Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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.
Ready to scale your florist business and reclaim your life? Follow, subscribe, and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast app. 🌸
Connect & learn more:
Website & free resources: http://floralceo.com
Instagram & Facebook: @thefloralceo
Turn your passion for flowers into the six-figure floral business you deserve—one episode at a time.
Website- floralceo.com
Social @thefloralceo.com
Hello flower friends. This is Jen, and I, of course, you know, love all of my wedding vendor friends. And I had a vendor friend, like we were voice messaging, and I absolutely love this human being so much, and I could like hear the stress in their voice and acknowledge that in a message back that I, I hear you and I could feel it, the stress, if that makes sense.
And so I, you know, went back and forth and, you know, we talk about business and sales and all of those things but this person gave a really good analogy because I think they felt like things felt extra right now and they were trying to figure out how to make more money, and they said, "I feel like I have my foot on the gas all the way, but I have a four-cylinder engine."
And that, to me, was a very profound analogy because if you have ever had a four-cylinder car, when you are going pedal to the metal on it, you feel like you're in a hamster wheel, standing in time. And that has to be the absolute shittiest thing to feel as a business owner, because this is your baby.
This is your business. This is the thing you're working hard for. This is the thing that's keeping you away from your family, your friends, and, this is your livelihood. And so for something to feel like, "Holy shit, I'm fucking exhausted and I'm not where I wanna be," that can be really disheartening, or what if you feel like you're pressing, the pedal to the metal and you just have plateaued. You're at this point, you're just like, "I don't know what fucking more I can do." So the first thing I wanna say is if you're ready... If your revenue is sitting, for one, if you even know what your revenue is, let's just even start there, is sitting at the same number for two or three years, I do not automatically think you need to work harder.
I think we need to figure out what has stopped moving forward. Because even if your business is successful, things can always be tweaked and mold- molded to, like, either be more profitable in some way, shape, or form, more fulfilling, more, more something. And, w- looking at the different ways we can actually figure out this bottleneck is kind of the strategy that I wanna talk through.
So instead of saying, "I need to do more weddings, I need to do more funerals, I need to do all this shit," the first thing I would want you to really go is, like, where is my actual bottleneck in my business? Because if we have been having momentum and growth to this point we, w- we were, like, pushing the thing uphill and we were getting the momentum what happened that ome- momentum stopped?
So I think the first thing we really need to do is we need to diagnose what is actually happening. And a lot of florists when they plateau immediately think their social isn't working and I need to post more. Or, whatever low-hanging fruit that on the top of their brain has resulted recently, or maybe even your source recently in your inquiries- Has popped up a couple times, you're just like, "I need to do more of that," because that's what you feel, and feelings are not facts.
Facts drive businesses forward in a manner that is way more scalable. So I would love for you, rather than posting, let's figure out what the fuck is happening, you guys. Let's actually figure it out. How many inquiries are you getting? Out of those inquiries, what is the number of consultations you're actually booking?
From there, how many people are showing up, and then how many people are you actually doing proposals for? Then, out of those proposals, how many are you getting that, them, that are actually booking? What is your conversion rate? So I actually had one of the floral CEO mastermind humans that I absolutely adore was talking about, like she books, like 95% of the inquiries that she gets up to bat for and that she's done a proposal for.
And that should be a really good thing, but in my opinion it's not. Because if she is winning that much, she is not getting up to bat as much as she should be. So she's not getting the people who are glimmering, that are like maybe I should entertain this person." So with that, I want to really have you sit back and look at these numbers, because numbers, of course, again, are fact.
So how many actual inquiries are coming in? How many people actually responded? And then if you're really gonna get advanced, I would be tracking where your inquiries came from. Do you have a spreadsheet or do you have some type of sourcing program? And then at the end of the year you can go, "Holy shit, I had this this many referrals from a planner.
I had this many referrals from this wedding venue. I had this many people who found me on Google." Whatever it is. You can track that through a simple spreadsheet. And then we can tell if, for some reason, we're starting at that we don't have a lot of inquiries. Then we have an audience problem. We need to figure out how to get just more people looking at us.
