The Floral Hustle

  📍 Hello, flower friends. This is Jen and you are listening to the floral hustle podcast. And for the remainder of September, we are mixing things up and I am going to be replaying some of our most impactful business focused business growth oriented podcast, because recently it has just been breaking my heart to hear so many florists saying they are not making any money, they're not paying themselves.

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 On this week's episode, we're going to talk about sales in proposals. So really having a proposal that sells you, your company, your designs, your execution, everything to that client. I do visually curated proposals. I have seen lots of proposals in my day.

I've done lots of different types of proposals in my day, and I have seen when I do visually driven so that when somebody opens this proposal, they feel their wedding. They can see the soft fluffiness of the blooms. They can see the bold colors, they can see the softness or the muted like they're feeling, what their wedding is.

And to a lot of people, they're like, holy shit, I can't do that because that's gonna take a bunch of time and I'm gonna spend more time and I'm already spending time on their, you know, meeting with them for the consultation while already doing all these things. This does not have to be that hard. You can simplify this process immensely.

And have more success with your weddings. I had a coaching client that literally was like, I'm getting ghosted. And uh, I said, why don't you send me your proposals? Why don't you send me what you're sending the client? And a lot of the proposal softwares no harm in their own because they wanna report to you that somebody looked at your proposal.

It goes to a link. That goes to, you know, a visual webpage of your proposal. I personally, I don't know if it's my age or if it's how I work, but when I got married, which I've been married now for five years, I think this August, I printed every proposal from my vendor. So that proposal coming to you in a U R L is not very printable.

It is a kind of a brief summary of everything in your wedding, and it's not building value. I, I have, I've had a lot of discussions with my husband about the word value. I want to be a good value. He thinks value means cheap to me, value means like they're getting more service, they're getting more, um, you know, like, uh, better responses.

They're, they're just getting more from me. Not from a flower perspective necessarily, but from like my design proposal is going to sell them more my, uh, bloom choice board that's showing them which blooms. They're just gonna have a better understanding of what their wedding is going to be. Because I've met with people that have gone and met with numerous floors before and they have no idea really what is going on because the proposals did not sell to them.

The ideas of the designs that they were trying to get across. When somebody sees a price tag of $1,200 for something and has no clue what the hell it's going to look like, why would they sign up for that? I would want to know. I'm actually going through a process right now. I, um, I convinced my husband that for my birthday, I want a motorcycle again, which is a like really kind of, I'm super excited about it.

Um, I went to two dealerships and one dealership would not let me put a deposit down and pick it up. When my parts were installed on the motorcycle, they would not give me a copy of the buyer's order so I could see all of the different fees being broken down. Like the transparency was not there. This other dealership sent me the buyer's order so I could look at everything.

Uh, Let me do a deposit over the computer, like it was just a link for me to do a deposit for the motorcycle, and then sent me pricing on all the different accessories with photos, uh, via text message. So like they met me where I'm at, and totally understood how I wanted to do business and how to sell To me.

I want easy, I wanted to pay the same. Potentially, most likely, hopefully, uh, is how I propose. I said, will you match the other dealership's price? Because they, they told me, but they would not visually give me anything, which to me seems just so archaic. And I'm going to leave them a strongly worded Google review because that is not how most people want to do business.

Most people want transparency in their process. They wanna understand what they're getting. And when you don't include pictures to back up a $1,200 charge, how are they going to understand what they're buying? So I will have a $1,200 arch, and I'll have photos to represent that. I also, if I am trying to stretch their budget, I will have levels.

So I'm selling to them in levels. So level one is likely going to get us to their budget, but if they want their Pinterest worthy photo inspiration of this item, that's this budget. And so they can self-identify where they want to be. I'm not telling them that you have to spend $2,500 on this item. I'm giving them the choice.

If you wanna fit in your budget, what we need, option A. Option A will get us. It's not what you wanted exactly, but we're accomplishing the arch within your budget. But if you want to, you can do option B or option C. I usually will pick one or two larger items and I will give them those levels so that they can give themself the opportunity to bump.

It's not me bumping. They can bump if they want. I don't care. I don't, I'm not invested in that to a point of I am going to be devastated if they don't choose option C. If they choose option A, I'm still serving them. I'm meeting them where they're at, and I'm still accomplishing that item for them in their budget or in their bud bumped budget, then I am.

If I am doing levels, one thing that I do not do is give them a total, because I can't give them a total without giving them. Know, like every single item and them picking their choice of that item. If I have a couple, and I just met with a couple like this last week, that you know, they really don't have any preference of what their centerpieces is.

They just want something nice. They would love to have three options, so I sent them five options and told them to pick which three they liked. Then I can go in and give you a total. So I write T B D T B D T B D, and all the different areas. And this whole process, like last night when I sent that proposal, it took 45 minutes.

I have, because I have a streamlined rental inventory and I have most of my rental items loaded and in a folder in Canva already. I use Canva to create all my proposals. I am able to just go in and pull a whole page. That I've already figured out pricing on those items. Let's just say like my modern bud bases, my modern rib votives and my modern taper candle holders as a set, I've already got that pricing figured out, and I know that it was at X wedding, so I'm just gonna go grab that whole page copy and paste it into this proposal.

