The Floral Hustle

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 three systems in your business. that will make or break your 2024 wedding season. And these are systems that I have learned over the years. I have perfected, um, doing multiple weddings.

I have perfected, like, making sure that I am showing up on social. I have perfected making sure that things are running smoothly from an operation standpoint. And Making sure that my designs along the way are starting to be more elevated, more of what I want to attract in my business, instead of attracting things that are no longer inspiring to me.

So the first thing I want to talk about is operations. You need to have a streamlined process of operations. And that is all the way from your inquiry coming in and how you handle it to when you're processing your whole, um, you know, invoices, when you do your consults, to when you're doing your, uh, design boards, mood boards for your, your client.

Like, that process is the operating fundamental in your business that is going to help you be more successful because efficiency is so critical in having a successful business. And then with operations, a lot of cost factors kind of trickle into there. If you're ordering correctly, if you're over ordering, if you're over stuffing, if you You know, not invoicing correctly because maybe like there's a breakdown in the process.

Maybe you, uh, literally just order from the wrong supplier and they sent you something that you thought was going to be light purple and it turned out to be like blue. You never know, uh, like what you're really missing until a lot of times it kind of falls in your lap. And it's often a miss expensive mistake.

And so having all of those processes, and especially if you're trying to grow your business, having those, what they call SOPs, Standard Operating Procedures, that somebody can take that SOP and help with that exact thing without needing to be babysat. If you need to be babysat after you have an SOP, you didn't write the SOP.

The SOP should be so crystal clear on what you need that it's, it's making this process so easy and something that Most people should just be able to pick up and do. So how is your operations? If you want 2024 to be different, your operations need to be on point better than ever. And what that means to me is perfecting your ordering, perfecting your sourcing, perfecting your consultations, and making sure, like, I want somebody to be like, I want her to be my florist.

Like, I want her, like, she is so excited about my designs. I love what she came up with. I love her vision. I love, love, love. You want that energy. And frankly, I think most people's energy right now about the wedding industry, because I mean, even today in my inbox, everybody's forecasting that the, the weddings are going to be down and on and on.

Well guess what? Like so what? I am looking at my weddings for this year, and all of my traditional American weddings are, like, the average is considerably higher than years before. I am doing some really fun things with some really fun wedding planners. I have some really great clients that completely trust me.

I'm bidding some corporate events that I think are going to be super fun opportunities. I've partnered with venues better than I ever have. Like all of these things are coming together and I'm not going to play into the narrative that That like, I can't get my fair share or actually more than my fair share.

Because I know that I create beautiful weddings. I know that I deserve abundance. I know that I deserve all of these big things and so do you. I also deserve not to be stressed out as, AF and running around like the sky is falling. And that is what a lot of florists are doing right now. Running around like the world is ending.

The apocalypse of weddings is here. Like we have had a very solid run for the last couple of years, cleaning up from COVID. So we went through COVID crazy. And honestly, even during COVID when in that first year, I did a shitload of weddings. Like the year after it was bananas year after pretty busy as well.

So like we should be able to weather the storm as long as we are putting our best foot forward in our business. We are putting the best foot forward, um, from an operation standpoint. So if you are struggling with operations, this is something that I can help you with. I mean, there's so many podcast episodes that are on this exact topic, like how to stop being ghosted by creating a brochure and interjecting in your process, like how to, there are so many, I have 130 episodes now.

And so there are so many episodes that really could be helpful if this is what you're struggling with. And then the next thing that I think is really critical is you actually need to have a social media and marketing plan. Most people will spend so much time creating something, like you're creating this a la carte flowers program.

You're creating this thing, but you spend no time marketing it. And when you spend no time marketing things, like, how do you expect to have great results? If all your energy is going into the creation of that project or that project, you're Um, product like you need to 10 times over market that so that people know and are screaming from the rooftops like that.

You have this product. I have wedding planners that know I have my a la carte flowers program because I consistently market I have a social media strategy that supports that. I mean like all of these things are consistent. I am not going. Okay. I'm going to go gangbusters and I'm going to go post on social media this month.

