The Floral Hustle

  📍 Hello flower friends. This is Jen and you are listening to the Floral Hustle podcast. I want to talk to you about what do you do when you have a difficult client. I had a flower friend reach out and I've actually had a couple recently that said that, um, One of them, I have a $2,000 budget and I want all these beautiful aisle pieces.

I want this arch backdrop. I want some stuff for my tables. And then I had another flower friend that like, , uh, the client wants something, $2,000 seems like a magical number lately. They want something for $2,000 and their current bid is $3,400, which when I looked at the bid, it was very aggressive.

A, a great bid and they should have been doing back flips. For such a great deal, in my opinion, but they weren't happy. They wanna be around $2,000 cuz they've set this imaginary budget. Somehow that $2,000 is what they think that they should get their flowers for. And what do you do with that person when they are just not getting it?

Not getting what what they want is unrealistic. And I think that this can start at the inquiry process. If you see that they have spit out a unrealistic budget. For matching to their Pinterest board or their inspiration photos or the quantity of items, you literally can start telling them right away that you are worried that their budget is realistic for the items that they have mentioned and the vision slash bloom choices, everything that they have mentioned previously.

So you're planting the seed that this might not work. Then if you get to that point and you're going to have a consultation with them, and they have said, um, they need thir, this is why I also ask some initial questions like, how many tables do you think you're gonna have? How many bridesmaids do you think you're gonna have So you can get them to be real more realistic.

I then, if not being unrealistic, I I right away, I don't wanna waste my time on a consult. And maybe that's, Um, bougie, but I literally, if somebody says that they have 35 tables they need center pieces for, and they have a $2,000 budget and they have eight bridesmaids, I'm straight up going to tell them, here is my pricing guide when I do the basic math with my cheapest available centerpiece.

So let's just say that cheapest one is, Three bud vases with three candles. So if, if for some reason, you know, let's just round use round numbers and say $50 for a centerpiece, or you know, you're making a centerpiece of whatever it has, maybe two bud vases and a nice big vo or a pillar candle or something, and it's 50 bucks and you have 36 of them.

If I take. You are $50 a table, and I divide that by the math is not working. And so I, I, I wanna give you some, um, you know, help educate you a little bit if I'm doing my a la carte pricing on just the bridesmaids and your bouquet at this. So if I, if you have a $2,000 budget, and let's just say your personal flowers are at.

A thousand dollars, then I'm taking that thousand dollars, and this doesn't include me doing setup, delivery, taxes, any of that, and I'm dividing that by 36 tables. That means that we have a budget of 28 or it's like 27 76 a table. And in my opinion, you're, you're going to have to DIY all of your, uh, You know your all your centerpieces because $27 with you is not an option unless she's okay with a single bud vase and a couple candles.

And judging by your Pinterest board and everything that doesn't seem like it's going to to work, are you flexible on your budget at all? Because $27 a table just is probably not something that, uh, maybe you don't even wanna do. $27 centerpieces, which you are completely in the right to make that decision if that is your decision.

So then you can just straight up be like, I don't know how I could make this work, and I don't want to meet with you and spend a bunch of time on a consult and things like that if I'm not able to attain your budget. If it is, this is it. Uh, if you want, here's my a la carte flowers pricing. I would love to do your bouquets.

I would love to do your, you know, booters and corsages or whatever, but like, cut it off. Then if this person. Is also using language like, I don't like this flower in this ER photo or whatever. I think it's too whatever. They're probably going to be a pain in the butt. I, in my experience, clients with lower budgets and unrealistic expectations are also going to probably be the biggest handful and most communication that probably is not necessary be, but it's because they are.

A nitpicky type person, and that probably isn't your person. If you get a like, oh, this doesn't feel great vibe, stop. You just, you know what? It doesn't sound like this is a good fit because I'm just not able to meet your budget. You have every right to say that because you don't want to invest two to three hours of your time.

And then if you do book this wedding, if it's a $2,000 wedding, let's just say maybe you're making after everything $700 when you're, if you're hiring somebody to help or whatever, or maybe you're making a thousand dollars, just think of what you needed to do and then you might have less availability to take another wedding on.

