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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.
video1176420173.mp4
Hello, flower friends. This is Jen and you are listening to the floral hustle podcast on this week's episode. We're going to talk about you want to quit your job, but how, and this is something that, I mean, so many people would love to be living their dream life with their dream business and not being accountable to punching a clock, to driving somewhere, to just having all of these like daily limitations.
So like the, the dream of owning your business is, is sexy. I mean, it's, it's like the American dream. And what I see happen most often is that we didn't get our give time or we're so mentally done with our job because of all the feelings that come with that. Maybe you don't feel appreciated. Maybe you feel like you, your boss is an a hole.
Maybe you don't like. The office you're working in with the dynamic, maybe you don't like the customers that you, you help. Maybe you're, you're in a cubicle and like, that is horrific for you. Whatever it is, it's, it is a real feeling. And I've been there. I have worked in a cubicle. I had a boss that, uh, the owner of the company that I worked for, for the last 10 years before I quit.
I loved him. But he fades into retirement and the new CEO, not my favorite. We had drastically different opinions on how the business fundamentally should be ran. And I just like, didn't like the way that he managed coach people. He did not coach people in my opinion. And I It was consistently disappointing because I am felt fell in love with the owner of the company and the vision that he had and that vision kind of was getting blown away and it just didn't feel right anymore.
I also, you know, just felt like financial goals for the company. We're not in alignment with where the current economy is. I mean, there was just like this laundry list of things. But here's the thing. I didn't just go quit my job. I built a runway and I want to talk about building a runway today because this is something that I mean, I just in the past four months, I have had three different people that I have been coaching have just up and quit their, their, their day job.
And I'm so proud of them and I think it is so amazing, but I also know what can come after. When you quit prematurely, when you quit without a cushion, I just got a, um, lovely, uh, reply to one of the emails that I send out and they were talking about how they just really want to quit their job, but they're scared they're, they're just, what if the business doesn't take off?
What if, what if, what if? And I get all of those feelings. Those are completely valid feelings. So, I personally love the idea of building a runway to be able to have a launch pad to quit that day job and have a business set up that is not like, for one, making you so stressed out because you really didn't have a plan up front on how that revenue was going to come in.
And so you've, with building a runway, you can preload in a plan of perspective business Or on the book's business, coming in. And that is very easily done when you do weddings. When you do weddings, we have a person, an extended time out, having a need for flowers. Then you connecting with them, them booking with you, and then you basically like have this chunk of revenue to forecast down the road.
And when you have forecastable revenue, that helps you build a runway that you can make some sense. Obviously, stuff could happen. That wedding could be canceled, all those things. Like that, there could be really some anomalies. That get in the way of that, but like the, the bigger picture is it's going to be just fine.
You are probably going to have that revenue. If you have a shrink clause in your contract, it is going to help protect you that all of a sudden your 10, 000 wedding doesn't become a 2, 000 wedding. And so as long as you've covered yourself, you could probably safely forecast it, even if you were doing on the low end.
a number to be able to know in October, in August, in September, you have this revenue coming your way. And that is part of your runway. Another way to build a runway is to figure out and secure some assets. Reoccurring revenue. So reoccurring revenue could be subscriptions. It could be, uh, monthly clients, weekly clients that you service them with flowers on a consistent basis.
So a hotel, a dental office, a insurance office. Somewhere that consistently they are basically make, purchasing a program for you to enhance the experience of people coming in their door by having beautiful fresh flowers for people to enjoy. Therefore, making it just a more beautiful experience coming in, um, cheering staff up that are there because flowers make people happy the majority of the time.
So when somebody walks in and sees this beautiful bouquet, you could create that revenue. Churches, great reoccurring revenue opportunities. I actually, Have a full episode on how to create reoccurring revenue. If you go in and search that, um, I'll try to link it in the show notes as well. But that is a great way for you to be like, I need to have 2, 000 of monthly orders in reoccurring revenue.
And so then figuring out a plan how that is going to happen. You can also build in forecastable revenue for holidays. You could take, okay, last year I did 2, 500 in Valentines. This year I want to do 3, 000. Um, last year, let's just say that you do porch pots. Last year I did 5, 000 of porch pots. And this year I'm going to add spring porch pots on and not just do winter porch pots.
And I'm going to add another 5, 000. So, like, you're backing into what is it going to take for you to be able to quit your job. Another thing that I want to just kind of touch on that I also think that, that many people don't think of, when I ask someone that tells me, I want to quit my job, and then I, my, usually my, like, reply is, Okay, great.
