The Floral Hustle

 

Hello, flower friend. This is Jen and you're listening to the floral hustle podcast. On this week's episode, I want to talk about the three things that really helped grow my business in 2023, helped grow my business in 2022, and will continue to grow my business in 2024. And it's a lot simpler than most people think.

Have over time let go of so many things in my business that I felt in the long run were holding me back were keeping me small because I was they bogged down in the weeds of working in my business instead of on my business. And when you're in the weeds. You don't have time to think bigger, you don't have time to really dream or put, you know, thought behind, okay, I would really love to do this, but I am drowning in this week's wedding.

I am drowning in quotes, I am drowning in something, and that is holding me back from being able to be strategic in my business. So the number one thing to start off with is I have put people in place so that I am not working in my business all the time. I have Staff members. I am not like one of those designers that says like, I'm going to have to make everything.

So it looks like I designed it. I hire capable people who I show them a photo, or they just understand how I like things in general. And I am not somebody that beats people up if it is not perfect, because if it's. Not done, because you keep coming up with a million barriers to it being done. Done is better than perfect, in my opinion.

And when you have a large wedding, you need to let go. You need to be the one that doesn't care if somebody else is making the bridesmaids bouquets, doesn't care if somebody else makes the bride bouquet, makes the groom's boutonniere, whatever it is, I have let go of having to hold on to those things.

They're just not important anymore because I know that if I am bogged down with doing that, I can't do next level thinking. I am exhausted. And just really held back by all of these things that I should, or people think you should be doing. Hire capable people. Hire people that are thinkers on their own and not people who need you to hold their hand.

I do not have people in my studio that I need to hold their hand because I don't have time for that. I will show them the ropes. I will lay the foundation. But I am not the one that needs to be, okay, I need to walk you through every single thing because that is holding you back. I also have hired people because I feel, personally, I start feeling bad about the job I'm doing, the business I'm owning, the, um, my performance in general, if things are not being done.

So when I make promises to myself, Like I'm making the decision we're going to post three times a week on social media. I'm making the decision. We're going to, you know, do whatever if I'm not making and delivering on those promises. Then I start to feel like I'm failing and I don't like feeling that way, who does?

And so I make sure that I have staff helpers, contractors, whoever that are there to take those things or make those things happen. This past year, I hired someone to do social media, even though I personally enjoy doing social media. It is not a great investment of my time, and when I'm super busy, then I start to feel bad like I'm failing, and I don't like feeling that way, so I am going to put someone in place that is going to help me take care of that.

Then, the second part. I want to make sure that all of these things are done ahead of time. So that it's not slowing us down during wedding time. So anything that can be done ahead of time, I am going to try to have help to do that. So that would be pulling vases, cleaning vases, pulling candles, cleaning the tapers.

Whatever it is, I want to have as much as that done, or I want to have a person that that's their job. So that I'm not worried that we're hunting down the seventh 5x5 cylinder. The 32nd set or, you know, one of the sizes of the taper candles. Like, I have a person and I've had a person in the last several years that that's been their job to help source all the things they help cleaning and organizing.

Usually it's somebody who thrives in, um, task oriented or list oriented, um, Jobs. So I have a person that's just that's their job. So that's something off my plate. And what I see a lot of times with other florists is they feel like they need to have that burden on them. You don't. Hire someone who loves organization just as naturally organized that doesn't mind cleaning taper candle holders because they care about having all of them clean and having them ready and having them packed properly for wedding day.

It is such a amazing thing to not have to worry about those things. And once I took that off my plate and feeling like, well, I got to make sure that we have our seven thing. Well, I can have it delivered if for some reason we don't have it after that person counts. Or I can have that person the week ahead of time.

Look in the future and say, I am going to need these things. And so I am going to get, you know, a case of those ordered, or I'm going to order, I know in three weeks, I need a ton of these, so I'm going to preorder them from the wholesaler, or I even know I'm going to need a ton of cylinder vases and I'm ordering them from Dollar Tree way ahead of time.

So those types of things you can. You know, think out ahead of time and have that person inventory and be like, okay, we have X amount of these right now. So I would probably buy a case. I would rather have extra than not have enough, especially if somebody breaks something or there's a chip or something like that.

I just make sure that I always have more than enough. So having people in place, if you are not good at social media, Don't do it. Find someone who likes to do social media. Have them come over three hours a week, four hours a week. Have them make graphics in Canva, you share your images with them, they schedule them in a scheduling tool.

