The Floral Hustle

 Hello Floral friend. This is Jen, and you are listening to the Floral Hustle podcast. I am so excited for you to be here today because today is the beginning of something new and different in the floral industry. Today's episode is called The Floral Hustle is Real, and we're gonna cover three different topics today.

For one, we're gonna talk about the floral hustle and how it is real in our anti hustles culture and society that we live in currently. I wanna talk a little bit about myself and my background and how I can add value on your floral journey. And then we're gonna talk about some of the items that I wanna cover, uh, on this podcast and that I've been dreaming of sharing, or in some of my coaching that I've helped people, , you know, develop in their business or even just my personal, uh, And journey that I have developed, , over my 27 years of being a, florist and, um, 17 of that owning my own business.

So, so excited. You're here and let's get started. So the floral hustle. Name was birthed out of. I actually, um, right around the time I was developing this, I saw a bunch of things on Facebook and on Instagram. It was actually a meme, I think. And it was like, what floors do people like think they do versus what they actually do?

And it was kind of negative. But also I think I knew it was trying to be funny cuz it was talking about. People think we're dancing in our gardens and we're going and just like playing with flowers. And that's like the majority of what we do. We just play with flowers. But what's realistic is, we're our own social media manager.

We are our own bookkeeper, we are our own photographer. You know, just the list goes on and on. And it was talking about like how stressed out and. Almost I, I mean it just gave this negative vibe. And then I saw a couple people like attack that meme and say that, we don't wanna hustle and we shouldn't be hustling and we should have, um, alignment and all of these things in our business.

And I was like, Are you kidding me? We actually have a. That is built on hustle, in my opinion. We help impact people's events or things that are going on that have meaning in their life with a perishable product and sometimes in a very elaborate way. So in my opinion, like our whole industry is built on hustling because we need to make sure that we provide.

Good product in a time efficient manner, which often doesn't give us a lot of time. So we are hustling to get our job done. We are hustling to make a difference in that event. We are hustling to get all the items promised out the door and, um, event worthy in a short amount of time. Some people do that with help or without help.

Fundamentally, our industry is just all about the hustle of making things happen. And that's why I chose this because I, I feel that having this whole anti hustle vibe and culture that's out there right now it doesn't. Reward or really talk about that to be successful, sometimes you need to hustle, and I know that I personally, I'm in Minnesota and so our wedding season is about six months going strong, and then there's a little bit of a reprieve.

So that's the break, that's the regroup. Um, I actually think that we have three seasons here. We have the preseason where we're preparing. We have wedding season, then we have post, and the majority of time you're in recovery mode in that post. And we, inevitably, everything in our industry is hustle, and so it makes me feel a little bit bad that some people really are against it because I, I think a little hustle is good for you because that means that you are moving and working towards your goals, and you aren't just standing idly by and like letting things happen to you.

You are making things happen in your business. , like I mentioned before, I live in Bloomington, but most people know where Minneapolis is. , very close to the Mall of America. I have been a florist for 27 years. I've owned my own business for 17 now.

I have an urban flower farm, so I'm huge into locally growing product. I love growing flowers. I. I just, it's, it's so fulfilling to me and it's so much fun to be able to just go out and harvest. Dahlias are my biggest thing that I plant. I think I planted, uh, about 200 last year. So I'm in the process right now of digging them up, which is super exciting.

I primarily focus on wedding and events. I have gone through phases where I've done Okay, I'm gonna do something for Valentine's Day, I'm gonna do something for Mother's Day, you know, and made those decisions or, Sometimes I even do everyday flowers. I, there's not many florist actually in the town that I live in.

And so there's not very many options and I'm listed on Google. So I do get some everyday orders. I strategically choose them based on if something is going to be financially worth it for me to do, uh, at that time. I also specialize in cultural weddings. So I do a lot of Hindu or Muslim weddings that have very elaborate setups, usually very elaborate month up or staged backdrops.

And I've developed my relationships with a couple different decorators in the metro area and work with them on designing and really pulling off the vision that they come together with the client on and then making that happen. So I, I do a lot of that and that's actually one of the things I wanna talk about is niche nicheing down or nicheing down, whatever, depends on what part of the country you're from.

] just cuz I think it's, Really an interesting area to live in when you have a niche. And I literally, like, it gets me excited to do a Hindu wedding or to do a mund up or to do a structure like that because they're fun, they're challenging, They're usually not the same. They're not very cookie cutter because everybody wants something different.

