The Floral Hustle

 

Hello, flower friends. This is Jen, and you are listening to the Floral Hustle Podcast. For the month of February, I am dedicating the month to florists or aspiring budding florists out there that want to start their business. And. In the Floral Hustle Facebook group, we have, uh, some questions that we ask and so many people that are joining the group recently, really want to start their floral business, but just haven't been pushed over the edge.

So I'm hoping this month will be a little push in the right direction. If you're following along on Instagram and at the Floral Hustle, I literally every day I'm doing a self challenge of what I would do if I started my business over again. But today we're going to talk about on this mini episode, fundamental systems that you need.

in your business. When you were just starting out, you were definitely getting acquainted and trying to figure out which way is up, which way is sideways. But one of the things that many newer, successful florists do is have systems in place so that things don't fall through the crack. Some of those systems That I think are really important, even till now in my business.

Um, first one is having a client journey. So you have mapped out what you want your client experience to be from start to finish. And you follow that like it is, this is just how it is. We don't deviate from the plan because we know. Obviously, you could make tweaks as you learn the plan and like really feel like this got a good response, this didn't, um, I was able to sell higher weddings at this, whatever it would be is creating a process and map out customer who does what to inquire with you.

Okay. So customer goes on Instagram and sends you a DM like, what, what do you want that person That process to be every time that they come in. And so you create this customer journey, but it's got branches that are funneled from how they connected with you. You could have a fundamental journey that is inquiry form on your website.

You're gathering key data. Step two, you are going to respond to them. If you are available for that date, you're going to ask clarifying questions, send them your brochure. The brochure is going to have starting at pricing. They can see if they can afford you. Then from there, if they respond back with answers that are exciting to you from a budget standpoint, from a design standpoint, from a size, venue standpoint, then we go to Consultation Meet with them get them to fall in love with you and want them to be your florist then from there sending an estimate Um, giving them a timestamp of like, this estimate is good for seven days and I would really love to be your florist.

I absolutely love X about your wedding. Then from there they come on board. If they are signing up with you, they sign a contract. So good. Defining that system that everybody goes through from beginning to end, even all the way to after I am done with this client, how am I going to collect reviews? How am I going to get links to photo galleries?

So. Crafting that and just following that every time, things will not fall through the cracks and you will feel so much more confident because you know that everybody is getting the same experience. You can do that with a CRM like HoneyBook, of course, but if you are starting your business, Your email is not probably overflowing yet.

And so this is something that you could just craft these emails, have them in a Word document so you can cut and paste them to your clients whenever needed, have a template for your proposals, have a brochure made so that you can share that with your clients. But that is a really simple way to make sure that you are Really just like wowing customers because they are reaching out to you and you are giving them an experience unlike other florists.

But funneling everyone into there is important. So I try, if I get an inquiry from The Knot or Wedding Wire or Zola, I am saying, Hey, I'm, I just really love your venue and I'm like seeing their profile and I would love to connect further and send you my brochure. And then they're like, there's a benefit for them reaching out to me.

I say, I'd love to send you my brochure that has some starting at pricing in it, which is my a la carte flowers pricing. And if you email me directly, so then I'm funneling them back into that process. Same thing with social media. If somebody on social media, you know what? I would love to connect further on your um, wedding.

It sounds stunning, but uh, if you could send me an email, it's easier for me to keep track of and I'd love to send you my brochure with starting at pricing. So you've created this process and you funnel everybody in because when everybody is in the same process, less things fall to the crack. All right.

Next system, you need to have some financial accounting system, whether that is having an accountant that helps you do whatever you need to do, or you have QuickBooks, or you have Xero, or you have Some type of system that helps you keep track that is so important for one to make sure that you are not like taking money from all these different accounts and then you're not really tracking your business expenses which happens a lot when somebody's starting out because they don't have the capital in their business get a business checking account everything's comes out of there and if you the business owner need to give the business a loan Do that.

Put a chunk in there. That's your starting your business money and you just go from there We're not like, oh, I'm gonna put this on my Discover and that's gonna go on my Amex and they're all your personal ones and then like it's just a shit show to keep track of and Also have like a system for collecting receipts even if you have like with gmail you can have You know, you're Jenny at GreenGoddessFloral.

com, like I have, or Jenny at TheFloralHustle. com. But with Gmail, you can make aliases and that is included in your G Suite package. So you could have hello, or you could have bills at, receipts at, invoices at, whatever it would be. So all of those are funneling into one location for you to keep track of.

And so you're not searching everywhere for that, which is pretty great. So the next one after that is really having a system for ordering, processing, and Like how things are done in the studio when you have a ton of help Which when you're starting out that might not necessarily be the case But if your mom or sister or aunt or somebody's coming over to help Having a process of how things or are processed out of the packages.

They're processed you know for bouquets or process like having processes of when people are in the studio working with the flowers and just sharing that is so helpful because especially when somebody maybe without a lot of experience that's helping you they're worried they're going to screw something up and so if you just like have a process and even like processing roses You can make a one sheet on how to process roses.

You can make a one sheet on how to process like soft stem flowers or bulb flowers. You can make a one sheet on like any single thing in your studio and just have it in like a guidebook and make it really easy for people to interact with it. Then, making sure that you have like a system to make sure that you understand what product you're using.

I I have fun money in my wedding order, so I allot 20 percent to like fun things, fun finds. I call them unicorn flowers usually, that are either locally grown or something that I find on the Holland, um, flower auction. And so like those things aren't in recipes. They are not in the pictures usually because it's like I'm, I'm specifically saving this budget to be able to do that.

So those things aren't necessarily on there, but have a way to make sure if you have multiple weddings, you're parsing any flowers, like to a wedding section, um, we have a, uh, decorator that we work with often and. We often are like getting her roses. She does like cuts the tops off of roses with greenery on the tables with cylinder vases often and We have a little system where we're putting a flag in like a yard flag that these are Norris roses This is Norris greenery And it just it it's so helpful because like it's this glaring Thing that somebody's like, oh, we can't use those And i've had the flag be at the back and then somebody's emptied out half that bucket So making sure that it's like they're pulled off to the side They're seen, and that includes like any flowers that you need pulled for something that's done on site.

Like if you're putting roses in a garland, um, a greenery garland on a table, whatever, like having a system to mark things that are supposed to be saved. Same thing like if you do greenery on a table, you want to mark that and have a system that anybody can like look and go, Oh, that is saved and we can't touch that.

And then my last system is really your system for quoting. You need to have a solid pricing strategy or formula that you just follow to the T. Because that's also how things get, you start overstuffing. You start, um, buying more product than you need. You start overspending. And at the end of the year you're going to be looking at your bank account going, I worked really hard and Where's the fruits of my labor?

Cause they're not really here. So making sure that you are pricing correctly and you have a system. There is a math formula. So this is a system you can just make sure that you're doing. And if you are newer and like, I don't know if I'm gonna be getting enough roses, I don't know if I'm doing this enough.

Like, you could just like kind of count or do some playing around to really understand those formulas. Otherwise, if you, if you're like, Hey, I'm not so sure, pad it a little bit because it's better to pad it. Then all of a sudden be short flowers and the wholesaler can't get any more. And you are panicking because it's go time and you don't have enough product.

So those are some fundamental systems in your business that you can, you should put in place while you are foundationally building your business. And. If you do these now, there is great things to come. So thank you so much for listening flower friend and you have an amazing flower filled week.