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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.
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Hello, flower friends. This is Jen and you're listening to the floral hustle podcast on this week's mini sowed. We're going to talk about strategies to deal with bad product. ─ And this is something that I deal with on a consistent basis. You feel like you figured something out. You feel like you figured a source out.
And for some reason, the next week it'll the same thing from the same place looks like shit. ─ And so I want to talk about some strategies to put in place to help alleviate potential bad product problems, but also how to deal with those bad product problems so that you are not as a business owner ──── basically suffering financially or potentially the wedding that you're doing is suffering or whatever.
So what are strategies you can put in place to really win in this situation? ──── I personally order From direct from a rose farm in Ecuador and I have three wholesalers that I order from ─ every one of those Has a strength or weakness that I capitalize on that I know because I've been ordering from them for so long that this is something that's good to order from them Or this is something that's not so great to order from them. ────
So ─ figuring that out is Obviously is a learning curve. I mean, you can't just go sliding in there and be like, okay, like I'm going to just order everything because I, I'm feeling good about whatever. Having ─ that, uh, opportunity to even just ask them, what do you really think is your strong point or your strong suit from a wholesaler perspective?
What's something that you're, you think like, I'm really great at sourcing X for somebody. ── I would, for one, really appreciate if I was them because then I'm, for one, I can put my selling shoes on and be like, yeah, I really, I think our Holics program, I think our Kennecott Direct program is really great. I think our Rose Farm, especially this one, Ponte Trese, or whatever, is really great.
And, um, I have really good luck with their product. ── But, not everybody is going to be like, oh, we can get anything you want. ── That's not a great answer, in my opinion, because ─ not everybody is good at everything. ─ And so taking the wholesalers that you feel are really strong in certain areas is just going to help you succeed. ─────
So, ── first thing that I do, hard to get product ─ that potentially, if it's bad and you get it, makes it even harder. ─ I'm starting out with, I'm going to order that product from multiple vendors. I'm going to take my order, if I need 200 roses, I'm going to order 100 from this wholesaler and 100 from that wholesaler. ────
Then, I'm also looking, like when I use especially online systems like Kennecott Direct, which is one of our wholesalers in the Minneapolis market, ─ I can see the farm that it's coming from. ── And after this long, I have realized, okay, ─ Roses from this farm, or greenery from Continental Greens, or greenery from Aspen Green, like any of those, I've now, because I've ordered it so much, I've ordered from the different places to sample, ── and then I know, like, this farm is usually good.
This farm usually sucks or I don't like it has a different color or tinge or it's dirtier or The rose heads are smaller, whatever it is, like you learn those little Details about those farms by just trial and error, ─ but I'm looking and go, okay I I do like Ponte Trese roses. I if I see Rosa Prima ─ I will probably order Rosa Prima roses or Royal Farms ─── Farms that their name is popping out is going to help me make sure that I'm getting better product. ───
Then, ─ when I start working with someone, ─── I'm going to ask them, What is your ─ credit policy? What is your bad product policy? What is your replacements policy? What, what is everything? Like, I want to understand how I do business with you. ─── I have one wholesaler that literally, I mean, I'm, I have such a good and authentic relationship with my wholesaler that I can tell them and I can text them one picture and say, Bobby, these were shit. ──
And he's going to be like, Oh yeah, that doesn't look great. Or, okay, I saw that for somebody else. He's going to help me fix it. ━ I have another wholesaler that I have to, I feel like I'm. Sending them everything in the world except one of my children. They want pictures of each side of the box. I have to have a picture of each single stem being bad in a bunch, so that they can see that 50 were bad. ━
I have to take detailed photos of, like, what is actually bad, but also a photo of it as a whole. ━ Uh, so I feel like that process, it doesn't... ━─ It isn't really efficient, but that's their process. So understanding their credit process is super important. ━─ Also one reason why I have my wholesalers, except for buying direct from two different places.
I buy Smilex direct from one place and I buy Roses direct from a rose farm in Ecuador. ─ Other than that, I have credit accounts with all of my wholesalers. ─ And the reason why is because I don't want for them to ring my credit card for, let's just say the 500 or the 1, 000 or whatever it is. ─━ And then I have bad product that I'm having to source elsewhere ── and they've charged my card for it.
