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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, Floral Friends! This is Jen and you are listening to the Floral Hustle Podcast. On this week's mini sode, we're going to be talking about five mistakes that florists make when they're doing large installations and really just how to avoid those mistakes. When you're thinking of being a florist, I'm guessing, of course, you know, that, that vision of somebody sitting in their shop and they're playing with flowers like that always comes to my mind when I, I think about a florist per se, but now I think about big, beautiful flowers like climbing up the walls.
Coming up the ceiling and like these just really elaborate designs. And so the whole kind of visual narrative of being a florist has changed. And that change has brought new challenges, new revenue opportunities. And if this is something you have been really thinking about, Thinking about how am I going to increase revenue?
Like, frankly, installations are a huge revenue opportunity and I know that they are a large component in my business and they could be in yours. But if you're not knowing where to get started, please go check out my installation Rockstar intensive workshop, because I swear it will be a game changer in your business.
And you can check out the details at the floral hustle. com forward slash Rockstar. Um, I have three workshops coming up and all of those are listed on there, but mistake number one that I often see, and this is, um, Something I actually see in floristry in general is that we never estimate correctly the Prep work or the labor or really the foundation of what we're doing.
So Many florists just will like jump into this installation without enough planning which inevitably leads to delays Stress and potentially your brand getting reflected on poorly because you're, you're doing, you know, half ass work. So one of the solutions is really create a detail plan, uh, including like, you know, potentially drawing it out, making your recipes, a timeline for setup, making sure that you have enough timeline and Honestly, sometimes you have to advocate for yourself that like, for real, this is not going to be able to fit in the current timeline.
And so you need to make sure that you have a, you know, steady, um, amount of workers that you can get in there to help you, I think just being real and being like, there isn't, it is not really possible for me to be making this huge floral artistry. in two hours. So you sometimes just need more time. You need to prepare things more ahead of time.
You need to game plan on how am I going to do this step by step. And if you are a florist that is just like fast and loose and winging it, this is something I can help teach you in my installation rockstar workshop because you need to go into an installation feeling confident. feeling prepared. And honestly, that confidence will help you sell more installations to begin with.
But you really will have a client that is just like, they believe in you and they believe that you can do what you are really saying you can do not just hypothetically, but like that confidence is selling it for you. All right, the next one is using the wrong mechanics. I feel I often see florists like they're posting something and they're posting behind the scenes and I'm like that could have been so much easier or you know a lot of people aren't showing the messy middle.
I know that they ran into troubles along the way and potentially like it could have been done a different way. So mechanics are so important to make sure that your installation is not drooping. It's not a safety hazard. It looks aesthetically pleasing because you know when something happens that isn't planned.
potentially the look of the design changes, which could make for a unhappy client. And we don't want that. We want happy clients. So really game planning on potentially, if you have been freelancing for others, you can see how other people do that. Or really just going into an installation and asking, you know, for people's opinions, people's like input on it, especially if it's something that you haven't done or taking What you have done and just developing that into the next level.
I know that I have, you know, previously I've done a lot of foam installations, but I have done more foam free and I just did my largest foam free installation. Um, to date, so like I learned even more, even though I've, I've done a lot of foam free, I, I haven't done it at this volume that every single thing was foam free.
And so there just was a lot because I wanted to also make sure that the products looking good and you know, just all the different variables, I wanted to make sure everything was perfect. And timing with some foam free mechanics is trickier. And so this is another thing in the workshop. We dive into mechanics.
You get hands on experience with over five installations. We can talk about making any of them sustainable. Like the mechanics are so important because I think confidence comes from mechanics. Another thing is I don't see, so mistake number three is really overlooking the venue's requirements, um, or I know that we have here in Minnesota a company that has, you know, hardware and will do these really kind of fancy installation, um, bases of your mechanics.
So they'll put trussing up, they'll put a bar up, they'll, you know, put rigging of whatever fashion that you need. And, you know, they often will say how many pounds that it can hold, but You're not weighing all your materials. So, so a lot of times people are like, I want it to be fuller, I want it to be bigger and you stretch beyond what you realistically should be, you know, having from a weight perspective on something or you know, if you're looking at attaching things to the wall and you know that that venue is very stringent about like their, you know, You know, there are rules around it, whatever it is, there are always venue requirements that sometimes seem ridiculous.
I, I know there's one venue here that literally will not let you hang anything from the ceiling. They make you hire in a rigging company and that rigging company is a minimum of. Four hours of time at the beginning and at the end and they're very stringent about what can be done. So really understanding the venue's requirements, I think is is the a powerful part of this equation and asking the right questions, knowing what questions to even ask, Um, in the first place, I think is sometimes overlooked because you're just like, I don't know what I'm doing and I don't know if I'm doing this right.
So going into it with a plan that you just know, maybe you connected with the venue person, you know, you've shared with them the basis of your plan. You've made sure everything's okay. And, you know, kind of taking that, uh, Really that pre problem solving to the next level is going to help you be more successful when it comes to installations.
