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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.
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Hello, flower friends. I wanna talk about discipline today because I have heard people this last week talk about not having discipline and basically kind of almost like pointing the figure that because they don't have discipline, they're not making their goals happen. And while there, there might be some validity to it.
I think that discipline feels hard because you are forcing yourself to do something and anytime you're forcing yourself to do something, like, does that feel good? Does white knuckling it through something? Feel really in alignment with who you wanna be? Does pushing yourself doing something that's really.
You know, hard that just feels maybe even like I'm gonna die. Does that feel like it's supporting the person that you want it to be? Not usually. But that's because your, your mind frame on. On this is that this is hard, and I've had many moments, many, what I would say, identities, that even going and working out for an hour seemed so hard, like so terrible, but I had to build a strategy.
To change that I had to start building a new identity of who I wanted to be. I did not wanna be the person who, because I wasn't working out, I wasn't strengthening my, my heart, I wasn't, I was gaining weight. I was, um, not strong. Like literally, part of my identity right now is I want to be strong. I need to be strong because I want to lift my little boy who's getting, he's six years old, he's getting bigger.
I need to be strong because I need to move a wheelbarrow. I need to be strong because I literally shovel shit you guys, and it is surprisingly difficult to do that. I need to be strong because I am training my animals to walk on a halter. And sometimes they're Wiley. Like I have bruises on my legs from, I got kicked this week you guys and I had one get really kind of Wiley and Bucky being on the halter and like run into my leg and like, I need to be strong because of.
That's who I want my identity to be aligned with. I don't want to be the person that needs a man or needs somebody to help me do something because I'm not strong enough. I so shifting my identity to, I want to be strong, I want to be healthy, not. I need to work out because I'm, I'm supposed to. Those two things are drastically different.
Identity shifts in mind, frames about working out, working out so that I can my mother passed away at 66 years old. It is very important. That's in 20 years you guys from where I'm at now, it is really important because I had children at 40 that I am around for him. I need to be healthy. I need to have the identity of being healthy, not doing things to my body like I watched people in my family do that basically ruined theirs.
But I see so many people get into this pattern of abusing their body or not taking care of their body. Is a part of their identity and tell, like you get pushed and then you say, I don't have discipline. It's because all of the habits that you have, all of your behaviors, all of your mindset are supporting this shitty version of yourself that has brought all of these bad behaviors that have led you to where you are.
And. You've trained your brain, that that feels co cozy. That feels safe. Anytime we're wanting to change our identity our body wants to go and protect it. That doesn't feel good. Why are we changing? Everything's fine. Why are we doing everything? And we, our body is like in fight or flight mode anytime that we are trying to make these drastic changes that aren't in alignment with the human that you've been forever.
So discipline at that point is hard because you are fighting this old identity, you're fighting these old habits, and then you set these big ass goals and they don't happen. And then you say you lack discipline, but you don't need impeccable discipline to make things happen. You need strategy. I have strategies in place in my life that support the human that I wanna be, the mother that I wanna be.
They support the like health that I want. They support the business that I want. They support. The human I want making sure that I get to pottery class, making sure that I get time to, to go and take care of myself at doctor's appointments, all of those things. So if you do not have the identity that you are this new version of yourself, 'cause you've been really working on rewiring your identity, you need to start building habits and routines.
Really strategies to help set you for success. So I'll give you a couple examples, um, that I personally have kind of integrated over the years. I used to be a diehard Mountain Dew and notice I said Mountain Dew and not Diet Mountain Dew. I was drinking after I went to the doctor's office and I had gained weight over the years because I loved Diet Mountain Dew or Mountain Dew.
Do you see that? I've rewired my identity that I love Diet Mountain Dew now, and I even subconsciously said it. So I used to love Mountain Dew. I was drinking 1600 calories of Mountain Dew a day. You guys. 1600 calories and I just was like, oh my God, this is, you know, like, what am I gonna do? I love Mountain Dew.
Oh my God, I love it. How am I gonna do, how am I gonna change this? So I went and tried Diet Mountain Dew. I was like, who can drink this shit? This is gross. Oh my God. But I was like, okay, if I keep doing what I'm doing. I am gonna still keep gaining weight because I'm drinking 1600 calories of Mountain Dew a day.