Give them your phone and have them post in stories. Do whatever you want them to do that makes you feel like you're winning. Then have that person that helps with all of the different, um, facets of pulling inventory, cleaning it, making sure that you have everything that you need. And then cleaning in general and bucket cleaning.

I had until like right after school started and almost every year I've had someone who is dedicated to cleaning buckets. We have a process in the studio when it's dirty, it goes outside and it goes near a stack, near a drain that's in my driveway because I run a home based studio. So we know all of those are dirty.

I text the person and say, Hey, I have a lot of buckets. Can you come over and clean? So I'm offloading that because after she quit, so I have to figure this out for next year, I had to clean buckets a bunch because I didn't have that person in place, and I felt that that pulled the business back. And I want to set up the business to move forward, not be pulled back.

So with that, I need to have that role filled. So for next year, that is a very important role. And normally that is a labor that like a neighbor kid can do or, you know, somebody that's like a stay at home mom and they just want to like get out of the house for like three, four hours a week, five hours, however many buckets you have, they can get a baseline and then just see going forward, show them how to do it, show them how to use DCD, show them how to dry them properly so that you're not stacking what Buckets.

Once you're one and done, show them, then they can just kind of move forward and it's not something that you need to babysit. You need to stop babysitting things. Okay. Number two, investing in relationships. I looked, and if this is not something that you do, you should start to track where are your weddings coming from?

Because I get a lot of referrals, and I've talked about this on a lot of episodes, from wedding planners. I get a lot of referrals from other vendors. Uh, and Of course, like I get a good chunk of business from previous customers because I've been doing this for so long, I get a lot of like in the family.

So my sister is getting married, my, my cousin, my niece, whatever it is, I get a lot of those. And I also get, um, Google. And then I get a ton of. Indian slash cultural weddings from my decorator friend or my decorator friends, I have multiple and I nurture those relationships for one. Some of those people are some of my best friends.

I mean, there, there are so many good. I mean. Nor especially is one of my best friends. Like, we talk to each other, we get each other. Like, we have the same pictures in our minds practically when we're talking to each other. And text each other simultaneously the photo we were thinking of because we're so on the same page.

So I have developed my relationship with her. I just actually got off a bride consult with someone I've been working with for 15 years. She was the planner at my wedding. She refers customers to me and I do the same. I make sure that I am nurturing those relationships by sending people their way and they send people my way.

And with that, that is, you know, I call it being, it's being reciprocal. We're reciprocating. Exchanging, uh, you know, customers and we're, we're giving back to them and saying, you should be doing this. Um, you know, like, I, I want to send customers your way. And I actually, when I am talking to my clients, I ask them, do you have a wedding planner?

Or if they're looking for something else, I'm like, do you have a linen company? Oh, I just, I, I think linens are so important and I was just that linen effects, God, some of the linens they have are just stunningly beautiful. And I've just done an introduction or I've met a client. I can tell that they're really, really type A.

I have a planner that is really type A that I would love to send their way. Uh, if somebody wants to be a little bit more laid back, a little bit more casual, doesn't want to be babysat. My friend Meredith would be great if somebody is looking to get their wedding designed. My friend at Bella Mystique is great.

Like I have people who I know would serve those clients well after I've spent a very minimal amount of time. So I will then in my email will go, Hey, I, why don't I do an introduction, should an email. And so you can connect with them directly. And they're like, Oh, that would be great. Now you're going the extra mile to help them.

You're not only helping them. You're helping you because you're sending a referral that way. And that referral, hopefully is going to be paid forward someday. And normally that's the case, like you get people who are like, Oh, yeah, you sent me that one. Yeah. Yeah. And oh, yeah, I have a client for you. Like that is a way to build a successful business, invest in your relationships, invest in like sending them a text, say, Hey, I was just thinking about how your wedding season is going and wanted to say hi and tell them, tell me you were in their thoughts.

Like I'm just thinking about you. If you get that from a friend, probably it brightens your day a little bit, but from a, I call it a friender. So a vendor friend, a friender. That's even better. Like, hey, I was just thinking about you and I saw this one wedding you did and it was just stunningly beautiful and I just wanted to say, um, I miss seeing you.

That's it. That, I mean, I genuinely have been thinking about that person if I'm going to send them a message, send them a thing on Instagram, interact with their posts on social, show them that you are trying, that you are investing, you're investing your time. I also around the holidays. I send key people gifts, especially gifts that I know, like, I know most of them personally where they fall short on, like, I would love to pamper them a little bit, or I'd love to bring them out to a really nice dinner because maybe quality time is their love language.

