainly funerals? Uh, and then with that business, where is it coming from? Is it coming from Google? Is it coming from a planner outreach program that you have developed? Is it coming from vendor friends that you've met at events? Is it coming from previous clients?

Are referring people like where is all of that business coming from? And when you've kind of got this like top of the line overview, you can go into this year With more information than you ever had to know if you grew to know if an area in your business grew. Like I like to keep track of my a la carte flowers separately because I that's a completely separate initiative and I love to understand a la carte flowers that were placed on my website.

Versus a la carte, what flowers that I send invoices are, uh, so telling the difference shows me like, okay, potentially last year I had more a la carte orders on my website. So what could I do to change that? What could I do to tweak it? That's what. Going through that process of like what works, what sort of is working because it's sort of working.

I'm getting business off of it, but it could be better and things that aren't working like it did not work. Well, to do. Um, coaching calls in the garage, like, while everybody was working, so I need to create a different plan because that flat out wasn't working, but it is a fundamental part of this. Part of my life part of my business and so it needs to work and a little Check up from the neck up to make it work is what's going to be Um, you know, done and have, have just like a, a clean start to like, I didn't like how that felt.

And so I want it to be different this year. I also, because of the growing season, uh, one thing that worked, didn't work really well is locally grown flowers were kind of a mess this year. And my garden, especially like was about six weeks, seven weeks behind. The year before we had really weird, like really, really hot.

And then at the beginning, it was really, really cold. We had 50 degree weather here. It was like 54 on Christmas here in Minnesota. That is crazy. And so this is something like I can't really control. So it's out of my control what the weather does and what the local flower production is, but it is in my control to have a different game plan in case this happens again.

I usually dedicate 20 percent of my budget. Specifically to locally grown flowers. So how could I change maybe, maybe next year I can only do 10 percent and I have to do some sourcing. Or maybe I need to become more strategic about ordering locally grown that I have more sources. And so I potentially could be driving to more places, but if I had more sources, could I get enough flowers at volume from multiple flower farmers?

So sitting down, getting a notebook out, dedicating time to really dive in, I call it my CEO day. So my CEO day is when I am checking in, and this doesn't need to just happen right now. When we the year is starting this could happen. You could do this quarterly. You could do this every 60 days It doesn't need to be a whole day but it should be enough time that you are diving in to a lot of the details that You just don't have time to normally dive into like, God, this doesn't feel like it's working.

It doesn't. It isn't working. Or I feel like something could be better or different. Like, now is the time for you to take a look from a top level, be the CEO in your business, because a lot of times we're, we're the employee in our business and we're running around and Filling orders and doing all these things that are not impacting our revenue.

And if we want to impact our revenue, we need to have strategic time to understand what's going on in our business. And so if you are attracting, let's just say, 2, 000 customers and your average wedding is 2, 000. But you don't know that maybe when you get a 4, 000 inquiry, you need to focus and concentrate on that even more.

Maybe you need to change the way you're presenting yourself on social media. Maybe you're not doing social media at all. Like that would be something to check in. Oh, I, I didn't have the bandwidth or the energy to even do social media. So how am I going to do that next year and be better? But if you don't take that reflection time, and if you don't take that time to really understand your numbers, and you Don't take the time to understand what's happening this coming year.

I know that, you know, I have a process created with when I get a booking that somebody's like, I'm booking you, and they send me their contract and deposit. I have a system to input them into my Google calendar, into my freelancing book. So I have, I actually brought it out here with me, 'cause after this I'm gonna be working on it a little bit.

So I have this book here. This is my process to keep track of freelancers. So I will go in and I will write on the date that, you know, this date is this wedding. And if I know how big it is, if I, it's like three or five or 10 or 15, like I just write that number next to it. And so this is my, my like way to make sure that all of my weddings are recorded.

So I can look at what labor I need from a freelancing perspective. And then when I'm booking my freelancers, I, I literally just open, Hey, in May I got this wedding, this wedding. Okay. I need, and if you. want, you could even forecast how much labor you need by your item count that you have. And I can go in and estimate how much labor I have.

