The Floral Hustle

Episode Highlights:
  • Introduction to AI in Floristry: Jen introduces the topic of AI and its potential to revolutionize floral businesses.
  • ChatGPT Versions and Functionality: Explanation of the free and paid versions of ChatGPT and the benefits of using the paid version for more up-to-date data sets.
  • Practical Uses of ChatGPT in a Floral Business: Using ChatGPT for writing Instagram captions, client emails, website copy, and other communications.
  • Using ChatGPT for Social Media Content Creation: How to use images with ChatGPT to create Instagram captions and generate relevant hashtags.
  • Generating Content Ideas with ChatGPT: Brainstorming post ideas and content topics for florists and wedding/event businesses.
  • Streamlining Client Communication: Tips on using ChatGPT to respond to challenging client inquiries and maintain a positive tone.
  • Efficiency and Productivity with AI: Importance of batching content to save time and using ChatGPT for writing professional, emotionally neutral emails.
  • Setting Boundaries and Managing Client Expectations: Jen shares a personal story about setting business boundaries and using ChatGPT to communicate them effectively.
  • Conclusion: Maximizing ROI with AI: Final thoughts on how AI can free up time for more impactful business activities and encouragement to embrace AI tools for business growth and efficiency.
SEO Tips for Florists:
  • Discover how AI can streamline your floral business operations.
  • Learn to use ChatGPT for creating engaging social media content.
  • Improve client communications with AI-generated responses.
  • Save time and focus on high-ROI activities with AI tools.
Links & Resources:
Call to Action: Don’t forget to subscribe to the Floral Hustle podcast and leave a review if you found this episode helpful. Share your experiences using AI in your floral business on our Instagram page!
[00:00:00] Introduction to AI in Floristry
  • Introduction to the topic of AI and its potential in the floral business.
[00:00:46] ChatGPT Versions and Functionality
  • Explanation of the free and paid versions of ChatGPT and their benefits.
[00:01:27] Practical Uses of ChatGPT in a Floral Business
  • Examples of using ChatGPT for writing Instagram captions, client emails, and website copy.
[00:02:15] Using ChatGPT for Social Media Content Creation
  • How to use images with ChatGPT for creating Instagram captions and generating hashtags.
[00:03:17] Generating Content Ideas with ChatGPT
  • Brainstorming post ideas and content topics for florists and wedding/event businesses.
[00:04:16] Streamlining Client Communication
  • Using ChatGPT to handle difficult client emails and maintaining professionalism.
[00:06:35] Efficiency and Productivity with AI
  • Importance of batching content and using ChatGPT to write emotionally neutral emails.
[00:10:03] Setting Boundaries and Managing Client Expectations
  • Personal story on setting business boundaries and using ChatGPT for effective communication.
[00:10:41] Conclusion: Maximizing ROI with AI
  • Encouragement to use AI tools for business growth and efficiency.

What is The Floral Hustle?

Are you ready to grow your floral business not only in profits but in creativity and fulfillment? Listen as Jeni Becht a wedding and event designer of over 25 years shares all the juicy details of growing and evolving her floral business into one of passion, purpose, and financial freedom. She shares all the secrets with actionable tips and strategies so you can wake up inspired and on a path to profitability while feeling lighter and more aligned in work and life. Join Jeni in building your business while ditching the overwhelm, avoiding burnout, and feeling fulfilled in work and life.

  📍 Hello flower friends. This is Jen and you're listening to the floral hustle podcast on this week's mini soda. I want to talk about AI and how you could use AI  in your business in a few different ways. So I personally use chat GPT. There are many different options out there when it comes to different types of AI platforms.

People are even making their own AI platforms that, you know, is generated with their content, with their ideas, with, with everything that they know. Um, they're all of their content, all of those things. That to me is just complicated. ChatGPT has a free platform and also has a paid platform. And in those platforms, it has, um, you know, different functionality and different.

Almost like data sets. So the paid version has more updated data sets when it comes to chat GPT. They actually call that ChatGPT 4. 0, um, the 3. 5 version is the free version and I use the paid version because I want the most up to date and for 20 a month, I think it's actually 10 when you're on a family plan.

It just made sense for us to do it because my husband uses it a lot as well. So I actually have it just in one of my browsers and so whenever I have a question I can go in and ask. I have used ChatGPT to write Instagram captions. I have used it to write hard emails back to clients. I've used it to write copy for my website.

I've used it to, um, you know, communicate back on so many different things that just, like, I felt like it could sound a little bit fluffier. I think that, you know, my feelings were getting into how I was writing it. So I just wanted a really non biased, third party person to, you know, person to lay out what I was talking about in a way that was hopefully going to sound kind of light and airy.

I call it fluffy bunny, but it just sounds really fluffy and great. And so I use chat GPT for all of those different, you know, purposes. But also you can actually drag and drop an image into chat GPT. So if you have this beautiful photo that you've made. It will register things that are in that photo, colors, whatever.

You can drag in into chat GPT and then go, okay. Uh, I want to write an Instagram caption for this photo, this photo was, and then you lay out the reasons or whatever that, you know, were behind that, like, um, I use fresh fruit for a nice summery vibe and, um, you know, it has really soft peaches and tangerine colors or a citrus inspired color palette.

