The Floral Hustle

Hello flower friends. This is Jen, and this week we're gonna talk about something exciting and that is revenue. In coaching florists from like all over. And then really working closely with my floral CEO Mastermind girls. I have had a certain way that I've done things for a long time and it's interesting to hear of perspectives in different markets and really what's working for other people in different markets.
And I know like here in the Minneapolis market, we're a little bit behind. And so we get a trend, like a couple years after another major market, sometimes six months, sometimes a year, and [00:02:00] with coaching floors from some of the bigger markets. I see, you know, these people bringing these things into motion that are new concepts and some of these aren't like.
Completely new concepts that I wanna talk about, but I wanna talk about like just opening your mind to what else is out there. I am not a fan of doing a million things 'cause I don't think doing a million things that you can be successful doing that. But I think if you really dig deep into a couple core offerings.
Your business can be more successful. That's where like the content pillars, it says not to have more than five content pillars in every strategy I have ever listened to. So having these core offerings can help drive more business. Alright, so the first thing, I have a couple rural Minnesota, rural ish Minnesota floors and they crush it [00:03:00] in funerals.
And they were actually in the floral CEO Mastermind. We have a mini group that's dedicated just to, The retail shop owners in the group, and we have more retail shop owners than we've ever had. So it's really fun and getting to learn about all of these different things. And one of them has this like really extensive inventory of, funeral ish or sympathy inspired gifts, and she does really well.
With having things like wind chimes and all these other like kind of sympathy related products that she can either, build in to a floral arrangement and then it's something special that they can keep afterwards or. You can offer custom things. Obviously custom things come with premium prices and I have a funeral coming up that's on, I think it's on June 5th and [00:04:00] I have five different items that have been ordered, but one of them, it was really special for the grandkids to go to, Starbucks with.
Grandpa, and so they want a arrangement in either a Starbucks cup. Or potentially one of those to-go cups that I said I could put like a Starbucks cup in there and then I could put a floral arrangement in the other and it would have a little handle. 'cause it was two little girls that were grandchildren.
I've also done funeral arrangements that I did, a wreath that I got. 30 fishing lures from Walmart. So they were inexpensive fishing lures. And I attached those throughout the funeral wreath. And then afterwards each grandkid kept one. I've also done a custom floral piece that was a toolbox and then it had garden tools in it.
And those garden tools. Each [00:05:00] one of the children, there was five children, kept one of the garden tools afterwards. 'cause the father was a big gardener and also he was really big into woodworking and all these other things. So I kind of made it really fun and interesting. So doing custom floral, everybody thinks of like floral for funerals as being really lame and really uninspiring.
You don't need to do that. You can make it as fun as you want and as customized as you want, and that is just what you offer as a service. You do not need to do the lame funeral arrangements that are uninspiring to you, that does not need to be in your repertoire. So just wanted to throw that out there.
Custom funeral arrangements. All right, the next proposals. I'm not talking about all the work we do with floral proposals for weddings. I'm talking about people are hiring, couples are hiring the guy, the girl, whoever is proposing is hiring wedding planners to go in and help plan their [00:06:00] proposal. These are Elaborate.
I have had six of them in the last five months and they have ranged anywhere from $400. That was picked up, up to $2,500 and that was picked up. They can be so flower petals, they can be something fun like earn arrangements that are like this backdrop. I have had my soak flowers.
Multiple times being rented out for this. So it is such a interesting market and if nobody in your market is doing it, you could come up with a custom proposal package with some type of silk flower arrangement and then floating candles. 'cause we probably all have floating candles and you know, things like that that could really make that.
whole experience. Easy for either a wedding planner or [00:07:00] somebody individually to hire you and very low amount of effort on your behalf. Alright, silk flowers. You know, I have talked about this numerous times. Silk flowers are. I think a business game changer. I know that I launched and started and last year alone I had, um, I think it ended up to be $9,700 in Silk Floral Rentals, which paid for my so flower rentals and of course had a bigger return, and that was out without me formally launching my rental business with a website or anything.
This is something that I think, especially with the rising cost of flowers, is going to be a very viable business. I took the Blue Blossom Academy, which I will link the episode that I did with Jacqueline From Blue Blossom in there. [00:08:00] It was. Such a great episode, but the course walks you through all of the sourcing, all of how to make it.
This is the masterclass that is basically like you are launching a floral arch rental business. It is very comprehensive. It talks about setting up your website. It talks about doing all the things. So if this is something that seems interesting, send me a DM on Instagram or send me an email at jenny@thefloralhustle.com and I'd love to share some information.
If you sign up using my Code Hustle, you get her free installations class. That class alone. Is such a great deal. I took the courses, well it teach you how, it teaches you how to commercially install floral installations for businesses, which I think is a pretty valuable tool. I learned some different mechanics in [00:09:00] there that I think could be helpful for any fresh or silk.
