The Floral Hustle

 

Hello, flower friends. This is Jen and you're listening to the Floral Hustle Podcast. On this week's minisode, we are going to be talking about five ways to get more organized. And I always use this time because it is the downtime for our wedding season here in Minnesota. And I use this time to like, think of like, how am I going to make this year better?

How am I going to make this year more profitable? How am I going to make this year more efficient? How am I going to make this season feel better, feel easier? feel just less complicated if the year before felt complicated. And last year did feel a little bit more complicated for me because I had added some things to my plate, but still had commensurately the same amount of business.

Uh, I added, especially over the summer, which is our core time here. Um, I added like my kids being in a bunch of summer camps. I mean, they were in. Both were in soccer camp, both were in um, like my son did t ball camp twice, two different art camps, a pottery camp, um, what else did we do? Like just, it was a lot.

I think it was like 11 different camps for two kids. Then on top of that, I added this podcast, I added Some complexity and size and obviously higher dollar amounts to my weddings. And then I had one on one coaching. I had the podcast to do. Um, and this was my first season navigating that. So like things just felt more complicated.

And so I've spent a lot of time reflecting how am I going to make things easier? How am I going to make things just feel better? Because. I want my business to feel good, and that is not something that many entrepreneurs spend time going, how could I make this feel better? I want my business to feel good.

That is super important to me being in alignment. And so I've been thinking through part of this is organization. I need things to be more organized, to really streamline that process so that things come easier. And a lot of those things could be worked on even now, like, um, I want to implement a process of having a pull sheet for my person who helps pulling inventory and readying things.

And so I could start to do what those items are. I might not have the quantities, but I can lay out what those, those things are going to be. Then we, at the end of the year, I started implementing a late. Tonight teardown or a teardown sheet. So that person who did that teardown because it's often not me Has like this list of everything that is going to be at the teardown that they need to gather and then I can just take that really easily and Print that as part of this wedding and then that is going to go Uh, with that person, or I could email that or text it to the person doing the teardown.

So they have that. So getting organized to me is, is really like, this is the time that I use. And in the new floral CEO mastermind. We're talking about a lot of, like, to set your business up for success, you need to be organized. And that organization to me is a lot of processes. So the first out of the five that I want to talk about is laying out a process.

If you do not have, um, like a, I call it an SLP, a standard operating procedure. If you do not have these, like, this is how we do something in my studio, that makes it really hard to, you know, have everybody that potentially works for you know what's going on. So, Standard operating procedures can be documented.

You could have a book that has those procedures in it. You could have a book, like, this is how we do pin frog arrangements. This is how we do boutonnieres. This is how we do everything. And when you have standard processes, and these processes could be your standard, um, processing of flowers process. Your standard, um, You know, bud vase process.

Like my bud vase process is we make them and pack them at the same time. So we've cleaned the vases, we've filled the vases, then we're designing the vases usually on Wednesdays or Thursdays for a Saturday wedding. They are that same time simultaneously packed into usually. Skinnier boxes. So with the weight of the water, they're not weighing everything down.

So that's like the, our standard procedure. But unless you have that laid out and everybody in the studio understands that it's hard to have processes. That aren't followed because then it kind of is pandemonium in the studio. And so having documented even just thinking through like what's my inquiry process?

What is my process for finalizing a wedding? What is my process for off boarding? A client so that I can hopefully get images and get reviews from that client. So thinking through, like, how do you want everything to feel and, uh, with the processes that you've put in place, like, how do you want a client to feel?

How do you want to feel? How do you want your people in the studio to feel like that is a key way for you to really, um, you know, just have these kind of. Try it in true processes that everybody just feels good because they know that they're doing it correctly. Often freelancers, if they don't feel good about working in your studio, and this is like things that I've heard, it's like everybody's winging it and has no idea what's going on.

So, have a plan. Everybody knows what's going on. Um, another thing, have an electronic calendar. I have all of my weddings entered into my business Gmail account because that comes with G suite of products, which is Google drive, Google sheets, Google docs has your Google calendar, uh, Google tasks, all of those things.

So I put all of my weddings and all of the pertinent information that's on the contract in that. Google, Google calendar, because then if I am at the wholesaler and I need to call my bride, I can easily grab that out of my Google calendar. And so then there's a sub process. I get a wedding. I print it, I give it to the person who helps me manage my calendar and manage a lot of those things, and then she puts an entered in it so we know it's entered.

Then we have a second process of going in and entering it into my freelancer book. So I have a book, and if you are watching this video, you can see it, it's just this It's monthly calendar book and we go in and write that wedding in there because I at a glance can help plan for labor for those weddings in there.

So super fast, super efficient, and that is just our process. But that electronic calendar helps me understand what's going on. If I'm driving around and I get a call from a bride, get a call from a mother, get a call from whoever, I know what's going on. Then. My third thing to be more organized is organizing electronic Folders, like if you have electronic folders together that are separating and are not just a big hot mess.

Like I have folders in Canva that have key images in them. I have folders in my, um, Gmail account in my Google drive that are relevant because I take notes when I do a consultation. And so I have a notes folder that helps me with those notes. And so I can look back when I do my estimate. Then, um, you can have folders for emails.

You can have even folders Put together so that it parses like all of your wholesale or communication into one so that when an email comes in from them It's just automatically put into a folder all sorted for you so then the next thing that I think that every floor should have is an emergency kit and We have a toolbox.

It is not the hotness. It is a Home Depot slash Menards or something Regular old toolbox, but we have curated items in this that no matter what happens, whatever, wherever we are, however far away we are from the studio, if something is forgotten, weird, whatever, we probably have something, if it's from a personal flowers or if it's a hook or if it's some wire or if it's something we probably have it and so that it is ready to go and we can just go in and make, fix, do whatever we got like tube glue in there.

We have, um, safety pins in there. There are regular corsage and boutonniere pins. We have waterproof tape in there. We have corsage tape in there. We have ribbon, we have dowel rods in there. We have, um, 3M hooks in there. We have garbage bags in there. We have a sewing kit in there. And so like everything, and I've actually like given an emergency kit as a gift to one of my, um.

My best friend's Noor and, uh, like I went to the dollar store and got like things like band aids, um, Febreze wrinkle releaser. I put in there, um, just like all the different things that like, if anything happens, like that box is your go to and then you make sure that that box is labeled with your business name, your card, whatever, because then on top of it, you're going to have this, like, if you forget it, somebody will have your phone number.

If you tape your business card to it. Super easy. And then the last thing is getting your money organized by either, for one, if you're not running out of a business checking, that is your first big switch. Two, having some type of accounting system so that you are keeping track of the expenses that you are, are spending, your taxes you're keeping track of.

If you have not read the book, Profit First. by Mike Michalowicz. I would definitely go read that because that is teaching you how to bucket your money into making sure that you're paying yourself and not overspending on things. So having some type of QuickBooks or there's Xero is another um, QuickBooks kind of type accounting system.

Or maybe you have your own like spreadsheet system or you're using your bank's kind of Budgeting system, having some way that you can have a profit and loss statement and understand what the revenue looks like and making sure that you have the money to cover all of your expenses is super critical.

Thank you so much for listening to this mini so today and you have an amazing flower filled week.