And now I have a credit on file. Now we're chasing down, was that credit ever applied? ━─ With having a monthly account. ── I just get, at the end of the month, here is all of the, uh, minuses, here is all the pluses, and here is what I owe on a monthly statement. So I am not chasing ━ any of that, having to deal with them, hey, make sure you go and refund that because I don't have any weddings for the rest of the month. ───
Yuck. I don't have time for that. So having a charge account gives me the ability to not have the mental bandwidth of chasing credits. ─━ So understanding your wholesaler's policy. Same thing if you're buying online. Even if you're not going there, ──── I would wanna understand their credit policy, their um, replacement policy, whatever it is, like, just inform me how it goes so I can make sure that I'm following that process. ─━
That ──── when you get that product, you need to make sure that you are doing all the things right with it, to give it the best chance that it is going to stay nice. So that means having tools that are cleaned regularly, that are sharp, are, you know, just in good working order. If you have really blunt shears and you're, like, ── basically just pulverizing the stems when you cut it, ─ they're probably not going to deal with ─ that little assault.
And then on top of it, having to, um, you know, like, Then drink and then, you know, stay nice for your five days before your wedding. ─ So making sure that you have good tools, making sure you have all the right chemicals to support them getting hydrated. Um, so I have Criseal Hydrator, number one. I have Rose Hydrator.
I have Quick Dip. ━━ I have DCD, which is for cleaning all the tools and cleaning the buckets properly. I have Hydrangea Hydrator Solution, and then I have flower food. So I have all of these different items to help keep my flowers nice, and if they aren't hydrated or whatever, to hyperhydrate them so that they are, you know, off to their best start on looking good for wedding day. ───
Then, ─ I also document if I, if they come in, I actually, my team, if they're processing, they will send it to me ahead of time. So I am documenting everything right away. I am messaging my wholesalers and sending them that information. I am photographing as we go and texting or emailing that information. I don't want there to be a question that this product became bad because of my negligence. ─
So I'm sharing that information as we go through. If you want to send a summary email and just say, Hey, I'm having some credit issues. Send a message quick. I'm having some issues with, do you guys have replacements on this? I will be sending you documentation tonight. ─── Some of the places require you to send the product back. ────
If I am picking up that product, bringing it back does not sound like a great time to me. So, I really want to understand that vendor's policy because if for some reason these roses fall apart and they're going to go in a compost bin, ─── if it's a lot of flowers, like, I'm going to actually ask them to pick them up because I don't want to have to deal with the garbage.
But I also don't want to process those things and waste studio resources to make shitty flowers nice because if shitty flowers are just going to stay shitty, usually. ───── Then I am making sure that I have fresh water. I am making sure that all of the flowers ││ were processed in a timely fashion, that they are away from the elements so that we don't have Uh, like roses that have been sitting in a box for two days, um, on the studio floor.
So I'm making sure that all of those things are processed as soon as possible. ─ So these are just a few things that you can do, but I've really found success in my whole process in making sure that I'm getting timely credits or replacements because I am making sure that the studio protocol is that we do these things. ─
The protocol with this wholesaler. Is this, so we need to do these things. And having that understanding in the studio has been so helpful, has really helped, um, make sure that as a business owner, I'm not taking losses for bad product, because that's not my fault. Them getting crappy product is not my fault. ────
Then what do you do if you get crappy product all the time from a wholesaler? I've had this happen. I've actually threatened to break up with wholesalers. Because I'm like, I can't do this anymore. ─ I can't do this anymore. This bad product is driving me crazy. ── I've had discussions, like, what in the hell is going on?
Like, I don't understand why I'm getting continuous bad product. I want to buy from you. Help me buy from you. ─── And I am someone that can be very direct and loving at the same time. I really want to buy from you. But I can't do this anymore. How are we going to fix it? ── And then from there, ─ You know, that person needs to do the work to earn your business.
Business is not guaranteed. They need to earn your business. And so have them act accordingly. ── Thank you so much for listening flower friend and you have 📍 an amazing flower filled week. ──────────