The Floral Hustle

  📍 Hello, flower friend. This is Jen. You are listening to the Floral Hustle podcast. Today I wanna talk about what is being put out there in the world. I just launched my pricing guide for Flores, and to begin with it, it's literally the biggest download. Uh, Freebie that I've had to date. But then I was thinking last night, because I obviously have been doing this for so long and I have seen and heard all these things that you should be doing.

So today I wanna talk about when you don't agree with the guidance sets out there, and so you are setting your own north star of what you think you should be doing. And with that, I wanna talk specifically about pricing. There is one reason why I think having a, a compass of what, or a gauge of what you want to be doing.

And that's why in my pricing guide, I actually have a worksheet for you to definitively decide this is what I'm going to charge. And it was even. It was super interesting. I had another florist who is going to be doing um, our first, um, Minnesota Floral Collective workshop here, and she's gonna be talking about pricing and I sent her the guide and it's funny cuz she said, I pretty much priced to get to the same number that you got, but just in a different way.

So I do think that everybody does something differently. She, she said that I charge a little bit more for my setups and things like that, and I don't charge really full markup on my supplies. I, I usually just charge my full markup on my flowers and, you know, she just gave me a feel for what, how she was different.

And I just thought that was so interesting. Uh, you know, I had a perception that pretty much this was kind of for any successful, which I, that's what I deem her as a successful business owner. Like that she was following that, but she had her own secret sauce to get to the same place. So literally, you can take the guide and you can, or all the things that our people are saying.

You can take that and tweak it and mold it to what works for you. And if that maybe means like you're not charging for full markup on your supplies because it's just easier for you to keep track of. Or if that means like you're charging two and a half times on your, you know, let's just say your flowers or whatever, whatever logic and reasoning you have behind what you want to charge.

Just make sure that that's what you're holding as this is the guide of what I'm going to do in my business. And in that, making sure you're almost backing in that with this pricing structure, I am going to be able to get paid for what my worth is. I am going to be competitive, but in the market of others for pricing.

Because when you aren't, You do a disservice to the other florist in town. And I, I actually, I used to do this, I used to undercharge way back in the day that I literally, I had a florist send, and I absolutely love her now, but she sent me the shittiest email that I. Could ever get, like I felt horrible after getting, but then I had my little epiphany that I'm my own boss and she's not bossing me around and I can do what I want to do in my business.

But now that I've evolved, like I was hurting the pricing integrity of every florist by undercharging. So I know you feel like you're winning, but you're not really winning because you are hurting. Everybody else that actually is trying to make a living and is trying to, you know, really be successful and have literally an actual business that is thriving and making them money.

So you are, are cutting a little like chunk or notch out of their ability to be able to charge their. So what does that really mean? Like, does that matter? Uh, I think it matters because I truly feel that collectively we can, you know, dictate what pricing looks like. But if we have a se several outliers in a market and makes it so much harder, we actually have a couple of those right now in the Minneapolis market.

And it is, it is hard because you feel like, you know, you're being undercut and you know, they're just not making money. And so that is not going to be sustainable long term. So you can get angry about it. I actually, I hear this from a lot of the flos that I coach. Uh, somebody is saying that they got a bid lower than mine and you need to be armed and ready.

Especially if, let's just say you are pricing to make money, which this is a business, so that is fair. You need to be able to justify to yourself that you are worth this because that's part confidence in your pricing comes off to your customers and they don't always want the lower or lowest price. I try to, and I actually include this in my social media messaging, Do you want the cheapest price or do you want the best Value?

Value and price are two different things in my opinion. Are vastly different on your wedding day. So do you want the person who you don't exactly know if your colors potentially are gonna be dead on? Do you want the person that it might be more sparse or they might be re I've had one that like literally in their Instagram photos, I see dead flowers.

I see dead eucalyptus. I see it. It's just, it's not great. As a consumer, you don't see that. So I try to educate as part of my social media strategy so that people can understand there are differences in pricing, but most flos, as long as they are delivering similar ideas, similar pictures, whatever it may.

Mosts are not gonna be like this night and day difference. So you need to provide an experience that supports potentially you charging just a little bit more because you need to pay yourself, you need to pay your bills. Like if you look at the expenses that are related with your business, I mean, I, I'm doing my taxes right.

It's a lot. You, there are a lot of expenses like my website and then, um, part of my cell phone, part of my internet, my business insurance, um, my personal development expenses for coerces, coaching, all of those things. Uh, and then, um, Canva and for the. Floral hustle. I actually, I have a bunch of additional expenses out of outside of that, like podcast editing and just all the things.

So there are expenses and you need to make sure those can be covered. The rent I pay myself for use of my garage, literally that needs to be covered and it's not a little expense. I think we pay like $7,700 or something like that from the business to us. Which then we have to pay personal taxes on, which is kind of funny, but you need to make sure you can cover those expenses and that they're fair.

And so if you aren't pricing for profit, you are going to have a hard time to be able to pay yourself a wage that is going to sustain you, that is going to pay the rest of your bills all while being fulfilling and you really loving your job because when you are not making. It's really easy to start not loving your job, and it's really easy to get resentful.

It's really easy to feel like you don't add value because if you're not paying yourself, you feel like you're just. You're just being underpaid and like, why would I wanna keep doing this? So then you're gonna think a day job, which has a consistent paycheck is going to look more appealing. And if you just structure everything and do the work to build your business, you're gonna be able to make more than that day job.

But you have to do the work. So really you need to find out what your pricing structure is. And I see some of the, um, floral educators out there and they're showing these grand luxury weddings and that like this centerpiece here is literally like $2,500. Don't you wanna be doing this? Absolutely not. I could care less if somebody had a $2,500 centerpiece.

Cuz you know what to me? That means I'm probably gonna have to rent a warehouse. That means I'm probably going to either have to rent a bunch of trucks and I'm going to have to find every freelancer in the tri-state area to help with that wedding. I am more than happy doing a 10 to $15,000 wedding. I'm more than happy a $20,000 wedding, 25,000, but to me, like I don't.

I don't like strive. I don't like push myself, like I don't define my success with doing a grand luxury $50,000 wedding with centerpieces or a big thing that's $2,500 or something. So you define your success. You define what you want to follow, but just follow it. So you're making sure that you're being profitable, that you are really loving all the facets of your business and they make sense.

And that you aren't hurting the marketplace because you are competitive and delivering value, but not undercutting and undercharging, uh, all of your other flower friends, which will also make them resent you and make you the one. We have one here that everybody kind of talks about as being the one that under charges and hurting everybody else because they are undercharging, so gross.

So I hope that was a little helpful. If you haven't downloaded my pricing guide, please, please, please go get it. It is so people are downloading it and loving it, so go to the floral hustle.com/pricing. It is just amazing and I know you're gonna love it and it's gonna. So much clarity in your business that it's just, it's gonna be helpful.

So thank you so much for listening today, flower Friend. I so appreciate you. Please tag me on Instagram with your biggest takeaways. I absolutely love when people do that. I love giving you a shout out and just, I appreciate you. 📍 So thank you so much and have a great day, flower Friend.