Alright, adding dailies as a designer's choice. We get so in the weeds of making and delivering something that looks so spot on to what somebody is looking for from an inspiration. But most people who are ordering dailies have no clue, nor do they really care other than they want pretty flowers. So if you just want pretty flowers, a designer's choice offering could be whatever you have, whatever you're growing, whatever you have on hand, Some type of easy vase, easy peasy, ready to go, and you have a product that you can spit out and it's less stress because the person has no idea of what it's going to look You can use generic pictures and document when you are doing them so that you have examples. Here's an $85 designer's [00:10:00] choice.
Here's $125 designer's choice. Really easy, less stress than having a million catalog items and a way for you to add dailies if that is something that you want to do with less stress. right. The next one I wanna talk about is so fascinating to me because I just didn't know that this was such a big market.
And it's porch pots. Porch pots are custom. You know, like not the ones that you go and buy at the grocery store. These are maybe bigger pots that you go normally on site and design in those porch pots. So you go in and you decorate, uh, you get in the winter spruce tops in the summer, maybe you're putting pansies and or the beginning of the spring pansies and pussy willow and bulbs or whatever you wanna put in there.[00:11:00]
And then in the summer you're doing their summer planters. Often it is a like two week grand slam of. Pumping through, however many that you have. Most of the people that I have coached that do porch pots, they go in by word of mouth normally to get the majority of their business. And often they will be, they'll save things like birch logs or they'll save things like silk flowers that they use so that they can be reused, and that is part of their kind of pricing equation.
They will, get to be creative and do fun things from person to person. So it's not like this boring cookie cutter experience, which is fun creatively, and it's a whole new revenue source. That people in your block, people in your area, your neighborhood, your current clients, your businesses potentially that you service might already be doing.
So, it's an opportunity for you to [00:12:00] grab a influx of revenue in a short amount of time and then moving on to the next thing. So that is something that if you, especially if you like gardening or you like doing outdoor things, I would definitely consider. All right. My last and I have done podcast episodes on this.
I've done a whole bunch of things on this, but my last thing is a la carte flowers. have been doing, I actually was going through my photos and I found my old photos. I have been doing a la carte flowers for quite a long time. I think it was before Covid, so I think like seven years on average.
I've had years that I've done $25,000 of revenue. I've had years that I've done $45,000 of revenue. I don't market it heavily. It's more of a tool that if a lead comes in, I'm able to handle that lead with. a $2,000 [00:13:00] budget that's under my minimum and not in a way that I'm turning them away.
So it's a way to be able to serve more people universally, especially referrals, wedding planners. And it is a way for you to creatively have fun because you're picking these core color palettes. It's something to talk about on social media that's different. Not a lot of florists are doing it. and it is a way.
To get a weekend that potentially you have a bigger weekend, you're already gonna have flowers and so you can just add onto your order. You have time period minimums and things like that for booking because you just need time to be able to order things and from there you can just go
Have it picked up. Potentially you could, you know, just have it be a delivery basis, but you can have this really streamlined process that you're not meeting with people. So you're not going and doing a million consultations with somebody who's gonna spend $700. [00:14:00] I do not meet with people who spend $700.
That is not a good investment of my time, but I will meet with somebody who has got a. Maybe a $2,000 a la carte order, and I'll meet with them for 15 minutes. So I have a Calendly invite that is a 15 minute chat. I also will take a deposit if they don't know all of the items that they need so that I lock them down and they quit looking.
I can easily just offer them to do a contract and deposit just like I do on a normal wedding. With keeping in mind that they are going to spend around what they had asked me for initially. So, okay. In looking at the preliminary estimate, it looks like that's gonna be around $2,000. Does that sound okay?
Get a nod. Yep. Get the verbal. Okay. I would be okay with taking a deposit and doing a [00:15:00] contract. Keeping in mind you're going to spend around $2,000 because I would rather know and be able to book out that labor than all of a sudden be blindsided. Like, shit, we gotta figure all this out. 'cause that sucks.
All right. Those are some ideas you might absolutely love just doing wedding flowers. Um, you might just love doing dailies. I don't know many people who just love doing dailies all the time. You might just love doing funerals. Like whatever your jam is, you should master that. Master your core revenue, you know, source before you move on.
But if you have the ability to make another $30,000 from something, I don't think that sucks, and I would entertain it. But add that one thing. Make it as best as you can, go all in on it. Then [00:16:00] from there, after you have the processes down, after you know what this looks like, after you know what it looks like to execute it, then move on.
I know so many people who do this like shiny object, like, I'm gonna eat snacks and I'm gonna do that next. It's like, stop master. Your core product, then add on. And especially when somebody's not making revenue, it is so easy to say, this isn't working, I'm gonna try something new. And that just long term is going to be tricky.
So think about it, have I really mastered my core revenue? I have mastered my core revenue service, and then I went and added a la carte, then I wanted added silk. Then I went and added like as a very easy add proposals. 'cause a lot of the times they're using my soaks. Can you add something that's synergistic, like a la carte flowers and weddings totally [00:17:00] synergistic and you probably don't need to.
A hundred percent have full service mastered to add a la carte. So thank you so much for listening, flower friends, and you have an amazing flower filled day.