Real Flower Business

Education and Business Training for Floral Designers.

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Florist Tips and Advice

This week’s Tuesday Q&A dealt with 3 good questions from real florists!

  1. What if a customer hasn’t paid a bill, but they want you to do another event?
  2. How long can you leave flowers in a hydration chamber?
  3. What are some foam free tips for holiday arrangements and table runners?

Click to watch now and get my answers to these questions! And if you have a question for me, reach out anytime.

The takeaway: try something new and experiment a little! You don’t have to reinvent the wheel in your business, but it can be fun to try things and learn something new!

Keep doing beautiful work and I’ll see you next week for more live Q&A as well as my Pricing Chat!

xo. -Alison Ellis

Want to join me for The Pricing Chat for Florists? Click here to sign up!

 

Visit Course Shop Here!

Get Flower Math!

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Charging For Consultation Time

When florists and flower farmers ask questions about your business, I take them seriously.

It’s easy to get a quick answer in an online comment thread, but are you getting the best answer? The wisest counsel? The most practical and considered approach? That’s where I step in with my Tuesday Q&A!

And the #1 topic for several weeks has been about how to get paid for your time. Whether it’s delivery time, design time, or the time it takes to serve customers before an event with consultations and updates to the quote, the common thread is that charging for your time, talent and effort is essential to your profitability.

Click to watch below and tune in for the upcoming Q&A on my YouTube Channel!

In this particular case, the customers are described as “needy”, but there are some needs that can be anticipated when you’re hired to design the flowers for a special event, which means we can plan for them and charge for the time, too!

What questions do you have from here? Get in touch directly if you need any help. Email me at info[at]realflowerbusiness.com

Some of the resources I mentioned include:

My Wedding Templates for Florists, which you can get here.

Flower Math, a step-by-step course to teach florists how to price for profitability.

The Art of Good Business (a 5 week program I teach every January).

My Patreon Membership, which you can join here for as little as $3.

And we can talk one on one about your business in a Coaching Call.

Check out the full playlist of my Tuesday Q&A Livestreams HERE!

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Florist Delivery Fees

How do florists charge for delivery and set-up?

Every Tuesday I’ve been answering real questions from real florists over on my YouTube Channel and this week, a question came in from a floral designer with 20 years of experience who is wondering about invoicing clients for delivery, set-up and breakdown.

When it comes to delivery fees, there isn’t 1 right way to invoice a client, but there are some tips that I’ve learned along the way to help simplify the calculations and make sure my time is accounted for. Click to watch below.

After watching you might ask:

How do you approach the delivery, set-up and breakdown for your events?

Is it time to revisit your current approach?

How do you list or describe this portion of your labor on the invoice?

 

And if you’d like more business tips and strategies from me, consider becoming a member of my Patreon Community (starting at just $3). Details on membership are available here.

Reach out with questions if you have them. I’m here to help!

xo. -Alison Ellis

Would you like to check out my entire Wedding Workflow?

You can get access to everything I send to my clients from the initial proposal and contract to emails and invoices, all the way through my 16 steps to client management, inside my Wedding Templates for Florists, which are available here in my shop as individual classes or you can get the entire bundle for $247 here.

 

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Tuesday Q&A for Florists

Floral designers have a lot of questions when you’re running a small business, and for over a decade I’ve been happy to help answer as many as I can. That’s why I’m bringing back Tuesday Q&As on YouTube! View my channel and subscribe here so you don’t miss any of the livestreams.

So far this month I’ve answered questions on:

  • Minimum orders and what to do when a customer falls below it
  • Charging for mockups for events
  • How to get started in as a floral designer if you don’t have experience yet
  • How much florists get paid
  • When to consider an “exclusivity clause”

The reason I’m doing this live each week is because, frankly, there’s a lot of bad information out there for florists lately!

“Newbies” who are teaching a skill they obviously just learned last week.

“Floral educators” who haven’t booked a customer since before the pandemic, but claim to have the business strategies you need today.

“Panderers” who seem to go viral on social media for an ego stroke that claims florists are basically the hardest working people on the planet (sorry, EMTs, pediatric oncologists and construction workers–get in line!).

I’ve been a floral designer for over 30 years because I love what I do. So while I understand what we do can be difficult at times, I’m not here to try to grab your attention with a click bait social media post.

I’m just looking to provide some truth out here about how to run your business with honestly and nuance. Because there isn’t only 1 right way to run your business!

Watch the most recent episodes of my Tuesday Q&A below!

And don’t forget to tune in on Tuesday, June 16th for the next live Q&A for florists! I’d love to see you there.

FYI if you’d like to help support these livestreams, become a member of my Patreon Community! You can get access to additional behind-the-scenes tips and lessons, as well as small group coaching every month!

xo. -Alison Ellis

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