The Floral CEO

  Hello our friends. This is Jen, and on this week's episode, I wanna dive into figuring out how to grow revenue. And where this came from is in the last I mean for, really for the month of January, but I had a ton of sessions in the last week of January and it was, coaching clients that I work with and.

Mastermind girls that I work with and we're really going in and strategizing how can they grow their business. And to start that, you really need to understand what happened before. If you don't understand what has happened in the past, it's very hard to figure out what's working in the future. And so digging in and really understanding, okay, I want to grow my revenue by X percentage, so let's just say that it is.

10%. And let's say that you had a hundred thousand dollars business, how can you figure out, 'cause going in and just saying, I wanna grow my business by 10% and that's $10,000 is not a strategy. Not even in a little bit. So the strategy would be is I know that last year, out of that a hundred thousand dollars x percentage.

Let's just say 50% was weddings. Let's say that 25% was funerals, 5% were daily deliveries, and 10% was corporate. Whatever you wanna break as a breakdown, then you look at, okay, out of all of those things, where do I feel my opportunity is? I had one florist grow her wedding business, her wedding revenue by 40% in one year.

So what like that is a strategy. We, I helped her implement several things in her business in relation to, I am a wedding florist expert in relation to the process a la carte, adding different things, streamlining, adjusting service fees when you're, especially if you're undercharging. So we dove into, if we look at taking this chunk.

And que in the juice a little bit more out of that chunk, how would that be? Like, how could we make that better? And if somebody, or you know, like one of those sections, let's just say that you feel like your funeral business, you have completely tapped it, you have talked to every single funeral home in the area and like it just feels completely tapped out.

Then that is, you know, probably not where you should focus your energy and efforts. But let's just say this, 50% of wedding revenue has felt really easy and you haven't done much work to even get that 50% revenue. So how could you dial up the knob knob a little bit and squeeze more juice out of that?

And growth can happen in several ways. We can of course, acquire more customers to that do transactions with us. We could up our average. Uh, so let's just say you have an average wedding of $2,500 if you up that to 27 50. And so you gain $250 on average for every client. Yeah. Then you have, you know, let's just say 30 weddings, that's, that would more than cover the growth that you're looking for if you squeezed a little bit more juice out.

But let's just say that you're looking at it and you're like, I feel like my processors are really I've really maximized everything I can with the current clients. Well, then the next strategy is, okay, maybe we just need more customers. And that is a whole different strategy. Do we need to start doing, you know, speaking differently on social media?

Do we need to present ourself from an SEO perspective search engine optimization on our website so that we become more relevant for those type of events? Let's just say you wanna invent a completely new. Category let's just say you didn't even have alla carte flowers before. You could easily make $10,000 in revenue by adding a service that is related to one of your other services.

And with that potentially take, uh, if you do not have a minimum, and you have been serving a community of, thousand dollars shoppers. Take a lot of time and resources you could remove yourself from that process. Create this automated process that literally is going to free up your time as the CEO in your business to think next level thinking, to have space for creativity, have space to be the CEO in your business and to.

To like literally be able to step back and come up with ideas for more revenue sources. So those are just a few ways that you can grow your business. But that sounds really great in concept, but let's just say that you wanna grow your weddings, we're gonna use the 10%. And let's just say you want to.

Grow your average wedding of two 50, uh, $250 per wedding. So then you look at, okay, am I charging correctly and competitively that I feel like this is my worth, this is my value, or am I maybe undercharging a little bit? So then you look at your markup formulas, you potentially, I mean, I've had a florist that went and started sourcing direct.

Instead of from wholesalers, and they increase their profit margin by 40%. So what could you do to squeeze more juice out of that opportunity and really just like sit back and objectively go like, what if this happened? And when we're thinking about like this $250 per. Can I look at my setup and delivery fees?

Am I charging enough for those? Am I charging too little for really high touch putsy items, um, like bnes, corsages, personal flowers that are really time intensive? Am I charging enough for my bouquets? Am I charging enough for winter weddings when I have to wrap everything in plastic? Am I charging enough for my transportation?

There are so many components that if you tweaked like, okay, I wanna raise my delivery fee by about $50 or $75 per wedding to help for one. Pay your worth and all the time that it, that it takes to deliver this and then also to help offset some of those costs and the increase in costs. A lot of flowers cost, you know, 20 to 25% more right now because of the tariffs enacted.

Have you raised your prices commensurate with those increases? So even going in and revisiting. Your, your markup margins, your even your labor, like labor costs more, you guys, labor costs more. It is just a fact. And so if you want to grow revenue, things cost more in the world we're living right now.

And you can take up the opportunity to dive into, Hey, I need to keep up. I need to adjust just to keep up. Of course, you could also try and go, okay, I know that I can grow my revenue if I get like maybe I did 15 weddings and five of those were really big over the top, so maybe next year eight are, that could easily with a $3,000.

Per increase on an additional three to four events that could easily compensate and get you to that 10% increase of $10,000, then you need to start tracking what these look like. Like if you have a forecasting tool that can actually go in and say, okay. Here is my weddings right now that I have, or here's like my book of business that I have right now, and here's what I'm estimating our target is for that.