And then from there, if we're getting people and then we're not converting them with whatever we're saying to actually wanting to work with you, then we have a problem maybe in our messaging or how we're handling our emails, whatever. And then if we don't potentially, we get up to bat to do that, but then we don't convert those people to actually booking us.
And I would hope that you book at least 50%. If you're at 60, 65, you're doing a really solid job. I feel like if you're booking a really high percentage, and I normally would say if you're booking a really high percentage that you're too cheap, but I, this mastermind person, I've seen her prices, and I wouldn't say that she is too cheap.
So normally if you are booking too high of a percentage, that means to me that you are too cheap. Because people are having a really easy time saying yes. And I know florists that live in that land, and that is just not where I want you to live in because I... If you have a revenue plateau problem, you simply just need to probably start charging more and that would definitely fix that.
So let's talk about the levers that really impact these metrics. So lever number one is more inquiries. If you don't have audience, then you do not probably have enough quality leads. So you need more visibility, but you do not need rando people. You need more of the right people following you. So that could mean developing relationships with planners, venue relationships, working on your SEO, working on your Google reviews, working on your Instagram, doing a style, impactful, meaningful styled shoot, networking, being on a preferred vendor list, email marketing referrals, or potentially, like, past client relationships And then ask, like last year or even this year, where did your absolute best, most amazing weddings come from last year or this year?
Like what source, that's why it's so important to track source, what source did those come from? We need to lean into that source more if we can. But do not double down on a marketing channel that feels busy, feels gross that just creates inquiries. Right now I know Zola is working really well for some of my floral CEO mastermind friends.
But I had a freelancer in here and they think Zola has just not worked for them. So I, I think that source to me is a decent source and I know florists that are being successful with it, but every source is not for everyone. So you need to lean into like what really feels good. All right, the next lever that is impactful to this is your conversion.
You might simply need to have a better conversion. Maybe you have plenty of inquiries, but they are not b- booking. Then your problem is not visibility, your problem could be you could be s- slowly responding, confusing, your whole process is just like confusing, nobody fucking gets it. Your brochure potentially is weak.
Maybe you have poor qualifications or a poor portfolio that when they start diving deeper, they're just like, "No." your proposal has no explanation, no next steps, no p- no follow-up process, no path to actually working with you, or your price and value are really disconnected. And maybe they're just like unclear on how you're different and how you're better You need to, if you're getting, like, 30 inquiries and you're only booking five, something is seriously wrong.
You need to figure out why that 25 did not book with you. And I always ask, and I know that people struggle with asking for feedback. Feedback sometimes doesn't feel good, but feedback is invaluable, and you need to ask the hard questions, otherwise you will never learn. I have had feedback in the past, like they felt another florist just got their vibe better.
Another florist was cheaper. They also... Feedback I've gotten is that oh, they book their planner as their florist because then they weren't charged late night tear down because they were already there, and they weren't charged a setup fee because they were already there, which if you are a planner and doing that, stop.
You are providing a separate service. You need separate tools and things to implement that service. So stop not charging for the work that you're doing, because you deserve to be paid for that work. A florist would be charging for it, just saying. But, not everything is always gonna be glaringly obvious, but sometimes the fastest way to grow your revenue is not generating another lead.
It's getting a better converting one you already have. All right. Number, lever number three that really is tangible is it just increasing your average booking. This is probably not something you're gonna go be like, "Oh, this is so easy. I'm just gonna make my weddings a higher average." If you're at a revenue plateau of 30 weddings and they are $5,000 each average, that's $150,000.
You immediately think, "I need 10 more weddings." But if you got 30 weddings at $6,500 and had $195,000 of revenue, same number of clients, but $45,000 more revenue, you guys That can come from higher minimums, raising your prices, stronger installation sales, better candle rental offers, premium upgrades, better recommendations, increasing your service fees, charging properly for tearing down, and just positioning your full services better.
Your next $50,000 might already be hiding inside the clients that you already have. And before you add more weddings, just squeeze the juice out of the weddings you already have. They're people who already like you, already love your designs and love you as a person, whatever. We just need to see, like, how can we optimize that?
