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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 are listening to the floral hustle podcast. Is this ever been you? You've been in a consult with a client and they're like, well, how much is this? How much is that? Like, and you are almost, there's an expectation that you should just be able to rip these prices out of thin air.
And there is a math or science to how you're pricing your, you need a recipe, you need to do all these things. So how I have addressed that because it's almost like uncomfortable. People have expectations that pricing should just be something that can be thrown out and made super simple. But! You can make it simpler than it is.
You can help guide the conversation. If price is a main focus, you can have some starting at pricing so that in your consults, you at least have a basic arsenal of pricing that you can direct the conversation around and really almost put that client at ease. Make sure that they understand, you know, like about how much things cost.
And the reason why that is important is because I'm all about saving time and making sure that my time investment is worth it. If this person is all of a sudden like in a lower budget than they previously identified, they had no idea and all of a sudden like sprung some things on me in our consult that I'm like, There is no way we are fitting this in this 4, 000 budget.
There is no way we're in this 5, 000. Like, this wedding is a 20, 000 wedding and they have a 10, 000 budget. So it really helps me make sure that I, if I need to, I can bring people back to reality. I met with a client that did identify a lower budget. But they are getting married at a premium venue. And with that, it is, to me, has like a certain level of expectations of what the floral are going to be.
There is a certain level of elegance that that venue requires. And I felt like this client. Honestly, he just had no idea and what she did is she took some of the leftovers and just use that for her flower budget, which is so disheartening that we often are the leftovers, but because I mean, this isn't their fault.
It is because there is no online directory of how much wedding flowers cost that people are going into consults. And just having no clue, how would you? If you had never got your hair highlighted before, how would you know other than some places have a menu of pricing? If you had never bought a car before, and you need a new Ford or car, there is menus of pricing, there's directories of cars.
There is not really a great directory or an aggregated place for people to go. And the places that do have percentages outlined, or they put example budgets, They're fucking horrible. They are so off sometimes. I'm like, where are you? Is this flowers from somebody's backyard that you're pricing out here?
I don't understand. So it's our job as professionals to help educate that client so that they understand that things are, you know, just cost this much. And especially if they're, they're like, okay, well, how much does that cost? If you have basic pricing guidance, and I have that basic pricing guidance in my brochure.
I have a la carte flowers on my website. And then I also have like full service starting at prices in my brochure as well. So this is a really easy way I went in for each item and said, okay, if I want to have my starting price, because I've also done research. With other floral companies to make sure that my prices are competitive, not cheaper, but competitive.
And I've looked at their a la carte flower pricing and then I go, okay, if they are around there, like I'm guessing, you know, they have like three different levels and then you can kind of dig in because of course that price there. It's probably for a petite bouquet. So I'm like, okay, so that's a boutique bouquet.
Uh, so I'll have a petite medium and a large bouquet in my dropdown or in whatever. That also gives you a chance to ask questions because if somebody throws out a price. Maybe that they saw online or from somebody else. You know, I I think I've I've seen bouquets around that price They're usually like petite like junior bridesmaid flower girl size and you're you know, it looks like you're kind of taller So are you wanting like a petite bouquet?
Because then you're putting it in their court They can say yes because they want that price, but I've done the foundational work and this could be a 2024 strategy Is you are going to do a little bit of groundwork to figure out your key wedding items. So that you can go into your consults, you could even have a sheet that has these items on it.
That you feel like you could comfortably make in most color palettes, not all, most, a bridal bouquet. That you can choose the blooms. A bridesmaid bouquet, you choose the blooms. A boutonniere, corsage, wrist, corsage, pin on. A compote bowl, a bud base, you know, those simple things, those like core things, maybe it's a floor piece.
I do a lot of floor pieces. So like a, I have a small, medium and large floor piece priced out. So if you want a small one, which is usually like the six inch green, um, I think it's a syndicate bowl, number 95 or something. Then I have a rectangle one. And then I go into, like, a nine inch Lomi size. And then I have the two and three foot brick trays from Oasis, the black trays that are really nice for making meadow pieces or something similar.
So I have all of those resources that, in a console, if they put me, my feet to the fire to try to get me to price something, I said, well, my starting at price for that item is this. Because that's the minimum I'll make it. If they want to choose that color palette, like a white color palette or a colorful or something, like I could probably do that for that.
Especially if it's in the middle of summer, I can use locally grown, I can use some of my own. I can run to Trader Joe's if I need like a few little touches of something. I have set it up so I am an expert in my consult because I can just go like that and this is my pricing. But, you know what, in looking at your Pinterest.
You want terracotta, mustard, and taupe. And those flowers are premium, like, pricing because they are, they're more rare, they're not grown as heavy. Um, and so, I'd love to price this item out. I'm guessing it's probably going to be 25 to 35 percent difference, just based on the colors you're choosing. So I'm not telling them that they're going to get my starting at price.
What I'm telling them is I will do an estimate and I'm testing what their response to that is. Well, I can't afford that. Yeah, I know those premium colors are, are like really hard to find flowers usually. And with that hard to find. They come with premium prices because they're just not as produced. And every florist, just like me, is out looking for them because Pinterest made your color palette popular right now.
And so I'm shutting it down by just saying, like, this is what you chose. I don't dictate those flower prices, but I have the ability to find it. If they show me a bouquet with a toffee rose in it, I am going to tell them that that is a limited availability rose. And it comes with a premium price. of, and you don't need to say like percentages, I would just say, and that rose costs two to three times more than a standard rose that I could get you in a different color.
Because that's true. So if they think there's my starting up pro price, but you want a bunch of roses that are going to cost three times as much as a regular rose. It's just simple math explaining, taking it off. You're the bad guy for pricing your things. That is, you're not defending it. You're just being very matter of fact and you're educating them.
Another part of that education is if they are completely unrealistic, I will give their starting at pricing. I said, let's just use like the base pricing for the items that you're looking for. I'm gonna go in. Okay, you have eight bridesmaids. Your budget is 3, 000. You have eight bridesmaids. Let's just say that the starting at price for that is like 125.
So you right now will have, and then I'm just getting my calculator if I'm not doing the math that great. Um, you have 1, 000 in just bridesmaids bouquets. So we've taken up a third of your budget. Then let's add your bouquets, so another 250, 300. So we're at 1, 300. Then you want boutonnieres and corsages. I just have a base rate for those, so I'll just go in and say you have 10 of those.
So let's just say you're at 200 for that. And so we're already halfway through your budget. We haven't gotten to me setting up, delivering, centerpieces, that ceremony structure, like none of that is in there yet, and we've ate up half your budget. So is your floral budget more important or your floral vision is the question that I ask next.
This helps guide your consults into being helpful, informative. If somebody is really off base, I will talk about, hey, like some rule of thumb in the wedding industry is that your flowers should be 10 to 15 percent of your budget. This has been 10 to 15 percent well before Pinterest existed and floral installations and doing these over the top flowers really came into popularity.
So if I'm guesstimating, and I will even like roughly guesstimate, like, I kind of know what their venue probably costed, their catering probably costed with their guest count, I'm guessing you're going to be spending like 45, 000 on your wedding, or just ask them, what do you think you're going to spend on your wedding?
And they'll tell you a total. Well, that means that you should be spending around 4, 000 to 6, 000 for your flowers. You should be spending 6, whatever that is, just educate them. People. should appreciate as long as you're doing in a kind and respectful manner. Thank you so much for listening flower friend and you have an amazing flower filled week.