What is your current income from that job? And then they'll tell me, well, what are you planning to replace it with? Like, what, what are you thinking you need to make going forward? And I, I mean, time is a currency to me. Convenience is a currency to me. Not just money. So I look at all of those options together.
What is my compensation value? If I am switching to this, this like entrepreneurial, you know, sticking with, I am, you know, my own boss. I am able to take a nap in the afternoon. I am able to not have full time childcare. I am a, all of those things, like keeping that in mind. So when I went to quit my day job of 10 years, I was making, I think like 135, 000.
135, 000. Um, when I left and I was like five, five and a half years ago, ish. And I went in and actually looked at, okay, what do I put on from a value standpoint? Not having to get in my car and drive to work every day. Okay. That had a value. What do I put on there as a value of not having to deal with other people all the time, especially some that I don't enjoy.
And all the pressure and stress that comes with my job, because it was very high pressure, I got yelled at a lot by car dealers, because they were just kind of a unique bunch, and there was always just a few that were just gigantic a holes. So, like, what is the value of that to me? How much money are we going to save by me not having to put a kiddo, because I was going to have a baby in a month, not put a kiddo in full time childcare?
So, Okay. So that had a value. What do I put on to dictate like my own vacations? I'm not having to get that approved. Like we have a more flexible lifestyle. Like what value does that have? What value does it have that I get to be in my purpose and own a business that I absolutely love and adore and like, I'm so excited about that.
That has huge value to me. It was like priceless. Because I get to live in my purpose every day and you can do the same thing. You just need to do it strategically. So I'd love for you to go through and like, what are the benefits of you owning your own business comparatively to the situation that you are currently in with your employer?
Like what monetary value do you place on those items? And does that make the number that you need to make change? I think a lot of times people think that they're just going to step into this business and they're going to replace their 80, 000 salary. Their 70, 000 salary. And that is just, you've been doing the job you've been doing for how long and making that money?
So just snapping your fingers and going, I'm going to, I need to make 80 grand. I mean, honestly, I don't think it's very realistic for you just to go in and say, I have to make 80 grand. You need to build your business up. That's why so many people do it. In tandem. So this tandem runway of your, you have your day job here.
You have a second runway on the, on the left hand side and your planes are going together on that runway. But inevitably, hopefully you built a long enough runway. To support you on your small business, your floral business. Um, runway that is just going to naturally. The other runway is going to run out.
And then you're going to have that longer runway built because you built forecastable revenue secured a bunch of opportunities for reoccurring revenue. You've secured some. Um, you know, just forecasting of like doing porch pots, workshops, pop ups, stem bars, whatever it is like that has been built into the equation.
And when you have done that, like the other runway can just go away because we have a safety net because we have this future revenue planned and coming in. And that's really important because it is very stressful for you to go from here to here. and have no safety net. That's when you start living on deposits, which is not a practice that I recommend.
You need that money when that wedding is hitting. You don't need that. You don't need to use that money now because you will need it later. You will need it to buy supplies. You will need it to buy, um, you know, pay for your labor. You will need it to buy flowers. There's all these things like That deposit is not part of your income this month that when you get that deposit, it is actualized during the week, month of that wedding.
And so if you are using up your deposits. That is going to be really tricky down the road. And also, like, then you should be paying potentially sales tax on that, your deposit. It's just, it's like complicated. So I just put it in like a hold status till the wedding comes. And then when that hold status is done, I transfer it, then it's actualized revenue.
But you also need to look at like other variables. Do you have healthcare coverage? For your employer, what does that look like? You should have insurance. So what does that look like? This is a great time to research and understand what is it going to take financially? Like, how much does a business actually cost to run?
And so go through and start even figuring out those expenses. You don't snap your finger and just have a business. You have to get a website. You have to pay the Secretary of State. You have to potentially, you know, pay for things like Canva, so that you can make, you know, your announcement, um, creative. So you can make things like, hey, I'm now accepting weddings for 2024 and 2025.
Uh, I do my proposals in Canva. So like any expenses around like actually doing your job. I pay rent to myself for my garage. My garage is my studio and it is just part of the, you know, expense of running my business. And it's because it's grown so much that I've needed a bigger space and therefore I can deduct a bigger space.
You know, when you're starting out, that is something I would talk to your tax person about. So these are things that, if you all of a sudden could have a deduction for some of your home, that is something that should go in that equation. That I'm looking at, like, I'm getting, think, we actually pay us rent, and then we have to 1099 ourself for that rent.
