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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.
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
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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. It's crazy to think that this is even possible, but it very much is. I had a florist actually multiple times had a florist say to me that they did this event, they did this huge funeral, they did this wedding, and they didn't make any money. So y- think about booking a $15,000 wedding and making less money or not making any money at all i- if you did a $6,000 wedding.
This can easily happen if you're not paying attention to where profit is leaking. So today, I wanna break down the anatomy of a profitable event wedding from inquiry to final cleanup, and really show you where florists tend to make money, lose money, and accidentally work for free. If you have been doing weddings, pro- profitability...
I mean, and this can apply to funerals. This could apply to events in general. This can apply to, like, anything that you're doing on a little bit larger scale. Profitability really starts before you ever even touch ordering a flower. Is the client actually... And actually, this just happened and this is actually a very recent situation.
There was a wedding planner that reached out to me that I do- I work with often. And the, their wedding is on August 23rd, you guys, and, like, this is happening the first week. So three weeks before their event, the florist literally decided to part ways. And after diving in, I know the florist, and I know they can probably be a little fussy little bit of a diva.
But in going through and asking a lot of questions, I really think that this client wasn't aligned their expectations with what had been e- evidently quoted. And so when they reached out to me, th- they were like, "There's a 5 to $6,000 budget." And then they're sharing the images, the wedding planner is. And, like, my first question right away is I knew that this vision was not aligned with the budget.
And so a lot of times when that happens, we're people pleasers. We're people who want to obviously get business. We want to be successful, so we think that we need to take jobs on. We wanna make this wedding pl- planner see us. We wanna be visible. We think we need to do all these things, but inevitably, if that florist would have tried to deliver that vision, either two things would have happened.
Either the florist would have made no money or the client would have been unhappy. So is the alignment of vision and budget there to even start with? Is the venue difficult logistically? There are venues here that I have a pain in the ass surcharge because they are frankly horrible to deal with, horrible for load-in and logistics.
Is tear-down required? How far are you driving? Is the scope of this event extremely complicated? My wedding that's coming up this weekend, scope overly complicated and crazy, and going into it until a few weeks ago, I felt like also a pretty unrealistic time- timeline, which then makes you have to get so many, staff members that you're hardly making any money because it's just the sheer volume of help you need to pull this unrealistic expectation off.
So will you need this huge, gigantic, oversized team? Are they asking for things that are difficult to execute for their budget? Not every dollar of revenue is equally profitable. There are things in my business that are just more profitable to do You often see, like especially beginner florists accepting weddings because the total sounds really good.
Which this happened with a a florist that I've coached. They had a $15,000 funeral. They spent $14,000 on flowers and labor. And to me, like that is crazy. Why are you working yourself not sleeping, just working yourself ragged and then you end up in this situation? Like, that sounds like a total shit show and not something that I would wanna sign up for.
But that is a reality. Pricing is coming from reality, not hope. And your proposal needs to account for the million components that make up that wedding. And a common mistake in pricing is the flowers, uh, are correct, but we forget everything else. We forget like hard goods, extra mechanics we're going to need candles and rentals and having to buy more rentals, and like the obscene amount of labor, and the obscene amount of delivery time, and set up and tear down, and transportation costs.
I had a wedding and all of a sudden then booked a last-minute wedding, like five days notice booked cultural wedding, and I then had to get a U-Haul because I couldn't fit 14 tall centerpieces with my wedding order. Well, that was $227
for me to rent that U-Haul and drive it back and forth. It adds up quick. Like on top of I worked my ass off to get this stuff done because it was so last-minute it was hard for me to get any freelancers. And then we have, you know, all that admin time and the design time, the overhead of your building. For me to plug my cooler in is expensive.
Like I have a Coolbot cooler, and for me to plug it in, it requires a abundant amount of electricity. Then you have taxes and sales tax and all the things. So if you're not pricing your f- flowers and you're forgetting everything else around them, you are inevitably going to lose money, because the flowers are not the only thing your client is buying They are buying you.
They are buying your expertise, your logistics, your team, your design, your problem-solving, your ability to execute. They're buying you as a package deal. And that is one thing that, in my business, I make sure that I position heavily because I even in my consults will say a little joke, "I've been doing this for over 30 years now, and nothing will surprise me.
Whatever happens, I will be able to figure it out." And I even have a little joke that if the zombie apocalypse happened, you would still have flowers at your wedding. Because I feel that confident in being able to execute, and that confidence and that ability i- is... comes at a price. So you need to charge accordingly for your expertise, for, like, bringing in a huge team, for custom designing things, for fabricating things, for making shit up out of thin air.
