The Floral Hustle

  📍

Hello flower friends, it's Jen and I am guessing you're like a lot of the rest of us and going, holy crap, we have some potential big changes coming our way with tariffs. And like many DMs that I've gotten, you're freaking out because you've priced weddings out or whatever. And I want to talk to you about some strategies to approach this.

For one, this anxiety and for two, like approach this in a way that is more proactive than reactive because I try to operate in my business, in my life, not in reactivity, but in a way that feels like I'm in control and I can make an impact. I can do something about it. I can, I can, I can. So instead of going, all these bad things are happening and I'm fucked, like, which a lot of people are feeling right now because they didn't have language in their contract that accounted for tariffs.

What can we do? to game plan when things are out of our control. And one of the biggest things that this exercise made me go through when I was having the, the phone calls and the text messages of people freaking the fuck out, I was just like, okay, my strategy is changing in two different ways. For one, I think my silk flower business is going to be more relevant than ever because if flower prices keep raising, my silk flowers are going to be a huge opportunity for me to capitalize on that.

And I have already seen like the growth and I haven't even launched my website yet. I did a reel on that and I had so many people inquired. So if you're curious about this, I have Not even launched my rental website yet, and I think last year I had 9, 500 in sales and this year I think I have about that planned.

Last weekend I made 2, 000 Renting my stuff out that was already put together, and then I married with it 2, 000 of a la carte Uh, flowers, and so I had a 4, 000 wedding that I did have somebody come and make the majority of the things, and I spent, I think they were here for 8 hours, I spent an hour, I spent an hour picking it all up.

And so in about 10 hours, plus my setup, um, I had, you know, about 4, 000 for like over four of revenue in the business. And so like, that's my, my like mental shift right away. I'm like, okay, if flower prices are changing, how can I shift to capitalize on something I've already started? Something I'm always already dreaming bigger like what can I do to shift to make this even better?

And this is not me being it's it's it's not me being on the the defense to like Hey, what about all these but more on like how can I capitalize and make this a benefit to me then? This next strategy that I thought through is okay, I Literally I grow flowers. So what can I do to grow flowers that I can use in my designs?

So I started thinking through that then I started thinking through how can I buy more locally grown product and we have a thriving flower farmer community here in Minnesota and we have a growers co op that definitely is a huge resource. So how can I tap into that? How can I tap into the flower farmers?

How can I replace the things that I've been sourcing with these things? Or, and this is my third strategy, which I'll go into, but let me finish my thought on the second. So like, find more flower farmers. Find more ways to incorporate and make sure that you are in control of some of these things not affecting you because you are buying more locally grown.

So the, the third thing really is Okay, I need to make sure that I am not promising exact flowers or I'm going to get into this where I am stuck. I am stuck because I promised these exact blooms. I years and years and years ago stopped promising exact flowers because for one, it can be very stressful for two, it can be, it can backfire on you if for some reason that flower is not available.

That can seriously backfire on you. I, if you've listened to the podcast a while, a hurricane went through, shut the ports down for three days and I literally needed these amnesia roses. At the time, there was not Govinda, there was not early gray, there was not any of these other roses and it sucked. So I was at the mercy that I had promised amnesia roses.

And the ports were closed down and we did not grow amnesia roses domestically anywhere. Everybody and their mother was freaking out because nobody could get, you know, roses imported. Uh, and I literally got them on Friday for my Saturday wedding when I was supposed to get them Tuesday. So then I was afraid they were going to look like crazy crap.

And it just was, uh, yeah. So I have stopped. And I hope. You can take my lesson as a lesson of what to do going forward because it was Bananas that that happened that there was so much craziness in this so I don't promise those things so Roses, maybe I'm using a third of the roses. I used to use because I can fill with zinnias, or I can fill with a comparable value flower that fills the space.

And by value I don't mean just the price, I mean the size. So can you fill it with a comparable value from a size standpoint? because then you're going to be in a really good position. Alright, then the last thing, um, that I want to talk about from a strategy and not being reactive is you're in control where you buy from.

I, some weeks currently, can buy my Playa Blanca roses for 1. 50 or I can get them from my wholesaler for 2. 65. So if you have not entertained buying roses direct or finding some brokerage type system to help circumvent like the huge influxes in pricing, the um, especially when wedding season is at full bloom or like fall is in full bloom, literally the wholesalers will have like quicksands are at like 2.

89, 2. 99. 2. 99. And I can get them for a buck, 65 from my rose farm. So like you can smart source, source smarter, do some due diligence to find other resources. If you have been the person sending over your entire order to your wholesaler, and that's it, you've likely been overpaying. And so this is your opportunity to.

Really protect yourself. All right. The next thing is that I'm I want to close on is Now is the time to revisit your contract if you have nothing in that helps protect you against changing your pricing when something like this happens You need to make sure that you get it in your contract. You need to like, this is completely out of our control.

And so pricing things that are out of our control, that is like, everything is going to be affected like by this. And if. If, if somebody can't understand that you need to protect yourself and your contract, then they probably aren't the right client for you. So go in and revisit your contract and make sure that you have protection against these type of unforeseen circumstances because this tariff could be one thing.

What if, and this has happened a million different times, if for some reason, It freezes in the middle of wedding season in Ecuador. This has happened. Hydrangea production has halted almost to a, like a, uh, breaks running into a building. No hydrangeas. And the price of hydrangeas is shot up over a 1. 50 a stem.

Like, all of these things are out of our control, but what we have in control is what is in our contract to protect us. Yes, will that conversation potentially suck to have with a person when one of those variables change? Yes, but it sucks way less than you making a ton less money because you didn't have that protection.

Thank you so much for listening flower friend and you have an amazing flower filled day. 📍