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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
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CEO mindset & sustainable growth: leadership habits and eco-friendly practices that keep both you and your business flourishing
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Hello, flower friends. I wanna talk about making money, doing multiple events. On the Floral Rockstar Retreat, you know, we were going around and talking about all of our big ambitions and things that we wanted to accomplish, and revenue goals were shared by some, and then we were just like mathing the math on how to get there.
Like, how do you get to these big revenue numbers? Let's just say that you want to pay yourself $100,000. Well, Fundamentally, with most of the kind of ratios that I see with expenses, the cost of flowers, the cost of labor, the cost of doing business, the cost of all the things, you know, you're gonna have to have about a 200 and...
It depends on your margins. But I'll speak in generality, from a 2 to $250,000 business. And if you are primarily a wedding florist, that is going to be tricky to do if you are in a market that has seasonality without doing multiple events. It's not tricky to do, it just might be tricky to do With a short season if you are in one of those markets, which I am.
So I'm in Minnesota, and in Minnesota, we literally start up, I would say May. May is like when things really actually take off. And seasonally, we primarily went till, like, October, and it was realistically probably like the third week in October. And over the last couple years, I've had a surprising amount of November weddings, which has been, for as many years as I've been doing this, has been a big change.
'cause normally we're like middle to third week in October, we're done. It gets really cold, and at that point a lot of people, you know, you go outside, your flowers freeze, for one. I've literally had brides go outside with their flowers, and they freeze. You're going through a lot of wrapping wrapping all the flowers in plastic, and, eh, it's just, it's not as, pretty like with what people have kind of envisioned with getting married with the fall leaves or getting married and being able to go outside and enjoy.
It gets cold here in Minnesota. So from, let's just say November to May, you know, we've have a very slow drip. I mean, I've, I've done weddings in December. I've done New Year's Eve weddings. I've done some weddings in January. I've done weddings in February. I've done Valentine's weddings, all the things.
But that is very few and far between compared to the seasonality of May through October, November. So when you break down If you are doing the majority of your revenue during those months, you fundamentally will come up with, sometimes, depending on what your average per wedding is, you will end up having to do or needing to do multiple events in one weekend to be able to hit your revenue goals.
Your personal revenue goal of what you wanna pay yourself, but also just to get, a higher overall revenue, sometimes that takes multiple events. So this past weekend was one of those weekends for me. I actually had this wedding booked, and it was, I, I mean, I would say pretty easy. I think it was, like, an $8,500 wedding, and it looked...
It was beautiful. It's, like, the modern anthurium in burgundy, green hanging amaranthus kind of business, calla lilies. And I was like, "Oh, beautiful." Well, then I had another client reach out. Inevitably, they ended up to be related to one of my freelancers. And then I bid the wedding out, did everything, and then I didn't hear back from them.
And I checked in, and I didn't hear back from them for quite some time. And then I had a previous client reach out to me that I had married their other daughter just two years ago, and they're like, "The other daughter's getting married. We're booking you," and, we go from there. Then, after that, the cousin of my helper then reached out and said they wanted to work with me, and I'm like, "Shit."
One of them was like, you know, around 80... I think it was like 8,800 this one was around five, the small one. And but the location was in Cambridge, Minnesota, which is almost an hour and 30 minutes from my studio. Then the big other daughter wedding from the previous client, which that previous wedding had been, I think, 26,000.
So I could tell that this was the favorite daughter and definitely the fancier daughter. So we were in the, you know, I think we ended up to be around 29. So all of that was going to commence in this one weekend. And this also on top of it was back-to-back weeks of heavy activity in the studio, like the busiest August I have had in my floral career, or the bigge- busiest year or month I have had in all of my years of being a florist.
Which is saying a lot, 'cause I've been doing this a long time, and I did do, back in the day before kids, before, like when I didn't think too much about much, I did nine weddings in a weekend. I am a logistics queen, and I know that is heady or whatever, but I figured out how to do nine weddings in a weekend.
And somebody asked me for funeral flowers, and I did those, too. So I logistically am like driven, and I thrive on chaos a little bit. I love like the, you know, dimensionality of figuring all those things out. But a lot of things have changed and made it a little bit trickier for me to figure a lot of those details out now that I'm located an hour away from pretty much everything that's happening.
How do you do multiple events, especially if they're big? I had a couple people who I was explaining, you know, like, "Oh, I'm doing this thing," whatever. They're like, "How do you even do that? How do you even do that? How does that even work?" let's just go through some of the things that help make multiple weddings possible.
Um, the first thing is obviously you need to have a team. You cannot... I could physically not make... 'Cause I think we ended up, one was let's see. I think we ended up with, like, 43,000 or something like that in totals, 43 to 45. I can physically not make $45,000 of flowers, process $45,000 of flowers, doing all those things.