And then I'm going to stop because I got so tired and wasn't seeing immediate results. And so I don't know if this is really going to work. You need consistency. Consistency is what is going to win. And if for some reason, like you don't feel like something's working, you need to at least try it. I think for 60 days.

If you're going to try something new, try it for 60 days, try to understand the results behind it, but weddings aren't booked 60 days out. You need to, like, commit that I think that this is going to work, and maybe you commit because another florist or somebody else that you see out of the marketplace is doing this, and that is what's going to help really boost it.

Your business in the long run is that steady, consistent execution, steady, consistent energy on the things that are actually going to matter. So social media, making sure that like you're consistently posting. If you're going to just have one social media platform, go all in and just show up on that platform.

You are going to have a marketing strategy, and you actually should, as a small business owner, have a concentrated marketing strategy. And you're like, I don't even understand what that means. That means like, this is my plan to grow my business from a marketing perspective. This is how I'm going to talk about my business.

This is my marketing materials around my business. This is, my website is optimized. Like, all of these things, like, come together to support your main goals in your business. Thanks. And you're using that energy of having a plan and delivering that plan consistently to be your marketing strategy, to be your social media strategy.

They're all kind of supporting each other. They're all working together to support your end goal. And your end goal to me is to make money, but also make sure that I'm attracting my dream weddings and my dream clients. So are you attracting your dream clients? Are you attracting your dream budgets? Are you attracting as much business as you want?

Because if you're not, there's probably something going on that you're not consistently delivering. For one, what that client potentially expects. I have people who tell me they want to do high end weddings and I look at their social media feed and I'm like, I'm confused on how you think your current, you know, social media, your current website is going to speak to.

that exact client. And with that, like, you, you need to be doing that. Otherwise, like, you can't expect something different. If you look at your, your portfolio, your website, your social media, and then think that it's just going to be up leveled automatically in that person's mind, like what you're putting out there is what's speaking to that client.

So you need to, like, drill in to that client. I want my client, this type of client, I want this type of budget and like I'm posting something that speaks exactly to that client unapologetically. Like if I want to attract weird, I'm going to be posting my weird weddings. If I want to be attracting boho and I want like, I'm going to be really coming at that boho bride.

If I want that soft and romantic bride, like your, your social, your marketing, everything should speak to that. But what I often see happens is that you're stuck where you used to be and that's what you have photos of. Like, you need to create opportunities and that needs to be part of your marketing strategy.

Creating opportunities, creating style shoots, creating your own content that is going to inevitably attract your ideal client. Because this is a great example. So I have periodically, uh, went through and done a pro promo kind of week or whatever, speaking to wedding planners. I call it cookies and coffee.

So I had these beautiful cookies made with my, my logo of green goddess floral, which is this like woman with like red hair, but it's not me. It was actually a picture that I just uploaded that they kind of. Took and ran with, um, and she has this beautiful hair crown and whatever. So like, I found some cookie person to make these cookies and they're absolutely beautiful.

And then I put a, um, like a thermos cup in there with my logo on it. And then I put like a nice handwritten note and all the things. And so there are some planners in the Minneapolis St. Paul market that like, I'm just, I'm not in their club yet, but I am working hard to get there and they are doing weddings that are pretty elevated and they are, you know, very creative.

They're usually designing those weddings and some of them, like, honestly, like they're, they're not my speed because. I just don't do fake humans very well, and they have very fake human energy, just like not my, I love like authentic, like people who are just like, I can tell they just have a big heart and I can tell that they really care about what they're doing.

Like I don't do stuck up bitches well, I guess. And that's kind of the energy a couple of them give me. So I'm okay with not being their human, but there's some that I'm like, I want to do their kind of weddings. Cause they are. Beautiful. And with that, I, I want to make sure that I'm speaking to that person because people underneath that are going to go, Oh my God, her stuff is amazing.