But use just a little bit of the descriptor words that you use when thinking up this caption. Arrangement, then I need to write an Instagram caption for it. Uh, and then just hit go. So you got the picture, you got a brief description, and it's going to come up with this really great caption. You can even put, please give me 5, 10, 15, 20, um, hashtags that would be relevant to this as well.

And you're done. It's that simple. You can also write, um, I want you to help me think of, from the perspective of a social media marketing manager, 10 Instagram, um, posts that I could be posting about my wedding and event floral business that would be helpful tips for brides or couples that are searching for a florist right now.

I'd like 10 ideas, um, about things that I could post about. Then they give you 10, 10 ideas. Please write me a caption for this idea and just you cut and paste that idea from, um, the list that they've already provided you. And with 10 hashtags for me to post with that Instagram post. I mean, like super easy, like it could say that you should be posting about keeping flowers fresh, or you could be posting about, you know, different ways for you to, um, save money on your wedding flowers.

It could be like the best seasonal blooms in June, you know, whatever kind of topic or even like concept that you have. ChatGPT will help you develop that concept. It will help you make Like, the, the flow of it look really well structured. It will pick up keywords from all of the different posts that it's reading and scrubbing from the internet to be able to come up with concepts that other people are talking about that they feel is really relevant.

And with all of those things, like you're not spending all that time thinking of every word, every phrase. If you're using the proper punctuation, I of course would always check it because it is AI. It is not somebody that's perfect. It's not, nobody's perfect. It's always good to have those fail safes to double check, but this could save you so much time that you can be spending on really Working on bigger picture topics that are going to be impactful, that are, are going to be like getting you to your highest ROI from a investment standpoint without having to be bogged down with picking every single word that goes in an Instagram caption.

This is, was intimidating for me. So if this is intimidating for you, I totally see you. I get where you're at. But, this is something that could be so much, like so easy for you, and it could be something that you, you know, on a weekly basis are going in and batching this content. And when you batch content, like how easy is that?

You are batching content to, to provide space for yourself to just get a bunch of work done and then get in and move out. So another thing I've used chat GPT for is writing difficult emails or responses to people who maybe I'm not wanting to take the wedding on. Maybe like they're asking for something that's not possible.

Um, maybe it's a wedding planner. That's just being a total B word, you know, whatever it is, this like helps you to get all the words out, sounding as fluffy as it could, to make it Without you like having to stress about putting every single word into that, that email, because often when I'm writing something emotion gets into it, I'm like, who does this person think they are like talking to me this way?

Or God, this person sounds like a total B word. I'm not, I don't want to work with them, but you don't want to sound like a total dick when you're responding, which it's hard not to when somebody is also being said dick. So, I had a client that I talked to, they called me on the phone, and I told them that I, um, do, you know, virtual appointments, but I normally don't do virtual appointments for a la carte flowers because it's so easy of a process on my website.

It's very clearly laid out. And then I will tell them, tell, I told her that, uh, if that's something that she's interested in, I definitely can set up a short meeting. But and she was like, you don't meet in person. And I was like, cool. No, like the a la carte flowers program is really easy and concise, um, and so it makes it really easy to just do it all, um, via video.

But honestly, I hardly meet with my a la carte flowers people because the, the website is so easy and they're like, Oh, okay. Uh, and she kind of sounded shocked when I said that. And so here she goes a week and a half later. sending in a site inquiry, telling me that she's old school and that, um, you know, she would love to, um, set up a, a meeting in person because she's old school.

And I was like, that's not how this works lady. And I know that she, what she's doing is she's trying to stick with comfortable, but if I spent all my time. Meeting with people spending 1, 000. I wouldn't have more time to invest in the 10, 000, the 15, 000, or the 20, 000 clients. And that's where I'm going to make impactful money.

So I went into chat GPT and I asked them for, I need to write an email in response to this. I cut and pasted her email. I had previously spoke to this client telling them that I don't do, um, in person meetings For budgets at this point or this size because that process is so streamlined and part of the reason why it's streamlined is because they don't have to meet with those people.

So if you are getting these kind of emails, you just don't know how to respond, like use CHATT PT as a tool to help that with that response. So then I'm going and. Going through the process of, like, making sure that I'm not being difficult in my response. Because an independent third party with no emotion behind it is responding.

And it's, it spit out the nicest email and said like, to keep our prices affordable for our a la carte flowers program, we are not, we do not facilitate in person consults. Um, but if you're interested in our full service option and at that price point, we'd be happy to try to accommodate, uh, we are going into Mother's Day and, um, wedding season, so, um, we would have to look at availability, but if that's something that you're open to, we'd be happy to connect.

So, again, like, I'm just, I'm just, We're telling them this is like the parameters if you want to meet this is what we need to do to facilitate that meeting and She replied and said great. I'd love to set up a video chat I was shocked because I was like this lady's gonna be like pissed, but she wasn't we set up a video chat.

It was Actually, we haven't set it up yet because she said I'll bug you after Mother's Day And so I'm guessing next week. I'll get an email from her. So it is that's what we're doing It's something that you are fully in the right to dictate how you want to do business. And you're in the right to make things easy.

If you can streamline and save time on things like admin y tasks by using ChatTPT, I would do it all day long because then you are spending time on things that are going to make you more money. Writing an Instagram caption and spending time on every single word is not what is going to get you to a 📍 100, 000 business.