And so then I can make sure that I'm Freelance, you know, full of freelancers when I need them. The reason why I do that is because freelancers book up early and usually book out their year. And so if you are late to the party and you are, you know, booking them way past everything, like that is not going to be good.

You're going to be scrambling potentially for subpar labor. Maybe they're your backup hitters. But they're not the people that's like your A team, that that wedding is going to be exceptional because you had your A team on that wedding. So, really developing processes is also something that I look at at this time of year.

Because if you don't have processes, you are going to just kind of fall behind. Like, I have a process to input my weddings. If I didn't have a process to input my weddings, I potentially could miss not uploading one when it comes through. And so those processes keep catching all of the finite details to make sure that you're set up for this year's success.

So you've looked at your numbers, you're looking at what's working in your business, what's sort of working in your business, what's not working. Then let's just say one of those things is like, I didn't book enough weddings. At this point, I'd be like, do you understand what your closing rate is? And if you don't Could that be something that you figure out?

Do you have your leads coming in to one source? I personally Hand track everything because I'm not a fan of like having a client log have to log in To get my quote to get all that information in honey book so I just Manually keep track of all the things coming in. It's not so overwhelming that it's not possible.

So it, to me, feels pretty easy. But if it doesn't feel easy to you, and you don't understand, like, what if you're closing 90 percent of the leads that you get in? What if you're closing 30? Having that insight, well, okay, what is happening here that I'm not? Because where most people go is, They found a lower price is, is just, uh, automatically where their head, head went.

And I always like to get, gain feedback from a client and just understand, you know, I totally understand you went in a different direction. I'm always trying to grow as a small business owner. If you wouldn't mind sharing why you chose to go in another direction, it would be really helpful for me to just make sure that I'm.

Providing the best experience possible for my clients and with that. Like, I normally get an answer, maybe 10 percent of the time I don't, but that 10 percent maybe something happened along the way that there was like, maybe weren't personality fit, maybe, um, they had really unrealistic expectations coming into it.

So you never know. So that's why I ask. And I take that feedback and I can record that feedback and understand, okay. This is happening with this person, and it's just not, um, not like a one time incident. I'm, I'm losing on price almost all of these. Or, like, they found a different design or aesthetic that they liked better.

Or somebody had different rental inventory that was appealing to them. You never know unless you ask. So start recording just a plain old spreadsheet. Work so easy, person's name, what their venue is, what their budget was, if it was identified, and where they came from. Then what happened with them? And when you track those things, you're going to start to have insight.

HoneyBook automatically helps you kind of figure those things out. But if you don't have a system like that, you can still figure all of this data out. So going in, looking at, okay, I, this year. I got 75 percent of my leads from wedding planners. So I also, of those 75%, I closed 75 percent of those clients.

And then when I dig even deeper, the clients that I got from whatever wedding planner, like I almost closed 100 percent of those. So maybe I need to try to take that person to lunch. And build a little bit bigger relationship with them so that I can bring that relationship to the next level because it's working but cheap as hell wedding planner A who only sends me like her crappiest clients with really low budgets and I only close maybe half of them because she sent this to everybody under the sun.

Maybe I shouldn't invest more time on her. Maybe investing more time in awesome wedding planner that sends me awesome business. Would be a better use of my time. That's, like, hard decisions, because business from anywhere seems like it's good. But if you're only booking, like, a la carte weddings from this planner, and I actually had this happen.

Um, there's a planner that is this person for me right now. And I know she's doing big, beautiful weddings, and I don't understand why she's not having me quote those out. She sends me lower budgets, which I don't understand why. I was excited to work with her one time because she is a new planner. And I think it was like an 800 wedding that she picked up.

And that was my first experience with her. And so I don't know if her view, and I've actually sent her an email and asked for this. But again, she sent me just two weeks ago a completely, like, not even, there was no common sense in this estimate. I'm still perplexed on how she didn't automatically shut her client down, that this is ridiculous that they have these expectations.

But it was a 2, 500 budget, eight bridesmaids, 20 centerpieces that they wanted 10 tall. An arch backdrop. I'm like, are you smoking crack or what? Like, I just went, I said, going off my Alicart pricing and what the average of these tall centerpieces cost, like the centerpieces alone are above their budget.

