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Perfect for gardening enthusiasts at any level, this podcast is your companion to cultivating success and beauty in your own backyard or flower patch. Hosted by Jane Westoby from Fuchsia Blooms Florist and The Hampshire Seed Company.
Each episode is a treasure trove of practical tips, expert advice, and insider flower farming guides designed to help you sow and grow with confidence and harvest with pride. Whether you’re dreaming of rows of neat vegetables or cutting flowers for bouquets all year round, we’ll walk you through every step.
Let’s grow together!
Jane Westoby (00:03)
Hey flower friends and welcome back to the podcast that believes that flowers should be local seasonal and grown with love not wrapped in plastic and flown halfway across the world. I'm Jay the founder of the Hampshire Seed Company and today we're diving into part two.
of our mini series all about making money from your flower business, not losing it quietly behind the scenes. So last week I talked all about the Christmas market that I did and how every single trader that I spoke to got their break even point wrong because they weren't including their costs properly.
But this week is the logical next step. We're talking all about pricing and how to charge properly for your flowers.
We're talking about what your costs actually are and why so many beginner flower farmers accidentally undercharge without even realizing it.
And I don't say that with judgment, I promise. But I've worked in buying for over 20 years. So I was actually paid to make money for other businesses. This was my day job for a really long time. And I'd like to share this with you all to make sure that you don't make the mistakes that I see all too often.
And as I said last week, I used to be hopeless at maths, but as long as you have the formula, you won't go wrong. And if you'd told me back at school that I would be doing maths for a living, honestly, I think I probably would have gone and signed up to be a nun instead because I literally hated maths that much. So if I can wrap my head around this, then you absolutely can do. So let's break it down.
The biggest problem I see with new growers is that they price emotionally rather than mathematically. They think, 10 pound for a bunch seems fair, or that feels like too much to charge, or well, I pay this, so that's what I'm going to charge. But pricing based on what feels fair,
is honestly the fastest route to burning yourself out and accidentally running a charity rather than a business. So this is why most people actually get it wrong. They don't know the true cost of their stems. They forget all of those invisible costs. They don't value their time and they look at supermarket prices instead of real floristry prices. They are so scared that their customers will say, that's expensive.
And that fear, that little voice in your head that whispers, charge less just in case, is the biggest profit killer in this industry. And I will let you in on a bit of a secret. Only a couple of weeks ago, I turned down two customers. Now, they both came through to me via the same route. They both phoned me up. They called me and they asked if I could deliver them some flowers. And I said, yeah, sure.
This is the website. If you hop along to the website, you can just place your order online. It will come through and then I'll be able to do the delivery for you. I mean, one of the customers didn't really like shopping online, didn't want to enter their deep card details. And I had to explain to them that actually I don't have another way of taking payment. You phoned me up. I need to charge you.
I literally have no other way for you to pay. So it's the only way you can pay. You're not going to pop around to my house and give me the cash. So you need to just pay online. So you need to your flowers online. So, okay. So they both went off, obviously had a look at the website and within five minutes they had both called me back. And the gist of the conversation went something like,
Oh, but your cheapest flowers are 45 pounds. I said, yes, that is correct. Oh, well, I don't want 45 pound bouquet of flowers. I want 20 pound bouquet of flowers. I said to him, well, okay, that's great. However, we don't offer that. That's not within what we do, I'm afraid. And that's cutting the story very, very short. But essentially that was the gist of it.
And because I know my flower cost, I know how much it costs me, I know that a £20 bunch of flowers just is not going to be substantially enough. And quite honestly, I don't want to put my name to a £20 bunch of flowers. Oh, and that included delivery, by the way, as well. They didn't want to pay separately for delivery either, which in my area is about £6. So, you know, realistically, you know, you're talking...