And so that's been really creatively fulfilling for me. I am the mother of two children and we live with my husband Steven. Uh, my son is three, his name is Bodhi and he is all boy and kind of full of craziness. And then I have an eight year old little girl. Her name is Arabella. And she. Is, um, this very creative.

She actually comes out here and, um, makes little flower arrangements and just absolutely loves it and tells everybody that she's gonna be a florist when she grows up. But very specifically, she's going to be a florist teacher just like her mommy, which is really, really cute. Uh, she has autism, so we have our, um, not only our like time commitments around that, but you know, just some struggles around that on a day to day basis.

But it's, they're just two wonderful kids. And I am so lucky that I now at this point get to stay home and run my floral business and also just be a more present mom. I'm putting boundaries around being a more present mom and being able to do things that I, I want to do with them and not just like always having to just be working in the studio.

Um, so I've, I've really created and crafted a business. That allows me to be able to work on my business and not in my business all the time. And that's an episode we're actually going to do about ways that you can take your, your whole role and responsibility back a little bit so that you can really propel your business forward by not always just being in the weeds and being the bucket cleaner and being the person who's unpacking and processing and you know, even having your own CEO day because you're the CEO of your business.

And taking that time to reflect is just so important. And that's honestly a lot of how I have grown, uh, is taking those, that space and that time to reflect on what's going on in my business. I, I've also, I'm a huge, huge, um, consumer of things like, Courses and, um, memberships. I'm in some different memberships that are not only just floral related, they are, business owner related or e-commerce related.

Um, I've been in, God, a lot of different groups, but I've also been in several masterminds, which are really interesting because you're getting this perspective on your situation and you're getting to see. How everybody else's life is. Um, you know, and their business kind of runs together and how they are really the CEO in their business and showing up.

So it's been a really interesting journey to kind of transition from, I had this full-time hustle. I was working, as the director of sales for an automotive classified listing company for 10 years. And, um, I actually, I sold cars and was a, a manager at a car dealership before that. But that whole time I, I had this side hustle of, uh, doing flowers on the weekends and it kind of grew into, I just kept doing more and more and I started identifying somehow internally that success for me was doing a lot of weddings, cuz.

Provided some validity to my work, to what I was doing, you know, working so hard, uh, outside of my, my day job. And so success to me was tied with volume and not with profitability. So it was a long journey for me to really align that that is not a path to getting you success, it's a path of getting you burnout.

And so I. Not to burn out. I choose to creatively take weddings that are fulfilling to me. I choose to take weddings that are profitable for me and that make it worth my time to be away from what matters, which is my children, my husband, and my own self, and taking care of myself. Uh, so those are things that are really important and it have been a big shift and I see so many, florist.

Really struggling with, I think what identifies success in their mind, in their floral business. And that's something I also wanna talk about because have you ever stepped back and were like, What really do I feel is my definition of success in my business? it transitioned from when I was in my side hustle to my mom, hustle when I went into mom hustle mode, when I had, um, Arabella, or I call her Bella is her nickname, uh, when I had Bella.

Priorities changed, shifted, and things needed to be worth it even more for me to be away from her. Um, especially after we got her autism diagnosis. Like that just changed things even more of what was important to me. And then from there, , it went from, uh, when I, when Bohi was born and I was still working full time and I was probably doing like 40 ish to 50 weddings a year and was working full-time.

Was having a baby. Um, when I was close to 40, I was 39 when I had, uh, Bodhi and I, I literally just was like, I can't do this anymore. Like, how can I realign again so that I can be the best mom that I could be so that I can be the best version of myself, but also like, how can I change my vision of what.

I want my business to be and not let other people define it. I went through long periods of time where I was letting others dictate my work and, and my worth because they were sending me photos and I was like, Oh yeah, I can make that. Even though it, like when I looked at the photo, it caused a physical reaction in my body.

I was like, Oh my God, that's horrible. How could they want that? But I thought that I needed to do that kind of work to be, um, successful to, to push my business forward and. I was so wrong about that, and that took a lot for me to figure out actually, for quite a long time. Baby's breath caused like a physical reaction in my body when I saw it, because if I had to do another mason jar baby's breath wedding, like I, I just, I couldn't, I, it was, it was painful to me and just so uninspiring and it kind of sucked the life out of me, and I just don't wanna live like that.

I want to live. I have the business that I adore, like I love being in my shop. I love delivering a wedding. I love the pride reaction. I love the experience. I don't want to just love a part of it. I want to love the whole thing because I deserve that. And I know that so many Flos don't, don't see that they deserve so much more and they.

