The Floral Hustle

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Hello our friends. This is Jen, and we're gonna talk about the five pricing mistakes that Florist makes and how to fix them. I think pricing is one of the biggest things that IP see people struggle with when I get dms or questions in the Mastermind. A lot of it is centered around pricing and. It is kind of a big topic.

It is the main driving force. Why you're doing this, you want to make sure that you're pricing correctly, because if you're not and you're not making any money, you have a very expensive hobby, not a real business. I'd undercharged for so long, like a crazy amount of time. And I kind of had, this wasn't the actual pivotal moment, but this is where things like started to seep in.

I had an experienced florist in the area. Send me the shittiest email. Basically saying that I don't know what I'm doing because I won a bid and she didn't. And if I want a coaching lesson on how to actually price correctly, she's game for it. And I mean, it was like hostile this email and I was like, you know what?

You were just hating. And I am sorry you are for one crabby as fuck to email me. That's her personality. Now I'm friends with her and she is hilarious, but she just was wanting people to be good business owners and at that time I wasn't. So one of the first mistakes that I see people make is they price emotionally instead of mathematically.

You're like, eh, I love this picture. It's so pretty. I'd love to do this. Why don't a thousand dollars. Because you, that's what they said their budget was for this thing, and it's like a $2,500 thing if you actually priced it correctly. So that is a big difference. Making it just based on oh God, I really want this.

Or if you get them to come back after you've done a price quote and they're like, this other florist did it cheaper and I really liked you, so then they're saying, oh, I want you, you're so great. I love your work. You're so fabulous. And so then you're just like, completely drop your pants and drop your price.

You need to make sure that there are formulas for a reason. There is no wedding. I am so love in love with anymore that I do it to not make money. Just doesn't make sense. Why am I going to work for free? Why am I going to be away from my children? Why am I gonna be away from my alpacas? Why am I gonna be away from my husband?

Why am I gonna be away from me for all of that work? Unless I'm gonna make money. So using pricing formulas and really being strategic about, this is my pricing formula that I follow. If you wanna have a base pricing, which I've done episodes on, base pricing and recipes, you can easily price things and go from there.

So if that isn't you, if you're just winging it, if you're like in love or what often happens is. The emotions kick in when you're at the wholesaler and you have this beautiful cart that you have all pre-designed, and then you see the perfect shit to add on and you blow $500 more. You just ate away at your profit margin.

And I know it's super fun too, but not mathematical. So I like to go in and build in a play money budget, 20%. Is allotted two flowers that I can buy out of the cooler or I can buy locally grown. It makes it so much easier to like find beautiful things 'cause I already got a budget for it. I already got a plan to do that exact thing and then I'm not wavering.

But do I do need to make sure that I'm getting something? And if I can't, then I'm doing maybe like a little bit of filler for this or a little, you know, I'm kind of divvying it up. It's not a major component in the recipes. All right. The next thing that I often see floors do, and I did this too, I used to charge $30 to deliver a wedding.

'cause I was like, oh, that's covering my gas to drive there. No way. I now priced on and I, I've had episodes done on this all the time. I do delivery and setup charges for the pain in the ass factor. How difficult is this venue to get to? How like many people am I gonna have, what kind of vehicle am I gonna have to drive there?

All of the resources that I'm going to need, I need to make sure I'm accounting for. People are like they, especially if they do dailies, they're thinking relative to that they charge $15. One of my one-on-one coaching clients was like, I can't believe that you charge that much for a wedding delivery.

Like I deliver all of these flowers for like $50. And I was like, absolutely not. Let's break that down into what that delivery cost you as a business. And it's crazy. Labor is a real thing. And if you are not charging labor to make the items, that is a separate charge. So traditional pricing formulas, three to five times markup on the product, 25 to 40% labor markup, and then your supplies and that markup to get your total.

This is so critical because what if all of a sudden you are not unable to do that wedding and you have to hire a freelancer? If you didn't charge any labor, how are you gonna pay? Pay? That freelancer? Putting it together is a separate charge. Nike will charge you shipping if you order shoes directly from them.

Most companies except Amazon, we're all used to like, you buy the product and then you pay shipping. And you are pricing that labor for making it inside the product. I have also coached several florists recently who are charging a 25% overall labor labor fee. Then they're not charging any labor on the items.

