The Floral Hustle

  📍 Hello, flower friends. This is Jen and you are listening to the Floral Hustle Podcast. On today's episode, I want to talk about the three key ingredients that really can make a florist successful. I think there is a lot of misconceptions out there of what, for one, success looks like because success is different to everybody.

But for two, that somebody who is Um, really doesn't have the ability to be a good business person, doesn't have the ability to sell, have sales skills, be extroverted. There's all these things around what creatives are. And as a florist, we are creatives. We are people who are using creativity to make beauty with flowers, but we can be so much more than that.

And I had a coaching client. We were actually, I was. One of the things that I do is a situation would come up with them and I do what I call loading your lip. I want to tell you what I would say, because I'm hoping with me sharing what I would say, you get garner words you know, hear key phrases that sink into you and resonate with how you were thinking about the situation so that when you say it, you garner it with confidence.

Like you go into it and you say, I'm sorry, Mr. Customer, I'm that you feel that way, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you could just spit that reply out. And if this is not something you naturally are good at. Practice it with your partner, practice it with your children, practice it with your whoever, I will say, what would you say in this situation?

Because I want to hear somebody else's take and the words that they would say. And this is something as someone who was in sales for over 17 years and still am now, I have a natural aptitude to take even when it's a kind of a crappy situation. And turn it into something that you know, will be delivered a little bit more eloquently that will look at the situation, potentially take something out and spin it to their interest or to garner all the good things for the person that I'm telling so that they can take that information and really absorb the good points instead of starting to think about the negative.

But right when I said, this is what I would say, well, Jenny, you're naturally good at sales. And I have natural sales aptitude, but I have worked on my salesmanship skills. Just like when you go to the gym and work out, all of these different facets of being a business owner are muscles you are flexing.

And I know it seems weird to practice closing a bride, closing a couple, upselling a couple and using sales skills, but these are things that you can learn. You can learn how to ask for money. You can learn how to ask for the sale. So, one thing that I think that you need is the will to learn. That is going to help make you a successful sales, salesperson, business woman, and florist.

Because in floral skills, they are evolving. Five years ago, it was not on everybody's radar to do pin frogs. Now, pinfrogs are kind of everywhere. I had to learn how to do successful pinfrogs. I did not know, and I have been a florist for 25 years, so things evolve and you need to be willing and flexible enough that you don't know everything that you are going to get help, get resources.

I personally, not only in courses, I've taken a bunch of online floral courses on actual floral skills. I have invested on one on one days. With several florists that have completely different styles, but I also have invested in a life coach, a business coach, a several masterminds. I mean, I have done so much work.

I think I've invested close to 50, 000 on this noodle in the last 3 years. I know that when I have invested, my revenue of my business has increased commensurate with that elevation of my mindset. And I have not been afraid to invest because when I started to see that those shifts in my revenue. I, I was like reflecting, going, I've had big shifts in the way I'm thinking.

I've had big shifts around my money mindset. I've had big shifts about what I'm capable of. I've had big shifts and feeling so believed in and pushed into the right direction that I could live my authentic life in a business that I wanted. I didn't have to live in something that wasn't my purpose. It didn't feel good and was hard.

Like, I didn't have to do that because I had people showing me that that was possible. And so you need to have a willing and openness to invest in yourself, invest in, even if you can't financially invest, I consume probably five ish hours on average a week of podcasts. That is free. Listening to this podcast is free.

If you were willing to invest your time into becoming the best version of yourself and not just thinking in this little bubble of, okay, I'm a florist and so I'm just going to listen to florist podcast. I do not just listen to florist podcast. I listened to self development. I listened to business. I listened to e commerce.

I listened to. Just like a myriad of mom, mom ones, even, um, that's how I found Ali who is my business coach. I listened to this wide variety because I can garner certain things. And then my brain is fresh for different content consumption. So I'm not just like, Oh, I'm so done listening to Flora's podcast.

I can then go and listen to an e commerce podcast or I can listen to something else. So there's so many more options out there that you don't need to stay stuck in just this genre, because that is how you're going to grow. Once you're exposed, you're going to grow and that growth is where your business is going to really have this like connection point of growth because your mind's going to start being more open to receiving.