Really should give themselves so much more credit for how creative they are or how, inspiring they are. Even showing up on Instagram. Like there are so many people that I've sent a message to because I know that showing up in your business is hard and I've just like, Hey, great job. Like I've really seen you putting an effort into your videos and it just, it really shows, and I just wanted to tell you that it's not unnoticed because we live in this culture again, that everybody is out there and saying all these things, but you never know if you're really hurt.

And so getting a knowledge for being heard, I think is just so important. So that's a little bit about me. Um, right now I am doing about 45 weddings a year, and I am doing, uh, weddings that are, I would say, four to $5,000 is the average. Last year I had a couple weddings that were over 20. It's not something I, mean, it's fun.

It is fun to do a larger wedding, but it's not something that I constantly want because there's so many moving parts to a large wedding. That I love a nice, simple $5,000, $8,000 wedding that go in, have a couple of team members with me, set it up and get out and get to enjoying my Saturday or my weekend.

So from there, I wanna talk about what we're gonna talk about here. Uh, one of the big things that I wanna talk about is we do, in my opinion, live in this kind of Instagram worthy, you know, everything is. This big contest of who can make the biggest, most beautiful thing and post it on Instagram, and I just don't think that Instagram is a vital, viable part of your success.

I think that there are so many other elements. I actually didn't even do Instagram until a couple years ago, which I was late to the party, but honestly, I don't think it's very impactful. I, I've had a few brides that have mentioned in my inquiry form that I found you on Instagram and that is amazing and awesome, but for the amount of time invested in Instagram, I don't know if it's worth it.

I'm still crafting that it might be worth it for some people, but because I want to operate in a certain area of my business that. For one, I'm not doing a whole lot of individual, um, posts and things like that. I just, I don't see value in it. I see value in investing in relationships within the wedding industry or making flower friends 10 times more than having a huge Instagram game.

So we're gonna talk about things like pricing organization. Having your business feel lighter and having it feel aligned and really defining what that even is. And so many people go and really just, they're just going through the motions and not, and they're rowing their boat, but they don't know where they're trying to take their boat.

And so really clearly laying out here are my goals. This is where I feel comfortable with and I don't wanna do anything that doesn't fill me up anymore. And a lot of people are like, Well, I need money. I need those weddings to pay my bills. Um, because maybe they're living and this is your everyday hustle instead of a mom or side hustle, where that's not your primary focus or your primary purpose.

And really, like you need direction to bring your business anywhere because without direction. You have no focus. You're just scrambling to keep up because you don't know if you're keeping up or if you're moving forward because you have no goal in mind. So those are a few of the things I also wanna talk about, like being a mom and running a business.

I have actually, we own a couple businesses. We have an Amazon products business, as well as I have the wedding flower business, and. But then I'm a mom of two kids and one is a complicated kiddo, and I still feel that deep down, like I am a good mom and I am showing up for my kids in a like the best way possible, while also being fulfilled myself.

And I truly believe my purpose. I have two purposes. Obviously, being a mother was, Purpose in my life and I wanted for a long time. And I love being a mom, even though every mom can attest that sometimes it just drives you bat shit crazy. But it is what it is. And also being a florist, like I, I love flowers and obviously I've been doing it for so long, but I just, it, it like wakes me up with excitement.

And I hope that some of my philosophies and approach with. To my business and how things work can help guide you into feeling that same enjoyment. Feeling like you adore the business that you own, feeling like you're living your purpose. Because I've also seen Floris, um, I have a lot of different freelancers and I've seen people that like, they shouldn't be doing flowers because this isn't their purpose and they're doing it because they don't really understand a different path or what to do about it.

But I've also seen Flores like, I really wanna own a business and run a business. , but they're not passionate about so many components of a floral business that they probably shouldn't be running a floral business. They probably should be figuring out something else. Since they don't have a direction, they don't know where to roll their boat, so, so those are just a few things that we're gonna talk about on the podcast, but if you ever have a request, please send me a DM on Instagram.

Um, it's at the Floral Hustle on Instagram. And I would love to hear what you would love to learn about, because I feel like with my experience and with. Place in my business that I'm at right now, that I can really add value to your floral journey and answer questions that maybe, maybe you or me a, a while back and maybe I can help guide you in some way to make you live a more aligned and more profitable business.

So thank you so much for listening and have a great day.