The Floral Hustle

  📍 Hello Flower friend. This is Jen and you are listening to the Floral Hessle Podcast on today's mini. So we are going to talk about one of the bigger charges that comes with a wedding, and that is like your setup delivery. And if you're returning to a flip, many Floris will go and just charge a flat fee percentage.

That's like a labor percentage, but I personally, uh, I approach it different. I. That each piece is its own charge, because honestly, if I have to do less work, I want to charge accordingly to be competitive with my bed, but also like sometimes like. You can simplify the wedding so much that you don't need to come back, uh, for a late night teardown or want to even come back for a late night Teardown.

Uh, and then also trying to incentivize people to come back the next day for pick for Teardown, you know, different ways like that. Um, I want to incentivize people to do the behavior that I'm hoping for, which is I love next day tear. If the tear down gets later, I want to charge accordingly for it. So I want to charge more for what I am doing that is difficult.

So I basically structure all of that off of what I call the pain in the ass factor to start out with their setup and delivery. Is their venue a total pain in the butt to get into? Uh, or is it an easy drive up and unload? Are you going to a loading dock that literally you can barely see the sign for and the people that are helping you are probably going to miss it?

And the things just all sorts of just a mass? Are you gonna have to go to their. Airbnb to drop up okays, are you having to go to their ceremony area, their, um, reception? That's three stops. So you should be paid accordingly by the number of stops, the complexity, if you need a truck, if you need a huge crew of people, like those are all factors I look at when pricing my setup and delivery fee.

That could range. If it is a very simple drop off, I am fine with charging like $250. If it's like I'm pulling up, I'm giving bouquets, I am, you know, dropping off maybe a few really simple centerpieces and the wedding planner because the tables won't be out. She's gonna be placing those. Like, that's easy.

But when it gets more complicated, Then I'm gonna be charging, you know, five to potentially $700. If it's, if it's really super complicated, then I look at, am I going to come back for a room flip, or am I, you know, transitioning something, um, from one area to the next that's going to require a team member to come with.

Or am I literally going to have to dismantle something? I do a lot of cultural weddings and they think they are going to save so much money by me dismantling their mind up and then moving it for their stage backdrop. And so I want to make sure that I'm compensated for that. I wanna make sure that if I have to have team members, Or extra flowers or whatever.

I am compensated for that. So that is a separate charge. And I explain cuz somebody will ask like, why is this? You know, extra charge there. I'll explain, like I'm going to have to have two people come with me to do the room flip because it's a short amount of time. Um, you know, and on and on. So I'm just, sometimes I just make sure that the customer understands that I'm not snapping my fingers and then this magical thing is happening, and then their wedding is perfect, then tear down.

So I charge an additional. And it depends on the venue what that additional is. If it's a very simple venue, I start my, um, tear down at, let's just say, and this is for a simple wedding, $250 for like a nine o'clock tear down, and then every half hour I add an increment because I want them to understand.

This is what every half hour later is going to cost them. You can do it every hour. You could do it like just quoting out the exact time, but it costs more for me to come at midnight or me to come at one o'clock. And I personally don't like doing teardown. So I have, uh, a friend that's in the floral business, um, and like literally I pay him to do the majority of my tear downs.

I'm rarely going to a tear. And I'm incentivizing him by usually just giving him the whole amount of it. And then those things, materials, my chimneys, everything are returned here, which is even more amazing because I'm not having to go pick it up from him. They literally, he tears it down and then drops the items off here.

So it is super simple. Tear down for me. I am also like putting those notes and these are separate charges listed on my proposal, so I'm not, I've seen a lot of proposals that are just going flat, you know, 18% or 15%, 13%. I have seen 3% put on a wedding, which was only $3,000. It's very sad, but some people just don't know what to charge and I might not personally.

Charging, uh, as much as other floors potentially could, but I feel that my, my time is being more than compensated. I'm able to cover everything and I'm able to charge what I want to charge on my flowers instead of playing with the numbers. I've seen people actually charge more for their setup and delivery and labor charges, and then charge way under for their centerpieces and bou.

So this is a pretty easy, um, way to, you know, have it be explainable to a customer like this makes sense. I don't wanna charge you for something that you are not going to use. And I want to be fair that if I need additional resources that, you know, we are being able to cover that. And then if you can get us to have next day Tarone, obviously that will be less expensive because we're not up at.

Taking things down. So just consider almost having an a la carte charge, uh, structure to your setup, delivery and return flip. Because if you have been, especially if you've been doing this for a long time in a late night, teardown just is not your idea of a good time anymore like mine. Literally, you can incentivize for the behavior that you want.

If you wanna make late time, tear down more expensive, they will. Their venue, if at all possible. And sometimes they'll, even if they've asked, I'll quote it and I'll say It's half as much or something like that. I will incentivize them to basically push that venue for a next day Teardown. And if it's a complicated teardown that literally I've done one that was a 500 person Hindu, or no, it was a Muslim wedding, but it literally at one o'clock in the morning took two and a half hours for two.

Like I charge that and I also clarify details in that. So like that wedding, I actually got taken by surprise. Cuz normally these type of cultural weddings, like they want to take all the flowers. Well literally they, they didn't, even though I had them all piled on a table and so I was tearing apart. And so I wish I would've written in there that they were taking the majority of the flowers.

Otherwise I would've, if I did write that in there, I probably would've left them and said that that was part of the agreement. But because I missed that little part, that's why all the notes on the proposal, and that's why I do my proposals in Canva because I can write me some serious notes. Uh, so I am on the same page as that client.

I hope you like these little suggestions for your teardown fees. I often see, especially newer floors, undercharging for this because they don't understand how hard this is going to be. And when you total these up at the end, you're probably above what the labor fees would've been if you charged a flat labor rate.

So consider this. I hope you find that helpful, and I hope you implement some strategies that are gonna make sure that you're getting paid your worth next time that you. 📍 A wedding. So have a great day, flower friend.