Rules and Boundaries for Your Floral Business

What guidelines do you follow in your business?

As a floral business grows and matures, certain boundaries and rules are required to maintain a profit and feel proud of the work you do.

Saying “yes” to every request is not feasible in a small business, so how do you decide when to say “no”?

Oftentimes, we learn through circumstance and bad experiences, but rules and boundaries provide a path for success and clear expectations.

First, let me clarify the difference between a boundary and a rule:

A boundary is something that you do to hold yourself accountable, however, a rule is something that you expect others to do.

Photo from The Floralpreneur® Workshop 2023 by Isora Lithgow Creations.

When you establish a rule in your business, it’s up to you to communicate that rule to customers.

This communication happens on your website, in-person conversations and e-mail correspondence as well.

How can your customers follow the rules if you don’t explain what they are?

The same is true for establishing your own boundaries!

Hold yourself accountable by setting a boundary and make it a new guideline in your process.

For example, here are a few questions you can ask to help set boundaries as a business owner:

What is your minimum order? How much do you require to go out the door with an arrangement and turn a profit?
What are your operating hours? When are you closed, away from your desk, or on vacation?
What is your profit goal so you can pay yourself and all of your business expenses?

Here are some rules your business could establish:

When final payment on a wedding or event is due and what happens if payment is late.
Whether your delivery driver leaves flowers if no one is home or calls ahead to arrange a delivery time.
Refusing to send “secret admirer” or other “anonymous sender” enclosure cards for the recipients’ safety.

Photo from The Floralpreneur® Workshop 2025 by Isora Lithgow Creations.

The boundaries you set in your business may differ from others and that’s OK.

In fact, it’s a good thing to be different!

Here’s a boundary in my home-studio business:

I stopped doing Valentine’s Day flowers about 20 years ago.

Now, this may sound bonkers bananas based on the traditional retail florist model, but there are a few really good reasons why I don’t do Valentine’s Day and most of them are related to the freezing cold temperatures and snowy conditions in Vermont!

My garage studio is unheated so I have to bring flowers up and down the stairs of my basement to work.
Every single arrangement has to be wrapped in plastic to protect from the winter cold. This is time consuming and a hassle!
There are sometimes many inches of snow the week of Valentine’s Day here in New England and I’d always worry about deliveries.

After a few years of soliciting Valentine’s Day orders, I decided this holiday hustle wasn’t for me! There are flower shops that can do this work and I can send people to them. And this gives me time to focus on the things I do better than Valentine’s Day flowers!

Now, here’s an example of a rule in my business:

Final payment is due at least 3 weeks in advance of any event so that I can order flowers. If payment is not received, flowers will not be ordered.

I communicate this rule upfront when clients are booking so there’s no confusion.
I reiterate the terms before the due date to help guide the clients.

If you want to see exactly how I explain the rules in my business, you’ll find them inside my Wedding Templates here! Including my E-mail Templates, Wedding Workflow, Proposal and Contract for Florists!

We learn by doing in business, but you don’t have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to client communication and healthy boundaries and rules. That’s why I created these templates for florists to make it easier!

If you need any help from here, let me know.

Upcoming Workshops:

You can join me for a free training this month in the Marathon Mindset Summit Feb. 23-24th!

Meet me at the Wisconsin and Upper Michigan Florist Association Annual Convention March 20-22nd!

Come to Vermont for the 2026 Floralpreneur® Workshop, April 19-21st! Seats are extremely limited.

And if you’d like to inquire about individual coaching calls, click here for details and we can set up a time to talk.

Keep doing beautiful work!

xo. -Alison Ellis

By Alison Ellis

How To Book A Wedding

Consultations and sales skills are crucial areas of the floral design business that can take some time to figure out.

The first thing I learned in my business was how to price flowers, but the next most important part of my business success that I had to work on was booking new clients (even though my business was brand new!) and closing sales (without feeling too pushy or salesy).

I trained in several flower shops in my teens and early 20’s so I developed some sales skills along the way, but the truth is that most of the shops I worked in did not do weddings.

In fact, my first wedding experience presented itself in 2001 and I can tell you that I was hooked right away!

After 24 years, I still love the details and precision of wedding work.

From that very first wedding I became obsessed with the delivery and set-up schedule so we can make everything come together in perfect timing.

And I can still remember learning how to make my very first classic spiral bouquet!

What I discovered is that the steps that come before all of the design and delivery work require some more expertise and guidance.

The fact is consultations and sales take practice!

When you lead a consultation, what do you even ask?

When it’s time to write a wedding proposal or quote, what should that really look like? How much detail do you share?

I know that when I was starting my own business I certainly had zero confidence about leading clients through the sales process.

I was winging it and embracing the “fake it ’til you make it” mentality!

The good news is that all of the above can be learned and over the next several years I figured it out!

And one day, a florist friend suggested that I should share my steps, my exact wording and my booking process by selling templates and I got to work on my Wedding Templates for Florists! You can grab them now and put them to work in your business today!

The Wedding Templates Bundle includes:

5 Steps To Book Weddings More Quickly

How To Write Proposals That Sell

Contract for Florists

Wedding Workflow: 16 Steps to Client Management

E-mail Templates for Florists

And Bonus lessons!

Get Wedding Templates Here!

Naturally, I learned through trial and error.

I can still remember the first time I had a consultation on my own and how I bravely acted like I’d done this before…no big deal! But in reality, it was a big deal and that was just the start of hundreds of consultations to come.

I learned something after every consultation I conducted, but it took years before I truly felt comfortable taking the lead in a consultation.

And after the consultation…

When it came to writing proposals, I got some bad advice early on that I quickly learned to ignore!

Running a business means overcoming doubts and other obstacles on a near constant basis.