Uh, that is going to overall probably make you make even less money, which is not a great scenario. Plus, you need to pay taxes. You need to pay your overhead of where you're, you know, doing flowers, your business insurance, your vehicle insurance, your gas, your resources paying, you paying taxes on your wages.

You need to look at all those things. Is, is this wedding a good investment of your time? If it is not, It is okay to say that this isn't a good fit and not get so deep that you start feeling that you have to work with this person. Otherwise you've spent so many time and you're losing money. That happens a lot.

It happens a lot, a lot. And so you don't want that to be you. You want to make, you wanna work with people that, uh, are a good fit, are a good vibe, and , You feel like they're going to appreciate your work, they're going to be, um, you know, just like the relationship is just set up for success. Like, because you, you're more on the same page and people who are unrealistic about budgets and then are pushy about it.

I, I mean, I've, I've met with the person because it, it, I didn't catch it early enough that I really need to be around a $2,000 budget and my quote is four. Well, we need to, to carve some of these items off. Uh, uh, what items are you okay with not having? And if they're telling me I need to have all these things, I, I frankly will say, I'm sorry, but I cannot accomplish these items from a sheer volume standpoint, but also from the look and aesthetic of your inspiration pictures and the aesthetic that my business operates under.

That represents our studio. And I, I have some suggestions of other florist, but I think anywhere you, unless you DIY a large chunk of this, you are going to have a hard time accomplishing your budget and you're being honest. And if they can't respect that, if they think you're being difficult, you're being a business person and not wasting your time with unrealistic clients.

And so if you want to basically stop wasting your time, start getting better at identifying difficult customers that aren't the ideal client that you want to attract, that have unrealistic expectations, just make a decision that like this does not work with you. You do not need a wedding that bad in, especially newer Flos.

They just want to do weddings, they wanna get exposure, they want, want, want. That is not going to be helpful when you are now 16 hours deep in just email communications, meeting with them and everything because you are not going to recoup that because you've also shaved no profit and literally done the minimum on everything, uh, on their proposal, and it's just, it doesn't feel good.

You're setting up a shitty wedding that doesn't feel good. It's, you're gonna dread it that week. You're gonna probably dread it that month. So really, I'm gonna say in a loving way, build some lady balls to say, no, you do not need that wedding. You do not need that different, difficult client. And if they are a relative or if they are a friend of a relative or there's some connection, I think a really easy thing to say is I feel.

Be based on your budget and based on the sheer volume of items that I am not going to meet your expectations because I cannot deliver this for that based on volume and based on your budget. So I, I am having a really, I would love to help you, but in. Really like put it back on them like, I wanna help you, but like you need to help yourself a little bit with a more realistic budget.

I've provided my pricing guidance initially, and the math is not making sense. You cannot ma make math make sense. When it is unrealistic from the get-go, you can design the cheapest. I've actually, there's one time I backed into this with a client and with what their personal flowers cost. They needed $19 centerpieces.

I'm like, you can have a bud base. Like that's it. You're being realistic. They're being unrealistic. You can say it in a completely graceful, grateful way. I hope this episode was helpful. I think that a lot of these clients, especially seems like a lot of lower budget people are big planners, and so you're gonna have a bunch of 20, 24 inquiries coming in with low budgets, and you need to just make.

The decision that this is how I'm going to handle them and I'm not going to be, you know, attached to the rejection if they choose to not want to work with me. Because if they were never really a possibility, you're not really being rejected. Because they're being unrealistic. I hope you have an amazing Day Flower Friend and an amazing flower week, and I hope to, um, if you wanna check out Instagram, uh, I've been posting a bunch of helpful videos recently about.

Pricing about, um, I did a great tutorial on how to do a Hindu uh, ceremony garland, so there's just tons of great content on Instagram, so please follow me there. Please go join my Facebook group. I have loved some of the conversations, some of the questions in there recently that I'm personally going in and answer.

So if you personally want help on your business, go post a question in there. And I will make sure that I go in and answer it and help navigate through whatever issue you are having. All right. 📍 Thank you so much, flower friend, and have a great week.