So what I started to do is I started drinking one last can of Mountain Dew a day, and then I switched one of my cans to diet and I switched my first can of the day because. My body was in more in need or in want, basically of the caffeine. So I made this really small shift. I'm gonna drink one less can, and you could even do that, like stagger that out.
I could have just swapped one can out, then done that for two weeks and then reduced or swapped two cans out. I staggered. My input into investing into this change. I didn't go off and thumb on Louise and say, I am no longer drinking Diet Mountain Dew. I'm gonna start drinking Diet Mountain Dew today. No more Mountain Dew.
Because then your body goes into this reaction and then you're thinking, I need discipline. I need discipline. I need discipline. When. Like you gotta have a lot of fricking discipline to make that happen. That is a really tough pill to swallow, going from zero to a hundred on a big change. Another example, so I, when I became pregnant, here I am loving.
At the time it was Diet Mountain Dew Loving Diet Mountain Dew. Like, I, I love Diet Mountain Dew, you guys, that's like my favorite. And it's actually, I can honestly say is my only bad habit. 'cause I do not smoke, I do not drink, I do not do anything that is really like shitty for my body. I don't eat meat.
I'm, I work out. And so like Diet Mountain Dew is my one vice. And when I got pregnant, of course, one of the first things that I know is I need to reduce my caffeine consumption dramatically because it's not good for the baby. And I did this both, with both babies. I went and there are not very many places that sell Baby Mountain Doans, baby Diet Mountain Doans.
So there. Literally the little three or four inch you know, instead of the five and a half to six inch cans. And I immediately changed my can size, went to a mini, and I then went immediately my can size went to a mini and then. I staggered down every week. I basically reduced a can 'cause I was drinking like six cans that in the end I got two baby cans of Diet Mountain Dew, which was well within my caffeine you know, kind of alignment that I was shooting for, but.
If I would've just gone and said, no Mountain Dew, I would've been strung out like a crack addict wanting Mountain Dew and like not been slowly working on supporting that change, rewiring my identity that like I am still someone that gets to enjoy this. I'm not suffering. I'm not. A lot of times when you're withholding.
Your body gets angrier. Your mind is like basically wanting to tell you to f off because you're doing things that are putting your body into this reactionary mode. So I've always staggered my success. Same thing when I went and I. I felt like I was having a heart attack. You guys, like it was three years ago-ish, and it was maybe, no, maybe four years ago.
I Bodhi did not sleep at night. He would wake up five to six times a night. For the first two years of his life, I felt like a strung out crack addict again. Like I never got good sleep. And then I, you know, was COVID was happening and we were homeschooling and I had this baby that never slept. And, you know, my, Then I had lost my mom. My husband worked all the time and I wasn't really getting out of the house much. Weddings, I still had a good chunk of weddings, but I was like having to navigate this weird world of just a very stressful situation. And so my weight had crept up a bit and I was like I need to, after I actually, I was in the urgency.
Room, which is kind of like an emergency room here. But not with the weight as much. And I thought I was having a heart attack and I actually thought, 'cause at almost the identical age, my mom had an a cardiac ablation and I thought maybe I had the same thing. 'cause I researched on Google before chat, GPT and it said that it was genetic and.
They were like, you need to reduce your stress and you need to, you're not working out, you're not doing, you know, like you're not doing a ton of bad things for your body, but you're not doing a ton of good things for your body right now, like working out. So I then I was like, okay, how am I gonna do that?
Make this digestible, make it so I don't feel like my fingernails are being peeled off. And make it something that I'm actually going to change my identity. 'cause I just really did not enjoy working out. And so then I started doing a home workout and then I did it for 15 minutes and then I did it for 30 minutes and I, I staggered this.
Over probably like 12 weeks. I kind of upped the time. Then I was like, I really don't know if I'm doing this right. So then I actually hired a personal trainer to help hold me accountable for my workouts for that week and. To kind of coach and guide me. And he had an app that I could actually pull up and do the workouts out of that.
And it was really cool. And so then I started like changing like, God, this isn't so terrible. This is doable. And, but then I wanted to bring that to the next level and then I was like, you know what? I'm gonna join a CrossFit gym. I'm gonna like go back and do CrossFit again because I felt like I wanted to be around people again.
I wanted to push myself more, and I feel like when I'm in front of people, I can't half-ass it like I do at home, probably with my shitty little weights that I had. So then I was like, I'm gonna go one day a week. Then I decided I was gonna go two. Then I decided, I actually hired the. The owner of the gym to do personal training one day a week for 45 minutes because I wanted an accountability partner.