I just physically can't. I am... I also, have about a two and a half wide by two and a half deep... I do have a walk-in cooler, which was immensely helpful in this situation. And I have a three-door cooler that is an ancillary cooler for me to use. So I felt like I logistically from a space standpoint could figure it out.
I had, of course, started weighing all my options, like, how am I physically going to have these flowers? Where am I gonna put them? But I first was worried about my team. I lost one of my longterm freelancers for multiple reasons. And so, like, there was a big hole in my team. And with this hole, like, I was like how am I gonna logistically...
Because that person had been in my studio when I wasn't there, and she was the person that you could ask questions to. Well, I don't really have that person right now, so I'm, of course, need to work on finding that person again. And getting a person that you trust and that is knowledgeable enough and that, you know, understands your vision, that's, like, just a very hard person to find.
But I know that inevitably the change in my studio needed to happen. The energy just is s- so amazing now. Now that I've gone through a big week, I can just really feel the difference in the space, and I just... It really sucks, 'cause I, I felt like, God, I, I went backwards, but inevitably I feel like I've gone forward, because energy to me is so much more important, and until it's removed you don't know w- how it's affecting you.
So my team, I went and reached out several different places. I am the founder of the Minnesota Floral Collective, so I posted in there. I also posted on my Instagram. I made a little graphic and said, "I'm hiring for freelancers," for a couple big weeks that I had. And then I went and, um, posted, there's a group florists text DM thread in Instagram that somebody created as well.
So I went in that and also posted in there. So I had some people reach out to that Then I had a bunch of people who had freelanced for me before, and then I also had one freelancer that had been freelancing for me periodically and loves coming to the farm, loves how the farm feels, loves animals, you know, all those things.
And she was like, "I'm gonna wrangle and rally the troops," because she knew what kind of s- spot I was in with the change in my studio person no longer being with us. So rallying all of those pieces together and then putting all those pieces, the easiest thing that I did is I literally just grabbed a calendar and I wrote people's names on it to where that they were going to fit, and planned out people like, okay, I need these early week people.
I need most of the people because we're designing in a lot of foam on Thursdays and Fridays, and then I need a team again on Saturday so that I could have a s- a setup crew that could help pull this installation. 'Cause we were doing a 10 by 10 square hanging installation on a structure that a local lighting and event design company is, was installing, and it had these beautiful fun lampshades on it, and we were covering it with Smylex and flowers and all of these things.
So in going through, I needed a team that would be able to help, really pull this installation off because the installation was not a cheap installation. It was a, a pretty elaborate, expensive installation. So then I went through and I'm kind of stood back and I'm like, "Okay, how much labor am I actually going to need?"
And if this is something that you're struggling with, you know, you can go in and actually figure out you know, like labor calculations by going, okay, how long does it take to make a boutonniere? How long does it take to make a bridesmaid bouquet? And you're always going to be faster than somebody else who doesn't have this vision in their head.
It isn't ingrained in their head, and they are just really, really familiar with it. So- How do we, estimate properly what somebody else will do it? And there is a very big variance, you guys. Sometimes I have discovered over the time that some people are just not meant to do certain things, and it is a learning lesson.
So I always ask when I'm having a new freelancer, I'm like, "Hey, what do you really like to design and create?" And then hopefully they share that with you. And then, "Do you feel like you're really efficient at it?" Because you could be really good at it and take a gigantic amount of time, which then will eat up your profitability because you're spending more on labor.
'Cause we don't just want the wedding to get done, we want the weddings to be profitable. We can have huge revenue numbers and very low profitability because we are expounding a shitload of money on labor, you guys. So we need somebody fast and efficient, and hopefully that likes to do it. Because we also I- I mean I would assume that you guys would know we don't want people who are really unhappy in doing certain things.
So if somebody really hates personal flowers, I honestly don't wanna make them do personal flowers because I don't want a Grumple Stiltskin in my studio poisoning the energy. I want somebody who is excited about doing a certain task, who is efficient at it, and hopefully thrives in it. Like, all of those things together make one kickass combination of a ideal freelancer for you.
So loves what they're making or at least, likes it. Maybe they're... It's not, like, their favorite, but they don't hate it. They're efficient at it, and they have a good attitude about it. We need all of those things. Then if you discover somebody maybe was a little... I've actually had people tell me that, they're very experienced, and they want to come into your studio at what I would say a premium ra- hourly rate.
And then they don't even know how to make a bridal bouquet You're just like, "What now? What, uh, what... You d- you don't know how to do what now?" So I would clarify with any freelancer coming on board what their experience is. I would actually have them list, do you feel like, you know, you're really profe- you're, you...
Have you made bridesmaids bouquets? Have you made boutonnieres and cor- I had somebody who has never made boutonnieres and corsages in my studio this last week, but they have done amazing kickass installations. They have actually worked on teams, traveling, and done kickass installations. So, like, you can take that with a grain of salt because I sure as hell am not gonna have that person start making personals.
