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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 are listening to the floral hustle podcast. And I am so excited because this is actually my 100th episode and That's full length episode. I guess I should preface that. I've actually, I started doing mini episodes about half a year into it, so I've actually, I think, done 190, but this is my 100th regular length episode, so I'm just so excited because it coincides with the year.
100 as being a popular number. My new free challenge that I am hosting, and we've been talking about for the month of October, which is our five day to 100k challenge that is coming up October 21st through the 25th. But if you are listening after this it is going to be available for you to take the challenge at any time afterwards, because I want as many people as possible To have a business that is making that type of money, because I know at that point, that type of money can be impactful.
I want you to be able to have the life, the motherhood, the happiness, the everything that having a business that is financially impactful, that kind of coincides with that. So today I want to talk about that framework. This is kind of a sneak peek. These topics are definitely going to be dived into in more detail.
But I, I wanted to talk about some of the foundational strategies that I, for one, totally missed the mark on some of these. And for two these are something that it's just when you get them in place, it just makes things fall in place easier. It makes things feel easier because you have processes, you have things that feel good in your business.
You have a plan an action plan is something so many business owners are just winging it. I often see and, you know, having like this foundational plan is, is what's going to make this easier. It's what's going to really set you up for that growth that you've been craving. So the first thing, and this is something that I did wrong myself for quite some time, and that is actually pricing for profit.
So strategy number one is really making sure that you're pricing things for profitability, not pricing things as a hobby. And this is a simple pricing formula. You of course need to know what products cost. There are ways to figure that out. Contacting your local wholesaler, trying to understand pricing, creating your own price list based off of when you've purchased things.
You can use things like Mayash or some of those programs that have online pricing. Pricing also can change a little bit. And so we need to make sure that we're quoting something that we feel at that time of that wedding. is attainable. I've had florists that I've been coaching that are like, I quoted this a year and a half ago and I did not quote enough and so like I am doing this wedding and making no money which doesn't feel good.
You are hopefully doing this as a avenue to make money and you should be compensated for your time because your time is valuable, time is a currency, and you deserve to make money. And so if you're not charging accordingly, that can definitely put a wrinkle in not only, you know, your value you feel when you're executing that, but it can cause resentment in your household.
If you are working really hard and not making any money. And you have a partner in life. I've seen it. I've had several relationships that this has happened before I really change things around from a profitability standpoint. There is resentment. It can build, it can brew, it can get crazy. And I want, you know, you to be able to contribute in an impactful way into your household.
And I want you to really feel your worth. Because when you're working too cheap, your worth feels less. You feel like your value is less. And that is not the place that I want you to be running your business from. Simple pricing formulas. Cost of goods, times your markup, plus your labor, and of course you're going to have your hard goods in that as well, and your, your markup on your hard goods.
Let's just say a lot of florists and if you're looking and you want my just to dive into this topic my Pricing guide is a great resource. So it's the floral hustle. com forward slash pricing and I'll take that in the show notes like that Foundational formula will help you get to profitability.
As long as your overhead and all of those things are not completely out of whack, if you are doing three to four times markup and you are charging anywhere between 25 to 40 percent labor and then you are at least 2x ing your hard goods, you should be set up in a way that You have money in the bank when you're done executing this weather this wedding and you're able to pay yourself And you're able to do all these other things.
So that is definitely a great starting point Every market is different. And this is just what I have done I know some florists that charge 50 percent I know some florists that do 3. 5 markup I know some florists that do four times markup and then just don't charge labor because Essentially, that's three times plus 25 percent markup on their labor, but everybody is doing something different.
But you also need to make sure you're charging for all your labor and setup costs. I have, it seems like this labor charge is just so high. Sometimes a little confusing and you know, you're, you're thinking like, well, I charge labor in my item, so I don't need to charge for delivering it and delivering it.
I sometimes will spend, 5, 600 just on labor to help set up a wedding. on a weekend. That's one weekend. And so those costs can add up fast. So making sure that you are understanding your, markup, understanding your profit margins, and really understanding why this is essential.
Because I think often when we're looking at something so beautiful and we want to create something so beautiful, it's like, Our creative brain kicks in and our business brain kicks out. I don't know if that's ever happened to you, but you're just looking at it and you're just like, Oh, I want to do this so bad.
