Simplify to Amplify: Streamlining Your Floral Business for Growth and Profitability
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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 a phrase that I really want you to consider If you are feeling stuck, if you are feeling like your revenue is not growing, that your business isn't growing, if you feel like you're spinning your wheels, or maybe you just feel like you're like a chicken with your head cut off and you're running around.
I grew up in a farm. So if you ever, I'm a vegetarian for those very reasons. But if you've ever like seen that you're just like running around with no direction. And so that phrase is. Simplify to amplify. When you become an expert at something, you are optimizing it. You're optimizing your processes.
You're optimizing how you order. You're optimized knowing how to make it. You optimize all these things. Instead, what most new business owners and some even establishes, they're like, I need to be where any money is because you're listening. Living in this scarcity mindset of, you know, I need to be doing all these things because I need to be making money.
But when you say yes to everything, you're saying no to making a lot of money in a easy and efficient manner. So if you're simplifying to amplify, you are going to approach Things as I need this to be a streamlined is easy as optimize and literally feel better than any other situation. And when you do that, your business is going to start feeling better.
Your clients likely will feel like they are more served, more seen. One way that this really shows up in my business is that I have simplified to doing wedding flowers. I do wedding flowers really, really, really well. And I can say really, really, really, because I have done over 1700 of them. I have that confidence that comes with doing A ton of them.
I have the literally the confidence in talking to a client saying, I actually, I do a positioning statement at the end of every one of my consoles and that positioning statement is, hey, I don't know if you were on our website. I think you were because you said in a site lead. I don't know if you made it to the about us page, but.
Just so you know, I've been a florist for over 25 years. I have done over 1, 700 weddings. There's nothing that's going to surprise me or take me off my game that week. Anything will handle and it will be seamless for you. I am going to make this so easy for you. Some version of that is set at almost every console.
Because I have done so many, I have that confidence of saying, I got this. If you are going to go and do corporate clients, and then you're trying to get into, let's just say, doing some weddings, and then you're trying to get into doing, you're doing daily deliveries, then all of a sudden, people want you to decorate for a birthday party, and they want you to do something, some balloons for a quinceanera, and you're just like, you If somebody looks at your Instagram and cannot clearly tell within three seconds of looking at your Instagram what you are an expert at that could deter them from working with you because weddings are niche.
Corporate clients are a niche. There are Several things, like I am an expert at cultural weddings because I do so many of that. So I have the knowledge to simplify, to amplify that part of my business. So when you're starting out, you naturally are just going, I'm going to do everything and anything I can to make money, to get in front of somebody, to grow my business.
And what I've gone through on many different exercises with coaching clients is you're just like, okay, you're doing all these things. So for one, you're working in your business, not ever on your business. Because you're having a learning curve or reorientation with every one of these facets of your business.
You're having to talk about every one of these facets. You're having to field inquiries or whatever on every one of these facets. You're having to handle the daily delivery calls, doing the credit cards, writing the cards, ordering the flowers on a reactive pace. And there is a place if you nail daily deliveries good for you.
I hope that they're profitable and optimized for you. I often also see people who are doing daily deliveries you're stretched in. You're running around in complete reactivity. You're reacting to people calling you and wanting flowers last minute, you're reacting all of a sudden you got five orders, and you need more flowers it is a constant up and down cycle, and then you're having to compete with somebody who's buying your area.
You know, they're buying Google keywords, and you're showing up organically, but they're clicking on Ava's flowers or FTD, or maybe you even signed up for some of those things, and they're taking 35 percent of your order, which makes it really hard then for you to be profitable. Think about those things, step back and be like, should I be staying in my own lane?
I know that unless I have flowers in my studio or growing out in my urban flower farm that I don't take a daily delivery order. That is just a fact. It is not profitable for me to have an additional delivery fee to get flowers out here. I often won't be using a whole entire bunch. So that also doesn't make this profitable and all of these things that like just make me not really in my lane to do daily deliveries.
I also think for you to simplify, to amplify, you need to really hone in on one stage of your business first. If you are, let's just say, a wedding florist you need to be like an expert at doing weddings before you add anything so you've simplified and then it's only grown and gotten better. When it's grown and gotten better, that's when you can take and really run with it.
But, You shouldn't be adding all of a sudden, like, I'm going to be doing you know, all of these, I'm going after doing quinceañeras and corporate events and doing all these things if you're really starting to figure out still how to do weddings. And one way, one really critical way that I evaluate where if you are doing all those things.
If you are doing and running around like a chicken with their head cut off, where are you making the most money? I want you as the CEO of my business, and I want you as the CEO of your business, To be spending time in the most profitable spot possible. And if you are spending a bunch of time on things that aren't profitable, you can't amplify your business because for one, you're working in your business, not on your business, not being the true CEO of your business, and you're going to stay stuck.