For one I'm glad that they were honest about it, because that is something that could be hard for some to be, to admit that I don't have experience in something. But you also could be, finding this superstar talent in something. If I was going to freelance for somebody, I could literally tell them that, of course, I, I can make anything that you want, because that is true.
I have made everything. But if you need bouquets made, I make a mean bouquet and I make it fast. I can make a bridesmaid bouquet, I've literally timed it with a seven-ingredient b- bouquet to seven minutes. So if my flowers are pulled, I can make a bridesmaid bouquet in seven minutes. Now, of course, I need my flowers pulled, but seven minutes, so that's fast.
I can make tall centerpieces like a fricking rock star. I'm fast at it. I can make hand-tied bouquets that are going in vases, because they're just like bridal bouquets, bridesmaid bouquets. I can make those really fast. So if I was gonna share somebody my superpower... And if you are a freelancer, this is a great way for you to start being able to add value to other studios, because they might not know that you are amazing at something, and they might be looking for that little amazing skill and being able to tweak it and mold it into like a spot in their studio.
You might be super fast at processing. You might be super fast at, um, washing buckets. You might be super fast at making foam. Like, all of those things. Share your superpowers if you are freelancing for people, because I love when people tell me what they're really good at, what they're really fast at, or what they're not good at.
I love that feedback because then I know I cannot ask this person to do that because it will financially will not end well for me. But if I have that person come back on a consistent basis, then because I love helping people and I love teaching people, I would be like, "Hey, I know you said, you had told me before that you weren't good at personals or you didn't have any experience.
Would you like to learn? I would love to teach you." I'll sit down and I'll show them how I make a boutonniere. I will show them how I make a corsage, because I am very proficient at it. I feel like I've perfected a fast way. I don't wire everything. I do natural stem boutonnieres and corsages, and I can show them, like, how to make these fast.
And then even if somebody's starting to do their... And they haven't taken my direction, I pop in and just say "I, I love what you making." One thing that I do is I try to make, you know, let's just say this is with a centerpiece, tall centerpieces. I try to make at least two at one time, because then your brain isn't having to go and remember all of your stem insertions, eight times over if you're making.
Literally, you're doing it in sets of two or sets of three, and so then you're making all those same insertions, and so your pieces inevitably are going to look more similar, because you're doing one ingredient at a time, and you're bringing in those ingredients into your designs. Pretty easy, but that's only because I've been doing this forever, and I've done so many of these.
I mean, I have made probably 500 tall centerpieces. That experience comes with learning, and also I've watched others a million times. So every time you do an event I reflect. I reflect on, like, what could have been better, what I could have done di- different. And those reflections are really important from a labor standpoint.
All right, so team. It is best for your team to know if what needs to be done on this day. If for some reason you're running, there should be a list of shit that needs to be done so that list can be referenced, so that you are not the bottleneck. You should not be the bottleneck in work being done, so having some type of list ready to go.
Then I like to assign there's one person doing a task. When I've had multiple people, I get things looking very different, which on wedding day doesn't look good, because it doesn't look... They look like distant cousins instead of sisters for the centerpieces. And we want things to look as similar as possible for continuity in photos and continuity of the event.
Then we also understanding giving someone a project and how long that's going to take and their availability. I go on that calendar and that piece of paper, like when that person's gonna be there, and you know, like if they're only here till 3:00, I probably shouldn't be starting them on a brand-new project at 1:30 if it's a three-hour or four-hour project.
So understanding time and the commitment that person... Maybe they have to leave, maybe they have to do something else is just really important, 'cause you don't wanna start somebody on something and then somebody else has to finish it, and then they look drastically different. Then establishing with your team clear expectations on how, when, all the things that you're paying them.
It is one of my biggest pet peeves that I am in the middle of an event or I, on Sunday after I'm exhausted, to have someone reaching out to me to pay them immediately. It drives me crazy, you guys. steam starts coming out of my ears, and I get that they wanna get paid, but they don't understand that I probably have a million other people also, in the hopper.
Because it... When I think about as a business owner all the things that I have to manage paying, because I personally don't just manage the floral business, I also have my podcast editor that I have to make sure that she's paid. I had a social media person that I inevitably, like, it was I should actually do a whole episode on it, because it seemed like it was becoming more work than it was worth.
And you know, I had to pay them. I have farm help- helpers. I have two different people who help me periodically on the farm. I have personal things that I have to pay. I have, l- just for even for the animals, I have four different vets for the animals, and keeping track and making sure those people are paid.
And then on and on and on and on and on. Personal everything. So I like to set clear expectations on, like, when someone's going to get paid, and I tell them that when they're working for me. And I'm telling, like, what I require. I need a W-9 from you, or you know, I prefer to do Zelle payments or write a check.
