Real Flower Business

Education and Business Training for Floral Designers.

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Introducing My New Book on How To Become a Wedding Florist!

A big announcement for the floral world….

I am SO excited to share my new book, Falling Into Flowers, A Step-by-step Guide to Today’s Modern Wedding Business, is available NOW!

You can click to order a signed copy directly from the author (that’s me!) HERE!

This 80-page book covers the essential “must knows” for running a profitable wedding design business of any size—from basic tools and knowledge to presenting proposals and booking clients, to pricing for profit, to production and design schedules, Falling Into Flowers, features beautiful typography, stunning photography featuring my design work, and a step-by-step guide to today’s modern wedding business.

I want to offer up a big huge thanks to those who’ve already purchased the book! Your support has been phenomenally reassuring and humbling!

Floralpreneurs have been so kind and supportive in my first 2 weeks of this book launch that I sold out of my first shipment!

I’ll be filling orders just as quickly as I can….or you can order direct from the publisher for faster delivery!

Click To Order!

As seen in Florists’ Review magazine!…

how to become a wedding florist

Here’s what Florists’ Review says about the book…

If you have the desire to perfect your wedding floral sales and business and customer-service skills, and to become more professional and profitable in this segment of the industry, Falling into Flowers is the book for you!
Written in an enchanting, friendly and easy-to-comprehend manner by Alison Ellis, a practicing wedding florist for nearly two decades and owner of Floral Artistry in Jericho, Vt.; creator of Flower Math; and founder of RealFlowerBusiness.com, this book covers it all. Included are sound advice and proven tips for:

• becoming a wedding florist
• finding and creating a niche for your business
• selling weddings (including consultation tips)
• pricing your wedding work profitably
• planning and executing weddings
• managing communications with clients—and much, much more.

Ellis assures that it is possible to make money on weddings, from either a studio or a retail flower shop—even if you believe weddings are too much work and not profitable. By following the steps outlined in this consummate wedding business guidebook, readers will gain the confidence, clarity and professional strategies to become successful and profitable beyond their imaginations. And don’t hesitate to order this must-have business manual for your floral library: Once you start reading it, you’ll have a hard time putting it down! It’s that engaging! Click to order your copy today!

Get It Here

 

From Alison…

I created this book as a step-by-step guide for wedding and event florists who started their business because of their passion for flowers, but need to improve their skills beyond floral design in order to book clients, turn a profit, and feel proud of the business they run.

I hope readers will walk away with confidence in their ability to book clients who value their work and run a profitable business that brings them joy.

You can turn a profit AND create beautiful designs your customers will love!

Falling into Flowers book for wedding florists

I want to especially thank the folks who contributed to the creation of this book:

Robin Avni, my wonderful and thoughtful editor who kept my voice, but made it even better!

Andrea Leksen, my uber talented designer who brought the book to life with her typography and image selection.

Magnolia Photographie, for the fantastic cover image.

Four of my favorite female photographers in the Green Mountain State whose work is included throughout these pages:

Barrie Fisher Photo

Birke Photography

Daria Bishop Photography

Orchard Cove Photography

And, of course, my publisher, Travis Rigby, of Florists’ Review and Wildflower.Media—thank you for asking me to write this book!

It’s truly a dream come true (or perhaps, better stated, it’s a “goal come true”) to have a published book to share with florists around the world. I cannot wait for you to see it and I look forward to hearing what you do with your business once you read it!

Click To Order!

With so much love, appreciation, respect, excitement and straight-up-joy from me to you,

Alison

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Featured On Flirty Fleurs

I wrote my first floral education article as a guest blog post for FlirtyFleurs.com back in March 2011 with 15 Tips To Book More Weddings.

I continued to submit flower business articles and videos and the rest, as they say, is herstory.

I was inspired to share what I knew so I went out on a limb to ask a knowledgable floral expert, Alicia Schwede–who didn’t know me at all–if she’d be willing to let me talk to her audience and lucky for me, she said yes!

In fact, she continued to say yes to my submissions and floral designers can find dozens of guest blog posts, videos, checklists, and I even had features in a few of the Flirty Fleurs print magazines over the years. (Scroll down to see those original 15 Tips I shared!)

I’ve covered a lot of ground over at Flirty Fleurs!

From topics like mock-ups and minimums to tipping and “extra flowers” to pricing garlands and when to get paid; scroll down for a Flirty Fleurs Playlist!

As you know if you own a business: everybody has to start somewhere. And this is where I started my floral education journey.