You're wondering why you're not growing. It's because you're, you're never taking time to be strategic. You're never taking time to be like, I am an expert and everybody should be paying attention to this. And then at that point, one really critical way at that point, you should be thinking, okay, I've gotten myself, I've amplified this section in my business and then I can go and add something else.
So you become an expert and then you're like, I am ready to kick ass and take names on something else. That's it. And I have felt like that at this point in my business. I am an expert in weddings. I then became an expert in cultural weddings. I now am adding a complete separate division. Oh, actually, then I added a la carte weddings and I became an expert at that.
I know how to package. I know how to order for those things. I know how to make those things, all the things. I got that down. Now I'm adding my luxury silk arch rental program. And with that, like this is a new completely separate revenue opportunity. I'm not robbing Peter to pay Paul. My a la carte flowers are really worried that I was going to be taking money away from doing full service weddings.
I have time and time again only brought on business that I wouldn't have had under my minimum. These aren't people that like, I'm going to spend 1, 500 in my minimum three. I, I wouldn't have ever had that opportunity as a full service client, but this is something that I've streamlined, I've made easy, and now I'm on to the next thing.
Can I optimize and add this whole separate division of these rentals that I have the pre done there, I have beautiful photos, I've done all of this work for it can I now optimize even more? And now I'm adding this separate thing to amplify, to amplify my revenue, to amplify whatever, because I don't want to ever put my, all my eggs in one basket, which I did for a long time.
Like I was doing weddings way too cheap, running around, not paying myself, running around, not doing anything to, to make serious impact. I was creating things that were not inspiring for me. I was in this like rut and then finally when I decided I'm here to make money, I'm here to enjoy my work that I'm doing, like things started to change.
I also started seeing my value more. I started placing value on certain perks in my life especially when I quit my corporate job. Like, I was putting value, like, on not having, I was only an 8 minute commute, but I put value on not having to do that commute anymore. I put value on not having to be in an office away from my children.
I put value on all of these things because I was ready to elevate. I was ready to amplify. And if you're going, I'm stuck. I don't know why. I, my business hasn't grown. I don't know why I'm not able to make money. I'd really love for you to sit down and go, okay, am I doing too many things? If I simplified this, could I amplify this?
Could I do wedding flowers better than anybody in my town? Could I market myself as like, Somebody that they need to work with for weddings if I had the time, because most of the time you don't have any time if you're doing a million things, and if you're doing a million things, you're never doing any of them really good.
So, step back. Where are you making money? Should maybe we go all in on that revenue opportunity? We don't have to throw the other ones away so that we're closing the doors. But maybe if you're doing daily deliveries, you up your daily delivery minimum order. Maybe you make strategic little changes in your business.
Maybe something to really like make your business pivot into profitability, pivot into fulfillment. pivot so that you are a expert. And when somebody in your town is thinking about wedding flowers, about corporate flowers, about whatever it is, a la carte flowers, whatever you want that to be, that they're like, I need to contact this person because they know what they're doing.
They are my path to making sure that I have perfect wedding flowers. I have perfect whatever. And it can be whatever bucket, I call them revenue buckets. So Look at what your revenue buckets are. I also see often that because it's exciting Workshops are something that people are like, oh my god. I want to do all these workshops I want to go in on all these workshops and frankly, they're not making any money I don't know.
I have coached so many florists that are really invested in doing workshops I know one person who from a retail perspective, so not coaching florists perspective, that makes really good money and markets themself spectacularly from a workshop perspective. She is one of my local flower friends.
Her name is Brooke. With Bumble Fleur and her Instagram, because I'm, shout out to Brooke. She's worked her ass off to really do classes really well, workshops really well. It is Bumble underscore Fleur, F L E U R. You guys are looking for somebody that really does workshops well or does, um, classes well for the public.
She does a great job. The majority of the time, what I see is people, like, failing epically. On, they're investing so much time, they underbid what their product cost is going to be. They spend a shitload of time running around trying to find the perfect container. I've done it. I've spent the time finding the perfect container having to pay for all these supplies and having to pay for all of these other things so that the experience is at a level that I want and it sucks.
So, like, could you elevate your thinking that what am I making when I participate in this activity? Because that's a really easy place to cross something off the list and be like, if I'm going to simplify to amplify, I need to invest in high revenue producing items. And if it's not a workshop, if it's not a daily delivery, if it's not something that is just so easy and ingrained and just makes money.
then we should evaluate Pitchin It. Thank you so much for listening, flower friend, and you have an amazing flower filled week.