I do not like to do Venmo payments because it's another reconciliation that I just don't want to do. Uh, it's because it's manual, and I just don't wanna do manual shit. So setting those clear expectations is so helpful. All right. Then also making sure that you have, if you are going to require a W-9 from those, helpers, make sure you print them.
Have them ready ahead of time. Have a folder, put their name on it Then you can hand it to them and they can fill it out while they're there, and then you're not chasing it down, because chasing never ends well in my experience either. All right. Then next, let's talk about prep. You need to prep like a total boss when it comes to these big, huge events.
And there's several layers. Obviously, you need to prep inventory. You need to make sure that you have adequate inventory for what you have rented out. You need to make sure that all of those pieces are ordered and you have the inventory well before the event so that you're not scrambling. You... Any supplies that you're gonna need, like I ended up ordering extra Lomi dishes, extra candle holders.
Like, I was using ribbed ribbed everything for candles when it came to the big, huge wedding that was with the hanging installation. So it was ribbed pillar vases, ribbed chimneys for my tapers, ribbed votives, and I didn't have enough ribbed chimneys. So I had to order a bunch of ribbed chimneys to make sure that I had it all covered.
But that was a process. We have to make sure that we have enough, so that is part of your prep work. Then kind of a next layer of that is getting all of your mechanics ready and prepped ahead of time. So do you have all your foam? You should have all your foam ready before you walk into that wedding week.
So any Lomi dishes. If you're chicken wiring anything, have your chicken wire all ready. And if you don't have that new chicken wire cutter that you've probably seen on Instagram, I will put it in the show notes. It is magical, and I love it, and I will put the notes in there, because that has made prep work for making cages so much easier that it's kind of ridiculous.
I pre-make all my tall centerpiece cages with Grande Brick foam, and I wrap it in chicken wire because I have had a centerpiece actually that I didn't move. I got it on the table, and then they realized that the s- tablecloth was dirty or something, like it had a stain on it, and they missed it at setup, but I'd set up my tall centerpiece on top of it.
So then they moved it, and they twisted hard and were placing it down on another table, and the foam severed. Literally, foam severed in half. So since then, any tall centerpieces are getting wrapped in chicken wire, because if it was wrapped in chicken wire, that would have never severed. It could have shifted a little bit, but it wouldn't have fallen apart.
That was a mess because the nearest Michaels, the nearest at that time JOANN Fabrics, Hobby Lobby, was 35 minutes away. And then I ended up having to soak foam in my van and just all of this, it was not good. You know, all of those things I want prepped ahead of time. I wanna check my inventory on wristlets, on floral glue, on waterproof tape, and so I'm really checking in on all of my inventory levels.
Then ordering. Ordering is a huge deal, and this past week, holy crap, were there so many gigantic screw-ups. And actually, I got into it with one of my wholesalers, which I am, like, totally a zen human being But I finally, like, told the person, like, how they had talked to me did not feel good for me. And I am not an idiot.
I understand how things work. Y- she was trying to say that I placed an order late when she had told me the truck was late. So me potentially ordering, 'cause I had to increase my order, me ordering more had nothing to do with product arriving late if a truck was late. And I felt like we were displacing blame, and it just, like, did not feel good.
And so I very clearly laid out, and she was argumentative. And I was just like, "You know what? This is not landing how I want it to, and so it doesn't seem like it's being helpful for either of us." But I will gather feedback, and I actually in this process also asked her, and, like, she likes the feedback if something is nice.
Wholesalers often are only getting negative feedback, so I know that this rep in particular wants positive feedback as well. I'm a person who I, like, want to have a great relationship. I really li- I really like this person. She's super sassy and I love her. I actually, I, except for how everything went down and how she handled it, I've really loved working with her.
But in high-stress times that's when things can fall apart and that's when you need things to go as smooth as possible. So I need my wholesalers to understand how I need to be supported and what I like, what I don't like. And now I know, because I've asked, uh, they also like to know, like, when something was good because that's actually good advice when somebody else might ask them, "Hey, how are your green anti- antique hydrangeas right now?"
You know what? One of my big event florists just had them and said they were magical, 'cause they were magical. They were beautiful. I loved them. And that was important, for her. And so I also in this process wanna honor feedback goes both ways So making sure that you're going in and ordering in a timely fashion, making sure that you're cl- There have been freelancers in my studio that have worked for studios that count to the last stem so there's no breakage, no anything.
And to me, that is crazy. You have to accommodate for breakage. People are human, and I do not want people in my studio to be r- anxiety literally ridden, and that's what they were, anxiety ridden, that they were gonna screw something up if they broke a stem. I... That is never worth the $2, $3. I don't care if it's $100.
That kind of energy is never worth it in your studio. So making sure that you're ordering with margin, especially when it's at this level. I mean, I had over $10,000 of flowers in my studio. That is a gigantic amount, and if I didn't plan for any margin... And honestly, the only thing we really had a lot left over is I ordered too much leather leaf And that was because some of the other greens were really beautiful and really magical, and we used that instead.