And then look at those weddings and go, okay, right now I am tracking for $70,000 of of revenue. And then figure out, compared to last year, what is your current average per wedding? That you have on the books for next year. You might already be on your way just with maybe some tweaks in the clients that you've had to attracting higher end clients, because those three over the top weddings that you did last year, you've been really putting those on social media and showing people what you can do.

Then you can go in and think, okay, I am already on track, but I wanna add five more. And then in adding five more weddings you have easily, because you've already upped your average, you're easily already at your target. So it is about reflecting, but it's also about forecasting. And if forecasting seems like a really like weird, crazy thing to do, you are just estimating and trying to keep track of so that you have some semblance of a clue.

Of what is going to happen this year, I would recommend if you don't have any of the tools that help you do forecasting to have a spreadsheet. And in that spreadsheet you have your wedding, what you're estimating the total is going to be. And every time you get a wedding, as part of your process of intake, you go in and plug it into your spreadsheet and so that at any time you can go and total that up.

And then even you can go and divide it by the number of weddings that you have, and you can easily forecast what your year is going to look like. Then from there, it's not done yet. If somebody is forecasting, you know their wedding is going to be $7,500. I have so many times at that month out call.

Where we solidified details. I've added a thousand dollars. I've upsold them with a fun idea, a fun concept, something that I just, I, God, you need this at your wedding. Like I saw this picture and I thought of you. It is so magical and I love it and it's beautiful, and I just, I thought of you. So like those opportunities, even if, let's just say you're at a lower.

Average, there is still hope to rebound that you can get on track for bigger and better things, and I just know that there is so much opportunity out there if we're strategic, if we're looking things from a fact base instead of a feeling based decision. So are you running your business? Based on facts, based on data, or is your QuickBooks such a hot mess that you have no idea what revenue you made last year?

Right Now is your QuickBooks such a hot mess that you have no idea if you actually even made any money? Because when you can go into forecasting things. You can start to go in and actually forecast paying yourself. You guys, like I have talked with so many florists who are not properly paying themself.

If you have listened to my episodes on Profit first, you deserve to make money. This is not a hobby. This is your livelihood. This is serious, and I want you to pay you your worth in 2026. And I know a lot of florists that they're like, the perceived value of a million different things actually is, the you know, equivalent to them paying themself.

And that is not true. Like those things, if you were a business owner, you should have perks with your business. So buying a car and ha using that car for both things, even though you know you're supposed to have percentages, uh uh, based on use like that is not equivalent to you paying yourself. You deserve to make money in your business and forecasting and really going into, I actually want to pay myself my worth this year and figuring out how to do that.

That's forecasting. That's reflecting at what's happened before, and then also in that reflection going, okay, in looking at all my expenses, I need to cut my expenses. So potentially maybe I'm gonna start buying direct from Rose Farms and Ecuador to reduce my cost. I am going to try to not. Be buying candles last minute, and so I can actually source them wholesale, whatever it is you're doing things to help cut expenses so that your profit margin is increased, and when you have an increased profit margin, you have more money to pay yourself.

And that's what we want. We want you to be able to pay yourself. So if you haven't ever read the book Profit First or listened to the audio book, that is a fundamental operating system of how to pay yourself, like how to pay yourself. It's that easy. And I am so passionate about like. People paying themself in general.

And so if you do a coaching session with me, I'm gonna ask you how much money you've paid yourself. I'm gonna ask you like all things money, because we're doing this to pay yourself. We're working so hard you guys. I work so hard to not pay myself is ridiculous. I work really hard and I want to be paid for that effort.

And so should you. Like we shouldn't be busting our ass, busting our back literally, and running around trying to make everybody's magical dreams come true. And then we don't pay yourself to make our own magical dreams come true. You deserve to pay yourself, and it isn't an afterthought. It is a forethought in your business when you step into the role of CEO.

You are going to start looking at like, this is a business. This is something that I need to take seriously, and I wanna help you guide through that process. So if this sounds crazy, like you have no idea where to even start. I would love to do one-on-one session with you. I will actually put the link, I don't normally just throw that out there, but I will put the link to book a one-on-one private session with me in there because I want your business to become the business of your dreams in 2026.

And if you keep doing the same shit, the same stuff over and over again, it is not going to change. Things are going to stay the same. And are you happy with that? Because I know I'm not, I want bigger, more badass things in my life. I want bigger, more badass things in your life. And that all starts now with a plan, a strategy for growth, a strategy for making your dreams come true.

So head to that and if you want support, and I know you guys are like, oh, she's talking about the Mastermind again. The floral CEO Mastermind is a game changer. Not only are you surrounded by other powerful women who wanna grow their business, we have monthly training topics. You get a monthly q and a.

This is such a value that it is unlike any Mastermind out there, and I would love for you to be a part of it. Head to floral ceo.com/mastermind. Thank you so much for listening, flower Friend, and you have an amazing flower filled day.