You should be compensated for that Okay. Product costs literally can destroy profit fast. If you are over-ordering because you're nervous, or you're, because you're worried something's gonna be a little bit smaller, or because you're worried that you're gonna be able to get it so you're double ordering, you're buying too many varieties.
If you have recipes with 12 to 15 ingredients, you- that's a lot, not only from a standpoint from ordering, but a labor standpoint because that designer is having to switch gears every time they're having to switch to a different ingredient, and that can add up quick. If you're, you have 15 ingredients, let's just say an average of three stems each that's 45 different stems that are going in one thing, which your brain is bouncing between those 15, and then it's going to have to duplicate that same pattern 15 times over if there's 15 of that centerpiece.
Then potentially you could be substituting a more expensive product because you can't get the cheaper version. Maybe you're buying with no clear plan or vi- vision. Maybe you're just wasting. Have you ever just had it, like, at the end, you were just too exhausted to put this shit in something 'cause it just was, like, more work than it's worth at that point?
Or you had to save those blooms because they're fussy, and you were saving them to the last possible minute? Those just in case blooms or those I'll add them at the last minute and then they never get added eat away at your profit. Overbuying is one of the easiest ways to turn profit into compost.
So you really need to compare, what did I estimate versus what I actually purchased? And it could be just completely like Pac-Man on your profit margin. So being aware of that, making sure you have good recipes, making sure that you are planning accordingly is so critical And then labor. Labor creep is a silent killer of your profit 20 hours, let's just say you priced something and you thought, "Okay, if I do it at this markup, I think it's gonna be 20 hours of labor," but then it took 35, that difference comes directly out of your profit margin if you are paying people to support you.
So this is where you really need to analyze. And these are things that are really hard to do. I am not saying that this is an easy task, because I have recently gone through that I had a freelancer that I felt like was dragging ass, and I felt like it was eating my profit margin, and it was also extending our design time so much that it was driving me crazy.
And when you have freelancers moving too slowly or too many people scheduled or really unclear expectations or excessive tweaking, you know, you're rebuilding designs, you have poor prep, insufficient load in, people just standing around. That drives me crazy, but it happens so often. Or maybe you didn't assign jobs clearly.
Every extra hour has a cost, even when you're, you are the one working. Like I just was meeting with one of the Floral CEO Mastermind. Every member of the Floral CEO Ma- Mastermind gets an accountability call with me monthly to make sure that they are staying on track with their goals answer any one-on-one questions that they might need support on, and then, talk about these things.
And, they were running into things with freelancer mistakes, which is huge, but we also were backing into, like when you're doing a task, that task sh- should be at a certain effective hourly rate. And I don't like to do tasks unless they're $100 an hour effective rates so that I'm at least recouping $100 of revenue for every one of the hours that I work.
If I bill out something, like if I help design someone's event, I charge $150 an hour. Like that is the minimum my time is worth when it's client facing. But internally, like I wanna be at least 100. And maybe that's 75 for you. Maybe it's 50. Maybe it's even just figuring out what the f- the ceiling is or the floor is, whatever you wanna look at, to try to figure out what to do from that standpoint.
Then guide yourself. I shouldn't be like partaking, or I shouldn't be taking so long on something, so how could I be more efficient? How could I do this better so that I can up my effective hourly rate? And this is so important because your own labor is not free. Just because you own the company, your work still has value and value attached from a monetary perspective towards that event.
All right. Then we really wanna be designing strategically. This is where creativity and profitability meet. You can create, like, some huge, visually impactful, totally kick-ass without necessarily creating huge product cost. Uh, you'll see a lot of people who are doing more like mono bloom or pin frog ikebana type designs.
They're creating a lot of impact with not very much product. You're going in and creating a focal moment. Maybe you're repurposing things so that you're designing strategically so that not only the value for the client because they're getting double the value with how they're... you're strategically using those, but you're building in also like I'm also getting better pictures because I'm getting pictures in two places.
I'm maximizing how I'm using this afterwards so that I'm filling in and just making maybe the secondary mechanics is all I'm creating because we have this good foundation. You're balancing maybe some flower heavy moments with like candle styling or tablescape styling. You're using candles. You're making sure that your couples have good linens.
Linens make a wedding, you guys. You're using interesting textural foliage. The vessels you're inter- are really interesting. You're using negative space and selling the space. Space sells. Space things, makes things look more expensive. Installations that photograph big without requiring an insane amount of profit.
Profitable design is not making things cheap. It's not like the race to make things cheap, it's about making really smart creative decisions Then repurposing can increase the value, of course, the perceived value to the customer. But when it a- actually works fl- florists often say, like, "We'll repurpose it," or, "Can we repurpose this?"