Ten of those things even at 250, if I'm doing a very small and, you know, not anything too fancy, like, that would be a minimum of 250. More likely, we're in the 400 mark. For having a nice, impactful tall centerpiece. So I, I was dumbfounded. Like, how did you not figure this out? But it did help me figure out that.

I don't really want to work with her clients, or I don't want the business that she wants to send my way because it isn't my ideal client. But through this reflection time, and especially because of this last inquiry, that helped make the decision that I need to not invest in that relationship anymore because it's not the kind of clients that I want.

Okay, so we've looked at our numbers. We've talked about, like, what's working, what's sort of working, what's not, and you even can, like, just make a piece of paper, two lines here, put what's working, what's not working, or what's sort of working, and then what's not. And then just from your gut feeling, write down in each column what you really feel is happening in your business.

And then from there, okay, how do I get rid of these things that are not working or how do I fix them? And how, these things that are sort of working, could I tweak them to be better or is this sort of just going to be what it is? Then what's working, how could I even go deeper? So we've established that.

The next thing that I think would be a great exercise to do at this time is an expense audit. I have an episode last year, or was the beginning of, um, last year that's all about doing an expense audit. When I take a monthly client on, monthly coaching client, I want to understand their expenses and making an expense report is so helpful to really understand for one, how profitable your business is.

Are you not profitable because you are so heavy in expenses? Are you probably underspending? Because you're not, you're doing the bare minimum. You're literally just trying to like do everything kind of on the lowest level possible. But sometimes by doing that you're doing a disservice to yourself. Like if you are using Canva for your proposals and you don't have Canva Pro.

Like that would be a 13 a month expense that's probably worth it just because of the functionality that you're going to gain. Did you not want to pay for something because you just don't want to pay for anything to take on that debt? Sometimes 13 a month could make a big difference, and if that even booked one client because you did a virtual mock up that you were able to make very clear because you were able to remove the background, which is a Canva Pro feature, to me that would be worth it.

If I booked one client because I can make these magical proposals and create what is going to be at their wedding, um, digitally. And so then they're also not asking me to make a mock up up, which is not my favorite thing to do. So taking that time and really looking at your expenses will help you set better goals, especially if you, many of us, our goals are financial.

When those goals are financial, like, we need to make sure that we are, again, controlling our costs so they're not excessive. I have coached clients that literally they're losing money because they didn't really go into their expenses. In a, I would say in a strategic standpoint, one of the things that I think often happens, um, especially with people who their business is kind of rising is that they go all in on getting a space.

And that space often is not a low price monthly. This is something that usually is substantial 800 to 1, 500 a month, but they feel like I need a space so that I can grow my business. I run a 300, 000 business out of my garage. It is a two and a half by two and a half, I'm actually in here now, garage. You can figure out how to run that type of business out of your home.

This garage, it does have water and it, I actually, it has a furnace. You might hear it right now cause it's kicking in cause it's cold here in Minnesota. I put an AC unit on it. That was like 3, 500 to get that upgraded to cool it here. It is insulated. It's not anything fancy, and I am able to run that size business out of it.

Most people think when they start getting this growth, because I see newer florists do this all the time, we get a little bit of growth, we're jumping into taking on a huge expense in your business. Instead of waiting to that point where things just get a little uncomfortable, things are a little cozy.

Sometimes they're a little cozy in here, but we make it work. So, taking on that expense Is not something that I would tread lightly in, I would make sure that you are maximizing your space, maximizing the volume of business. Maybe you don't need to do 90 weddings if you were doing 35 weddings, um, at a larger scale.

So like, where are your weddings at per, from an average budget standpoint? How big are they? If you just had one bigger wedding, would your space work for you? Would you need less freelancers if you were just making more money on a single wedding? And then you've looked at expenses. Look at all your subscriptions.

Are you utilizing them? Because if you are not utilizing them, let's get some off the chopping block. Because if you are not using something, why keep the expense around that? So we've looked at our, what's working, what's not working. We've done this expense audit. Then I want you to do a time audit. I have, um, a coaching client that we, we like tried to figure out what her effective hourly rate is, and she's convinced she's spending 40 hours a week.