Even after decades in business, there’s more to learn, improve and refine on your business path.

Because trends come and go, and our customers are always evolving so we must evolve, too!

No matter how long you’ve been in business, if you’d like a shortcut for proposals, contracts, the most frequent email communications with clients and every step to follow to book wedding clients, you’ll find a bundle of my Wedding Templates Here!

Even if you just pick up 1 great tip or strategy to help book a new client, these templates are worth their weight in gold.

Need more help? Any questions for me? Reach out anytime! info[at]realflowerbusiness.com

By Alison Ellis

4 Words for Difficult Customers

How do you deal with difficult customers?

A florist asked the other day, “How do you “break up” with a customer?” In other words, what should you say when you can tell that a client isn’t going to be a good fit?

In this case, the customer did not sign a contract or send a deposit yet, so it’s really more like parting ways than breaking up.

And while it’s not always easy to do, telling a client that you won’t be working with them doesn’t have to be complicated.

The fact is there are 4 little words you can use to handle a difficult customer: “I’m no longer available.”

That’s it!

No need to say you’ve booked another event if that’s untrue!
Don’t over explain your reason for deciding they’re “not a good fit”.
And you certainly shouldn’t pretend that you “appreciate their interest in working with you” if you’re about to give them the boot!

“I’m/we’re no longer available” is all you need, followed by a referral to another florist if possible.

You don’t want to say the wrong thing and insult a customer while trying to let them down easy.

But do you know what might be worse? Sticking with a customer who isn’t a good fit because you simply didn’t know how to bow out gracefully!

The reason I share this is because difficult customer conversations need to happen from time to time, but it shouldn’t be a mystery to you or your employees on how to deal with them swiftly and professionally.

And I’ve been making these tough conversations easier for the past decade with Email Templates for Florists.

Get my Emails HERE!

These templates save you time! And florists often tell me they use my e-mail templates the same day they buy them! Copy, paste, rinse, repeat! (You can see a list of the topics included in the templates below!).

You can also upgrade to add all of my Wedding Templates so you have everything you need at your fingertips to take the lead on client communication.

Get templates HERE

Here’s what you get in 10 Difficult Conversations:

How to…

Tell someone you can no longer “hold their date”.
Present a proposal that’s over budget.
Ask someone why they did NOT book with you.
Tell someone you’re not a good fit for their event.
Reply to a complaint.
Bill for damaged or missing rental items after an event.
Explain you won’t order flowers until full payment is received.
Tell someone that their most recent changes/additions will result in a price increase.
Tell someone you will not update their proposal (again) or meet (again) without a deposit.
Respond when a wedding is cancelled.

*Plus a bonus template: How to Ask For A Testimonial.

And here’s what’s included in 12 Frequent Conversations:

How to…

Say, Hello in an introduction e-mail.
Present a minimum.
Present a proposal, contract and invoice.
Tell someone you’re unavailable for their date.
Tell someone you will not lower your price.
Follow up if you don’t hear back from a prospect.
Tell someone you cannot hold their date without deposit.
Confirm receipt of contract & deposit.
Confirm receipt of contract, but missing deposit.
Confirm receipt of deposit, but missing contract.
Request final changes and final payment.
Confirm receipt of final payment before event.

*Plus I’ve added a bonus with 5 e-mail etiquette tips.

You can check out the EXACT way I address the most common and sometimes difficult customer conversations and take advantage of templates that are proven to work.

Just $58 HERE

On the other hand, you can ask ChatGPT (powered by Artificial Intelligence) to help you out with your customer service & communication, but I wouldn’t suggest it! Difficult conversations deserve a human touch. (And based on my real life experience, AI always says a little bit too much and that opens the door to customer pushback! And nobody’s looking for that.)

By Alison Ellis

Should Florists Use Artificial Intelligence In Marketing?

Everyone’s talking about using AI to automate, but what role should automation play in your floral design business?

It’s tempting to lean into automating your business–and I get it, it’s enticing to take the “thinking” out of your work and let someone else handle it!

But there’s truly no replacing the human-to-human interaction and connection that your brand can create with your customers!

(By the way, that’s why the intern that’s assigned to “handle your social media” may not be getting the results you’d hoped for!…because they don’t have the client-focus that’s required to really connect with your ideal customers.)

Click to watch this short take on using AI in your business.

The Moral Of The Story

People buy from people. And good brands aren’t built on auto-pilot.

It’s wise to streamline your business processes whenever possible–as long as you’re not missing the customer connection! There’s a risk of over-automating and losing the special touch (and trust!) your customers are looking for.

I follow templates to help lead clients through the sales process with my email replies and proposals (which you can find here!), but I still take the time to craft customized communication for each client so they get the best experience with my brand.

Because personalized service is part of what I promise. And a computer can’t deliver that for me!

Keep doing beautiful work and keep showing up for your customers as ONLY you can!

(Click Here For More: Should You Lose Your Auto-Reply?)

With love from me to you,

Alison Ellis

(Learn more about Alison Here)

By Alison Ellis

10 Things I Did To Grow My Floral Business

flower business, learn to be a florist, floral design, florist education, flower school

It feels amazing to reach a milestone where I’ve been running my floral design business for over 20 years! I’ve worked really hard over the years to build up my business and I can tell you that it’s all been completely worth it. I still love my job and my customers after all these years.

Part of why my hard work has paid off is due to the fact that I’ve been really focused on intentional planning in business so that I can create my business to fit into my life. (Having a successful business isn’t just about making money or “being busy”; it’s about creating happiness and fulfillment, too.)

I’ve done a lot of things to grow my business, and I thought it would be helpful to narrow down the top 10 things that had the biggest impact on my business success and my overall happiness factor, too.

Here are the top 10 things I’ve done to grow my home-studio floral design business the most: [Read more…]