The Floral Hustle

[00:00:00] [00:01:00]
Hello flower friends. I've done episodes on outsourcing and as the CEO in your business where you should be spending your time, but with has craziest things have been lately and with wedding season actually, I have a wedding this week, so now here. I wanted to talk about outsourcing again, because I couldn't do all of the things that I do without it.
And now that I have a, a business coach that really is a higher tier, like, I mean, she's, she has a. Multiple million dollar business. If not, who knows? 'cause she does, she has revenue coming from a bunch of different sources, which is another [00:02:00] reason why I talk about diversification of your revenue sources.
And she, , talked to me because I was talking about how like social media. Felt so heavy in social media like, like just for, with the sheer volume of it. And so that's why I wanted my person who's helping me to really fill these holes. And she said something really interesting to me that I, I wanted to share because I hadn't really thought about it.
And it was no person who has an under $2 million business a year is outsourcing their social media. Because their brand voice and their voice in the company is so important when reaching people. And I thought about that 'cause I was like, that seems crazy. Like these people who are running a $2 million company are not [00:03:00] outsourcing their social media.
How could that be? And then I thought about like, there are levels to outsourcing and. There are ways that outsourcing can be interjected without losing your voice. And I think as small business owners, that's what we're afraid of. Like, this is our baby, our company, our everything, and somebody else is gonna fuck it up and we don't want that.
, I have seen Floris, I've actually, I know a florist that is very successful locally and she will not let anybody else make. Bridal bouquets or bridesmaid bouquets. I have seen people like give such detailed instructions that it's almost, the instructions are almost more overwhelming than making the item, and I have seen like so many facets of control.
, [00:04:00] when someone is executing their business because they're afraid, there's a lot of things to be afraid of. Like if you've gotten a bunch of business and then all of a sudden that business goes away and like, we're afraid that something is gonna go wrong, we're afraid that we're not gonna make money.
We're afraid that, um, somebody's gonna misunderstand us, uh, or somebody's gonna say the wrong thing. There are so many fear-driven decisions in our business that if we have guiding principles, outsourcing is completely possible. So freelancing and hiring freelancers is outsourcing, and it's probably one of the biggest things that I see people hesitate on doing, uh, that is.
One of the easiest, I think to outsource one of the easiest problems [00:05:00] or things or tasks, whatever, is getting help. And many of the reasons why I think people hesitate is 'cause they're worried about spending the money when they aren't at a certain point in their business yet. And you know, or they undercharged like a million different reasons, but.
If you were staying up till three in the morning, which I know flower friends that have done this and you are doing a $6,000 wedding and working full time or taking care of children like you are, being super hard on your body, which is going to inevitably, if you keep doing that, bite you in the butt if you have one big weekend out of every couple months.
Not a big deal. You cannot sleep for that weekend. But if this is continuous, that is going to take a toll on your body. 'cause that is the space that I lived in. I did not like fully outsource like I do [00:06:00] now. And outsource is, is basically the term. I say like people are coming in and I'm not making every single thing.
'cause I can't, like the weekend that we had 80 pieces to make. Some of them were spill off installations. Some of them were huge concrete planters with flowers in them. Like I physically, unless I didn't sleep for the whole week, I physically couldn't have made those items. Not all of 'em not. I also had a workshop, the Installation Rockstar workshop that week.
Like there's no way that that could have happened. We had a snowstorm that flowers got delayed and a million other things. So if that is something you are hesitating on, you are going to slow the growth of your business if you are slowing the thought of freelancing. Hiring freelancers, and I've done episodes completely [00:07:00] on hiring freelancers and how to do that.
Um, I'm familiar with, of course, in the United States, so it might be different elsewhere, but I. It also could be different from state to state, but it's, it's not that complicated. I figured it out pretty fast. Most people can figure it out pretty fast with some minor Googling or chat GP ting now. So that is one of the first things.
You cannot make everything and scale your business to a level that is likely the income that I'm guessing that you want. So hiring people is such a great tool, and you're not hiring them as employees. That is a different thing. You are hiring them As a contractor. There's different rules and things like that that you're not paying for.
You know, social security, Medicare taxes, you're not paying workman's comp. Like all of those things. You're hiring a contractor. Now, if things change, obviously then. You know, if you're having them coming every week [00:08:00] and things are kind of escalating, then it's a different situation. Then maybe they need to be an employee, and that's something that you talk to your tax professional about.
All right. Social media, I wanna talk about that because this is something that when I started having a contractor help me with my freelancing or with my social media, like everything just felt a little bit lighter. I do social media for multiple accounts and obviously on multiple platforms, and it just felt like a lot.
I have the Minnesota Floral Collective. I have the Floral Hustle. I have Green Goddess Floral, I have my personal Instagram. I have my personal Facebook. I have a TikTok account, Pinterest, like I just felt like it was way too much. So I have given like guidelines to a person helping me and have kind of explained like this is what I want.
And she now has worked for me for a while. So she knows like I. The kind of [00:09:00] captions that I like and like, she even, I think, understands what I would say 'cause she's been working for me for that long. Things that are impactful and that I really want to resonate. Obviously like a reel, I make all the reels.