But maybe your revenue has plateaued because you're doing too much low-value work, and this is something that I see a lot of florists struggle with. If you are doing $35 arrangements, stop. $400 allotments, $1,200 weddings, random deliveries, little workshops and small à la carte orders, and wondering why the revenue ceiling will not move, this does not mean small orders are bad, but you are taking up your time.
You are taking up your energy, and when you do that, you don't necessarily have the capacity for be-- Like, when you get the $5,000 inquiry, you're like, "Game on. I'm gonna rock this. I got kickass energy." If you got tired, dragging booty energy into a $5,000 inquiry, that's totally going to show. What percentage of your capacity is going towards your lowest value offers?
Maybe you need fewer small weddings, more full service, more premium à la carte, more corporate work. Maybe, you know, you're doing workshops, but maybe, like, more premium workshops. Whatever fits your business. If you're doing seasonal containers, you're doing just hotels. I don't know.
Whatever it is, your revenue ceiling may include being an offer mix problem. You do not have energy when you are chasing $35 orders to come up with a strategy, develop your brand, develop your portfolio, and develop the skills that it takes to get a $35,000 wedding. All right, lever number five, capacity.
This can be sneaky because you think maybe marketing isn't working. Sales maybe is working. Pricing seems good. But you simply if everything is working but you have no capacity and you are simply full, then you do not have a marketing problem, you have a capacity problem. You cannot grow because you are designing everything, answering every email, doing every consultation, processing every flower, loading every van, doing every tear down.
And at the point you are exhausted, you need a team, systems, and delegation. And maybe you need freelancers, production help, admin, sales support, an assistant, better recipes, standardized processes, better scheduling, better inventory systems. If your business is full, more marketing is not growth. It is creating a longer wait list for your own burnout.
And that is not good, you guys All right. The next thing that could be going on if you're in a revenue plateau is that you're s- not charging enough. Your pricing may simply be too low. If bookings are super easy, like I've mentioned before, you're probably, if you're just getting, "Yep, let's do it," your prices are probably too low.
If you are constantly full, you have more inquiries than capacity, and revenue has just stopped growing, your prices may not have caught up with demand. This is, y- simple economic math. If everybody says yes, something is off. If you are completely booked, completely exhausted, and still not hitting the revenue you want, I am going to immediately probably look at your pricing, because you're getting the inquiries, you're getting all the other things, and so maybe now we need to raise our minimums.
We need to raise our individual line items. We need to raise delivery. We need to raise labor. We need to raise our installation prices. We need to raise teardown prices. We just need to raise the damn price, period. So stop assuming growth means more wa- more weddings, more whatever that you are living in your jo- zone of genius on, because growth could mean higher average weddings, fewer weddings, better margins, higher conversion, more premium work, eh, more whatever, like niche rental, rental revenue, corporate workshops, s- products you're selling in your store, whatever it is.
Revenue growth does not automatically mean volume growth. The goal is not always more clients. Sometimes the goal is more value out of the business you already built So, I also want you to step back, and another kind of glaring thing that could be happening is your positioning. This is a total nother plateau.
Maybe you want 15K weddings, and honestly, this is what happened with me. I feel like my previous business name, my name and the brand that I had built had held me back. And it might have total been mental, me mentally screwing myself about it, but I feel like I got a new lease on life when I changed my business name, which is crazy.
But if your brand is screaming, "I am the cute local florist," or as I just told one of the mastermind girls to completely stripped these budget framed names on your website. If you're the affordable wedding flowers, stop. Your portfolio is going to be stuck in that ville, and you do not wanna be in that ville.
You wanna be in money ville. So is... If your portfolio is full of you did the bouquets or you did a church piece, but you can tell that this wedding had a lot of DIY, or the images and whatever you're putting out there say affordable, or you talk about what, like how cheap or how whatever, is your marketing actually attracting the level of client you are trying to book next?
Your revenue goal can literally outgrow your brand, and that's what mine did. Because when I changed my brand, I felt like my revenue started just going up And then I would love for you to step back and really start looking at the things you are avoiding. If you already know, if you're at a plateau and you already know I need to raise my prices, I need to stop taking shitty weddings, I need to follow up more, I need to hire somebody, I need to fire somebody, I need to rebrand, I need to show my face, I need to reach out to planners, I need to stop doing $500 weddings, but instead we say, "I need a new logo."