So if I'm overshooting, like I'm going for the moon. And for one, I'm also part of my marketing strategy is to make sure that I'm at those places where those. upper end planners are at and I'm going to make sure I'm saying hi to them. I'm going to make sure that I'm introducing myself again. I've met some of them like two times and they're like, Oh yeah, I think I've met you before.

Yep. You've met me like three times. So nice to see you again. I love your outfit. You're, get over yourself. But I want to make sure part of my marketing strategy is I am at those places. And when I started, for one, believing that I belonged there, I belonged at those events because for a while I didn't believe I did.

And I think a lot of people in the wedding profession, they don't believe they do either. And I belong there. My work is good. I can make whatever they want. I can make that. I can make it beautiful. I can completely pull off whatever they are wanting and they should choose me. So like part of my marketing strategy is for one, just believing in myself.

And so when you think about. Those weddings or think about those wedding planners in town. Open your local bridal magazine. Cause they're probably in there and think, do I belong? Would I belong in an event talking to this person? Would I feel like they should be listening to me because I have value. That should be part of your marketing plan.

I have value. I can come up with ideas, uh, and they should want to talk to me. When you believe that you belong so much changes when I started truly believing that I belong I started attracting higher budgets and then I started pushing myself to do cooler shit And then when you push yourself to do cooler shit Like even cooler things happen because you're attracting that that client you're attracting that budget and you deserve To show up in that sandbox So, that was number two, that I really, just how I was just talking about making cool shit, this is the third thing.

You need to have design skills that support your end goal. There is a, not only like design skills, but like the, the mechanics, the fundamentals, the, because you can make something and it can be half ass. So when you make something, you want to make sure that it is like completely like encapsulating your brand, encapsulating what you want your business to be and, and really capturing like what you can do.

And there is a great example here in the Minneapolis market. Um, I think she's been a head of business for like three or four years. And this. Very, I mean, she's in her mid twenties and has a full studio and has a team that works for her and has been a florist for this long. I mean, like, let that sink in.

Like, she's got this full, huge studio. She's got a team of people. She is attracting probably 40 grand, 50, 000 weddings easy. And she's been doing this maybe three or four years. So it is possible. She has Very out of the box creativity that people are drawn to. And when you have out of the box creativity, budgets are drawn to that.

Because they, people want to push the envelope in ways that they don't understand how. And this example of, of this girl, and I don't share her name because I think that that Would be mean to kind of call her out. But like, some of her stuff I'm just like, whoa, I do not understand. Like, I think it looks like tampons.

Like, just, it's really weird. Some stuff is really weird. But some stuff is like, whoa, that is cool. Uh, but like, that creativity is attracting budgets for her. But even if you don't want to attract a 40, 000 budget, and honestly, I didn't want to attract a 40, 000 budget until probably like four ish years ago.

I started like normalizing that a weekend could easily be 25, 000 and that wasn't anything that stressed me out. So after I started like just normalizing that budget. The 40, 000 didn't stress me out. Like, I could figure out how to do a 40, 000 wedding in probably less than three weeks. Like, from start to finish.

And have it execute everything. And not be stressed out. Like, that it would just be a Saturday. It'd be a busy Saturday, but it'd just be a Saturday. So, when I started normalizing those kind of things, I feel like my designs really started to reflect that. And when they started to reflect that, I definitely felt.

Uh, that things had changed and elevated and even the other, so I did a installation rockstar, um, installations workshop in St. Paul, Minnesota. I did it at a venue that I absolutely love the people. I actually, I love a very specific person, the person who runs a place. And, you know, she kind of let me come up with these ideas for the workshop, and then they turned it into their open house.

And like, these are all things that I was like, really excited to create, and let's just talk about how I got excited about those things. I was on Instagram, and anytime I see something that I love on Instagram, I screenshot it. And I save it in a, like, inspo, or you can save it in Instagram. But I love to have the physical photo.

I, like, don't want in case it got taken down or something. Like, I just, I screenshot it. And so I took, like, I think, I really love On Point Planning. They're from Australia. I love their backdrop game. They make these immaculate, like, cake backdrops. They make immaculate, um, backdrops for, like, photo opportunities, uh, but a lot of cake stuff.