I literally for this weekend's client, they were like, "We wanna strategically repurpose anything we can." And I go... I looked at them, and they have three different color palettes throughout their wedding. That would've been way easier and way more productive if we wouldn't have had three color palettes.
So believe me, I have figured out every single way to repurpose anything that I can within the parameters of our color palettes. Like, dude, you did this to yourself, not me. But also, repurposing requires labor, time, transportation, coordination, appropriate mechanics, access to the space. We have to get access to my venue on Friday night because the sheer volume of shit they're bringing in is crazy and it's costing them $5,000 to have that space, one ballroom room reserved for that night.
So sometimes repurposing can save money, but sometimes you basically spent $500 in moving a $300 arrangement. So making sure you're being strategic, and repurposing is not always something profitable just because the flowers get used twice All right Profitability of a wedding can often also hinge on rentals.
Rentals can become a major profit center. Things that I have really been successful from a revenue perspective is taper candle holders, pillar candles, and my, um... I have, like, some ribbed votives that I've rented the crap out of. Like, I've rented them so much. You might have, like, stands or arches. I do have, like, a copper arch that I've really rented the crap out of over the years.
Eons and eons of time. It's my favorite arch because it doesn't require any tools to assemble it. But once they've paid for themselves, rentals can help grow your margin, but you still have expense, things that still cost money. Cleaning, storing them, when things break, transporting them, packaging them, replacing things really even just figuring out what the hell you have when you, when you have it.
There is still cost related with that. And so rentals can help you print money in your business, or they could create a garage full of expensive shit you never use. And I have went in and made the, "Oh, my God, I'm so in love with this rental" purchase, and not rented it out once. Because you love it doesn't mean that it is feasible in the wedding world, doesn't mean that it is going to be a rentable item in your inventory.
You need to make sure that these are things that are mainstream enough, that are going to basically kick ass and take names. 'cause you're just like, "I can use this. It could fit with any aesthetic pretty much." And it's just my go-to, I got this, go. I got this, go. This goes with this. "Oh, I have these beautiful ribbed votives that I think would just complement your wedding."
They're beautiful with any wedding I do, and that's why I rent them all the time, 'cause I love them. All right. The next thing that florists often underestimate is the logistics. Delivery and setup cannot be an afterthought. So we need to think about the number of vehicles that you're going to need, gas, mileage, U-Haul rental costs, you guys, unloading, if you have to go upstairs, elevators, the parking, parking costs if it's downstairs, venue access, multiple locations potentially, set-up windows, and the team that you need to support that.
A $10,000 wedding 15 minutes from your studio is different than a $10,000 wedding two hours away that is at multiple venues. Looking at the $10,000 wedding that's 15 minutes away from your studio, I'd way go over that before I'd go over the, after the two hour away with multiple venues. That j- is just eating at your profit Okay, the next is tear down is still a part of the wedding.
You still need to get your stuff back, your rentals. You still need to provide a seemingly as stressless as possible for the couple, because if they have to get rid of all this shit at the end of the night, that's not gonna leave a good taste in somebody's mouth. So p- people sometimes price delivery and forget about the midnight pickup, and I actually...
I price this out separately when I am having to do a tear down. So setup and delivery is one fee, tear down is another, a room flip is another. Because I might be able to design a wedding that, let's just say a $4,000 wedding that has 15 centerpieces, and those 15 centerpieces are 6x6 cylinders with a lush garden bouquet in it.
Easy. That is just going to be able to go home with guests at the end of the night, and if that's not the case, then they could just go home with even staff at the venue or whatever. Maybe it's a rental vase, and, then you're gonna have to. But often, I've positioned for me to come back at the end of the night, it's gonna be starting at 300 to 350 to 400.
That's kind of like the starting le- for me to just come and make an appearance to pick a few things up. And so if that's the case, we could have bought those 15 vases for that price, and then I wouldn't have had to come back at all. You know, if I... Even if I didn't wanna come get my votives, I could have done pre-poured votives that are easy-peasy in a glass kind of vase, pre-poured.
You can buy them at Michael's. My wholesaler sells them as well. They're a great alternative, 'cause they could just be thrown away. So you could design the wedding, too, that you don't need to come back, which is super amazing. But tear down requires a good amount of resources. Staff, a vehicle, travel time, late-night pay, breakdown, trash disposal, cleanup, rental inventory checking.
And sometimes tear, tear, tear down is the least glamorous and most annoying part of this whole job. So charge accordingly. Midnight labor is not a complimentary service, you guys. All right. Then you also wanna be cognizant of tiny expenses. Zip ties, floral tape, chicken wire. Chicken wire ain't cheap, you guys.