Which is a lot of time when you're just doing daily deliveries and, um, you're working out of your home. And so we figured out with what her pro, like what she sold in gross sales last, the last couple months. And then we divided that by, you know, 160 hours, if we're just saying there's 40 hours and there's 4 weeks.

And her effective labor rate before we deducted. For her having somebody that helps with accounting, for having, um, accounting software, for having a website, for having advertising on several different places. Before that, her effective labor rate was 5, and I was like, holy shit, how are we going to fix this?

Because that busy work, you know, and really like those, all of those running around for small dollar items, like, that made her feel like she had purpose. That made her feel fulfilled because she's working and she's growing her business. Like, business for the sake of having business is not a good idea.

You want to have business that is strategic and growing your revenue. But also meeting what your hourly rate should support. So my hourly rate, I want it to be a hundred to a hundred fifty. And then in some situations, it should be two hundred dollars an hour. But I'm not messing with something for less than that.

And if you're doing a lot of daily deliveries, And you're having to do a lot of running around to buy flowers. I would take a look and see what is this actually looking like for an effective hourly rate for you. Why are you doing that? How are you attracting those? Is there a way that that could be tweaked?

Because maybe this is sort of not working, but it could work if it was tweaked. And especially studio florists that don't have a ton of, um, flowers just sitting around, like, this becomes harder because you have loss of product, you have getting product, you have potentially delivering, having product delivered, uh, then not having, even when the person calls and you have all these flowers and then they're just not the right one, you So understanding that, you know, that part, like what, from a time perspective, what am I spending my time on and does it make sense?

So when I was looking at, um, you know, some different facets of the business, It doesn't make sense for me to do some of those things anymore, because it's probably a better use of my time to do maybe like a strategic big picture item to reach out to a wedding planner that we could potentially book several weddings from this year to send a note or a nice thing to somebody else.

Like, That to me might be a better use of my time, but without a time audit and without really understanding like what your effective labor rate is for yourself and running your business, you could be working for 5 or actually, I mean, she's losing money. She's losing money when we take all of our expenses.

So do you want to be losing money or do you want to have a high hourly effective rate for yourself that you have strategically designed that totally makes sense? On so many different levels, because maybe you like doing this item, maybe it's fulfilling to you because of another reason, whatever it is, like you have optimized that item in your business and really have grown it, not only from a revenue standpoint, but from a fulfillment standpoint, so auditing your time.

Hey, are you really working 10 hours in your business? Are you working 30 hours in your business? Are you working 20? I have a lot of people, they'll say, I am working so hard and they are saying that they're working like 40 hours. Uh, and I'm like, okay, so when do you work on your business? Well, well, my kids are at school other than when I'm doing my chores and things like that.

So about, you know, from here to here. Okay. And how many days a week? Well, on Wednesdays, um, my, one of my kids is home. So I'm not really. And like, when we really drilled down to it, they're spending, they thought they were in their head spending 40 hours, but realistically they were probably spending 15 to 20.

But without that insight, into what is going on, and maybe even doing some time tracking, you're not going to know what you're working on in your business. To me, I really know that I'm working on my business if I am out here in the studio, or if I am sitting with my computer and I am working on estimates, or working on podcasting, or working on, like, usually I go to the same place on the couch.

With all my stuff next to it. And, um, that's a great question, Lexi. Uh, so I know because I'm sitting in there and I can take in my planner. So, if you are especially a paper planner person, you can track your time by going in and just in your planner from 5 to 6. I worked on my, I was working in the garage or from, you know, noon to 3.

And especially if you do time blocking, and time block what you're doing, and not just Fade in and out. So many people fade in and out of working on something because we are an ADD ridden country, and so we're just doing all of these things and not being effective at any of them. So I have concentrated, focused work time, and then that concentrated, focused time is so much easier than segmented time that is broken up over the whole day.

So from noon to three, I am going to go and do, I'm going to do one estimate. I'm going to order my flowers for an upcoming wedding. I am going to do a podcast episode. Like, I'm batching my activities together to make it easier for me to understand what I'm actually working. It's also helping me keep more focused.