And they had one that I took and I just brought it to a whole different spin. And I went and I found this, like, really amazing table from a rental company that, it's really weird, after we, I, I said, Hey, I want to make this for cake, uh, like installation. And I saw your table and I just think it's perfect.

And it was like a 250 table. And so I'm like, to rent, to rent, would you mind donating? You'll get all the photos and everything. And after that, I got an inquiry to do one of their weddings, which they were definitely, like, one of the planners that I wanted to work with and not one of the stuck up bitches.

And it was posted on their Instagram that day when those, uh, photos were released. So, like, because that design showed them what I was capable of putting together, like, they put interest into working with me. And I put all these things together at this, this workshop that just like really kind of were a little over the top for that venue because that venue didn't have somebody to date that had gone that big on florals.

I actually, I do have another wedding booked on June 15th there that is going that big with florals, but in a different way, like baby's breath, which I'm okay with. I have to make a 40 foot long baby's breath cloud. So that should be really interesting. I don't even know how I'm going to fit that in my studio, but I will figure it out.

Cause those are, I don't know if you made one, but they're kind of crazy. Those baby's breath poofs. And we have to make it so we can attach it to a bar that's going to have chandeliers powered out of it. So that's another kind of kink in the matter. But I had so many people come up to me in my booth and go, I just can't believe how amazing these are.

I can't believe, like, it is so, like, I never envisioned the stairs looking like that. I never knew a cake could look like that. Like, your hanging installation looks so different than any hanging installation I've seen in here. Like, I am in love with it. I love how it creeps and crawls kind of across. I had people waiting to talk to me.

I had one of my helpers there, and like, they were like, she was telling them, like, it's worth your wait to talk to me. And I got a, um, a corporate event that they reached out because they were just like in love with it. How everything looked at this event, and they are putting together a high end 400 a plate event.

And this weekend, like, I went nuts designing a mood board for them. I designed a full proposal all the way down to Finding these, uh, like stands kind of installation to make a photo backdrop that I then took their logo that they sent me, removed the background and popped it on the wall because they had mentioned that they were going to have a projector to project their logo on that wall.

I just, I made all these different things. I sent it to them. They were like, Oh my God, we love this. We're going to review it and hopefully get back to you by the end of this week. And maybe I don't like upsell them to every single thing that I put in there. But they were so excited about all of my ideas that I definitely know that I got them excited about working with me and excited that here's somebody bringing designs to them because that has not happened with them.

They've done a ton of different events. Nobody has been like this out of the box thinking like how could we make this really cool and an experience for these people who are paying 400 a plate. So are you doing that? Do you even have like all the basic fundamentals like a tall elevated centerpiece? Do you know how to make one of those?

Do you know how to make one of those foam free? Do you feel like you have your compotes on lockdown? Like all those core wedding items, do you know how to make a pocket square boutonniere? Because even if you haven't had somebody that's ordered it and gone through that process, the thing is, that energy, if you didn't, and they've asked you about it, and you're like, hmm, I have a weird one, but I can figure it out.

Like, that energy is Potentially losing that wedding. So if you don't have that experience, go try to freelance for somebody. I can't speak to enough how freelancing will help you elevate your design game, but you might just need to, like, invest in a course. Go freelance. Go create it yourself. Go do a styled shoot.

You need experience because confidence comes from experience and I have seen Florists coming up like I taught them how to design and I see them today like one of them. I actually just invited to again speak because I am the founder of the Minnesota floral collective and we are putting together an event for the I think it's April 28th and it's all about sustainability.

So we are having somebody, actually we're having Ashley Fox and she is an amazing Minnesota based florist that, uh, is just like her work is so stunning. Her tablescapes are so stunning and she's putting that together and, but we're having Hannah from Mini Floral Co. Her, she like, I actually taught her to make a spiral bouquet here in my studio, actually stem by stem.