It ain't cheap. Trays, buckets, boxes, candles, batteries, Command hooks. Wire, water tubes, trash bags are even expensive, and tape, foam alternatives. But multiply that across 40 weddings and, like, that shit adds up. You do not need to invoice someone for every zip tie, but your pricing needs to account for the, the fact that you use them, that they cost money All right, your time before the wedding matters, too.
This one is really overlooked because we often get to a point of sunken cost bias. We've just gone so deep into trying to get this wedding with all these details, and we've spent 10 to 20 hours before we've even touched a flower, which is never a great moment. So, there are time kind of clocks that start when you have booked a client or even before you even start.
Consultation time, proposal building, revisions, sourcing, emails, meetings, timeline review, recipe creation, ordering, freelance cr- coordination venue communication, all the things. I have a silk flower wedding in November that the venue just emailed and asked for my COI, which I do weddings there all the time.
So I had to spend time and just say, "Do you know when my COI expires? Because I hate by time I have this wedding to have to get you another one because it, it expires in, like, October." we're a ways out. September, October, November. We're three months out. My insurance might- And I don't wanna have to go get you another one.
So I wanna be strategic with my time and get it when I need one. You're not cl- your client isn't just paying that wedding week Yeah. Then really tracking your expenses, the actual expense versus what you estimated. After each wedding, you should really be reviewing product costs, labor, rentals, delivery, setup, teardown, and almost, like, go, "What happened?
What did flowers really cost? How many la- labor hours did we really use? Did I overbuy? Did delivery take longer? Was teardown underestimated? How much profit remained?" You can still improve what you refuse to really let go of. Y- there's always, like, one little thing, one little nugget, because if you don't ever look at it, you're never gonna improve.
But you can't improve what you refuse to look at. And I always think there are things that people are, are just so set in their ways, and you're not gonna change them, but what if you got 1% better? What if you got 1% better? And then next wedding you did that again, and then next wedding you did it again.
That is where profitability starts really going into overdrive. Then do a post-wedding profitability review. Ask yourself, "Was this wedding worth doing? Would I book another wedding like this? Would I do another wedding at this venue? What was the most profitable part of this wedding? Where did margin disappear?
What should I charge differently next time? What process do I need to change? Did I actually like doing this? Was the stress commensurate with the money?" I, I love that que- last question, because sometimes you're just like, "No, these people were crazy people. I don't know. I don't wanna do this kind of thing again," and on and on.
That question can help guide your next decisions, because profitability is not only financial, it's also about loving what you do. Because something can be not as profitable but be 10 times more enjoyable, and to me that has value. A wedding that makes $5,000 in profit but makes you miserable for four months is not the right wedding All right.
So organize things into price, purchase, produce, perform, and then postmortem. So price, did you charge enough for everything required? Purchase, did you buy strategically and stay within your recipe and budget? Production, did your team work efficiently? Perform, did delivery, set up, logistics, and tear down stay within expectations?
Postmortem, did you review what actually happened so the next wedding became more profitable? That kind of little structure there, that little review structure, is going to be huge in making sure that you are improving that 1% every time, because hopefully these lessons learned, the data assessed, can help you make that next decision Of what should I do different?
Like, how could I be different? How could I be better? How could I be 1% better? And that's where the magic happens. I hope your weddings are profitable, and if they aren't, I wanna help you be more profitable than ever in the remainder of 2026 and into 2027. Go check out the Floral CEO Mastermind. This mastermind, I have had people in there that have increased their business year over year by 10%, and that's a pretty big bump, you guys.
I've had people go from quitting a corporate job of 35 years into having 20, beating their goal of weddings that they wanted already, and we're not even, we're three-quarter... We're not even three-quarters of the way through, and so I know they're gonna even book more. And they crushed their goal. They're gonna hit, at least, 23 weddings this year.
They just were working a corporate job with a couple weddings booked. Like, I can help you turn up the dial. I can help you figure out where you're stuck, where you should let things go, where you should go all in. And also be surrounded by some of the most amazing women in the industry that are literally locking arms with others, trying to be the best version of themself, trying to kick ass and take names, and build businesses that not only are profitable, that are growing, but also feel good.
Go check out floralceo.com/mastermind. I would love to see you there. This space is a game changer, and it is one of the most supportive and hands-on masterminds in the floral industry right now. So go out and kick ass, take names. A big invoice does not guarantee a profitable wedding, but that could all change today.
Thank you so much for listening, flower friend, and you have an amazing flower-filled day