The Floral Hustle

 

📍 Hello, flower friends. This is Jen and you're listening to the floral hustle podcast on this week's episode. We're going to talk about having difficult conversations with clients in your business and having difficult conversations. Like, I mean, it sucks. It's something as a business owner, you dread because you want to make sure that, you know, people are happy.

You're worried about reviews. You're worried, um, that they're gonna, you know, talk about you. I mean, there's all these things. And I think, you know, there's several ways that I've really kind of grown from that. And that's always like listening to somebody else take care of something and how they take care of it.

And I learned so much off of that. So I think that's You could always go ask ChatGPT, and if you haven't used ChatGPT before, it is so easy to handle these difficult conversations because you can just plug in explaining. My name is Jenny and I own a wedding and event floral business in Bloomington, Minnesota.

I have a client that I really don't want as a client because I didn't like the tone of their email or their designs aren't great. And I'm trying to find a, a way that I can basically tell them I'm not available for their event. Um, You don't want to lie to them and just say that, you know, you're booked because they could, I mean, that you could, I mean, I guess, but having, you know, just a like nicely worded way.

It's so helpful and ChatGPT can help you with that. Let's just say you're not interested in this person's wedding. Their email sucked, everything. So you could just say, you know what, thank you so much for reaching out. I, uh, absolutely love your venue, but sadly am not available on your date. I have, um, you know, you, if you have flower friends that you want to recommend, I do have a couple other florists that I can recommend and send your way if you are looking for other options.

But thank you kindly for considering us and we hope you have a beautiful wedding day. I'm not going to get into a story. I'm not getting into my life dissertation of why I don't, I'm not available. Frankly, they don't need to know it. So, make it short, sweet, complimentary, sound is fluffy bunny, I, I call it anytime that we're really making something, you know, sound nicer than it is, fluffy bunnying it up, and then move on.

You don't need to, like, go and start defending yourself and doing all these things. So, then, next one, their vibe is not your aesthetic. And I have gotten that, like, if I get a baby's breath barn wedding, like, no thank you. And so I would, again, probably use the same line, unless you would be interested if the aesthetic change.

Because what if the aesthetic is confusing? Sometimes somebody Pinterest link, and it looks like they have Tourette's. Or they have schizophrenia, like they're just randomly shouting these things all over the place and you're just like, I have no idea which way is up. So if that is them, you can clarify, but then it gets a little bit more difficult to circle back.

Um, but you can say, Hey, you know what? Thank you so much for considering us for your wedding day. In looking over your Pinterest, uh, board, which I really appreciate you sending to me, I think that our studio and our design aesthetic don't completely match the vision that you've laid out on Pinterest. If our personal design aesthetic is something that's appealing to you and that you would love if we took The concepts from your Pinterest board, but put our spin on them.

We'd love to chat further as we are available for your date. So you didn't tell them their shit was ugly. You didn't tell them that, what are you thinking? You just said, you know what? Like, that's not what we do best. And we have a certain way of doing things. And if you'd love our spin on that, you could even say, if you'd love to check out our social media, so you can get a better feel for our design style, put that, pop that.

Instagram profile in there or your Facebook profile and let them take a peek and then make that decision for themself. Then they're choosing, if they go to the next step, that they're not getting their Pinterest board. They're getting your coolness. That's your design aesthetic. So, pretty easy conversation, but not always fun to have.

Alright, I have actually had this numerous times. I have done somebody in their family's wedding, and this is mainly with cultural weddings, I've had this, and they literally start to bully me. And going, you can do this, we know that you can pull this off, na na na na na, and they like start pressuring you.

And I know this seems even weird that I'm having to talk about this, but it's happened a bunch of times to me. You can say. You know what? I really appreciate the faith you have in me and trust that you have in me, um, to do another wedding within your, your household. But with my current priorities in my life, as well as the ability to pull off events at the level that I deem coincides with my business.

I am unable to do your, you know, if it's the mom that's doing it, it's whatever. I'm unable to take a wedding on, on that weekend. If for some reason your date shifts, I'd love to talk about it further, but I really cannot take anything on additional on your wedding date. And that's just saying like my life doesn't align with taking more work on and it's not going to be good quality work if I'm taking that on.