'cause every time he asked me, when don't you come to class this week? And then that started layering in this new identity that I was someone who worked out. But it was a strategy. I didn't go in and just go, I'm gonna become a person that works out four days a week. I became a person that. Laid out their workouts, what days?
I was going to go at the beginning of the week to set myself up for success. I asked my husband to hold me accountable to making sure that I went to the gym and I wasn't half-assing it. I, I'm not a person who enjoys half-assing it. I don't like that perception of half-assing it. So if I'm going to start working towards something, I wanna really work towards it and I want to know that I have his support.
I have like, then I started talking about on the, on the podcast. Then I started like showing a video of like my cute new noble shoes, which are the cutest cr. If you love flowers and athletic wear, noble and it's N-O-B-U-L-L has the cutest flower shoes. You guys like, I have three different pair. They are so fun.
They're CrossFit based, but you could wear them pretty much for anything. They are absolutely just the funnest colors and even the black ones that I have have like fun flower patterns in the bottom, but. Then that's a great example. Like once I started really building in those habits and I started, you know, really taking those things seriously, I started rewarding myself.
I think a lot of people, they work really hard on something and then they never reward themself or they never step back and appreciate, like, look at this fucking badass thing that I've done. I, when I actually hit. So my big goal is I wanted to hit 130 pounds and when I started this, I was like around 1 75.
And so like when I went and hit that one 30. I and I hover around and I think it's weird to be talking about my weight, but who cares? Like I hover right around one 30 and I have for the last year to year and a half. And that's 'cause I just, I make sure that I'm setting up habits, that if I can choose a habit that's better supporting of my end goal, of being healthier, stronger, I'm going to choose that.
Like I am going to try to choose that, and that might be just like one part. Let's just say that, my strategy for a long time to help lose weight was eating keto. So part of my journey was I ate keto, which is kind of tricky when you're a vegetarian. I'm just throwing that out there. And so every time I would maybe choose a impossible burger, but with a lettuce wrap bun.
Or I would choose, a salad, but I'm making sure that I have like cheese and egg and all those things to support protein to get myself into keto ketosis. Those decisions are decisions that don't always need to be made last minute. Let's just say you are going out and I actually, I have to do this often to make sure as a vegetarian I can even eat at a restaurant.
So if you're someone you're trying to eat better, you could have a strategy to go. Okay. Yeah. I would love to go to wherever on Saturday night. For a dinner, you could go and pre look at the menu and say, okay, like what is the, and this is when you're not hungry. You're not in the moment of the fun and the cocktails and the good times, and you can be like, what would support my current goals?
If your goal is being healthy, if your goal is not drinking, if your goal is whatever, like what could you look at ahead of time to help choose So you are mentally already committed when you're walking in. So then all of those easy, you know, to like sway when you're looking at the menu and you're hungry and you're like, oh my God.
Like look at they have fettuccine a Alfredo and oh, they have, and it comes with a garlic cheese toast. Sounds super healthy, right? But if you looked at the menu beforehand and you already knew that you were gonna have a cob salad without onion or whatever, and you had already decided that that is a strategy that is way going to support the healthier version that you want to be, let's just say that you are trying not to drink.
If you went and found a restaurant that had impeccable mocktails because you were maybe worried about going out with your friends and being the only one that isn't drinking, and so you were hesitant to potentially even go out with your friends because you were like, I don't want to not be drinking alcohol in front of them and make them feel like shit or whatever.
You can go and find a fun restaurant to go to your friends with and have a mocktail like that. I do not drink. I have not drank for a year and a half, I think, and two years. Two years now. But it is really fun for me to go and have a mocktail because I think that they're fun. I think they're usually very beautiful, and it gets the illusion.
Of doing something fun like that. People often associate with going out and drinking alcohol, like the drink is pretty and the colors are pretty and the garnishment is pretty. You can still experience part of that. Just like I experience part of my mountain Dew. By switching to diet, by switching to baby cans, you can have those strategies to help support.
That version of you, you don't need just discipline. All right, the next part of having a strategy is laying out a plan. Just like I'm talking about in the moment when you're in the restaurant. Making that good decision is really hard because you're hungry and you're looking at all the delicious options.