They're, you're selling yourself short and plus, Nike doesn't sell shoes by saying that the product cost of this is $55 and the labor was 40, so that's $95. Please, they most people buy something that this is the item, including the labor. A separate service of setting it up is a separate service. That is a separate labor charge.

Don't sell yourself short. Don't fall in love with that this wedding, and then all of a sudden you've spent five hours delivering this wedding with another person. You've rented a U-Haul and you charged $200 to deliver it, and your U-Haul costs more than that. You deserve to make money. Be the CEO in your business because if you're not, you are going to start to resent your business and.

That is never a good feeling. This should be fun, you guys. We get to play with flowers. I was at a golf course making this beautiful hydrangea arch and I looked at it and I said, how fucking cool is this? How cool is this that I am in the middle of a golf course? This bride is over the moon for this arch that I just made, and I got to drive this beautiful drive down here.

How cool is this that this is my job and it can be the same for you. The other thing is ignoring profit margin. That is mistake number three. I have seen florist also price their charging their wholesale fee for their flowers, which I used to do this in the beginning, and then they charge a labor fee and that's it.

What happens if your wholesale fee changes like recently with tariffs? What happens if all of a sudden all this product was bad, but you didn't do it fast enough, or it went bad two days later, so then you couldn't get credit? What happens then? Like it. You need to make sure you are charging markup because people should not be able to buy wholesale.

I know it sounds really easy, like what does it matter? I'm just selling and then I'm charging what I, my labor to make it. I've had this exact argument with the floors and I'm like, here's the thing, wholesale pricing could change. You are a business. They are not a wholesale relationship client that should be able to buy wholesale.

You are doing a disservice to other florists and you're doing a disservice to yourself. All right. The next mistake, number four is underpricing personal flowers and a la carte. I know it's really easy to just be like, oh, this is so simple. I think it'll be $50. The cheapest bride made bouquet I will do is 85.

That's like, again, my flat rate pricing and based on my base recipes. If you were all of a sudden charging, which I just had this happen, $65 for a bouquet, that can't be a very spectacular bouquet. It's sucky, actually. It's little, it's uneventful, looks tacky in pictures, like you want to make sure that the work that you're putting out there.

Is up to a certain level for the kind of business you want to attract. And if you're putting out $65 bridesmaid bouquets or $85 Bria bouquets, like you are going to hate what you have in your phone. Re you're just not gonna wanna post that shit and then that's a disservice to your business. You should be excited to post things.

So setting a minimum pricing for your a la carte, for your standard recipes, for your base pricing recipes is a big step. And then maybe even creating a menu that you can share that has flat rate pricing on it to make it really easy for one, for you to quote things out. And for two, for you to have that low floor so then you don't get people trying you on.

'cause guess what? Here's my menu and it starts at 85. It starts at 110, whatever. It's all right. Then the next mistake is not updating your pricing regularly. If you do use standard flat rate or base pricing and you haven't updated in the last six months, guess what? Tariffs have happened. Market things have shifted.

You need to make sure you're updating regularly so that you are keeping up with the current market conditions and market changes. And I know when everything feels overwhelming, you're like, I can't fucking handle one more thing, Jen. But you also can't handle making money. Not making money, like you can't consistently keep not making money.

And this is one of those ways that it's gonna happen if you have pricing from a year ago. Somebody agrees to it, you're automatically making less money because you didn't adjust for tariffs, you didn't adjust for pricing increases, you didn't adjust for whatever. I've even had florist that I've seen their proposals and they were charging the wrong tax rate.

If you got audited, that'd be on you. You couldn't go back to your customer and say, I forgot to to get 0.75%. If that's a $10,000 wedding, that's a, that's a chunk of money that's coming outta your pocket. You don't wanna be there. It sucks. You deserve to make money, and I want you to make money. You deserve to pay yourself.

You deserve to be able to have money in your business to invest things to make like really cool VAEs or. Things like that. But if you're not ever making money, you can never grow. You can never have money to invest in coaching. You can never have money to invest in really cool centerpieces. You never have money to go invest in these pillar candles or taper candle holders, which I mean, I rent all the time, but if I had never had money, 'cause I never had profit, I would never have money to get those things unless I did 'em on credit, which is a really bad rabbit hole.

So. Let's change things today by stopping these five pricing mistakes and start making money. 📍 Thank you so much for listening, flower Friend, and you have an amazing flower filled day.