Real Flower Business

Education and Business Training for Floral Designers.

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What I Bring To Every Wedding

What tools should a floral designer have on hand for a wedding day set-up?

For my entire career as a wedding florist, I’ve been working to streamline my day-of delivery and set-up process. I don’t want to lug around anything I don’t need, but I was brought up with the saying, “better to have and not need than to need and not have.” So I’ve definitely been guilty of bringing things that I don’t really need! (And I almost always have an umbrella.)

One thing that hasn’t changed much over the last 24 wedding seasons is my bag, which I lovingly refer to as my “bag of tricks” (because let’s face it, we are making some magic on the wedding day after all!).

While you won’t see me pull a rabbit outta there, I do have a few key tricks to share with you if you’d like to see what’s in my bag. Take a few moments to watch now!

After you watch, I’d love to hear from you, so feel free to share a comment on this video to let me know what you bring to your wedding set up and installations as well.

And if you’d like to come deeper behind the scenes of my business and join me for monthly Q&A calls to ask me anything, you’ll find a ton of my best tips and trainings as a member of my Patreon Community.

In fact, last month on Patreon, I recorded my wedding design workflow for 2 events and broke that down into 4 videos that are a little over an hour in total. Everyone who joins at the Flourishing Floralpreneur® membership level has access to all 4 parts.

Membership on Patreon ranges from totally free to $29 per month and there is no commitment! So if your business needs a boost, you can hop into my vault of trainings specifically for floral designers, take any tips that you need and edit or cancel your membership anytime.

As always, if you have a question, don’t hesitate to ask. We can even book a one-on-one call if you’d like to talk about your specific business goals or struggles. You can learn more about booking a 1:1 call with me HERE.

Keep doing beautiful work!

xo. -Alison Ellis

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Show Up For Your Business

How do you show up for your business?

When things are going well, it can be easy to show up with enthusiasm and focus because you know what you need to work on today to get your orders out the door!

When business is slower, or when sales are lower than you projected and uncertainty looms heavy, it’s important to keep showing up for your business.

I say this to you from the bottom of my heart because I know it can be hard to run your business when you’re feeling down and you don’t have enough money coming in.

This can be doubly true for established floral designers, since there’s no rule that your business will always grow or maintain itself year after year. There are in fact, down years in any business sometimes.

And that’s just one of the reasons why running a business isn’t easy (and no one every promised that it would be).

So when you contemplate your next moves, just know that the most important step is to continue to show up!

Showing up will look a little bit different for everybody.

In my floral design business in Vermont, it means I’m bending some boundaries and taking on work I find interesting–even if the orders are a bit smaller.

I just booked a great new client for a wedding in about 6 weeks–that’s not the usual timeline for me, but flowers are a huge priority for the customer and I’m excited for the gig!

I also took a graduation party order this week that’s much smaller than a usual wedding, of course, but then I got a few special prom orders from friends and a former bride from 18 years ago whose son is now in need of a corsage! And that’s a sweet set of sales I hadn’t planned on.

Then today, I got another order for tomorrow and since I’m getting flowers anyway, it’s an easy yes!

The reason I share this is because small sales stack up and so does the good energy you put out there when you keep tending to your work.

So what can you do to show up from here?

When sales are down, how do you keep your energy up? What steps can you take to keep yourself moving forward instead of feeling stuck?

And when business is booming and you’re barely keeping up with the work, how do you stay focused on what matters most so you’re working smarter, not harder?

There’s a lot of self-talk and self-management in business ownership. And yes, you can do this!

If there’s anything specific you’re working on or struggling with in your business, feel free to reach out to get in touch. We can book a call to talk about a good strategy for you! (And if you prefer to work alone, I’ll list a few more options on where to start to show up for your business as additional resources below!)

Just remember that giving up isn’t going to get you closer to your goals, so you might as well show up for your business instead.

xo. -Alison Ellis

Additional Resources:

Update your business plan: Get my Business Plan Jumpstart

Read: Actions to Take When Things Seem Uncertain

Join my Patreon Community for monthly inspiration

Get my Website Bootcamp to improve your first impression with clients

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Business Plan for Florists

As we are about to close out the 1st quarter of the year, it’s a good time to take a look at what’s happening in your business so far and look ahead to what’s coming up! So I want to invite you to join me for a quick business plan check-in. Set aside 1 hour and watch now!