If you spend half your time in decision mode, you're going to get not as much done. So if you take and build strategy into what you're going to be working on your business, you build strategy in that. I, this is my plan for the next three months. I am going to work on this and this alone to work towards my goal.
You are also making sure when you are building those goals, they are in alignment. All of these things that you're putting together are in alignment with those goals that are your main priorities right now. You can make sure that even on a weekly basis, which I have talked about my Sunday night prep several times because that is a time if you are going in and.
Not planning your week, you've already lost your week because every day you're having to pause and make decisions. You're having to build strategies on the fly, which usually are more reactionary and not really strategies at all. I go in and map out my week. I have a calendar that I write on so everybody in the family knows what is going on, which helps mitigate me getting a million questions about Mom, what's next?
Or Jen, what's going on tonight? Look at the calendar. You guys, Bodhi is starting to read and so like even now, he can go over and look at it and if it says his name, he knows that he has something going on. I want to. Set my week up for success and not failure, and part of that is laying out my workouts.
Part of that is laying out when I'm going somewhere, when I am, especially now, when I have to drive a large chunk of time. You guys, I drove 10 hours last week, 10 hours of time driving up to Minneapolis. That is a lot of time. I listen to a lot of podcasts. That's part of my strategy. I have a strategy when I'm driving.
I'm going to listen to a audio book or a podcast to actually get something out of that time instead of. Just drift and not get any value out of that time. So it's my self-development time. I have my CrossFit is mapped out. I have my doctor's appointments mapped out. I have activities for the children, like bringing Bodhi to Juujitsu.
I'm mapping out my week so that I get the things that help support my goals. I'm mapping out when I have help here. I'm mapping out when I'm going to be gone for weddings so that people know and there's no surprises. I am planning my week, so my week succeeds, not being reactionary the whole week, having to sit there in indecision going, I don't know what to work on next.
And guess what? Normally you don't work on shit. I've seen it time and time again. Life gets in the way this happens. You are reacting to this world around you. And I have enough of having to react, uh, with the world around me with being on the farm. Now, I don't need to add anymore by not like planning.
I will even. I have my calendar out a month, a ahead of time in Calendly, which people can book coaching calls or consultations. Like I always felt like everything was an emergency. And now every week I go in and I double check, but I batch my whole calendar a month ahead of time. I do it usually a week out from the month, so I just did all of Decembers and then every week as part of my prep, I go in and I re-look at my week to make sure that the availability hasn't changed.
And then people can book something three weeks out. I used to always think that everybody needed to meet right now, like within the week, we gotta get it done. And I was like dropping everything to have a fucking meeting. And it's really interesting. Most people wanted to schedule something like a couple weeks out.
I was so shocked when I added a scheduling app that I had been running around for years. Thinking everybody has to meet like right now, and that was the farthest from the truth. But without that strategy, without implementing and removing calendar scheduling from my plate, like I would've never known that.
I had to put a strategy in place that I wanted to clear up, time going back and forth, and I was done with making zoom fucking links, like I'm just having Calendly do it for me. I'm removing that whole item off my plate and removing the decision of me having to go back and forth with this person and just putting the decision in their court.
That has made the process feel so much better for me because then I'm not the one that tweaked and twisted somebody's arm into going in to that time slot. They picked it and you can set up reminders and all those things. Calendly is free for one appointment type. I currently have like 10 appointment types.
'cause I'll even have, if an a la carte person wants to have a really quick conversation and ask a couple questions, I'll do, uh, like, uh, I think it's a. What do I call it? Something like a get to know you call or a oh, discovery call discovery call. So I have a 15 minute discovery call that pretty much covers anything that somebody wants to discover and ask me.
And then I have, mastermind, girls, they get a 45 minute session with me every other month so that we keep making sure that we're moving their personal goals forward. And so I have that, I have my hour consultations, I that include design discussions. I have my 45 minute virtual con, so I just send whatever appropriate link and I check it every week.
It's part of my strategy. I make sure that I have every type of call that I'm going to need. And Calendly is so cheap if you do end up getting more than the one, it's so cheap. Anyways and then I just send them the link. It's just, it's removing obstacles. It's freeing up my time and part of my strategy to making sure it's up to date.
It's every Sunday I go in and make sure it's up to date. Super easy. Super. Simple. Like it is so simple that but strategy is simple. And I think that's what's kind of boring about it is that often I think people do flying by the seat of their pants, but you don't like the results that flying by the seat of your pants gets you.