So you wanna make sure that you are ordering a little bit extra, but not being bougie, not going crazy, just enough to cover your ass. That is what I wanna make sure that nobody is stressed out if something breaks. I'm not stressed out if all of a sudden hydrangeas go down. You want to feel good and confident that you are gonna have the product.
I especially care about that now because I do not have daily deliveries like I used to. When I was in Bloomington, I was really close to Minneapolis, I was really close. There was daily deliveries available. I have twice-a-week deliveries available from three of my wholesalers now. Twice a week. And they're on weird days, so it's not like I get Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Two of them deliver Sunday night into Monday morning. Or one of them delivers then. One of them delivers on Mondays and Thursdays. One of them delivers on Tuesdays and Fridays. The other one delivers Wednesday into... I mean, it's just, like, crazy. The- there- these gaps between everybody's on a different schedule.
And it's just their route schedule. Because I'm rural now, I'm on a route. You can, of course, pay extra to get things couriered, and they have two different couriers available. And honestly, they couriered some things because things came in late, and that is not my fault they came in late. The trucks were late.
So you need to also, in this whole process, make sure that there are cutoff times for you to order product from different places. And if you are beyond the cutoff times, they can't get that product on a truck driving up to wherever you're at. And for me, a lot of stuff comes out of Miami and they dr- they cold ship it up to Minneapolis.
And so that, that's a very long ride, and there are deadlines to get that on that truck in a time-efficient fashion. I actually even had flowers shipped via FedEx directly to me, and they had ranunculus and spray roses direct from the farm sent because some product arrived and it was just crap. So also making sure that your wholesaler...
And I felt like my main wholesaler in this event really went to bat for me. It was really I was like, "This is not light pink. Everything is medium pink. We should have light pink and medium pink. Everything is medium pink." And she was like, "No problem. I'll get it handled." And I had them, basically shipped directly to my house because she knew by the time they get it there, they check it in, it's going to probably not get to me in a w- in the timeframe that I need to get those things.
So also making sure you're working with a wholesaler that's just really, really on top of their game. And I definitely feel like even though there was hiccups, like we went through a very big thing in a very short window of time and pulled everything off accordingly. I mean, I had over 1,000 hydrangeas in my studio.
I had I think close to 1,000 roses in my studio. I had a lot of local. It was a lot of local hydrangeas, and those are just tricky sometimes as well. But making sure you have wholesalers that support you or flower farmers that really support you is so critical in this process. So we've talked about our team.
We've talked about our prep work. We've talked about our wholesalers and making sure that is good. Now let's talk about actually laying out the logistics. You can go through and actually lay out everything that needs to be done, and try to almost figure out, like, when does this need to be done, so that we know if it's not done on day three of production, that we're falling behind.
So I, I know some people make bouquets last. I'm a bouquets first kind of gal. So I'm gonna start with, like, we're doing all of our processing and getting all of our flowers out of boxes, in water and everything, and then we're getting them hydrated and all the things cleaned, and then we're going to getting to a process of I wanna do bouquets.
I wanna get the nicest flowers that are there, and I wanna pull them and get bouquets made. Then we're going through and we're doing, um, anything that's in vases. So, like, bud vases, any, like, cylinder hand-ties, anything like that. Then we're greening any foam products. Then we're going and flowering. Then we're doing personal flowers in the mix.
So, like, I kind of can lay out a production schedule in that whole process, and it helps me really know if we're behind schedule, and also helps my team know, like, we need these things done when. So that is a critical part of you laying out a successful week is making sure that your production schedule is really top-notch.
Then when it comes to the actual week and you're in the studio, you wanna make sure that you're also checking off things. So one thing that I like to do is going, okay, here's the long list of items, and this is just me, and it makes me feel better, having a little, like, okay, we have the cake flowers, the cake meadow done.
We have the welcome flowers done. All the bridesmaids are done, but we need to wrap them. And having just kind of like a central logistics so I can see all of the things crossed off, so I can really tell where are we at with producing and getting all of this done. That just helps me wrap my head around all of the things that still need to be done and what are, kind of allotted hours or whatever is really critical.
Then another thing that really helps is we're getting ready in the studio, we're cleaning along the way. And I know from a logistics standpoint, you're like, "How does that really fit in?" If you're in a, a war zone of buckets, of stems, of garbage, of plastic from, like the wa- I call them water tampons on hydrangeas, if you are living in that muck it feels like chaos.
So you need to create a culture in your studio of, like this is where... 'Cause we compost all of our stems. Th- this is the bin that composting stems goes into, and then it is dumped out here. I have a farm helper that can help dump it, or I can take the four-wheeler and get the... You know, we have a wagon that attaches.