And it's also helping me understand, like, am I wasting my time on low revenue items? Uh, so when I'm working with somebody from a one on one coaching standpoint, I not only want to make sure that they're, of course, making money, but I want to make sure that their hourly effective rate Is to their worth or their standards and if you are doing a bunch of like little piddly things that aren't impacting revenue, so I, one of the things that I'm usually we're having a conversation about is, are you spending time on high revenue items or revenue producing items?

Fixing your logo for the 10th time or tweaking it every time you order business cards is not an effect, good, effective use of your time. That is a non revenue generating opportunity. But let's just say reaching out to wedding planners, going and finishing an estimate, doing a revision on an estimate.

sending somebody a contract, um, building your recipes out for a wedding. Those are all revenue producing items. Like I know that my company is going to experience revenue because of them. So we've looked at like just your time, your time in your business, but right now is also a good idea to audit. Your other time.

So how much time are you giving to self care? How much time are you giving to other people's Agendas like people asking you for help people asking you for if you have parents and you take care of them Like how many hours a week are you actually taking care of them? You can color code this in your Google Calendar based on like a category that you feel is relevant.

So one category could be like self care. Another category could be family and kiddos. Another category could be, um, you know, that's your business time blocking. Another category could be your relationship with your, your partner. Then at the end of the year, you can go in. And if you want to hear a really good episode about this, uh, there is Rachel Hollis.

I just, I love her podcast. And every year she does an episode about doing a calendar audit. She makes this like a whole day thing for her to really understand where she's spending her time. And she goes through how she color codes things, how she prioritizes. You know, her own objectives and not the objectives of others.

And so it's super fascinating. She just published, um, this year's like two weeks ago, it's the Rachel Hollis podcast. So if you are a podcaster, please go listen to that because I think it, it was hugely impactful on so many ways. So then you can understand, am I spending my time on things that are worth it?

Should I not be spending my time on X? X? Whatever it is. You can use this time to evaluate. So we, now we've audited all of these things. We've audited our time. We've audited our expenses. We have talked about what's working, what's sort of working, what's not working. Now we need to develop a plan for next year.

And that is an evolving plan. I think, because every month something could change, I could effectively start doubling my bookings, I could start, my bookings could be cut in half, or I could decide to change something, like, and all of a sudden have three more monthly coaching clients, or like, this month, tomorrow, we're starting the new Floral CEO mastermind, so that is a time commitment of, uh, I would say about an hour and a half, if not more a week with having the meeting getting prepared for probably actually 2 hours with getting prepared for it.

Um, getting prepared for that meeting answering all of the boxer support. So, like, that time commitment, I need to reevaluate. My availability for other things based on that, and if I'm not available for other things, like something has to give, I can't just keep adding more to my schedule because I don't have the capacity, and now is the time, okay, if I'm taking on this two hour a week commitment, what has to change, like Am I going to be able to go to CrossFit as much?

Um, I, that's why I'm, I pre wear my CrossFit outfits when I wake up in the morning because then I don't have an excuse. I'm already dressed and ready to go to go to CrossFit. So like I want to prioritize my health and this is one technique. I just wear my workout clothes in the morning to go to CrossFit.

So I'm set up for success. So are you setting up the things that you want to happen in your business for success? Most people will start their goal planning with, I want to make 100, 000, or I want to make 250, 000. I had one person who was at 33, 000 in their business for that year, and they wanted to make 400, 000 in their business.

And that was their goal. And I was like, whoa, like nothing about Going for it, which I am a total go, go for it type person, but I feel better in my goal setting if it feels more achievable, if it feels like that it is doable. And I'm not scared shitless by looking at this goal. I don't deal well with being scared shitless like it just doesn't work for me.

I'd rather be like, yeah, I, if I work hard, I can make that happen. And then if I hit that. I can change it. I can make it bigger if I hit it. And actually, that happened last year, or it is officially now last year, a couple times, which totally was okay. I put together a couple events in my initial, like, I would be happy if number, I doubled that in the end.