And the next thing, if you are not a natural business person, or you are not a national salesperson, I think. The number two ingredient is finding someone or hiring someone to help support you in your deficits. So if you are not naturally a good at, let's just say accounting, you have an accountant that's going to help you be successful.

If you are not naturally good at Whatever it would be in your business, managing your bank account, ordering flowers, doing corsages, whatever, if you have the help and support to get those items done, you will succeed because you have a team to support you where you're deficient. And it is completely okay to say you're deficient or you can't do something.

Because the time that it would take for you to do that begrudgingly, you could do this other thing that you're fucking amazing at, and that you do twice as fast as somebody else in your studio. So is it a better time for you to get through that task? That was mentally painful was not your favorite thing to do was really just like you felt like your nails were being pulled off their nail beds because it was just not your favorite thing and you hated doing it or you have your neighbor come over or another florist freelancer come over or you pay an accountant to do that because then you're living in your zone of genius and when you live in your zone of genius, you're able to be more profitable to run a business with fulfillment and really love what you are doing instead of I need to expose myself to this painful activity.

Sometimes you have to do it because there aren't any options. You need to get this thing done. You need to do whatever. But if that is not, that is the exception, not the rule. And you operate your business from like, I'm doing things that are fulfilling for me and give back to me. Like you are just going to be in a happier place in your life.

Getting help, getting the resources, outsourcing things that are not in your zone of genius is going to be so helpful. Number three is being creative. I truly feel that The florists that are extremely elevated are very creative people. They are thinking outside of the box. They are designing from their heart.

They're, they are creating things that they crave to create and not just creating things like they are Sam's Club producing bouquets. They are creating art. So I think the third thing of truly being a successful florist is that you want and crave to be creative. You go and create things that you have been craving because it's filling you in your heart.

It's filling you mentally. It's, it's literally charging your battery when you get to do things that are not a dozen roses in a, in a Guardian vase. When I have seen florists that are living in their creative bubble, they are unapologetically being themselves creatively and not subscribing to social I'm supposed to just have this grocery store kind of floral business.

When you have that. I mean, they're the ones that are getting invited in to big projects from planners. They're the ones that are getting to just create these grand visions of this person's special day. And that creativity that they're getting access to is something that I mean, you can just tell like that person's on fire.

They're just like so happy and excited about what they're doing and they're creating because they're living in this. In this, like, just glow of being able to, to create what they want and that they crave. They're an artist getting to be truly an artist. And so when I see that creativity really taking form and somebody really living in their purpose creatively, they

What they produce is just usually is so beautiful and so stunning and so fulfilling and so giving and not only to them, but the team that they're, they're having helped them. Because they're usually when you're truly being a creative badass, like, you've got a team to help you do that. This weekend, I got to do this disco ball installation and I had a team of people helping me do the wedding while I was up in the lift doing this.

And I was. Like it was kind of a tight timeline, which I wasn't a fan of that. I didn't find out about till the day before, but I, I loved, like, I loved it up there, even though it was a little sweaty. Cause I was like, I gotta get this shit done. I like loved being in my zone of genius. And it was so beautiful when I was done.

I was so excited when I got the pictures, I was just, it. It was so fulfilling that I got to, and I got this person to agree to me just decorating their, their disco ball installation with no real parameters, no real direction, no real like concrete inspiration pictures, just me telling them, I'm going to think of something absolutely amazing.

And I'm going to pull in, you know, the disco balls with probably some garland some other things, but it's going to be stunning. So I'm using descriptive words that are telling them that you can trust me. This is going to be beautiful and you are going to be so happy. And so am I. Thank you so much for listening flower friend.

Go be creative, go get the help that you need and go make yourself the best version of yourself because that is what success is going to, to really, that's when it shows up. When all those things align, like you're going to feel so good. So in your purpose. I And so fulfilling your job and you deserve that all of us to 📍 thank you so much for listening flower friend and have an amazing flower filled week.