Um, whatever it is, I'm, I'm thinking about them. I'm sending them a holiday card. Those things are very simple, but are critical to growing your relationships with other vendors and it's not like this marathon. I need to do all these things and I need to you don't need to do that. You can just go in and casually like 1 or 2 times a day, 2 to 3 times a week.

If that 1 to 2 times a day, just send somebody a little message. I was thinking about you. Send them a card, a thank you card for sending a referral your way. I will get holiday gifts for people who are key people in my life. I will send holiday cards. Those things build relationships that, and it's invaluable.

All right, number three. And this seems like something that is so simple, but it's being consistent. When I have people say, I really love what you're doing. Uh, with the floral hustle or with my, my floral business, they're like, you're so consistent. You show up like nobody I've seen, you're just, you show up regularly.

And that's it. I do that in all facets of my life. If I make a decision, I am keeping that promise to myself. If I'm saying, I'm going to get my ass to CrossFit three to four times this week, I am going to get my ass from hell or high water to CrossFit three or four times this week. You could anything. I build practices in my life to maintain that promise.

So if I want to eat better, or if I want to, I'm going to drink this much water, or I'm going to reach out to three planners this week, like I am setting that in stone and I consistently do it. I consistently work out, I consistently spend time with my children, I consistently show up on social media, I consistently interact on social media in general, like all of those things I do consistently.

If you are like a flash sale there and gone, that is not going to help grow your business. So if you make any move for 2024, choosing to be consistent and making a plan for that consistency or making a promise to you, that is what's going to pay off. Not you. Like all of a sudden in the month of February, I'm gonna reach out to 40 wedding planners and I am going to build this big strategy.

That is not going to be as impactful as you doing it every week and doing three that consistency is what elevates people to think of you differently to think of you more seriously when people disappear. I wonder what is going on. I think something's going on with that person, personally, usually, because they're not showing up.

Even I'll just even last week, last week on Tuesday night, I spent four hours. In the urgent care with my son, he got some stomach thing, and like, he threw up 12 times in one day, and when you're 4 years old, that's tough. Then got a little bit better. Then all of a sudden on Thursday morning, we were crashing again.

We were starting to puke and he was so dehydrated. He looked so not himself. So I was in the emergency room with him. I'm the one that handles all the doctor things in our, our family. So I was there from 9 30 AM and we were leaving at 4 30 and it was exhausting. But I knew like, I've been a little bit stepped back because I've been dealing with a very sick little kiddo and.

I posted on social and just said, you know what, if you're, I have been a little MIA because of this, but I'm hoping we're going to be on the mend. So people are aware I am being vulnerable and sharing my personal life. But because I wasn't showing up how I normally do at 100 percent capacity. I just wanted to put that out there and just share because most people will understand you have a very sick kiddo.

And then they will adjust accordingly. So make sure that you're just trying to just make the promises to yourself stick, whatever they are. But let me talk about like a couple of the promises I make to myself that make it consistent. So I, from a social media perspective, every Monday. Do a, um, meet us Monday type post on both businesses.

So I am not dealing with social for one. I have social for two businesses. I actually, we own another company that sells Amazon products. And so I really have three, but I've completely outsourced that. I don't touch that at all. It's just, I laid out a plan, a strategy, and that's it. So from there on Monday, we post.

Then I want three other posts. On the, um, of course, on the podcast, I want to post about both episodes that week. A quote graphic is normally what we post as well. And on the Green Goddess Floral, I want to post one Indian's Type wedding because that is my niche and then two other weddings. I want to try to use tags for the location or any detail that really jumps out about that wedding so that I'm getting like venue tags in there.

I potentially are getting like if it's something like a newer venue, I want to make sure that I'm capitalizing on that. So like those things are laid out with my social media person. I have routines for answering emails. I have, or promises I've made about answering emails. I go in and I have coaching clients that are on Voxer and getting Voxer support with me, which if you don't know, Voxer is a walkie talkie app and it allows you to press a button just and it actually sounds like a walkie talkie and like say, Hey Jenny, I'm really struggling with this today.

I got this email from a client and they're kind of being an a hole and I don't know what to do about it. Do you have any suggestions? And then I just can box her back and say, yes, I do have a suggestion. Have you asked them this or have you tried this? So I'm clearly laying it out and making all of the expectations in my life easier.

Because I've made like, this is the plan. Having the plan is such a critical component of you being successful in next year. If you do not have a plan, you're always wondering what you're supposed to be doing. You're always Like, just going, am I doing the right things? And then you get to a point of paralyzing yourself because you don't know what you should be doing.