Because I get inspired by music. I get inspired by thinking about different videos together. Like I start putting all of those things together in my head, and that's really hard to translate. But let's just say for my floral business, I want to follow my content pillars and I want to post a beautiful wedding photo on Wednesday, on wedding Wednesday.
Like she can take, and I can actually even preload, if you're using a planning tool like Planoly, I can just take and dump that into Planoly and put the tags in there so I make sure no tags are forgotten. I can write any special comment and then she can just do the polished touches and schedule it so [00:10:00] it doesn't have to be all or nothing.
And I think we often feel like it has to be all or nothing, and it just doesn't. All right. The next thing that I really am so glad that I started outsourcing is tax stuff. Taxes to me, are complicated and there are so many things that I would rather be doing than my taxes. I don't know all the different laws, like I don't keep up 'cause they.
Change every freaking year. And that's why I have a person who I can call and say, Michelle, I'm considering this. What do you think of that? Or she's telling me, Jen, I know you sent your kids to summer camp and did all the things and so she can tell me that. Or, Hey, it looks like our profit margin is pretty big and whatever.
Is there something you wanna buy? Like [00:11:00] she helps me figure out how to be more strategic on my business and my personal, and that is invaluable because I don't want to know everything, and as a business owner, I wanna know enough that I'm educated, that I can advise in a small manner on best practices, but I am not the expert and that's why I'm hiring an expert to help me.
She helped me set up QuickBooks. She helps me, like I had $20,000 that was miscategorized, so it was showing I made $20,000 less than I did. I was like, I know this is wrong because I have $20,000 more in my account than you're saying I should. And she just, she had, um, one of our associates go through and they leisured, did a, you know, cross matched my checking account with my, um.
My QuickBooks and they found this [00:12:00] MI misc categorization and there's $20,000 of revenue that was now properly accounted for. So without those people, for one, I don't wanna make a mistake. And for two, it just makes me feel so much better by trusting an expert. The next thing buckets. I had my bucket girl, which I'm really sad 'cause I'm gonna have to figure out a new bucket.
Girl. Or Bella's gonna have to become the bucket girl when we move to the farm because it is so time consuming. She got, I had so many buckets 'cause they had been stockpiled and it, we had crappy weather. So I don't expect her who is, you know, younger to come over here when it's shitty weather to wash buckets.
She came over and she piled this. I mean, she probably washed like 40 buckets and had them all piled up ready to go. So we have clean buckets for this week, and that is a low [00:13:00] investment usually because it is not a skilled laborer. And often if, yeah, I mean this is something great like your children could potentially help with or somebody who's just looking for experience or wants to be around flowers and like you have them do buckets and help with processing.
Like there are so many ways to spin, uh, somebody fitting into this role and it being advantageous to both of you. And so consider. Definitely entertaining having somebody that that's their job is to wash buckets. All right, the next thing, tear down. I am so grateful for. My main tear down person, and I make sure that he is well compensated because I don't want to do this so much that I am figuring out with the move so that I am not driving up here to tear down weddings, that I'm going to have a storage unit centrally located, not too far from him, [00:14:00] not too far from where I currently live, just in case I have to meet and I wanna exchange with someone and I, I just hate.
Going to tear down a wedding at 11 or 12, even though I'm even up. I just hate even the thought of that. That's what I'm doing, and he loves. Doing tear downs, like it's crazy. I don't, I don't get it. Um, I love the setup and looking at everything pretty, but I don't like drunk people and I don't like people like spilling their drinks when the bride is completely plastered, which this happened when I went to do a tear down, um, in Wisconsin, which was an hour drive as well.
So it was this like really fucking long drive drunk bride, literally spilling her drink all over me. I'm like, This is why I don't like to do tear downs, but there was just like the sheer volume [00:15:00] wouldn't fit in the person's vehicle and so I had to go along to, to get it.
So think about. Who's somebody that you can trust because this is something that requires a lot of trust. You are trusting them to tear down your wedding, who isn't a loaf. They actually get their butt moving and get it done. And who can be, you know, not too far, but also like. Able to bring the things back to you because if you have to go get them from them, that defeats part of the purpose.
So is the person close enough that it makes sense for them to drop back off at your studio? Um, do they like to be up late? Are they a night owl? Naturally, those kind of things. Like you might find a person who is just a hidden gem. You never know unless you keep your eyes open. But that is probably one of my favorite things that I outsource.
[00:16:00] And I also, when I need something done that is a skilled labor that maybe potentially like I don't possess that skill, I will find someone who is an expert in it. There are places like Fiverr or Upwork or I even for the garden. Because I just wanted all the garden beds to have dirt put in them. I went and got like 40 bags of soil and then all of those garden beds here because we're selling our house now that I had dug up.
Uh, over half the yard, you guys, it had I think like 300 or so feet of garden bed kind of stone throughout the front yard, the backyard everywhere, and all those beds I had to seed back to grass because most people don't want half their yard dug up. Like I had it dug up, and so I found somebody on Craigslist that is a skilled laborer.