All right, choosing the wrong flowers. Of course, everybody loves these, you know, airy garden inspired beautiful things, um, or they want reflex tulips in there. But unless you're making sure your things are properly hydrated, some flowers just don't do well. So Using drieds, using moss, using a median in your foam free to make sure that they have a hydration method is so important because I've seen, I've gone to an event where there's this beautiful installation.
and the tulips were dead. The reflex tulips were basically limp hanging out of it and it ruined the whole thing. You need to balance beauty and practicality because that is where like the secret sauce of magic because if your flowers are dead because you opted for no water source Like that can backfire and I don't want that to backfire for you.
I want it to be amazing I want you to absolutely love What you've put together and part of that loving what you put together is making sure that the flowers are not going to die Uh before the ceremony and so making sure you have proper hydration. There are so many hydration tools I mean holly chapel has the holly chapel um cups that are now available You There are eco fresh wraps, there are water tubes, there, if you're not a foam, um, florist, there is fiber floral and agri wool and oxygen pouches and all these tools that we have to make sure that we have a water source that can support.
But some flowers are just not meant to be in a floral installation and that is sometimes hard when you have this vision. All right, mistake number three is underpricing your installation. So many florists don't account for like, you're not only making this three quarter sided design, you often are, if you're hanging something from the ceiling, are making this design that's from all directions.
And so accounting for that, that material cost is something that's often sold short. The prep work of putting this together, together, I, in my, um, first installation, rockstar workshop, I hung all of these disco balls. Cause it was a green Envy theme. And I always have themes around the workshop. Cause I just think that makes it funner to kind of develop a theme.
Uh, and we had this kind of like sprawling disco ball installation. It took me four hours and then I had a second person with me. Hanging all these disco balls, there were, I'm guessing about 50 different disco balls hung, but like, that's eight hours of time, hanging these disco balls and hanging the bars that we installed the mechanics of the flowers on, like, I had no clue that disco, this was my first disco ball install, other than hanging a few tiny disco balls into something before.
So this was next level disco balls. And like, I never imagined eight hours. I just, it was not even on my radar that that was possible. Uh, I also, uh, had an installation. It's actually at the venue that we're having the installation Rockstar intensive at in March on March 4th and 5th. And I did a hanging, um, silk hydrangea petal install.
And they were like, yeah, we have a lift. And I'm like, sweet! This is what's making this possible, because if you rent a lift, it is expensive. Um, at a minimum, it's normally 750 to 1, 000. And they have a lift. I didn't know it was not a power lift. It took me five hours to install. these strands of fishing line with these hydrangea petals on it.
And it's because every time this lift, I had to go and it had four legs, four arms coming off the legs. And every time I wanted to move it, to be able to, you know, attach another strand of floating hydrangea petals. I had to, like, take all the legs up or the arms up. I had to push it over two or three feet.
Then I had to level all of them again. And they had to be level because this is Before the actual lift can operate, there was like this green button that needs to be activated. It was so painful. I thought I was going to be in and out of there in like an hour and a half. And it was just, it took so long.
So now I know, I underestimated, Um, the time that it would take for me to install that. I have done over 400 installations. So I have had learning moments along the way and this is one of the things that I'm going to talk about because you inevitably are always learning what you're kind of practicing on the public often when it comes to installations because you're creating things that are unique to that venue, that, you know, Like, design aesthetic that they, they want, all the things.
So, it makes sense that sometimes you are going to make learning mistakes. But, whatever we can avoid, you know, from a teardown, from a setup, from a labor perspective, from a mechanics perspective, like, is priceless because those are the things that can cost you tons of money, can cost you tons of headache, tons of stress.
And I'm going to teach you what I know to make things easier and walk through pricing because pricing is also equally as tricky because you're always like, am I charging too much? I don't want to not get the job, but you need to make sure that you're pricing it to be worth your time and worth all of that material and labor.
supporting that. And then practice makes perfect. Many floors don't practice or experiment with installations before attempting them on site. And you know, this leads to trial and error, wasted time and unnecessary stress, like I've mentioned. So schedule, like if you can do a You know, open house or something, and you can do a hands on practice or come to my workshop and actually get hands on practice on doing these installations, get the confidence that you get with that hands on get the portfolio.
of getting that hands on, it is so helpful. I know that I have completely changed my business with installations, anywhere from the ability to do hanging installations, higher budget weddings, to cultural weddings, like installations have changed my business and I know they can change yours. So if you want to master these skills and avoid mistakes altogether, please join me in my installation rockstar workshop.
There is limited spots, like I literally, it's 15 spots. And once they sell out, they sell out. And honestly, every one of these has. Um, so I would love to see you here in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is at one of my favorite venues. It is going to be citrus sensation theme. So it is the Pantone color of the year.
And it's going to be so fun. And I would love to see you and spend time with you at that workshop. Thank you so much for listening flower friend and you have an amazing 📍 flower filled week.