I can go out and dump it. But like, this is a process to help keep the studio clean. Then this is what happens with garbage. We put garbage in here. Once the garbage is full, we un-bag it, and if the garbages are full, 'cause we have three full-size garbages, we can go in and just put that garbage bag tied shut next to it.
Then boxes. We had a huge amount of boxes. So I have a shed that is just down a pathway. I went and cleared a spot, and we literally piled all the boxes, and when we needed boxes for boxing things up, we went down there and ran and grabbed them. So creating a clear process of making sure that people, like if a bucket is empty, it goes out, and this is where it goes.
And I know that seems really minuscule, but if you have 10 to 15 empty buckets around your feet, you're taking up a ton of space. It's clutter, and clutter is overwhelming, and you're just, like gonna have this shitload of work to do afterwards when you could've had freelancers, like taking, 30 seconds running that bucket out and getting it out of your studio, or going and dumping it and stacking it, whatever your process is.
My process is it, if it's a dirty bucket and it's full of water or whatever, we just take it and we bring it outside to kind of like a bucket dumping area. And then right now, because we have the garden there, we actually go and dump that on the garden just because then we're... I'm not having to water it.
We're just using floral water, and who cares? That's the process in my studio, though. So you need to create those processes for optimum efficiency. All right, some other things that I do along the way is, let's say we're on our last design day, I am always condensing buckets down, and I'm particularly focused on my bucket I'm going to bring with me with any extras.
So if I see, like, let's just say we have a, a kind of, coral sunset whatever wedding, and we have some shimmer roses, we have some pink O'Hares, we got some peach ranunculus, got a little pop of yellow, um, with some crispedium, then we got daisy feverfew. And I see, like, seven crispedium here, and I see, like, 15 pink O'Hares here.
I am going to, in that process, take all those things and smush them in one bucket because then I'm gonna have my master bucket to take with me. And that master bucket is what I can, like, if something breaks, I can fill off of, or I can just use those things to make the process of, you know, loading up that next day super fast.
The next process I do that helps make it efficient, especially in loading, because now that I am an hour away from most events, I am loading by myself primarily. So I had a 26-foot U-Haul that I had two levels of tables in. So I had 8-foot tables, banquet tables, and then I had flowers underneath that and on top of it.
And I was using Mom's Attic or whatever they call it- I have people box as we go. So if we are making bud vases, we, after we make them, we box it up. And I like to put bud vases in skinny boxes because the water weight is heavier. But like a s- eight, you know, less than eight inches wide bucket, and then I'm, if we need to, if it has delicate flowers, we'll slide it on a shelf in the cooler.
But if not, we have an upstairs part of our studio that if it's a huge wedding week, I literally have, um, a workbench that is three workbenches long, two workbenches wide, and that thing is full of boxes, and the floor is also full of boxes underneath it. And that allows us just to have extra space, but it is upstairs.
So I have to go down, either we have a metal spiral staircase or I have to go down our deck down, uh, two little flights of stairs with those boxes. So I sometimes will also just line tables up in the studio and just all the boxes. You put a little bit, uh, I like to use hydrangea boxes often.
I double box them, so I put the bottom of the box inside the top of the box. I hoard paper, you guys. I literally hoard paper. Amazon has changed something that they now put brown kind of, uh, kraft paper in a lot of their packaging. It has been like a game changer because I just, I hoard all of that, that comes in in all of our Amazon deliveries, and I stuff that in bags, and then I pull that out and I put a thin layer, and that thin layer will support tall centerpieces, it will support a vase centerpiece, it will support a cage, whatever it is.
And I try to make everything fit as many pieces As possible. So if I could even find a box that's, like, nine inches wide so I can fit a floral cage sideways, I wanna do that because I'm gonna be able to fit three in that box instead of two the long way. So trying to figure out how can I optimize to have the least amount of boxes as possible, because every time you have an extra box, that's an extra trip or load potentially, or an extra trip downstairs, extra trip into a venue, whatever it is.
So having that is so important, and a really solid box strategy is so important in getting these big weddings pulled off because I want to reuse my wholesaler's boxes if I can at all possible, and I want to also be able to recycle them at the end. So I wanna make sure, like, I'm not getting them super wet and soaked and gross and all of those things.
So having a really good strategy that you're at the end of it, you're easily loading in to whatever vehicle that you're loading in. I, if I have to deliver with my van and I have a bigger wedding, I put card tables in so that I have two levels in my minivan. I have a Chrysler Pacifica with Stow 'N Go, so my seats fold into my floor.
And then I put a four-by-four square card table and then a skinny classroom table. That helps it, like, fill the complete width of that van so that there's no sway back and forth, and then you're potentially having something spill off. But if it's even a bigger wedding, I then will even put a second four-by-four card table behind it.