And I doubled it because I knew that, like, I admit it, I felt good in where we were at with it, and I felt that this was, I believed in this event so much that stretching it only was helping more people. So I was being of service to people by having this event and helping them grow. But are every aspect in your life, is it serving you?

Because now is your time to check in on that. So is all of a sudden you're, you going from here to. A hundred thousand, is that serving you in your life? Is that possible? If it is not, like, why not? What about that seems scary to you? What about that seems unrealistic to you? What about that doesn't feel good?

Like, do you get a pain in your chest? Do you get a pain in your gut? Do you all of a sudden, like, get really anxious? When you even think about that goal. I like to have mild butterflies when I'm thinking of a goal I do not like to feel anxious I do not like to feel overwhelmed in it because that is just I don't I don't like to feel that way Uh, part of, and if you've listened to especially my Monday motivations, like part of the thing that I say to myself when I start to feel like that is I clap my hands and I say, I don't do overwhelm.

I just don't do it. And so if I do not do overwhelm, what do I do? I make things happen in my business because I'm setting realistic and attainable goals that are a push for me, but aren't going to make me feel like shit. And that is just how I approach all my goals. I want my business to feel good, not only to me, but to my children, to my husband, like to our family, and to the people in the studio.

I have an amazing team of people that support me. And I want them to feel good too, because I want them to come back next year and support me. And if we are running around like a bunch of strung out crack addicts because we are overbooked, we have under the amount of labor that we should have to support this wedding because we overbooked ourself, and everything in the sun is getting screwed up because of, like, even this last week, um, So I think new Christmas to New Year's wedding and I could be just planting this out in the universe The last three times that I've had a wedding on right around New Year's it's gotten Screwed up.

Um, and this last week was no, of course, it was even more important because it's my friend, Noor, who is the Um, cultural decorator that I work with and is over half of my revenue It was her relative getting married that helps in her business So like I've worked with him a whole bunch and I ordered a bunch of stuff on Holix, which is like a Dutch online auction that ships to my wholesaler Antheriums, painted plomosa, that is like a gold dipped.

I mean, all of these cool things, and nobody could find the fucking box. The year before, same thing, flowers got frozen, flowers didn't make the truck, so I think like that week might be cursed. And so next week, that is one of my, next year, that's one of my goals. I don't want to do a wedding that week.

Because three years in a row, that has gotten screwed up. And I, I just don't think the floral world can function that week for some reason. But without checking in on that, or even checking in on like a venue. That venue didn't feel good. I don't like it. Like that planner was a total B word that I, I just, I don't need that energy.

I don't need this bride's energy or I don't need this couple's. I don't need that mom's energy in my life. I am inviting in positive vibes, positive interaction, positive people into my life that, that makes my life feel good. And if you don't have something in your business feeling good. You are the CEO in your business.

You can change it. You don't have to get permission from anybody to change it. If you want to give yourself permission right now, which is a great time to give yourself permission because it's the new year, and you could make new you decisions in your business. So if a planner drives you crazy, even though they give you revenue and your business could be growing because of them, if they are not your favorite person, you can find another favorite person.

Like, there's enough wedding planners out there that you can work with somebody that you really, really like. If they are sending you all low budget, maybe right now is a great time to draft some communication. Hey, just to let you know, going forward, all of my weddings have a minimum of X. My a la carte flowers program might be perfect for some of your clients.

Here is what that entails, just as a reminder. Um, so if you have a client under my minimum, um, I'd be happy to help them from my a la carte flowers. I'm not dealing with customizing a bunch of BS under whatever your budget is. You are entitled to make those decisions and now is a great time as you're really ramping up your bookings for next year to make those big, bold decisions and you can, I mean, make them public if you want, because when you make something public, like you have decided, like last year, uh, at the beginning, right around the beginning of the year, I went on Instagram and said, like, this year I'm going to change my health.

And I am going to start working out. I'm going to start eating better. I'm going to lose weight. I'm going to become healthier, uh, because I was having all of these like racing heart and just, uh, not feeling good. Like something in my body just wasn't feeling good and I didn't like it and I wanted to change it.