I can't. You don't want to put shoddy work out there. You want to put beautiful work out there. And that takes you having the ability to have time to do that. All right. Low budget. So I actually just had this and it was a person who was the mother of the groom and she, on top of it, not only had a lower budget, wanted brides, bride, bridesmaid.

maids and then like some personal boots and corsages. She wanted to meet as well. And I'm like, okay, no. So I, I went to chat GPT on this one and I just said, I'd like to tell this person that is inquiring about my wedding services for their son, that I'm super grateful that they're considering me. But with the streamlined process of my a la carte flowers program, I don't do, like, in person consultations because that's why it's more affordable.

It's less work for me. Then, I also said if they were closer to my full service wedding minimum, I would be happy to arrange a brief coffee shop meeting, although with Mother's Day and wedding season starting, like time is going to be a limited commodity. So that spit out. Thank you so much for considering us again.

And well, this person had reached back out. So for reaching back out again, um, I completely understand how meeting in person is something that it you're comfortable with, with how the a la carte flowers program is set up. We really are keeping the prices low because we're streamlining, um, the experience to be as hands off as possible to keep things affordable for our clients.

So I've done that. If you are considering additional items that would help get us to our full service minimum, I'd love to set up a brief coffee chat or coffee visit at a coffee shop where we can just discuss in person, but the minimum would then apply. If you would love to look at what the a la carte options are again, here's the link below and we'd love to connect further if that's of interest.

And she emailed me back. So that was great. Difficult conversation over. Next! Ridiculous budget expectations. I will have people that will be like, I want this and this and this and this and this and this and this. And it's for 3, 000 and they're smoking crack. There's no way that that's going to happen. So I then tell them, Hey, thank you so much for considering us for your wedding and event in looking at your budget and what you've requested.

I'm a little worried that we're not going to be in a ballpark in the ballpark for your budget with the items that you need. Is your budget more important or is your floral needs list and floral vision more important? And then I'm just throwing it back at you. Like, and then if they come back and they start going, well, what do you mean it's not going to fit in my budget?

I, I literally then attach my brochure that has starting at pricing and I was like, if I look at starting at pricing and you're needing 10 bridesmaid bouquets and let's just say on the low, like we're at a hundred dollars just to use round math, we're at 250 for your bouquet. If we're doing something really simple, we're at 1, 250 right now.

And then you're telling me you need a ceremony arch. And then you're also telling me you want. eight tall centerpieces, which those are going to be like starting at around 300. Um, so like just doing some quick math, it just doesn't equate. I can have that same conversation, that same difficult conversation.

If all of a sudden they start telling me more things on a consult, I just go back to it's math. Math is easy. Let me explain this to you. I'm breaking the numbers down. And then you're not getting into like this battle Royale about it. I don't want to get into a battle. I just want to share the info and just be done.

So super simple, super easy. Just say, you know what, like the math doesn't make sense to me. Um, if I'm looking at some really rough numbers, bride bouquet, bridesmaids, you know, centerpieces, if, especially if they've told you, like, I want a low centerpiece, a tall centerpiece, and they've attached a Pinterest board, so it's making more sense.

And also like, You're educating them. And this is part of the reason why I have a brochure. They don't know what they don't know. So if you're helping educate them, you might be the person that gets to bring them back to reality to tell them, Hey, like maybe what we were asking isn't feasible. Well, no crap.

They don't know what they don't know. So it's your job to help educate them. I want to talk about a difficult conversation with a freelancer when you have somebody freelancing with you. I actually had, uh, another florist call me and they had a freelancer that was posting reels and posts of a wedding that they helped with.

They actually didn't help on those specific items. They did tag them. But they felt it was disingenuous that that person was posting those things when they had not helped create them. And this person had done it a couple times. So, I said to her, why don't you reach out to her and say, you know what, I totally appreciate you wanting to share what you've created in, you know, working or freelancing with me.

But, um, one of the things that I request of all my freelancers is that if you are posting it, make sure you take us, but also make sure that you had a heavy, strong hand in creating that. And from what I can see that last post that you did, blue hydrangea hanging installation was absolutely beautiful, but I know you didn't work on that project.

So I just want to make sure that you're, you know, really representing what you really helped with at my studio, um, because integrity is really important to me and that's it. Leave it at that. All right, wholesalers, here's some difficult wholesaler conversation. I have shown up and like stuff has not been there.