£14 bunch of flowers. just, the maths just doesn't compute with me. It doesn't work and I don't want to be dramatic about this but you know it's really not worth me getting out of bed for £14 so I'd rather not quite frankly. So you really do need to know what is in your cost of goods to know whether something is actually worth it for you or not. Okay so
Let's just, let's pull the curtain back because this is everything that your price must include. So this is the true cost of your flowers. And if you are a flower farmer florist, yes, it is more complex to work out, I'm afraid, but you're essentially, your costs needs to include four categories. Now, the first category is your cogs, which is your cost of goods. So,
that's not just the seeds, not just a bit of compost or a bit of water, you know your true cogs actually include all of your seeds and tubers, your compost.
your trays, your pots, your water, your electricity, your fertilizer.
your netting, your supports, your stakes, your packaging, your sleeves, raffia, elastic bands, your buckets, all of your conditioning products, wear and tear on your tools. So basically, if it touches the product, this is the easiest way to remember it, if it touches your product, then it belongs in your cogs, in your cost of goods. Okay, so that's the first section. Your second section,
is your growing overheads. These are all those really boring but essential costs. So your polytunnel, your greenhouse repairs if you have a greenhouse instead, your irrigation, your grow lights, your heating.
your storage facility, your insurance, wheelbarrows, tools, hoses, petrol for your nursery runs, land if you rent some land. So basically, if it keeps your business operational, then it's an overhead. So that's your second. Then your third one is your labour. And this is the big one that beginners forget. And I know it is difficult because as a beginner,
you might be quite slow at making a bouquet, you might remake it two or three times because it's just not perfect enough and I promise you the more you make the easier it will become and the less times you will actually remake something. You know I'm eight years in, I very very rarely remake anything, I make a bouquet in usually about five minutes, probably a little bit less, so it does get much easier.
but it is the big one that beginners forget. So your time does have to be included, even if it's just a small amount of your time as a beginner because you're a little bit slower. But it's not just about actually putting the bouquet together. If you're a flower farmer florist, it's all about the weeding, the watering, the pinching, the harvesting, the conditioning, the wrapping and the delivery. So every one of those steps.
costs you time and it is not free. Okay, so that's the third section that needs to go in there. And then your fourth section is a really important section. I'm not going to say it's the most important, but it is an important section, okay? And this is your margin. Yep, so your margin isn't greed, it's the money your business needs to survive. It's the money that you make once you've paid all of the other three categories.
This is what is left. And your margin, essentially, it pays for future investment. It actually is probably going to have to pay for your tax because you haven't put tax in a bucket here. It pays for your quiet months when you haven't got a lot going on. It pays for your savings, your growth. And if you're not making margin, then you're not building a business, essentially. So let's run.
the really simple maths. and here's the formula. Okay, so it's your margin percentage is equal to, and I will put this in the show notes for you so you've got it written down, but your margin percentage is equal to your cost, is equal, your margin percentage is equal to your selling price minus your cost price.
So you need to know how much you're gonna sell your bouquet for, and you need to know what your cost price is. So all of those four.
sections that we've just talked about. Okay, so it's your selling price minus your cost price. Once you've got that number, you then have to divide it again by your selling price and just multiply it by 100. So if you get your calculator out, essentially selling price minus the cost price divided by your selling price multiplied by 100. Okay, I'll pop that in the show notes for you. So let's say it costs you
eight pound to produce a bouquet. And let's say you want to sell it for 20 pounds. So you've got your selling price, which is 20 pounds minus eight, which is your cost price. You then divide that number by 20 and you multiply it by a hundred. And what shows on your calculator should be 60%. Okay. But if you decide you're, you look at that bouquet and think, I think I'm going to sell it for 12 pounds instead.
So you've then got 12 pounds selling price minus your eight because that's your cost of goods. You then divide that by 12, which is your selling price again. You multiply it by a hundred. Your calculator will then give you the number 33. So that's 33 % margin. And I'll tell you now, that's not good. It's not sustainable. It's not enough to pay yourself. It's not enough to grow your business.