Really interesting. But then, We actually, as the homeowner, offset that 1099 income with a bunch of different things, like, um, okay, water bill, some of the trash, yard waste, and then electricity. So we take a bunch of expenses, uh, and then write that off on our taxes. Against that 10 99. So I'm not, because those aren't in the business name.
Those are in my house's name and my name. So I'm just taking in and basically just going in. Okay. Like I, I have these expenses or these are increased. I really noticed the increase and like thought of this when I started growing flowers, because honestly, starting seeds, it takes a lot, a lot of power, lots and lots of water.
It was crazy. It was bananas, like not only the starting seeds, but the watering outside because I have city water. I mean, like one year we got a water bill. So they send it every two months and it was like 1, 100. I was like, Holy shnikes. This did not go as planned. And I had no clue. Like, I just, this is, I was just getting into it and like diving in because I always just dive in whenever that is the case.
And I think that you definitely, you know, should just understand those costs of doing business because that's going to help you really figure out if this makes sense. It's just another variable. It's just another cog in the wheel. And so doing your research and really understanding all these things is so invaluable for you making a, a non emotion based decision.
And when you make emotion based decisions, a lot of times it's harsh. A lot of times it's probably not the best course of action because you probably should have just been like, you know what, I think I should have. Um, you know, I quit prematurely and I really should have waited and then you're in this panic mode and then you get into scarcity mode, desperation mode.
And then all of a sudden you're like, now I'm going to have to find another job because I quit too early. And I don't want that to happen for you. So let's start a plan, map out what would it financially take to run a business. So you understand that expense, go and make a chart of what the values that you place on those freedoms and those accommodations.
If you have your health insurance tied with that, and you are married, can you be added to your spouses? If not research, what insurance would cost? Then from that standpoint, you also should like, just really understand, you know, am I able to like, build this forecastable revenue to help me build a runway?
And one thing, cause my husband is actually starting another business. So we are yet again, going to own another business. And um, I mean, it's a brilliant idea. And after he saw everything I went through with. He's making a podcast and saw how it's crazy. It is so many moving pieces. And so he's creating something to help simplify that.
And you know, he's just going through that whole process going, okay. I need to figure out how much this is going to cost and he wants to hire somebody and doing all these things. I was like, and then he wants to just quit his job. So the quitting the job discussions is definitely in the forefront of my brain and I'm like, Stephen, we need to build a runway.
You, we need to build a runway so that we are not in a bad position in six months. And that runway is going to be your, your foundation of success in your business. And it is critical. So go ahead, start building that runway because honestly, it is going to be the best thing for you long term to stop making a rash decision.
I mean, I've, I've had a couple of coaching clients that are like, all of a sudden they just messaged me and they're like, yep, I quit. And I'm like, Oh my God. Now you're giving me anxiety because you're quitting. And so you need to do what's right for you in all situations. But you know, like making sure that you are building stability into your life is also so important.
Thank you so much for listening flower friend. If you are really considering starting your own business and haven't done it yet, or you're like, how am I even going to grow or scale this? I have so many free resources that it's bananas. So if you go to thefloralhustle. com in the drop down menu, I have a florist starter kit.
So that is equipped with every single thing that you need to know to kind of get your business off and running. Then I also have. Um, it's social media for auditing your social media, making sure that you're spending time on the right things with your social media. I also have, um, one on pricing so that you're pricing properly.
So many different options. And if you are interested, I also Launching the week before this podcast, actually launching it is Monday and this is coming out Wednesday. So launching this week. I have the most comprehensive course for. You starting your floral business and making sure you're running it correctly from a business standpoint.
It is the most comprehensive course that is out there and it will have marketing, social media, business fundamentals, how to set up relationships with your wholesalers, what questions to ask them, and then all the most popular wedding items that you would need in your design tool belt to execute the majority of weddings.
Thank you. So that is launching this week. It is called Florist Foundations, and you can find the link in today's show notes. It is going to be something that you can revisit afterwards, but it's going to be 12 weeks starting this week of Dripto content because Dripto content is, is more doable for the majority of people.
And it also is going to have weekly Q& As. So that you can go in and realistically, like, ask questions about the content, ask questions specific to your business. And if you can't hop on that call, you can submit the question and then the Zoom on, on the call, I will answer the question and then it will go into the recording so you can see it.
So if you're interested in that, it starts this week. Bye. You can start pretty much any time the content is yours to enjoy well past when the program is so thank you so much for for being along on this floral journey and have an amazing flower filled day.