The Floral Hustle

  📍 Hello flower friends, this is Jen and you're listening to the Floral Hustle podcast. On this week's Minisode we are going to talk all things launching an a la carte flowers program Here in Minnesota. We are going into the end of wedding season and really the rebuilding of what business will look like next year.

We're meeting with couples, we're doing estimates, all the things. And depending on where you're at in the world, that might also be the spot that you are at. But even if it, if you aren't, and you're in the thick of wedding season, this is a great... opportunity for you to have, for one, something to talk about on social media, for two, some easy way to respond with the very common question of what is your pricing look like.

And Then you also have this easy, accessible way that people can do business with you that is all exclusively either on your webpage or you have a brochure that they can just pick from and order that item. I have had an a la carte flowers program now for four years. And I on average, um, I use all of the a la carte pricing as a Either lead, um, gathering tool.

So, Hey, if I got an email on the knot or wedding wire, Hey, I'll send you my brochure that has pricing, um, guidance in it. If you send an email to Jenny at green goddess floral. com. So it's a great starter because, hey, reach out to me off this platform and I will send you some pricing, which most florists are not going to be able to do because they have to do a full estimate to provide any pricing.

My a la carte flowers program comes with all of the more common You know wedding items such as a bride bouquet, a bridesmaid, boutonniere, wrist corsage cocktail table arrangement Grand centerpiece arrangement Some a la carte flower programs that I've seen and if you could go check out native poppy There's two locations in California.

They crush their a la carte flowers program It just it looks so good So many robust options in there and they really pump out this type of wedding. So how it's set up and structured looks just really great. And the owner is kind of a, a marketing genius. So, um, definitely check out their a la carte floral program, but how could you launch one and it's not as complicated as many people think if you have a website function that.

Allows you to put items in a collection such as a wedding flower collection and it allows you to have some customizable fields that they can put in and collect the data such as like the wedding date and um, where the wedding is and any other details that they might find is relevant for you to make the wedding flowers for them.

Then you could start by creating your own list of what those items would be. I want to carry, uh, the common things, but I also have a really easy, um, arch that potentially I could add to this because it's a very minimal setup. Currently my a la carte flowers program does not come with any setup. I can drop it off.

But I'm not setting things up because when you start to set things up, you're getting more in the weeds of details. And so mine is a very... Simplified so that I am not required to do any setups, but let's just say you have something that you think could be a very easy and profitable part to add to your a la carte flowers, you, it can be anything that you want and That's what's important, not that you're following what everybody else does.

Native Poppy has a full line of arches, and I think some of those arches get up into the couple thousand dollar range, because their minimum is, I think, around five or seven. So, then, let's just say you have your list of items. Then pick color palettes. What are your most popular color palettes? Do you do a lot of soft and romantic?

Do you do a lot of neutral? Do you do a lot of white? Do you do a lot of white with a pop of some type of color? Do you do dark and moody? Do you do bright and cheery? Whatever it is, this is your opportunity to go in and Um, you know, breakdown, these are my color palettes that I offer. You want to make sure you're not customizing this after the fact.

Part of the whole reason to do this program is to create volume, and volume with a bunch of details around it is just going to get complicated and Is not going to be a time saving, uh, money producing item because you're doing a bunch of legwork around it just like you do on a custom wedding. So having those color palettes be something that you, uh, commonly do and you know is a trend in your marketplace is super helpful.

Then, let's figure out pricing. So you can look at your items and go, okay. If I wanted to make this item in any of these color palettes, let's just say you have a bridesmaid bouquet that is of average size and an average sized bridesmaid bouquet, you use nine roses, maybe five different stems of like dancer flowers, like you use Uh, like ornaculus or something like that.

And then you use some filler flowers, a little bit of greenery, and maybe three spray roses or another accent bloom, so that you get some different sizes and textures. So you figure out, okay, I could probably, in any one of these color palettes, get those supplies for, let's just say, 25 or 28, whatever it is.