Because she was really struggling with, like, things just weren't shaping. Her bouquets are beautiful. Her work is so beautiful. But, like, I see, like, how what a confident person she's become and just an amazing human. I mean, she's, they like have this farm now and she has like chickens and she grows flowers and she has a new baby and she's like has a 5, 000 minimum for weddings, like just on and on.

Like she just has grown so much in her business that I, that confidence because she's designed how she wants and she's done the work freelancing and all the things to get there. And so I just, um, invited her and I actually, I just said, what's something that's inspiring you that you would want to teach on and she's going to make a growing tablescape.

So I'm super excited about this event. That. That design experience like is so impactful. I even see I do one on one studio intensive I actually don't think I've ever talked about that on the podcast, but you can come to my studio in Bloomington, Minnesota We actually spend a good chunk of the day together making a bouquet a compote Um, and then, uh, usually a wrist corsage, boutonniere, pocket square boutonniere if we need.

And like, I go like in depth, in detail, like you know every, where every stem goes in there because This is the foundation of your business. Like a spiral bouquet is a foundation of so many different design principles. Understanding like how to have space and movement and even just understanding like the process of like, on this day I do this, on this day I do this, on this day I do that.

All of those things are, are so critical for you pulling off a wedding and not being super stressed out. So, If you are lacking in the design department, go try to find somebody to freelance for this year. Go start, run to Trader Joe's, get a small little thing and get your Trader Joe on. You need to build confidence in your designs.

So this brings me to a big part because not everybody can fly to Minnesota and be in my studio. Not everybody can, um, afford to be in the Mastermind, which has been one of the most fulfilling teaching moments of my life. I love these girls in the Mastermind. We have two spots opening for the month of April and it is so fun to see, like, even from the beginning when we started in January, like, I can see the confidence that is there.

has grown in these, um, women in the group. And if that is something that doesn't seem attainable, or maybe you're just like kind of an introvert, most creatives are introverts, I am starting on April 1st, a 12 week coaching slash course that you will get dripped out content every week on a topic that is kind of all centered around or similar content to that topic of the week and design is going to be in there.

You will have videos and Step by step instructions. I have seen some courses that they're all of a sudden like, see how I make this? Ta da! And they're showing this thing and it's like, you're like, how did you get there? I don't understand. So I step by step will show you all the key design fundamentals that you need to have in a studio, especially a studio floral business or just a wedding floral business.

Period. And then we talk about mindset. We talk about production schedules, production checklists. What's in my emergency kit? So that if shit hits the fan on design day or wedding day, like I have a crazy toolkit and I'm not afraid to use it. I have everything that I need in there. Then, uh, ordering, recipe planning to, God, there's so many, like, I literally think that there's five to ten modules in every single week, and so that is potentially almost 120, um, depending if we average it out.

It will be something that you get forever access to, and It is a, like, amazing, amazing price. You can check it out in the show notes. Otherwise, if you're on Instagram, just head to my, um, Instagram URL and check it out there. It is called Florist Foundations because it fundamentally will teach you every, the foundation of everything you need to know to run a business.

Even, like, How to even set up your business, how to design a logo, like all of these details are in there. And so if you have felt like this has been overwhelming, this course is so affordable. I think right now for the next week, I have it at 6. 99. Other people are selling their courses that I don't think are this comprehensive for like 2, 000, 1, 500 to 2, 000.

Plus every week I am meeting with you guys. One on one, like, we're going to be in a group Zoom, everybody that's going through that, you can ask questions, you can have some accountability, like, how is everybody doing on keeping on track? Because things can go off track fast, and I want to get you back on.

So head to the floral hustle. com website and you can also check it out there. Otherwise, you can just go to, um, check it out on Instagram because most of us are on the gram and I'd love to have you learn more about it. If you don't know if it's right for you, send me a DM on Instagram. I'm happy to hop on a 15 minute call and make sure that it makes sense wherever you're at in your business.

I'm so passionate that this is going to be such a game changer. And I just would love to have you getting on a path of growth, profitability and fulfillment in this year. So thank you so much for listening flower friend and you have an amazing flower filled week.