And like, you drop your drawers when it comes to pricing because you want to win this wedding. You want to get this wedding. You want to And really, You could view this as a portfolio building opportunity and position it as such as a portfolio building opportunity, but like. You deserve to make money, and also, you deserve to price things in your realm of pricing basics in your market, because I also know, because this was me, And we have one in my market now that drives everybody crazy from a pricing standpoint because they are whoring their prices out.
And I used to do the same thing. I used to think volume was the key and that I needed to build this business off of doing tons of weddings. And then my worth was validated by, everybody wants to work with me. And it was just crap because everybody was working with me because I was the cheapest.
Not because I was the most awesome, or I creatively was really in their realm. It was for the wrong reasons. And that also, when you need freelancer friends to help you, and You're looking for something in your market and, like, you're that person that they've lost so many weddings to people want to help you less.
I got several crappy emails from people yelling at me for being too cheap years and years ago. And I look back at that now and go, that wasn't a bad thing. That was probably a wake up call for me that I wasn't doing this right. So in the five day challenge, we are going to dive deep on one of the days all about this because if you're not making money, you have a hobby and I want you to have a business that you're able to pay yourself impactful money.
All right. Strategy number two is attracting your ideal clients. I actually used to just want to help anybody and I don't know if this is you, like you get that inquiry and you're just like so excited and doesn't matter if they said that they wanted carnations and baby's breath, you're just like so excited to do a wedding.
I now want to make sure that I am doing a wedding for one, not with a crazy person because there are those out there and it is so. Debilitating for me to have this person who is ungrateful, who is crabby, all of their interactions have negative energy around them. They're just, like, bitchy, and Uh, I just, I don't want to be with those people as clients.
I don't want to serve those people because it is exhausting. Nothing is ever good enough. Nothing is ever to, you know, what they want. And if you're, all you're doing is running around trying to please them, it's going to be really hard to please yourself. And I think that is so important that we're, they're not the only ones happy on wedding week.
We can be happy too. So how can you attract that higher end client, that person who trusts you creatively? Because normally budgets come with trust. And how are you marketing yourself to really this subset of people who are your people? Even in my brochure. I have a page all about my ideal client and who I want to work with, what their adjectives are, what they are looking for, because I want that person to be so excited to work with me that they're telling people, and those people are hopefully my ideal client too.
So, are you speaking to your ideal client? One of the, I think the biggest, um, most infamous things that I see people doing is posting work isn't representative of the client that they want to be attracting. If you do not want to be doing floating candles, with let's just say, greenery and roses popped into it.
Do not post that on Instagram. Do not post that on your website just because you had a nice photo of it doesn't mean that you need to put it out there in the world. All right, strategy number two is streamlining your services. You need to have a process that is so simple for you to execute that doesn't feel hard, not only from a client interaction standpoint.
You need to make social feel easy. You need to make ordering feel easy. You need toproposals should feel easy. Any time you're spread too thin, And making something hard, your business is not going to feel good, and it is not going to be scalable. So how can you make this so scalable that you free your time up, you free your mental energy up, and your services are just easy to understand?
I have two service offerings. Well, actually, technically I have three because I have rentals now. My service offerings are having my new rental luxury soap flowers, a la carte flowers, full service flowers. Those are my three services. Within those services, like, they're very clearly laid out. A a la carte flowers person isn't sending me all of this custom stuff, doing a consult and taking a bunch of time because it is streamlined to make it easy, to make it fast, to make it a low time investment for me, And when you get customization, you decrease your efficiency in doing that.
How can you streamline okay, I'm going to, and that could be getting HoneyBook. That could be, I use a project management software called Trello, and I use that to organize bigger projects that I'm doing. Like, how can you make things so streamlined and easy, not only for you, but for your clients?
All right, strategy number four, consistently showing up in your marketing. Okay. Thanks. Having a schedule of what you're going to do, having content pillars, you cannot not market yourself and expect exponential growth in your business. Like those two things are just hard to come together. So how can you make this easy that I know that five times a week I am going to market myself and My content pillars are this.
So I have to post one thing in a content pillar, which a content pillar is a foundation of your brand, something that speaks to driving revenue or driving connection or driving, somebody to take like, oh and want to consider you. That could be personal, um, that could be, for me, cultural weddings are definitely one of the content pillars in my business because I do a ton of cultural weddings.