So I'll have all of that space in one level, and then I'll have the whole bottom of my van as another level. Next thing is think of, like, your tools that you need with you on game day. Like, when all of this is happening, what tools are you going to need? Do you need lighters? Do you... Clippers, obviously. Zip ties.
I use garden sprayers and spray the crap out of everything with water because flowers don't only drink from their stems, they drink from their petals and their leaves as well. And then potentially, like, any, any ancillary thing that p- chicken wire, moss, whatever it is, making sure that you have all of that prepped and centrally located in one area is so important
Pulling off multiple events also requires, like, you figuring out timelines. Timelines are so critical, because if you both need to be... You know, you have both weddings and they need 11:00, I have a clause in my contract that has a two-hour window, and that two-hour window allows me to be like, "If you need to be more specific, then I'm gonna have to hire a specific teammate to be there to meet you to do whatever."
So that two-hour window gives me the autonomy that maybe I can start at that one earlier and then be here near the end of that two-hour window. Or it allows me to go there first, whatever it is. But normally I like to personally hand off all bouquets to the bridal party. So I like to physically make that exchange, so I make sure I see the bride's face.
The bride puts me and her wedding all together because I am the face of my business. Then I make a day of logistics form that I actually put included in the final revision, and I put, like, what time are the linens going to be down? What time are they arriving on site? What time is first look? What time is last dance?
What time is end of out of the venue time by if I'm doing any tear down? I put all of those things because then if they are different than what they said, I can say, "Well, we had my team planned to be here at 11:00 PM, and you're telling me midnight. There's going to be an additional tear down charge," because the later it is, the more that I charge for tear down, because I'm keeping people up later.
Or I'm putting, like, delivery at church at 11:00, and then the church isn't open. So that I have, you know, them, the numbers, the times, the everything right in front of them for them to understand this is the deal this is what we're doing. Then on that, I also put all my rentals, because then I can actually use that as my pull list, but also I can use that as, um, a kind of like a reminder to them that I, I, like, rented to you nine of the LED lamps and I got seven back.
So I need to charge you because there was clearly nine and I got seven. It's just giving them, like, kind of a heads-up, these are all the rentals included. Then on that same sheet, I'm putting, like, what our end of the night tear-down plan is for the flowers. What are we doing with the flowers? Because I don't want to run into a situation that I have a client upset because they...
I took flowers that they wanted. So we lay out, what are we doing with the flowers, you guys? What are we doing with them? I don't care what we do with them, but if you're hiring me for tear-down, most venues have a no nothing left behind policy, no trace. I need to make sure that, like, that isn't a reflection on me because there's 15 centerpieces left because you said you guys were gonna take them.
So then I just explain the process. I will gather all of your centerpieces. I will place them on a table near the exit. If for some reason, a- when we are right before we are leaving, they are no longer there, so I'll, I give it 20 minutes. If nobody's taken them, we will take them and compost them. I clearly lay that out.
Or if they are clearly telling me, "We are going to take every single flower thing," I put that in there. Bride and bride's family are taking all flowers at the end of the evening. Vases will be collected, candles will be collected by florist. So we are abundantly clear, and I am not surprised that all of a sudden I have one van to take all this crap home, and I have 30 centerpieces now that are not being taken home, because we made it abundantly clear with our tear-down plan that this is what's happening So having those expectations and that communicated, because I had a flower friend that literally had a mother of the bride accuse them of stealing because they were taking one of their rental containers with flowers out of it.
They probably should have just gave up and gave them to the crazy person, because they sounded like next level crazy. But it ended up escalating and turning into a legal thing with contracts involved, and having to get a new contract written, and having to argue with this lady, and refund money, and doing all these things.
So I want to avoid that, so we're just crystal clear about all rental containers are being taken. This is a rental container. And if you need to put, and I, I do note this on my proposal, that this is rented. These are rented vases. Or I use it as a selling feature if I'm designing a centerpiece for them to take it home.
"This is a take home with your guest container. Like, I literally don't want them. Please take them home. I do not want them." But I'm clearly laying it out in a nice way. "This is something that your guests can take home and enjoy afterwards." You wanna share that, 'cause that's a selling feature and something that might enhance your value compared to another florist proposal.
Making that plan what we're doing at the end is so important, and then laying out the cleanup, the aftermath of the event. The aftermath of these events is crazy. I have a storage unit in Bloomington where I used to live that one of my tear-down people returns to. That storage unit is full right now of flowers, so I need to get up there to get those flowers out and to get all my vases.
One of my ladders is in there, and I just... It's Tuesday, and haven't had it in me to go up there yet. But I need to, because they're fresh flowers, and they're in a storage unit, and it's been, like, 85 degrees, so it's a little, a little steamy, and I don't wanna get yelled at that it stinks or something like that, so I have to get up there tomorrow.