And my mom, um, She had a bunch of different various heart issues when she was actually younger than me. So I, I wanted to make sure that, like, I'm taking care of myself because I have two little humans that are very important to me, that depend on me, and I need to support that, and I need to support myself.

To do that and supporting myself to me right now is going to CrossFit three to four times a week, making sure I'm not eating like garbage, making sure that I'm, you know, really maximizing my health. I go to the chiropractor. I'm getting a massage when my, my neck has pain. I've been in multiple car accidents.

My body needs to be supported. But I also think like, what am I doing in my life that really, and this is a great time for you to check in on that. What am I doing in my life that brings me joy? My children, of course, bring me immense joy. And I, I am so lucky that I am their mother. They're lucky that I'm their mother too.

Because I am a great mother, like I invest so much time in being the best mom I could be. We have, um, a parenting, an autism parenting coach that we do sessions with because I feel like sometimes I could handle something different. Uh, I, my son's speech, he had really bad tongue tie when he was born. He's had two surgeries and like his speech isn't great.

I don't hesitate to get my kids help. He had, um, he said his throat was hurting last week. I don't hesitate to go to the doctor. For myself, for my kids, I want to make sure that everybody is taken care of and I'm going the extra mile. To make sure that their life is optimized how I want my life optimized.

And so what are you doing for yourself? Because this is also a really big check in time. If you are not taking care of yourself and you're taking care of others or you were letting a bunch of things run your life that aren't giving to you and filling your cup, you need to fill your cup. You need to figure out how you're going to do that and you need to create the space To do that.

And if you don't create the space to do that, you're going to feel this way next year. And some of those feelings are resentment, um, maybe like because you were like strung out on stress, you weren't filling your own cup back. Maybe your business didn't feel good. I know like when I am really working hard and I am not taking care of myself, like so many aspects of my life seem harder.

Being a mother seems harder. Um, so many of those things could be so much better if I took a little bit of time to fill my cup back up and then I start being resentful of the business because like I'm working so much and I don't have time to fill my cup back. But that time has to be Like made that time has to be, you have to feel like you deserve that time.

And as a mom, especially like a mom, business owner, that is hard to do, or even just as a mom period, because our society conditions us that we need to give to our children before we give to ourselves. And if I am just giving to everybody else, like, there's not anything left to take. I need to fill the cup back up.

So how can you fill your cup back up in this new year? Because if you are a better version of yourself because you've taken that time, you inevitably will be a better mother, will be a better spouse, will be a better human, will be a better person in society because you have reserves left. And, uh, it's, it's really interesting because now that I have, I've had the podcast now for about 13 months and I have coached, um, one on one, uh, a lot of different people by this point.

And a lot of time, of course there's business fundamental issues, like things that you could be doing, things that you could change, um, strategies to put in place. Most often we're like the core issue is, is. Like how they feel here and that could be that they don't feel that they're good enough that someone likely probably made them feel like they weren't good enough when they were growing up.

Somebody made them feel like they were inadequate. Um, somebody made me maybe made them feel like they are not worthy. Receiving all of that. Goodness. And so because this was a constant theme, um, I decided to get certified as a mindset coach. And so I am, I think I'm a little over a third of a way through.

It's a 24 week program. It's an hour and a half a week. So again, like looking at my time commitments between the Mastermind and that I'm gonna have five and a half hours of commitment. No, hour and a half. So about four hours of committed time just on those two aspects. So if I didn't prioritize, like that this was really important to me, a lot of things could make me feel like I am not putting things back in my cup.

So are you filling your cup back up? Right now is the time to really check in on that. And in that time calendar audit that I mentioned, um, that Rachel Hollis, uh, does every year and is teaching people to do, there is a part, like, she color codes self care in her, her calendar. So, like, she can go in and even on a week by week basis and look and say, I don't have very many blue things.

Am I really taking care of myself? I don't think I am. So how can I change that? Because now, like, with data especially, data empowers you to make bigger, bolder decisions. Because a lot of times, if you don't have data, it's just a gut feeling. And gut feelings are not a strategy. Gut feelings are often very intuitive, but I know I feel so much more sound in my decision when I have

So even if you're, you're not tracking like your day to day measurements, even that might make you feel like more accomplished. I know I felt like, God, I'm working so hard on social media and it's just not growing and all these things because I felt like I was working really hard at it. I was putting a lot of time.