Whether you updated your business plan in the last 3 months or you’ve never really had a “plan” at all, this is for you–because you cannot improve what you do not measure. Let’s check in and regroup together.

You can download this short Floralpreneur® Self Assessment here!

And if you need some additional business resources specifically for floral designers, check out the following:

 

 

 

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3 Top Tips for New Florists

Last week, I had the privilege of talking to a couple of florists in some 1:1 coaching calls and one new florist asked: What are your top 3 pieces of advice that you’d offer to a new florist?

There’s more than 1 way to answer this question, but I want to share with you what I shared with her! (And if you’ve been in business for a little while–or a long while!–these tips are for you, too!) Since we’re entering the 4th Quarter of the year, it’s the perfect time to share these 3 Tips with you, too! Listen below.

 

Top 3 Tips For Florists

1. Define what you want your business to provide.  How much income you’re looking to make in your business and what sort of lifestyle you’re trying to create?

(Note: Your sales goal will be higher than your income goal because all of your expenses come out of the total sales.)

 

2. Define all of the offers that you’re selling that will bring money into your business.

You can think of these like “buckets” or categories. For example, funerals, daily orders, walk-ins, weekly subscriptions, events.

Then, determine how much you need to sell in each category to meet the sales goal so that you can reach your income goal. (For example, $3,000 in funerals per month, $6,000 in daily orders and walk-ins, $2,000 in business accounts, $5,000 in weddings & events…)

 

3. Define who your customers are (and this may be a different customer for each of your buckets or categories) and get really obsessed with serving them well.

  • What do they need/want?
  • What would they love to buy from you?
  • What would they be excited to tell their friends about?

If you can answer these questions, you’re doing good work! And if you need to think about them a little bit, that’s good work, too!

 

FYI on Monday, Oct. 7th at 12pm ET I’m hosting an Opportunity Hour with Patreon members in the Marketing Mavens Tier as well as the new students in my Flower Math course!

This Opportunity Hour is a small group coaching session and any questions, struggles, or random things you want to bounce off of another florist are welcome!

I’ll send a Zoom invitation to Marketing Mavens along with the monthly blog posts for October.

Keep doing beautiful work and let me know if you have any questions or if I can be of help to you from here!

xo. -Alison Ellis

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Why I Love Writing Proposals

I love writing proposals and the reason is simple: it’s the first step to actually booking a client and getting paid.

Now, there’s a balance between giving away too much detail and investing too much time before a customer has committed to working with you. This is why florists often procrastinate the proposal process!

And that’s why when it comes to writing a wedding proposal, my goal is to spend no more than 1-2 hours preparing a quote. I want to be an easy “yes”, but I don’t want to labor over this quote for a week!

Just FYI, here are a few things I don’t do when writing a proposal:

  • List every single flower that will be in every single arrangement
  • Include dozens of flower images from stock files
  • Wait a week to start the proposal
  • Promise specifics
  • Make my clients commit to the exact number of centerpieces or final color palette–they just have to meet my minimum purchase

If you want to see how I simplify my process…

There are TWO ways you can get a closer look at the exact steps I follow in my Wedding Workflow to keep myself accountable after a customer inquires:

#1. You can download a pdf of my Wedding Workflow, which is available in my online shop here! It includes the 16 Steps To Client Management that I follow in my business, plus a deeper breakdown of 5 Steps to Book Clients More Quickly! This is newly updated, and if you already have my workflow or my Wedding Templates Bundle, you should find this updated version on your course dashboard!

#2. You can walk through the step by step process with me AND get the pdf of my Wedding Workflow by becoming a member of my Patreon Community at the $29 level! You’ll find some proposal shortcut tips in there right now PLUS a ton of lessons and short trainings on how to book great clients consistently.

 

Based on my experience as a business owner for 22 years so far, I’ve learned to focus on 3 Keys to Booking Great Clients Consistently and they include:

  1. Brand Reputation–What You’re Known For/What People Say About You
  2. Pre-Qualifying–Gathering Information & Setting Expectations
  3. Customer Experience–The Steps You Follow To Establish Trust

All 3 Keys play a role in your brand position and if you want to attract better customers, the easiest thing to do is create a better customer experience!

The steps my customers follow are inside my Wedding Workflow now if you want to grab it here!

Keep doing beautiful work! And keep booking great clients.

-Alison Ellis

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