I haven't been communicated about it. Stuff is just like not right. And let's just say like I give them a Mulligan for one weekend, but it's happened like three weekends in a row, three weeks in a row. I, I literally will go over there and I'll call them and I'll just say, is something going on going on with you?

I just want to check in with you. Okay. Normally, our relationship and how our transactions works just so much smoother than this. The mistakes have been consistent every week. And this as a business owner is something that is really putting a ripple in my productivity that week, in my budget that week, whatever it is that it's impacting.

And I'm wondering how we can get this back on track because these mistakes are not something that I can have, um, in a wholesale partnership. Still spell it out. I can't have this. It's something going on with you. If something is going on with them in their personal life and they're letting things slip, I am going to be completely understanding of that.

If they are just generally like just messing up though, I'm not going to be understanding of that. Like get your shit together. Then I, if, if they're like, you know what, I've just, I've fallen off track, I'm sorry. What can I help you? What, how can I help you? Like how can I make this work better for us? Is there something that I could do that could make this better?

Just ask them. They might, like, have something like, if you got me your wedding orders a week ahead of time. Okay. I can get them to you a week ahead of time as long as you have a little bit of flexibility if I need to take a bunch or two off. All right. Another difficult conversation. You buy something, you order it, they tell you a price, or, you know, you asked them a price a while ago on this item, and it did considerably more.

I will then go. Hey, you know what? We actually, we talked about this specific item recently, and I asked you what the cost is, and it's drastically different. If there was going to be a price difference, I, you know, we've communicated that I really need that communicated ahead of time in case I need to source the product elsewhere.

Can you tell me what broke down in that this time? I just really want to make sure that we're on the same page.

That's it. Like, how can we be on the same page? Because I asked you specifically on this instance. What this costs. Well, I couldn't get it from there. That should have been communicated with the, it's, I can't control if you can't get something from somewhere. I can, can only control the information that you share with me and that I ordered from you based on that information.

And that's it. Next difficult conversation. You show up and it is wrong. Your order is jacked. Like the colors are not on, the farms were different, the, the roses were subbed, whatever it is. Hey, you know, I'm really trying to figure out what's going on with my order. Okay. All the things that I sent you, everything looks really different.

Can you explain what's going on on my cart? Because I can't make any sense of it. Put it back on them. Oh, well, what do you mean? What do you, what do you mean? And I'm like, well, I'm, I'm looking at it and it's. Like the roses are not the roses that I ordered. Um, the light blue delphinium is really dark blue.

The light blue, uh, light pink, uh, Larkspur is hot pink. My purple tulips are lavender. Like, can you just, can you help me understand? Can we go and look? And then they're like, Oh yeah, what is pulled wrong? Okay. Well, can I get the ones that I ordered? Yeah, this is what came in. Okay, so something didn't come in and that wasn't communicated to me, um, cause you told me my order wasn't a problem.

And cause I always circle back, hey, is there anything that's going to be a problem on this? So I'm full circling when I send my email of ordering and you told me there was going to be no problem. So we have a problem today and I'm just trying to figure out how we can not have this happen again. Like, did you see how like concise that answer was?

I just want to see how we can not have this happen again. What didn't go right? Like, you communicated with me that everything was going to be okay. And I understand, like, I'm not going to flip out on somebody if it's, like, one thing. But if it was, like, a really important thing, sometimes I'll go, like, this is a critical.

And a lot of times on this is critical things, I'll order them from two wholesalers because I'm just not messing around and I don't want to I don't want something to get screwed up and then I'm dealing with that. So that's difficult conversations. I hope this, this was helpful. And if you're navigating some difficult conversations in your business, I would love to have you on our new series called business breakthroughs.

I'm doing live coaching live on the podcast where you get to, like, we set up a time you go and apply. Um, the link will be in the show notes. Thanks. And I coach you live on a podcast call. I mean, we record it. So it's not live, live, but we go through whatever you're really, the troubles that you're facing, like difficult conversations, if that's part of it, ordering.

I literally just was on with a one on one coaching client and we were just figuring out how to plan for her orders and how we can simplify. And she's like, Oh my God, I never thought about it this way so much faster. And I'm like, absolutely. It is. And those things are stuff that I just love helping people with.

And so if you need some help and you want a free coaching session and want to help others by learning from you, head to the link in the show notes. And I would love to have you on a biz breakthrough episode. Thank you so much for listening flower friend, and you have an amazing flower filled day.