If you follow me, you know, I show up is. A lot, I would say, um, and I actually, that's one thing that people say, like, you show up, like, nobody I know on social media, because I know that consistency is going to pay off. And. I just believe in myself so much that this is something that I'm passionate about.

That's something that is really going to grow my, my, um, me as a person. Cause it's like very giving to me to help and coach people, but also just me as a business owner. I know it's, that's going to be a whole. Separate aspect of my business to grow and if I didn't come to terms like that, this is important to me and like, this is giving to me and I felt like it was taking everything, but then I didn't have any data like, okay, how many followers, how many likes, all those things without any data to support, I would have no idea if this was working or not.

If you are investing in like, SEO. For your business, but you have no idea if it's working, are you going to want to keep writing that check? So time investment is still an investment. So making sure you are Maximizing your time so that you're doing revenue producing activities that really support you and the business owner you want to be, but then also taking that time to really give back to yourself and make sure that you're in alignment.

You're feeling like your cup is full. I can, I can tell automatically when I feel like my cup is empty. When I feel like somebody has taken three straws, and they've siphoned out all of my diet Mountain Dew out of my cup. And. I'm usually, I'm not talking as much as I do. I'm not like being verbal because I'm, I'm processing everything internally that I don't want to feel this way.

And how am I going to change how this feels? And I'm doing it usually in the moment. Like I don't like how this feels right now. Like I am going to have to change it. I'm going to have to change it quick because I don't do overwhelm. I don't do feeling like shit. And then I just need to figure out, like, how am I going to make myself not feel this way?

And if this is you, and you have felt like, I don't know what to do when I'm feeling this way, most people will crawl under their covers, and then they're just peeking out. And they don't really take action, they just really rested. So they really didn't fix the fundamental problem of why you feel like shit.

Okay, I feel like shit because Uh, and I've done this too. I had, over the years, I've had a couple people who have helped me, uh, that were an integral part of the studio. One of them helped me for seven years. And right around COVID, Like, I was dreading, this was right before COVID happened, I was dreading having them come back this year because of their negative energy.

The flowers were always bad. The flowers were always just, we didn't have enough. There was just this complete scarcity mindset every time. And the person was older, probably should be retired. But I have this thing about, like, wanting to help people, wanting to help give people purpose because I feel that that is impactful to me in a different way.

Uh, but, like, it took so much energy because I had let it build up for so long that this is not working for me to protect my mental health and to not feel like my cup is drained. faster. I need to get rid of this. And so I did. You can make those big bold decisions. You can do so much more with data. So I hope this year You strategize, how can I be a more informed business owner?

How can I feel better in my business? How can I run my business from a stance of alignment? How can I be the human being, the mother, the partner, whatever it is that I really want to be? Because all of those things are possible. All of those things are more doable than we think. And as long as we go into our goal planning, with those three big picture things in mind, and making sure that when you are doing things, they're feeling good, they're feeling in alignment, and you have happiness.

Like having happiness in your business will start to attract good things to your business. If you are running around and your business feels like shit, feels stressful, you're running around with a chicken with their head cut off, like that's the energy you're going to keep attracting. You don't want that energy.

You want the energy that's going to bring you money. That's going to bring you calm That's going to bring you peace. That's going to bring you impactful Results and that's sometimes easier said than done but like without starting you're just going to continue with whatever happened last year and You deserve to have the business that you want This year, can't change what happened last year.

We can reflect and grow from what happened last year, but we can make impactful change and really just go, okay, how am I going to make this better? Thank you so much for listening, flower friend. I hope you had amazing New Year's. I hope this year is everything that you wanted it to be. And in a month from now, if, if things are still not in alignment, we'll be opening the Floral CEO Mastermind again, and maybe Taking a leap and doing something different and taking bold action is what your next step should be.

Changing something to start getting the results, like you have to start somewhere. Thank you so much for listening, flower friend. You have an amazing, flower friend.