Stop it. And if you are doing this and you need accountability to actually start doing these things that are on your to-do list, the Floral CEO Mastermind is the place for you. Because I just did an accountability check-in today asking how everybody did for an update on their accountability from last week, and what their accountability for this, this week was.
And one person is going to basically take inventory of all their supplies, and their rentals, and all the things, and I'm like, "That's ambitious, but I like it." But next week I will be able to follow up because life gets in the way, and sometimes we need literally a kick in the farm boot, 'cause that's what I'm rocking today 'cause I'm gonna go do chores right after this, to get you to get moving forward.
So if this sounds like something you need, go check out floralceo.com/mastermind. All right. Sometimes the revenue pl- plateau is also not a strategy problem, it is an avoidance problem. So we want to build a framework with five growth levers. Levers, however you wanna say it. Number one is your leads. Do enough qualified people know you exist?
Number two, conversion. Are enough of those people booking? Number three, average sale. Are they spending enough? Number four, capacity. Can you physically handle more business? Number five, offer mix. Are you spending time selling the right things? Which lever is actually stuck? And if something is stuck, are you really wanting to fix it?
Because if you are having a revenue plateau audit, you really wanna dive in, like dive into these numbers that I, I was going through earlier. Leads, are inquiries down, flat, or growing? Conversion, of the c- inquiries I'm getting, how many do I book? What is the reason why I'm not booking people? Has my average booking increased in the last year?
Can I realistically happen 20% more business if it actually happened right now? Am I filling capacity with lower value work? If revenue grew 20%, would I actually make more money? And that is a big one. Are you just gonna be spending more resources on hiring people because you're at actual capacity? You don't have the space.
If you have 150K business and it's poorly priced, you could add, uh, 50K just by pricing correctly You can't really scale if profitability is a problem. And then I would really dive in what's happened? What's happened in the last three years? Because if we look at compare revenue, number of weddings, average bookings, inquiries, flower cost, labor cost, profit, maybe revenue stayed at 180, but one...
But year one you had 45 weddings, year three you were at 28, and that's not necessarily a bad plateau, because you actually took less customers, and so hopefully you had less brain damage. Flat revenue does not always mean stagnant growth. So maybe profit increased, maybe workload decreased, maybe average booking doubled.
Maybe you're- you paid yourself more, and that could be, like, an amazing effect of it looks like revenue plateaued, but you actually paid yourself more in the process. That would be great. And then we need to look at, okay, my revenue is stuck. I need to launch a new service. I need to maybe figure out some other product offering to add, so I'm gonna go be a hotel florist.
I'm gonna launch some other program. I'm gonna launch, you know, doing custom funerals something. I don't know. Whatever it is. You might need not to create five new revenue streams because you have not figured out the one sitting in front of you are actually working. New offers make sense when your core business is stable, your systems exist, you have capacity, audience wants it, it aligns with your goals, and there's a clear profitability opportunity A revenue plateau is a clue, but it is not a catastrophe, you guys.
You cannot scale your business if you do not know what is happening. Spend some time. Do a CEO day. I'm so serious about the CEO day, is so important for you to really understand the health of your business. And if you are not, you are letting your business run you, and you are not truly stepping in as the CEO.
If your revenue is stuck at the same number, I do not want you to panic and start throwing spaghetti at the wall. Pull the numbers, look at your leads, look at your conversion, look at your average booking, look at your capacity. Look at what you are actually selling, and find the constraint. Because once you know what is actually holding your business back, the next move becomes a hell of a lot clearer.
You may not need to do much. You may need to do... just fix the right thing If you need help and you need support, please go check out floralceo.com/mastermind. Or if you're like, "I just don't know if this is right for me," send me a DM on Instagram, @thefloralceo, and I would love to chat with you, because I don't want you to keep being stuck.
You... If you are on a hamster wheel, when the hell are you getting off? You deserve to have the business, the revenue, the capacity, the whatever you want is in your grasp. So I want you to go out and get it. Thank you so much for listening, flower friends, and you have an amazing flower-filled day.