You don't know how often you should be doing and it's better off because I'm feeling kind of stressed out about the whole thing just to not do it. So once you develop that plan and a strategy to implement that plan, that's all you got to worry about. I'm implementing my plan. I am following my plan and I feel confident that my plan is going to get me results.

Because consistency will always get you results. And if you are struggling, going, I have no idea what my plan should be. I have no idea if I'm doing the right things. I don't know if I'm spending Should I be doing daily deliveries? They kind of stress me out. Or, you know, weddings kind of stress me out.

But I want to make that easier because I do like doing them. If you need help with a plan If you haven't heard, I am starting the floral CEO mastermind. There is not a mastermind like this out there in the floral industry right now. And we are as a group, there's going to be florists just like you looking for support.

And every month we are going to have a training topic and we are going to train on something that's going to be impactful to your business, to drive your business forward, to, to grow your revenue. Then we are going to have hot seats. If you have something in your business and you would love everybody's perspective on it, including my own, we, you are going to talk that out.

We are going to work through that problem and we are going to come up with some solutions for you to get over. It could be like a mindset. Block that you're feeling like you are only capable of doing a 3, 000 wedding because the 5, 000 wedding looks scary. It could be like, I don't know how to do this design or I don't know my proposals.

Like I keep getting people saying no. Well, let's look at your proposal and let's go and dissect it. What could be better? To hopefully like start attracting more of our ideal client when we can look at your messaging like I feel like I'm not attracting the right person, let's work on it. So as a group, we are working on it.

You're also we're going to do a co working and slash q amp a so if you have questions that you're working on, like, it's a space for you to dedicate time to consistently. Be the CEO in your business because we spend a lot of time with worker boots on and not our CEO hat. And so this is giving you some time to step back and like, yeah, I want to work on some social media.

Um, you know, Valentine's is coming up and I want to think of that or I want to launch an a la carte flowers program or whatever it is, we will figure out a solution, um, in several different ways. And then you get boxer support. So as a group, you're not only going to be able to post your issues or struggles or things that you would love help with, but you're going to hear everybody else.

That's kind of where you're at. So it is masterminds have been so transformational for me because I, for one, have never been in a florist mastermind because there hasn't been any. So I've had transformation in spaces not even related. I've learned new marketing things. I've learned new mindset tips. I've learned EFT and one of my masterminds, I've learned, um, about Facebook ads.

I've learned so many things that have elevated my thinking, made me expect that I deserve more. It's shown me what's possible. I'm in a mastermind right now that one of the girls is a coach for something very, very niche and is basically telling people it's okay to be sensitive and she's crushing it. So I, like, would have never thought she has niched down so far and she's having these huge months.

And so, like, people need her help. It really showed me, and that's what made me really start pushing the wheel forward, that people need help. Like, you don't have to do this alone. I hated doing this alone. And then I had several business coaches that, like, gave me advice that wasn't in alignment. If you were a mom, like, I am going to help you navigate being a mom, because there's so much mom guilt around Being a mom and working and not being with your kids and, and like that you should just not do that because like you're being selfish by doing that.

If you are just like a studio florist and you're like, I don't know how to do this out of my home. I'm your girl. Plus, if you are not in my Facebook group, I'm going to throw this out because we have free trainings. For the next I just did one today. So for the next three weeks, there's going to be free live trainings that are very similar to the trainings that are going to be in the mastermind, because I just wanted everybody to see what these trainings look like.

And I. I had a little problem with Facebook Live, so they are going to be done going forward in Zoom. Um, I'm going to drop the Zoom link in the Facebook group, so you just go in there, and you get the link, and you can sign on, and then I will record it, and I will put it Um, load it in the group. Facebook live is not your friend.

If you've never used it. It's mildly horrible. It's a serious leg but Um, those free trainings are there if you want to go hop in the group It is the floral hustle facebook group And if you want to check out the mastermind, it's at the floral hustle. com forward slash mastermind and It is something that can transform your business.

And I don't say that lightly. Like I know you will have serious change. And right now there's founding members prices. I spend over a thousand dollars a month. For one of the masterminds in right now. That's how transformative this is. And this is a fraction of that cost for founding members getting in on the start.

And plus I've put together the cutest boxes. A floral CEO swag that will come to your house, um, before the mastermind starts, we're going to have a welcome party. Can you tell I'm excited? Like I'm super excited about this because I just know that this is going to be such a game changer for so many people, which is such a cliche thing to say, but I know it is going to transform your business and I hope to see you there.

So thank you so much flower friend for listening and you have an amazing flower filled week.