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Struggling to turn your floral design talent into a profitable, scalable, and stress-free business? Welcome to The Floral CEO® Podcast—the ultimate audio destination for wedding and event florists, flower-shop owners, and creative entrepreneurs who want to book bigger budgets, price with confidence, and lead like a true CEO.
Hosted by Jeni Becht, award-winning wedding florist, event designer, and floral business coach with 25 + years in the industry, each weekly episode dives into:
Profitable pricing strategies: markup formulas and minimums fine-tuned for weddings & events
Magnetic marketing & local-SEO hacks: social posts, blogs, and Google tricks that attract high-budget couples and planners
High-converting sales funnels: inquiry replies, proposals, and follow-up scripts that turn curious leads into dream clients
Streamlined systems & smart outsourcing: workflows, templates, and hiring tips that free you from the design bench
CEO mindset & sustainable growth: leadership habits and eco-friendly practices that keep both you and your business flourishing
Jeni pairs real-world success stories with actionable strategies you can implement today, so you’ll spend less time hustling and more time designing breathtaking bouquets, installations, and arrangements.
Ready to scale your florist business and reclaim your life? Follow, subscribe, and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast app. 🌸
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Turn your passion for flowers into the six-figure floral business you deserve—one episode at a time.
Website- floralceo.com
Social @thefloralceo.com
Hello, flower friends. I wanna talk about increasing revenue, but not in the sense of we're going out to chase more weddings. We're going to go and chase increasing and squeezing the juice out of the weddings that we already have. So I wanna talk about practical strategies to increase your average wedding so that you do not need to chase new weddings.
Florists usually think growth means more weddings, more inquiries, more clients, more Saturdays, more work. But what if the fastest path to more revenue is not adding another wedding? What if it's making the wedding you're already booking worth it? Ex- Just for example, let's just say you had 30 weddings, and they were an average of $5,000 apiece.
That's $150,000 of revenue. But what if you had that same 30 weddings, the same number of clients, the same number of Saturdays, but you had a $6,500 average? That's $195,000, a $45,000 increase in gross revenue. Then, let's say your next is $50,000 maybe already be hiding inside the weddings that you're already bookings.
A lot of florists go into consultations going, "What do you need?" Instead of, "Based on what you're telling me, here is what I would recommend." This is a complete difference in order-taking versus expert selling. If your customer says, "We want the room to feel warm, romantic, and really full," you should be thinking candles, statement arrangements, installations, layered tables, repurposing things, premium rentals, et cetera, et cetera.
Not just, "Okay, let's do 15 centerpieces." Your client does not know everything you can do until you show them, and selling more is not being pushy when you're recommending something that improves the experience. One of the easiest ways to increase your average booking is to talk about installations, ceremony arches, hanging installations, staircase, entry moments, bar installations, escort display floral, mantles, floral clouds, statement reception pieces, and beyond.
The most important part is you do not wait for the client to ask. You show them. You recommend them. Explain the impact. Clients buy what they can envision. If your portfolio has no installations, and you never bring them up, why would they suddenly request one from you? Candles are a huge revenue builder, and ambiance builder, and portfolio builder, because honestly, when you have beautiful taper candles going down a table with, like, these beautiful details, it looks expensive.
You look luxury. You look premium. So you could talk about offering votives, pillars, tapers, floating candles, mixed candle package, like, styling candles, and not treating candles as some random afterthought. Bundle them, show photos, have clear packages. Show them, like, the exact color of the candles, and if you don't do it, potentially the rental company providing the linens is going to do that, and then that could throw off the whole aesthetic of this wedding.
Because even if you get an extra $50 to $100 per table because you meaningfully, quickly made a recommendation, that is hugely impactful for 20 tables. That could be $2,000 in additional revenue for your average to become increased. All right, and then rentals. Rentals are a whole nother layer of design.
Compotes, vessels, candle holders, stands, arches, structures, pedestals, urns, specialty containers, these are all things that you can include not only to make your work look better, but to increase your average booking. And you're not just charging for the object. You're charging for the storage, the cleaning, the packing, the loading, the transportation, the breakage, the setup, the tear-down.
Owning the, the rental doesn't make that service around it free. There is a lot of details that go into that All right, next is your ceremony to reception purposing, repurposing. You know, if they have ground florals that need to be moved to the sweetheart tables, arch florals that need to move behind the couple, ceremony arrangements they need to move to the bar, aisle flowers that go become like reception accents, welcome flowers moved to the cocktail hour.
Like so many things, like repurposing does not mean free labor. You need to charge for the staff, the logistics, and the transfer of those items. Repurposing saves the client product, but not necessarily labor, and that's an important distinction because you should not be working for free. All right, then things like premium upgrades.
Examples could be like if you have some basic bitch centerpieces or you got this beautiful upgraded compote. You have standard candles, three votives around in the shape of a triangle versus this dynamic candle package, a basic bouquet versus a premium flower upgrade, a simple ceremony versus a statement entrance, a basic sweetheart table versus a full floral moment.
One arrangement on the bar versus a full bar installation. Give people somewhere to upgrade. I call it selling in levels. Are you providing an opportunity to sell in levels to bring something that they're really excited about to the next level and increase dollar amount? All right, then better consultation questions should be really kind of something that you start to work on being really strategic.
You don't want to just be asking, "How many tables?" Ask, "What do you want guests to notice when they walk in the room? What part of the wedding matters most visually?" What do you want your photos to feel like? Are there spaces at the venue you really want to transform? Would you rather put more budget into ceremony impact or reception impact?
What would you make this feel extra special? Like, what little thing would make this feel so over-the-top special to you? Those questions underco- uncover opportunities, and better questions create better recommendations. Then this is a really critical part, is stop undercharging for your services. You may increase product, but still lose margin if you give the service away.
So charge collect- correctly for your delivery, your setup, your installation, your flips, your repurposing, your tear-down, your late-night labor, the rentals, handling of everything. The flowers might be profitable while the service around them is eating at your profit. And give clients options. Uh, I, you know, like to sell in levels, and one is kinda like, "This is the basic bitch that fits in your budget.
This one, look at how stunning this is." This is maybe what their picture they gave you is, and then here's next level. So a essential, an elevated, and then a statement. Not everyone needs packages, but because some things are special to them, if you spend that little extra time preparing something amazing, you could end up with $1,500 more in that wedding because you went that extra mile.
If you only ever show the minimum, do not be surprised when people buy the minimum. And then in trip- typical CEO fashion, we really need to just track our data to even understand. So what was your average wedding last year? What is it this year? What do you want it to be next year? If your current average is 5,200 and you want it to be seven, what specifically needs to change?
That might mean higher minimums, better upselling, more installation work, better rental offerings, a stronger portfolio, better branding, better sales conversations, and like what gets measured actually is easier to improve. So you want to recommend, upgrade, charge, and recommend. Show your clients possibilities.
With upgrades, you want to give them the opportunity to spend more. With charging, price the product and service correctly. And you know, you want to make sure before you decide you need 10 more weddings next year, look at the weddings you already have and are you recommending enough? Are you offering upgrades?
Are you selling installations, rentals, and candles? Are you charging for repurposing and service correctly? Because the answer might not be more clients. It might be creating more value with the clients you already, they already love you. They've already given you money. They already think you're the best.
Why would we not want to just potentially show them something that is going to make their wedding next level cool? And they can say yay or nay. And trying is learning. So your next 50K may be hiding inside the weddings you're already booking. So now it's time to go out and try to capitalize on that.
Thank you so much for listening, flower friends, and you have an amazing flower-filled day.