15 Tips To Book Weddings More Quickly (via FlirtyFleurs circa 2011!)

  • Be easy to reach via e-mail. E-mail is essential to coordinating with your clients.
  • Schedule consultations with the lead wedding designer—someone who is skilled and versed in weddings, works well with customers and translates ideas into designs.
  • Update your portfolios and website to reflect the best of your work and professional photos are always best. This means that wedding bouquet from 1995 has to go. Heck, maybe that bouquet from 2009 has to go, too! Keep it fresh.
  • Keep up! Follow trends on blogs, websites, magazines, social media, etc. You have to know what’s happening in your industry. (Your clients do!)
  • Decide which services you offer and which you don’t. Are you: a floral designer; an event designer; a florist who does weddings; a wedding designer who owns a flower shop; a lighting specialist? You don’t have to be all things to all weddings!
  • Do what you do. Don’t worry about what the other guys are up to.
  • Be upfront about your pricing. Find out what the clients’ budget is and either do your best to stick to it or suggest what you think is a reasonable budget for what they want. Years ago I was advised to never inquire about budget and to always “up-sell” to clients planning a wedding. After all it’s their wedding day—a day to “go for it”—it’s a chance to steer them towards more expensive options. Wrong. People can’t spent money they don’t have—period.
  • If the pricing or style doesn’t work, then move on. It’s OK to decide that a client is not a good fit. It will make life easier in the long run.
  • Don’t overbook. Taking on more than you can handle is never a good idea.
  • Require a signed contract and a reasonable deposit of at least 20-30% of the total budget to book an event.
  • Be concise in proposals about what is required to book a date, when final payment is due, etc.
  • If you send out a proposal and don’t hear back within a reasonable timeframe you should follow up—once—with the client to see if there are any questions you can answer.
  • Charge fairly, but you have to be compensated for your flower markup, design fee, delivery and set-up, travel, etc. If you are not charging enough, then why are you working so darn hard?
  • Don’t promise what you can’t deliver. (Definitely don’t do that!)
  • Listen to what your clients want. Then, make it happen.

9 years later, I still stand by these tips by the way!!

After sharing my “stuff” with floral designers for years on Alicia’s blog, I finally branched out and created my website, realflowerbusiness.com, where I could create my own corner of the world to create and share. I’ve been doing so since 2015 and I’m so thankful for the thousands of florists who’ve taken the time to watch my videos, join a course, or participate in one of my Live Q&A Tuesdays on Facebook!

But I still make guest appearances on Flirty Fleurs–look for me on the first Monday of the month–including this video: Should Florists Make Mock Ups? If you’ve ever been asked to make a mock up, click to watch!

Funny story: I first knew florists were watching my educational videos when I attended a Chapel Designer’s Workshop and someone said, “I’m your biggest fan!”

I walked into the ladies’ room one of the attendees looked over at me and said, “Oh my gosh, I’m your biggest fan!”
Um, surely she had me confused with someone else, right?…
Turns out, no. She was actually talking to me!
She was reading and watching my posts on Flirty Fleurs and she liked me! She really, really like me. (Who’d have thunk it?)

It hadn’t occurred to me how many florists were actually watching my videos or reading my articles so when someone recognized me and called herself a “fan”, I must admit I was surprised. And flattered. But first and foremost I was inspired to keep creating!

I thanked Alicia in a blog post a few years ago for sharing her stage with me (read that here) and most recently on her website (see my video below) and if you’ve missed any of my Flirty Fleurs Features you can catch them all in my YouTube Playlist here.

To see some of my videos throughout the years, check out the Flirty Fleurs Playlist below!

Thanks for taking the time to tune in, Floralpreneur®! Keep doing beautiful work!

With love from me to you,

Alison

Find a Playlist on YouTube with hours of videos here:

Remember: If you like my videos, please “like” them, comment and share ’em with your best flower friends. xo.

 

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My Favorite Florist Tools

Florists often ask for recommendations on the best tools and for me, these ARS clippers are my favorite. I bought them in 4 colors AND saved the packaging because I didn’t want to forget which clippers I had when it’s time to replace them.

I got these at Jamali Garden in NYC several years ago and they’re still going strong. What I like best about them is that the locking and unlocking is more intuitive than other clippers. Makes using them safe and easy.

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A post shared by Alison Ellis (@realflowerbusiness) on

After a few scrubs with a Brillo pad they’re clean and ready to go! Plus they come in fun colors. I have red, lavender, teal and yellow. So if you’re looking for a great clipper, this is my pick!

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