The Floral Hustle

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Hello flower friends, this is Jen and I've done an episode on this before, but I have seen Poppy flowers popping up with Floris, you know, showing that they had done a poppy flowers wedding. I have seen, um, you know, of course advertisements from poppy flowers, and I wanted to talk to you about like. Why this is working so far for them.

And it is one simple thing, and that is pricing's transparency. I have preached since I've, I mean, for quite some time now, uh, as long as I've been an educator and before that, having pricing transparency can help people make. You know, them feel at ease. They can make the whole process of getting ghosted potentially go away.

Like having pricing transparency is a complete game changer in your business, and so many florists don't do it. So we have companies like Poppy who go and then hire a bunch of florists. That could have potentially gotten that job if they had their shit together. But because there is no shit together, they find a company, it's easy, they can see the prices online, of course, they wanna hit the easy button, of course, that they want, you know, uh, all of these promises of, okay, old school versus new school.

And I will put this link in the show notes of basically it's saying like. The old school floors suck. And the new school of them only having an order minimum of 1750, only taking a 2 49 deposit, getting instant proposal flexibility until 60 days prior that you, they're buying Farm Direct and that is just why you're getting so much cheaper and that they're going to support you.

Versus with florist, them saying you're gonna get a 30 to 50% deposit needed. A one to three weeks is what it's going to take for you to get a. Proposal. They have inflexible contracts. They're buying wholesale, so basically a million ways that we suck. And so we as florists are supporting this. If you are signing up to be a poppy florist, you are supporting them basically saying traditional florists suck and that they are going to do you a disservice.

And I just have been floored. I have seen other educators just shouting for the rooftops that this is such a great deal and could it give you experience? Absolutely. Are you getting paid much for this? From my understanding and speaking with several people who have participated in this, no. Why not spend your time investing in your own business, growing your own business, and looking at some of the key.

Reasons why this is being successful for them and implement that into your business. This is basically a la carte flowers, you guys, a la carte Flowers is what they are doing. They're making a all la carte flowers menu that you can go and look at. You can go and look at companies like Native Poppy who is crushing the a la carte flowers game.

There are so many different. Uh, florists that are kind of hopping on the a la carte flower program that it is something that is not going to go away. If you were stuck in the mindset that you need to go and hand quote out everything, you can't give any prices upfront because you don't know if you're going to, you know, be quoting the right thing and disappointing your customer.

Like, stop it. That is not what is happening in this. Climate anymore. If you went and just spent a little bit of time figured out what your base pricing is, what does it, if somebody asked you, I want a simple white bouquet, what would you use for that? What would you do to make that, and what would that cost?

So if I was making a really simple white, white bouquet, I probably would be something like. 15 white roses. 'cause I love to design with roses. They're just big and impactful. I would use probably like five pieces of stock. I would use a little bit of Lizzy or some comparable flower. So all I would need to do is if this is the kind of bouquet that I like to make, I would figure out what my base recipe is and I could use that and interchange that with different color palettes.

To develop my a la carte flowers program. It is that simple. Then that is what you make for your base recipe, and if somebody wants something different, now you have this base recipe. Okay, you're telling me you want peonies in it? Okay, I'm gonna add three peonies. You're telling me you want this in it. I'm gonna go add that flower, oculus, whatever.

When you simplify this process that invites. A customer in to not be wondering a million questions. I mean, I have gone through this, especially now with like figuring out the, um, you know, moving into the new, the, the farm. And I have been trying to think, figure things out for, for my workshop coming up in August.

And I mean, all of these places have no pricing transparency and I have basically. Not even interacted with the businesses that have not put any pricing transparency out there. I am getting carpet put in into the old house and the new house, and I'm hiring the same person. They had a sheet at Menards that had their starting at pricing.

This is a game changer. This is going to make things so much easier for you. Quit choosing hard. Like this. Adding this, this element of pricing transparency makes it so much easier for you to do business with people. You're starting your conversation in a non-adversarial way. Like somebody isn't pushing you going, what's your price?

What's your price? It's like, you know what, here is my price. And if that is super scary, you need to do a little bit of leg work. Figuring out what those basis prices are. And then you have facts, you have data driving that decision. You don't have, uh, I think it's two 50, uh, I think it's 2 25. Like do the work of figuring out what that base recipe is, and that is your starting at pricing.

If somebody wants to customize that, you do that. You go and customize that. But from the beginning, if you can make a bouquet for that price. It might not be the bouquet that that person wants, but that's why it's starting at, just like when you go car shopping and you're, you see, well, this used to be really relevant.

This is probably aging me, but there used to be like newspaper ads that would say, you can buy this car for 1 39 a month, and then you'd go to the teeny tiny print and it would be like the shittiest car, and it would be with like $5,000 plus a million different fees upfront. And so like that would be like a starting point at least for you to go, okay, I don't want the car that doesn't have power windows.

Okay, so what is that like? But at least you kind of knew the starting point and you actually could go buy that car. If you're like, I can only spend 1 99 a month, or whatever it is, like at least you knew you could get that car for that as long as your credit, of course qualified. This is the same thing.

They might want a $325 bouquet, but really can only afford a $225 bouquet. That is their choice. They make decisions to self-identify in that budget range. If they wanna go out of that budget range, et cetera, that is not your job. So make your life easy. Companies like Poppy are are basically doing a glorified.

A la carte flowers program, and you could be capitalizing on that business. You could set it up as easy as they have it set up. That's how my a la carte is set up so easy. You could have a brochure that you even just shared with people if you can't have an online cart. There are so many ways to hit the easy button to help capitalize on.

If we are going into a shift of people who are looking for easy, they're looking potentially for lower budget. This is a great way to accommodate them with a streamlined process. I have tons of episodes on a la carte flowers, and if you haven't checked those out, go in and just put a la carte flowers in.

You are definitely going to really just see this simple, clear cut way to add additional revenue. Like last year I had $36 thousand dollars of revenue from a la carte, and that's with me not even trying. Because I do so many full service, uh, it's not even me like putting a concerted effort in. So time to wake up companies like Poppy are, are essentially taking local a la carte flower orders and then making money doing all these things and taking that business out of the direct marketplace and then putting it back when they find a florist who is gonna work for less.

So. Go and really start strategically thinking about how you can grow your business, how you can capitalize on lower budgets if you are attracting some of those lower budgets. Because if you had 10, $2,000 weddings that were pretty easy, very streamlined, you hardly met with them because it was just this really easy process that was clearly laid out.

Here's $20,000 of revenue that you added to your business that you would've said no to before without this really simple process. Thank you so much for listening, flower Friend, and you have an amazing flower filled 📍 day. I.