Then you just make a budget for bridesmaid bouquets that are at this size level of this, you know, this budget. So, I have 28 in flowers I can spend on a bridesmaid bouquet for this, uh, single item. Then, to figure out the pricing, you're going to take that times your markup, if you're at three or four times markup, and then you're going to add for your labor fee and add any hard goods.

Like if they're taking the vase and you're not getting it back, um, you figure those costs in it. And then that's just what your bridesmaids bouquets. would look like. You could make a petite bridesmaid bouquet so you have a lower price point and just label it as such so that you're, it's not confusing.

Then you do that for every single item. So let's just say a bride's budget for flowers would be 45. Or 48, whatever it is, you just, that's your budget to work with. And so you need to choose blooms that week to help you accomplish that budget. Our, one of our local wholesalers has like sales every week. I also have access to Hollix, which is a Dutch online auction.

And so 10 stems of something that are fun and different and sometimes on sale. So I use the various auction tools to be able to really, um, you know, pull out some fun and interesting flowers that make it exciting for me to create. So now you've established all of your items, you've established your budgets that you would use for pricing, um, purposes.

Then two ways you could go and set up, uh, a online store within your webpage. With, if you have examples of items that you've made similar to this, then you would use that, um, you know, that picture. If you are launching this from scratch, this would be a great opportunity for you to learn and figure out.

Um, you know, like these different color palettes and kind of work backwards into your budget and go in and make some of these items, get some practice in, and then photograph them against a white backdrop, against a white wall, against a neutral backdrop, so you can use all of those photos for your a la carte program.

You also could take and My longest stem item I usually start with first when I want to really utilize blooms. So first, I'm going to make a bridal bouquet, or even a statement piece, centerpiece, or a memorial piece. Then I can take those flowers out of that vase, reuse them, and make the second item in my a la carte flowers program.

And then I keep creating the different items using the same flowers. But I'm shortening them for their purpose every time. And so I, I've gone in and I've bought flowers for my dark and moody color palette. For my soft and romantic color palette. And maybe don't do this all at once. Maybe you start with this week I'm going to do soft and romantic.

And then I'm going to do all of the pieces for that. This week I'm going to do um, dark and moody. Or I'm going to do simply white. Whatever it is. You could do that every week. And so you'd have a full library of images. You'd have, of course, an investment in the flowers, but then you have social media content to help launch your a la carte flowers program.

You've then figured out you want an online store and you've gone through the process of setting that up making sure that there's you know a place to add dates and all of that fun stuff. Then from there you if you don't have an online store you could just make a brochure with this exact information to be able to share with the client and then you go and Say, hey, I've attached my brochure for my a la carte flowers program.

If this is of interest to you, and you would like to reserve the date, I can take a deposit in a contract, or if you would just like to place your order, I'm happy to send you an invoice for the items that you need. Super easy, and super efficient, because you're, you're providing all the pricing information, you're not doing a consult, and I, on average, I think this month alone, I think I had like 1100 in a la carte flower orders, so not huge, but I haven't been promoting it because I've been in the thick of wedding season.

So it's really a great thing for you to have to communicate to new wedding planners that you're trying to reach out to, to communicate with brides or couples just in general. So if you have any questions. You can go check out my a la carte flowers at greengoddessfloral. com and go to the a la carte flowers section.

You can go check out native poppy, or you can just go and google a la carte wedding flowers in your area and see what pops up. You could be one of the only florists in your market doing this program, which could be really appealing, especially if you have an area that has a lot of elopements or, you know, smaller micro weddings.

This could even be a package that you've partnered with a venue that does a lot of micro weddings and you can say, Hey, I can provide the flowers. Here's my brochure with all the pricing in it. If any of your couples want this, I can make it really easy. So it is an amazing opportunity for you to grow your business, have some revenue coming in that you're not doing hour long consultations for and going back and forth a million times.

So thank you so much for 📍 listening today and have a fun filled flower week.