[00:17:00] Company and I hired them to send someone out for five hours to turn over the garden beds. It turned into way more than five hours, and I actually liked the person and now that person is helping me paint. At an hourly rate that isn't crazy. He's a really nice guy and does good work, very meticulous, like he was pressure washing my deck today so that we can stain the deck.
He's been painting everything, but this all started with like one thing that I was looking for help figuring out my garden beds. So whatever it is, you might be able to find a resource to support you in a way that makes you feel lighter. Um, I mean, I was really stressing about like, how am I gonna get all of this garden bed with all of these things going on with moving to the farm, getting the animals, um, the kids in school and just weddings and.
Coaching and the mastermind and all the [00:18:00] things. So I used my thinking cap of like, how could this feel easy? How could this feel good? And you should too. if for some reason, like you think about the house being messy and you having to clean, it feels like shit. look into outsourcing, getting a housekeeper or somebody that helps you once every two weeks, once a month even, to do a deep clean.
If that makes you feel so much better, it is so worth the a hundred fifty, two hundred, two fifty, whatever it is for you to have that peace of mind. Same thing goes with your children. I know so many moms have guilt about having help with your kids, and especially if you're not working a job, you are working a job, you are working for yourself.
You are building a business, and it, even though you might not have. The revenue of your previous job. So I've coached a lot of moms that are like, [00:19:00] I wanna quit my day job and I wanna stay home with my kids, but I wanna have this flower business. And then I'm like, well, what do you wanna make?
And they're like, well, I wanna make $80,000 'cause that's what I was making at my day job. And I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? Like, how do you expect. For you to be working in a job that you have full-time childcare for your child, so no distraction from your children, and you have worked and probably honed your skills for years.
To get to $80,000, but now we just wanna rip the bandaid off because something at our day job beat us a little angry or we're a little salty about something or we don't like it, or we're just over it and we have this shiny floral business and that's just gonna make things happen and we're gonna replace our income, but then we're gonna have our children and we're just growing our skill sets.
It just like always makes me [00:20:00] scratch my head, but I do think it is completely reasonable. I have part-time childcare. It is completely reasonable for me to have part-time childcare. And I love because even when school started, Bodhi went to kindergarten and I figured out with my, part-time nanny, like, if you wanna keep your hours, I would be happy to do that, but I need help cleaning.
I need help. sometimes with the children, Yesterday? she went and got Bella at school because I was at an appointment and she got Bella, on her therapy appointment and everything. Like I literally could trust her.
She just runs the show when I'm not present. What she says is what's happening when I'm not there? And my children have built that into their routines and just their general understanding that, that person's authority is relevant when mom's not [00:21:00] around. And that part-time childcare is a game changer because I have an intentional time to schedule things for me, for my business.
For me as like a human, whatever. And if I'm always just worried, like what's gonna happen with the children? Like I'm not gonna create space, or I'm not gonna have the ability to create space for growth. And you deserve to have a space for growth, even though, let's just say you're paying your nanny $25 an hour and you get somebody to come for six hours.
That is $150 investment from your behalf. And I know that's, that's a lot, but that $150 a couple times a week creates space for me to have a multiple six figure business, [00:22:00] and I still get to snuggle with my children. I still get to bring them to everything. I still am in charge of all their doctor's appointments.
I still am. Uh, their mother in, and I'm a pretty kick ass one at that. Like I do all the things with them, but I have that little bit of help. And so if you've been hesitating, 'cause you're just like, it looks like too much, if you never create space, your results will never change. And don't feel bad because my kids, they love.
Hanging our with our nanny, they love hanging with our previous nanny, like that's fun for them. It's like Aunt Jackie coming over and getting to play. So that space can be fun. It can be what you want it to be. If it is, oh my God, I'm ripping my child from me, and they're just hating it because they don't wanna be away from me, they just want, I have heard this exact story [00:23:00] from a mom before.
That is complete bullshit. You are getting them worked up. They need to know that this is mom's time. Mom deserves space. Mom deserves. Like I sometimes when I'm, my bathtub time is my space, and I will have the children. All of a sudden it's like a revolving door coming in there, mom and I, all of a sudden I will just be like, you know what?
You guys are gonna stop until mom is out of the tub. I deserve this 10 minutes, 15 minutes. I don't care if it's 30 minutes. I deserve that space by myself and not interrupt it. And I think as moms we think that we're like disappointing or, you know, being unkind or we're not, you know, like we're not being the mom that looks like this, you know, picture perfect everything.
And I am a better mom because of the space I create. Because that [00:24:00] space creates a life that I absolutely love and a business that I am absolutely in love with and this overall life that I am absolutely in love with. So without that space, I would be strung out, running around, stressed out, probably snapping at them, Not working out, not taking care of myself, not taking care of my mental health, not taking care and growing a business in a way. So then I'm spiteful and upset because I'm neglecting my business because of all these other things. And my children are the most important thing. And you know what? My children are absolutely the most important thing in my life.
But mom can't build a business on an empty cup. Mom can't build a business without space. You deserve that. So I hope some of these little outsourcing tips helped. I know that these have been a game changer for me, and I know they can be for you. Thank you so much for [00:25:00] listening, flower Friend, and you have an amazing flower filled day.