I would also say, like, about me. Like, I want people to know who I am, and really build connection with me, not only as a business, but as a human, because I have had people reach out to me, obviously, I coach a lot of moms, even in this. People identify with me as being a mom. It's like, moms are in a club who want to support other moms and be understood by other moms, because unless you're a mom, it's really hard to understand needing to get a wedding done and your kid's sick, on your hip, wanting you, and you need to get wedding things done, and like, how is that actually going to happen?
Like, unless you've been there, it's really hard to understand. To have some snot nosed kid that you absolutely love wanting you, but you really, I, I mean, I've worn babies I have literally made bouquets and worn babies so many times because it's just tricky. You also, my main purpose is being a mom, not just being a business owner and melding those things together.
So how can you build that consistency in your marketing? And then building relationships with wedding planners. This is if you want to be a wedding florist, if you want to be a hotel florist, you would be building relationships with hotels. If you want to be a corporate event, you probably want to build relationship with people who specialize in corporate events.
If you want to be doing, you know, whatever specialty that you want to niche down into, you want to be building relationships with people who are exposed to those people often. and can help facilitate that push along in your direction. Wedding planners, specifically if you want to be a wedding and event florist, like they're in front of or have booked 25 to 30 clients each or maybe even 15 clients each.
So you are getting exposure potential if you've built a relationship with that wedding planner to their 15 clients. Not to that one random small percentage of somebody that you could be throwing out on Instagram that you're wanting to attract Hey, everybody, I'm looking for random couples on Instagram that are in the, you know, getting married and are at the exact planning stage.
Point that they're looking for a florist like those stars aligning are not going to be as easy as getting in front of a wedding planner who is in front of not only their clients this year, but next year. And they just know people who are to need wedding flowers and. They know and trust you so that they're easier to recommend you because they know your work and that makes everybody feel better.
So building relationships with planners of whatever capacity, you know, if you're looking for event planners, wedding planners, if you want to be in hotels, building relationships with hotel those key people are what is going to drive your business forward. And that could, you could. Market yourself, of course, on Instagram by going and just following 10 people a day that are in a wedding related industry.
That could be a planner, that could be a photographer, that could be a DJ. Make wedding friends. I always say make flower friends, but make wedding friends. Because you never know when they might know somebody that their floor is cancelled on them. Or something happened and they're looking and they want to connect you because they saw something cool that you did at the venue.
This person's getting married at. You never know. And in the challenge, we're going to be talking about building and nurturing relationships because I do think that, you know, for, for long term success, those relationships are critical. My relationships that I have built. With wedding planners, event planners cultural decorators has really grown my business.
I mean, one year alone, one relationship was 145, 000. That was one relationship. I've had weddings that have been 25, 000. They've been 20, 000, 16, 000, 10, 000. You never know that value that's going to be brought to you because they're also up leveling. So I, one of the things we're going to talk about the challenge is really like.
Meeting other people who are about to have their glow up, if they're at the same level as you, from an Instagram following, from an experience standpoint. Capitalizing on that almost camaraderie of growing together. I have a flower, well, I've done flowers with them multiple times, but they are a more of an event decorator.
So they do, like, cafe lighting, and then, like, drapery from the ceiling, and They have dabbled in linens, and I have known her for 16 years. From that 16 years so much has happened. Our relationship has, has grown, and like, I would consider her a good friend. But since then, like, her life has changed a lot.
She bought a farm, and I hosted a workshop there. She just built a wedding venue. I did a styled shoot there. Everybody is growing and changing and evolving, but we started together as baby business owners, like, starting this business. She was figuring out all these things. We've along the way just everyone's Really collaborated as not only friends, but as business, people at the same, same level, women in business, and that relationship, if I think about, like, all those years ago, has been really giving to me because she is definitely a person who is a forward thinker, who is a progressive thinker, and that's who we want to be around.
So if you want to hear all of these strategies in more depth, if you want to. Really, like, invest in, uh, building like this knowledge about, okay, how do I price correctly? How do I track my ideal client? How do I make things simpler for me? How do I get consistent marketing and how do I build key relationships?
We are going to cover this in the five day to 100 K challenge. And I would love to have you there. So please hop on over to the floral hustle. com forward slash 100k. I would love to have you. It's going to be live on Zoom, so I would love to see your shining face on Zoom. I always love seeing people because it's just like connecting with you.
People, I love connecting with humans, and I love like understanding where somebody is, and I love having the ability for people to ask questions. So, thank you so much for listening, flower friend, and thank you so much for 100 full length episodes. This is a big milestone, and I have appreciated every single one of you 📍 who has supported me along the way.