You need to be looking at around a 60 % margin to be able to pay yourself and grow your business. And this is why pricing by gut feel is so dangerous. It can feel like you're doing really well. You can sell loads, absolutely loads of product. If I only worked on a 33 % margin, I would be selling out of flowers all day long. But essentially,
wouldn't be paying for my time, I wouldn't be able to pay myself for my time, I would lose money without even knowing it if I didn't do the calculation. Okay so this is the trap that beginners fall into. They often assume that well they're going to be cheaper because they grow their flowers themselves, so cheaper than the wholesaler. They think that their stems are going to cost nothing because they came from the garden and imported stems has a
they just have a really clear obvious price tag that you have to pay but your stems have a hidden cost that you need to calculate. When the price is too low you train your customers to expect cheap, you exhaust yourself, you create a business that cannot scale, you destroy your margins and then worst of all you quietly resent the work because you're looking in your bank account and wondering where's all the money gone?
And this resentment, honestly, it's the fastest way to fall out or love with something that you adore. So you really, really must price like a professional, even as a beginner. Imagine two flower farmers starting in the same year.
Farmer A prices their bouquets at £12 just to be fair. Farmer B prices bouquets at £22 based on proper calculations. Farmer A will work longer, grow more and sell more, but they'll earn less and they'll burn out. Farmer B will work smarter, grow strategically, sell confidently, reinvest in the business and will be growing year after year.
Just remember pricing isn't about greed, it's about sustainability for your business and energy and for your future. So knowing your numbers really, really does matter. It gives you the clarity and the confidence and the control. It stops you from guessing and hoping and it stops you from walking blind straight into loss after loss.
And more importantly, it stops you from telling yourself that you're doing fine when actually your business is quietly sinking. And I really want you to feel empowered and confident about the decisions that you make and to not be overwhelmed by the maths. You know, this isn't school. You just need real maths that works. This is not trigonometry. And remember, it's not always about the straight profit. I know sometimes it's about the marketing.
And without marketing, you don't have a business.
And if you are someone like me, the girl who was hopeless at maths, like literally utterly hopeless, my parents actually gave up trying to teach me. So if I can learn and use this maths every day, then you absolutely can do and I can help you to do this. I can help you to forecast out what you need for the year. So before we wrap up, I want to share something really, really exciting because...
this episode and events that have happened recently have made it really crystal clear what so many of you need. And I get so many messages and emails.
from people saying, hey Jane, I want to start a flower business, but I just don't know where to start. I don't know how much to charge. And the advice I always give is to start with a business plan. And this is like, it's honestly like rabbit in a headlights. So you might already be growing flowers and you might have already sold some, but actually that on its own, that doesn't make a business on its own. It's basically an out of control hobby with a bit of a return.
If you're not calculating your margins properly, there might not even be any return at all. So I'm putting something together for you and it's the flower business bootcamp. It's a beginner friendly bootcamp for anyone who is dreaming of building an actual flower business, but feeling really stuck at step zero. So if you have maybe an idea, if you want to sell wholesale flowers,
Bunches, bouquets or dry flowers or maybe you don't actually really know exactly what you want to sell yet. But that doesn't matter because the business plan in Bootcamp will help you to decide and we will cover exactly how to set up your business without the jargon and the overwhelm, how to decide which market segment you'll target and how to find your first customers, how to make sure you're actually making money and you're going to make money in the future.
and what goes into a really, really simple business plan, a realistic business plan that you can use day after day, and then how to forecast out that first year properly using numbers, using margins and
breaking everything down by quarter, quarter by quarter, month by month and week by week. So maybe you've already had your first year or even your second year, but without a plan and without a business plan and a forecast, it's essentially everything.
So this is essentially everything that I wish somebody had given me on a plate when I started, but I had to figure it all out myself. Now, because I'd worked in buying for over 20 years, I had the skillset, but putting it all together is a total minefield. And luckily for you, I have all of the tools that you'll need to get your business started or on track.
So if this sounds like exactly what you need then just make sure that you're signed up. I will put a link in the show notes for you to sign up for the workshop. And that's it for this week and until next time happy sowing, happy growing and I'll see you next time.