The Floral Hustle

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Hello, flower friend. This is Jen and you are listening to the floral hustle podcast on this week's mini so we're going to talk about cultivating creativity. We just got done with our two day floral rockstar retreat, which was two days of us learning about business, two days of us learning about installations, making spiral technique, bouquets, really just bringing your business to the next level.

And it was interesting because I had six different installations and Everybody kept saying like, I don't know how you come up with this. Like, how do you come up with these ideas? How do you, how did you think of this? How did you develop this? How did, I mean, it was so interesting because to me it's how my brain works.

But if you're not naturally creatively minded when it comes to. Like thinking of a project or something like that, like it becomes harder for you to all of a sudden think of this brilliant idea to sell your client. So here are some things that I do to cultivate creativity. For one, you need to create space for it.

If your mind is always going, if you are always onto the next thing and you never take like a little bit of downtime. Your brain is just at capacity. And when your brain's at capacity, there's no room for new ideas. And so taking space, like taking a little downtime, going to take care of yourself, like going to work out, like I come up with so many ideas during CrossFit.

It's crazy. I actually go to my phone afterwards and I text myself all of the different ideas that like came to my head during class. And. It's, it's helpful for you to, even if you're just like laying in bed at the end of the night, I also take a long bath every day. And that is like a little bit of downtime for me to come up with new, great ideas, concepts.

And you know, when I'm thinking about a client, this is one of the reasons why I asked for a Pinterest board ahead of time is that I have time to dream about their wedding. So. Create space, very important. Then next Pinterest and Instagram can be your friend in the creativity department. So part of the thing that I think is really helpful is whenever you see something, you can create a safe folder.

You can do something like that, of course in Instagram, but I just screenshot them. Take off the ugly parts. So I shrink down the sides. And I'm putting that in my, you know, folder that is dedicated to, you know, ideas, styled shoots, Indian weddings, whatever it is, like I have these separate folders. So that is a great thing to start as well.

Anytime that something speaks to you, screenshot it. Have a folder that just says floral dreaming or, um, Um, you know, if it's a specific thing like ceremony ideas or whatever, so have that concept and then you can take that concept to all of a sudden you're talking to a client or you get their, their board and you're like, Oh my God, I remember I took a screenshot of this picture.

Let's go, go get the screenshot then. And you can pull it out. You can email them. You can show them if you're on a zoom call. It is a way for you to kind of pad your creativity vault and then you can just make it your own. You don't need to copy it. You can just make it your own from that point. And if you do that, you're at least starting with like this foundation of ideas.

So the next thing is I create folders in my phone for everything. So, have folders. For specific concepts that are ideas that you save ideas that you're screenshotting, um, even ideas like I also, if I see a rose or something that's interesting at a wholesaler or the, one of the flower markets, like I take a picture of it, because then it's in my vault of flower ideas or flower concepts or whatever.

So I could be like, okay, I think I could make something all around this one idea. Which would be just so fun. So like you can do that same thing, take these flower concepts, flower ideas, and really bring that to the next level from an execution standpoint, because you could have found something unique and beautiful and different, and that is going to fuel.

a more elite portfolio, because I call them unicorn flowers. You've found these things that are just absolutely amazing and are going to make your designs next level. So start a folder system in your phone to organize these types of things. Then part of that cultivating creativity when you're actually talking to a client is, you know, I'm starting the conversation when.

I'm asking them if they are open, like I'm not asking them, what exactly do you want for your ceremony? Like I'm the creative person. I should be telling them, here is my suggestions based off of your Pinterest board or whatever. But what if they're all over the board and you're like, You know what? I was looking at your Pinterest board.

I was looking at your inspiration images you sent me. And I came up with this idea and maybe you have like a broken arch and you're taking that and doing something next level, whatever it is, like you want to also be positioning yourself as a creative expert. So like the thing that was at the installation rockstar thing that everybody was just like, holy crap.

It is um, it was a table that was a growing meadow. I get the whole table was growing flowers and then it had three cakes on it. When I get the pictures back I'll post it on Instagram because it was pretty cool. So I collaborated with a cake person but this whole idea originated from me seeing a growing tablescape picture that Sweetroot Village did.

And then I took that picture. And brought it to the next level for my specific purpose. So they had, and I also, they did a behind the scenes on how they did it. They did a board that they basically pre put all this moss and foam and all these things on it to make it into this growing tablescape that they basically just brought in.

And I had, uh, a table that I had in my studio previously. That was really sturdy, had sturdy legs that I knew I could chicken wire to it. Fill that chicken wire with moss so that I basically had flowers on the top of the table cascading down to the ground and then I had some mini meadow pieces on the ground.

So if you know, you're looking to really uplevel your portfolio, look at their pictures and don't copy them. You don't have to copy them. They don't know what they don't know, and they don't know what they need nine times out of 10. So go and like twist that, you know, concept, twist their change. Or like think about how could I use it with one of my rentals?

How could I use it with whatever? Because that's what's going to start to elevate your portfolio. Copying people is not going to do that. Taking a concept, twisting it, making your own and bringing it to the next level. That's what's going to elevate your business. So how can you do that with like an idea bank that you've saved in your phone with, you know, potentially sourcing.

fund rentals so that you can integrate that. Like there are so many ways to develop this idea or concept to the next level. Then you also need to be unapologetically afraid or not afraid of trying something new. I know a lot of florists that are just like, yeah, they have this like kind of almost like they've pigeonholed them, themself.

That they're making this and this is what they do. And that's it. And it's like, that sucks. Get creative. Get out of the box. Like if you are so niche down, somebody is going to look at your portfolio on Instagram and think that you're not capable of doing something out of the box. You're not capable of doing something that doesn't look like this.

So if you can take it to the next level. Like twist that idea, push that idea. This is, we are creatives. So take your creativity to the next level. Thank you so much for listening flower friends, and you have an 📍 amazing flower field day.