And so I'm streamlining and making that fast. Let's say that I am having to figure out. A complicated installation. If you don't have my pricing guide, go to the floral hustle.com/pricing in that I have a breakdown of how to price and order based on a square foot. So this is the square foot I need, nine roses, three hydrangeas, whatever.

And then I'm going to order, um, I would figure my order off of those. Square footage estimations. If I wanna add 5% floral so I make sure that I got it covered, I can do that, but then I can easily figure out what that price is without expounding a ton of mental energy a ton of time, because I'm just figuring it out.

Price on square foot. With what is in the photo, what's what with what is pictured, and I'm not getting so granular because I know that my profit margin is, is okay that if for some reason I needed to buy $50 of flowers, more that the end of the world or the apocalypse is not here from a budget perspective and we're not dying on the vine.

I know with my pricing that if I need to make adjustments, I'm going to be okay. So I'm putting those price prices in there. I'm giving them levels if it makes sense. I'm not giving totals unless they've picked all of their favorite or option choices ahead of time. I see a lot of florists like giving full taxes, full, you know, set up delivery and tear down and room flips when those items haven't even been decided yet.

And I always just put plus. A room flip and tear down if needed. I know I have to set it up and I know about what that set up is going to take. So I'm putting that on the proposal right away cuz it is an expense and I wanna make sure that they're prepared for that. And then if they ask, well, what about these expenses?

I can then address that at that time. Ask them questions so I can figure out those costs, figure out if I need extra help, figure out all of those things. So from there, I'm sending them the P D F that I have downloaded out of Canva. So I'll have a page dedicated to personals, bouquets, personal ERs, and corsages flower girls.

Anything extra. A page or two, depending on how many centerpiece options I'm prepare proposing to them. I'll have one or two pages for centerpieces. I'll have a page for ceremony. I'll have a page for miscellaneous floral, and then I'll have my total page. I will also in the proposal have a Blooms page, a general inspiration page.

So I'm speaking and talking like with crisp white blooms with romantic soft ruffled edges. So, and if I hear them saying any keywords describing their wedding, I'm using those words throughout my proposal when I'm describing the vibe of the wedding when I am. Talking in the email, I really think that I captured the whimsical garden field that you're going for.

Whatever it is. You can capture that, use those words, write them down during your, um, consultation with them so that you capture those key words because you want to play into their emotions and capturing those words are going to help you do that. Then I'm sending them the pdf I'm sending them the email I'm giving them.

A week to accept the proposal and then I will send them the contract. If you want to move forward, I will hold your date for one week, and then if you wanna move forward, I can send you the contract and um, deposit instructions, and I have the deposit instructions built into the third page of my contract.

Then I'm sending that to them once they have agreed. If they wanna see it ahead of time, of course I would send it to 'em cuz I'm not going to be not transparent, but I'm not convoluting the situation by sending them a contract with my proposal. Then they're telling me I wanna move forward, and then I'm sending, I'm so excited to be working with you.

And then sending, here's the contract, and on the third page are the deposit return instructions and re uh, instructions to return the, uh, physical contract if you want to mail it, if you want to scan it in, whatever you'd like to do. Those instructions are on the third page, and then when I get that back from them, I send them my onboarding guide.

So that they can fully know how to, we are proceeding forward and they understand timelines, understand our interactions, set boundaries, set, you know, a structure so that they know what's next and that's it. I'm usually in that email to them saying, I'm so excited cuz I usually am. I'm so excited to hear back from you.

I just love what we came up for your special day and I think that what we have is going to just be so stunning, or I just really think we captured that enchanted forest. We really captured that modern boho, whatever it is that they have said those words. I'm going to include that. Thank you so much for listening, flower Friend.

I hope that this was helpful. I hope that you feel confident in your proposals because that confidence is going to sell your customers. That confidence is going to book you you weddings. It's going to book you events, it's going to book you daily orders, confidence cells, and I want you to be fully confident and if you aren't feeling confident and this is something you're just like, God, I feel like that my proposals like are nowhere near that.

I feel like, like I'm sending him a Word document with a couple pictures, like that is just not going to be successful in this visually driven, Pinterest driven world that we live in right now. And I can help you with that. Uh, as a one-on-one client, I send you my proposal template. We can actually go in and customize it for you.

We go through and can build you a brochure. That helps make sure that when you get to the point of meeting with a client, that they are fully qualified and understand your basic pricing structure and. I can help craft, like even teach you how to sell if that is something you need. Um, I have monthly coaching that every week we're meeting, we're working on your goals, we're setting goals and making sure that we're, that we're working towards something that is going to be impactful to your business.

We're hopefully booking you more clients. We're hopefully streamlining your processes so things feel lighter and it is something that I just absolutely love doing. I love helping people grow their businesses and, and. Feel lighter in it 📍 while they're doing that. So thank you so much, flower friend, and have an amazing flower filled week.