But in the studio, it was a tornado. So you need to also budget, like, there is going to be cleanup time. When you're doing something this big, you guys, if you want to get to this $100,000 level of paying you, it is going to be a lot of shit to clean up, and honestly, you do not want to work seven days a week.
It's... I love working. I love what I do. I love flowers. But I am tired right now, because I have been working for a month straight pretty much, getting ready for the retreat here, getting ready for the Hindu wedding that I did, getting ready for the, a design I did with this one client, getting ready for a last-minute wedding that they fired their florist and I was hired on, and that was, like, 8,700 or something like that.
Then this big weekend. Like, I am just tired. But with that I budgeted for a person to come and help clean, because a literal tornado has went through my studio, and it feels crazy. And, like, walking in there, I don't have a wedding this week. I thought I was going to, but then that changed. But, like, I walked in here, and it was just like, "Oh, my God," like, "I don't even wanna...
I don't have the energy for this. I don't have the energy to clean this up right now. So I hired someone to help with that cleanup, and it looks pretty great, except I gotta run to the storage unit and get that as well. There's always something to think through, and part of evolving to higher revenue levels is evolving your processes, evolving how you're thinking about it, evolving foreseeing what you might need, and staffing accordingly, because you can't do it all.
You physically can't. It's just not possible. So how can you optimize so that you remain sane, you remain profitable, but you also remain not like a stressed out crack addict that didn't sleep because they've been up till 3:00 in the morning every day working on stuff because they didn't hire their team accordingly, or it was a lot more work and they didn't know how to budget time accordingly, or all these things went wrong and we had no plan if they went wrong You have it in you.
I used to say I never wanna do a $40,000 event. I never wanna do a $50,000 event. I like even... I used to think like 20 was like, "Oh my God, that sounds so much work." it's not bad, you guys. And that's how you get there. That's how you get to the revenue levels that everybody dreams about paying. That is what success looks like.
And you deserve whatever success that you want. And I'm here to help support you and get you there. If you were... I literally just had one of my Floral CEO Mastermind girls that, granted, was working a full-time job for 35 years, you guys, and just started her business a couple years ago, but never... didn't really put the gas on until she started working with me.
She just did her biggest wedding yet, 15K I'm so proud of her, and if she's listening, I'm so proud of you. But that takes support, and the Floral CEO Mastermind, you get that support. You get the support you need to figure out all this shit along the way. Because I've been there. I know exactly how to handle something because I have done it so many times.
I have navigated a million crazies. I have navigated a million complicated setups, tear downs, weird designs, flower issues. Whatever it is, I, uh, it seems cocky to say it, but I've done it, you guys. I've done 1,800 weddings. I've been doing this for over 30 years, and I wanna help you hit the easy button and not the struggle bus button.
And that's what the Floral CEO Mastermind i- is all about. You don't need to work with me one-on-one for me to hold your hand. Like, I help the girls in there live a s- live their potential in their business every day. I, I just had one of them say to me, and it, like, just melted my heart. She's like, "This is the best $250 I spend every month."
This type of coaching with other coaches, they're like 250, even higher an hour. And you get four sessions with me with guided trainings. You get a one-on-one meeting with me that's like an accountability check in, and then anything that you didn't wanna maybe talk about in front of the group. And in those, I usually figure out what's going on with you.
Very insightful, can read people, and I can usually tell what is holding you back, and it's just that little crank on the notch for me to push you in whatever you need to become the you that you've been dreaming about. Because I personally know that that is possible, because I have done that. Everything in my life right now is because I've twisted the dial, I've had coaches twist my dial for me to be the person you guys see right now.
And that has ta- that's taken a while. It's taken a long time. I didn't even believe in Instagram a million years ago. I just, I was like, "You don't even need it." I didn't believe, like, you should be making a lot of money in, in your floral business, because we're doing something artistic and fun. I believed that you should be cheap and affordable because, that seemed comfortable to me.
Like, all of these limiting beliefs, like, I have worked past them because I know I deserve to make money. I know you deserve to make money. We work hard. We are artists. What we do is hard-ass work, hard-ass work, and we deserve to be compensated accordingly, and be super happy in the process. There is nothing better than me being able to go and get my kids off of the van at the end of the school day, me being able to have the time and space to write cute little lunchbox notes, for me to go pick up my daughter for therapy, for me to do all the things, like, in my second purpose in life, which is being a mom, but also doing it when I'm not running around, like, reactive 'cause I'm upset and angry over...
Uh, I am so calm because I, even with high stress, I know everything's going to work out because I've got strategies, I've got support. And that Floral CEO Mastermind is the support you may need to help you turn it up a notch. So go check it out, floralceo.com/mastermind. I wanna help, 'cause we are not that far away from a new year, you guys, which is crazy to say.
But we're not that far away, and if you keep doing the same shit, you're going to get the same results. And now is the time for you to be that next level version of yourself. Thank you so much for listening, flower friends, and you have an amazing flower-filled day.