And then often will people, um, a long. I kind of joke that it's, it always, it's like on repeat. Um, I've been a vegetarian since I was 10 years old. You guys 10 years old. I was a very precocious little 10-year-old and it was very much focused around like trauma around animals. And I told my dad I would never eat meat again.
And I haven't. But. When somebody hears, or when I share with somebody that I'm a vegetarian, they're like, I could never do that. They say I don't have the discipline. And that's just such an interesting concept to me because you don't have the discipline to know, not go and, you know, eat a steak. Like you don't need to have the discipline to not eat a steak.
You need the discipline. Maybe this week. To not eat a steak once. You need the discipline to maybe eat fish once, maybe eat a meat substitute once. Like everybody has a strategy that they can put in place almost in lieu of discipline, and that is way more powerful than discipline itself. Discipline itself is often hard.
Trudging through Navy Seal energy and often because it does feel hard, it, your body's just fighting you. What if you just started building these habits, this plan, this strategy to Del to start to develop this person that you're going to be, that you wanna be? I have evolved the person that I am, and I guarantee you've evolved too.
It's just showed up maybe in different ways, but if you have been trying to make goals and not are not getting there, come and join the floral CEO Mastermind in there. Next month we are diving into planners because they are a key part, like a integral part. In growing your wedding flower business. Then the next month we are actually going to build a plan.
We are going to build a 2026 plan. We are going to reflect on this year. What worked, what didn't work. I, I absolutely love one of the mastermind girls is really into doing flower parties, which I think is so interesting. Even the word flower parties. And every time, and I hope she proves me wrong, that this is a really, um.
A good thing for her, but I always say step back. When something feels like is working, I always think it can work better 'cause that's my personality. But for two, like I want people to really step back and start making fact-based decisions instead of feeling based decisions. Because when you make fact-based decisions, there's nothing that you can really argue with.
The numbers are what they are. And stepping back and we're gonna look at where you spent your time, what money you made from that time spent, and really get what is your return investments in different aspects of your business. I often also see in coaching so many different florist, everybody just having shiny object syndrome and they're throwing anything because they lack the discipline.
And I laugh about that because they really just lack the strategy. They lack the strategy to stay with something and push that initiative forward. And once they get pushed back and it doesn't feel good, it usually stops 'em dead in their tracks. So then it didn't work because they didn't have the strategy and then the plan.
To support that strategy, to push through it. So we are going to build your 2026 plan. We actually have a goal planning party and start pushing through what can be our actual strategy and how we can build a plan around that strategy to support. This business goal that you have, this personal goal that you have.
Like I know that I, one of my biggest goals was I wanted to get my kids off the bus. And I know that seems like a really small thing, but like I just really wanted to get my kids off the bus. Like I wanted to see their faces, I wanted to see them running with their backpacks and like that was important to me.
And now like. It's important to me that I'm here at morning, at night, so I can do chores like I have to, like I'm kind. I'm the only one that does chores around here. You guys like chores have been done twice by someone else. And that was because I was doing a wedding flip that turned into me staying for a tear down 'cause of the time gap.
And one of 'em, I don't remember the other one. I think I got like my nanny or something to do it. Um, I have to like build. Habits that support those important things, and that took a plan of, okay, what does my week look like? How do I fit chores into that? How do you fit working out into that? How do you fit getting your kids off the bus?
How do you fit like. Uh, going to a yoga class, going to like, I fit Monday pottery in which I have one more week and now it's switching to Thursday, so I'm gonna have to re I've already been reformulating. What is my week going to look like? Especially because I'm driving with going to pottery on Thursday.
How can I change, like that effectiveness of me going up there? 'cause I often would go to CrossFit, right at noon. I would leave. Pottery 15 minutes early to get to CrossFit and so that I could get things on the road and then get home. 'cause it then would take an hour to drive back to the farm. And I wanna do that before my kids get off the bus.
So if you want strategy, if you want a plan, and if you want support and accountability. Go check out floral.com/mastermind or check it out in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening. I hope if you have big dreams, if you have big goals and you're like, I have no clue where to even start. Send me a dm.
I'd love to support you. I'd love to cheer you on on Instagram because I feel like we all need another, a little cheering on. Sometimes a little like, you got this. And often, you know, the people around us don't know that we need it. So thank you so much for listening, flower friends, and you have an amazing flower filled week.