Real Flower Business

Education and Business Training for Floral Designers.

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20 Questions with Alison Ellis: LIVE Q&A

My blog is relatively new, but I’ve been talking with floral designers on my e-mail list since October of 2015.

I invited floralpreneurs to join me for a live Q&A in March 2016 to share some of my tips to finding focus in my business (and life in general).

While I was at it, I answered about 20 questions that floral designers submitted in advance including topics like…

  • talking about budget,
  • how do you get customers to spend more than the minimum,
  • marketing,
  • finding the voice of your brand,
  • home-based businesses,
  • working without a cooler,
  • and setting standards for your work!

Click to watch my very first Live Q&A on Periscope! It’s about 90 minutes long.

Pro tip: Focusing on how we want to feel as business owners, as entrepreneurs, can be very clarifying when it comes to developing the voice of your business and setting standards.

Keep
doing
beautiful
work!
With love from me to you,
Alison​​​​​​​

See a full list of my online business courses for florists HERE including 12 E-mail Templates for Florists and Flower Math.
Want to talk one on one? Check out details on Strategy Sessions here.

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What does 1 year in business look like?

Hey, floralpreneurs!

Growing a business is a journey. It’s not a sprint, not a straight line, and there’s no guarantee that anybody wants what you’re selling. I started my floral design business 15 years ago…before Facebook or social media pressures/rewards existed. When I started Floral Artistry I made my own business cards on my desktop computer and didn’t even have a website. It was a simpler time in many ways, but reaching a wider audience and making an impression is so much more possible now than it was “back then.”

The past year has been so intensely busy and absolutely rewarding. Did I set out to start a second business? Not exactly. I know a lot more about selling flowers than I know about selling courses… I love the business side of our business. And while I’ve never worked as hard as I have the past 14 months, I am so grateful for the connections I’ve made with florists across the globe.

In September 2015 I had the idea to create a pricing course for florists to teach everything I know about pricing and profitability. I spent the next 6 weeks working nearly around the clock to bring the course to life. Flower Math is a pricing “tell all” course that brings you behind the scenes of 3 real weddings with real profits and floral recipes to show floralpreneurs that IT IS POSSIBLE TO HAVE A PROFITABLE FLORAL DESIGN BUSINESS. You can provide value to your clients and turn a profit at the same time! I didn’t have any intentions to create other courses….Flower Math was “my only idea”…and it felt like a big risk to put it out there. It’s a serious look behind the curtain of my biz.

After I released Flower Math, a floral designer friend of mine (who also took my course), suggested that I make e-mail templates…and I do love client interactions and customer management!…so in Feb. I released 2 new courses: 12 E-mail Templates for Florists and How To Write Proposals That Sell. Then, in the fall, I released my Wedding Workflow which shares my 16 Steps to Client Management to show you how I’ve learned to step-up my customer service game over the past 15 years as a small business owner.

I appreciate every single person who took a leap of faith to purchase one of my courses. The thing that thrills me most is how many florists have returned to buy more than 1 course. That’s the highest compliment. There’s nothing more rewarding than earning trust. It’s crucial to building a brand.

My NEWEST COURSE will be LIVE Jan. 9-Feb. 6, The Art Of Good Business is a 5 week course on honing the voice of your brand, finding ideal customers (aka customers that love you!) and choreographing a customer service experience that will wow your ideal clients. My 2017 wedding season booked up more quickly than ever before thanks to the hard work and practice of building my brand. I’m going to walk through this course with you to show you exactly how you can do this hard work, too. Click here to see the course schedule.
BONUS: The first 10 people who register for The Art Of Good Business will also get a FREE one on one strategy session (value $249).

I’m in a unique position to work through this course with you because I’ve done the work to build my business and I’m also in the process of building a new business which means I’m experiencing new learning curves and lessons just about every week.

As I always say, Every year is a learning year!

Check out my course offerings HERE for details on all of my courses, including 2 FREE COURSES, Flower Boss and 4 Pricing Mistakes Florists Make.
I want floralpreneurs to thrive!
Take advantage of free training on my blog and YouTube!
I’ve created lots of free educational videos for florists over the years.

Click below to watch The Worst Business Advice I Ever Took…I also share the BEST business advice I ever got! Check it out.

Read more about Alison here.

#floralpreneur #floralindustry #realflowerbusiness #theartofgoodbusiness

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Stem Counts vs. Floral Recipes

Hello Floralpreneur.

Did you see my “new rule” on not giving stem counts to customers?

I followed that up about 2 weeks later with a video on how overfilling by a single stem in each design can add up to thousands of dollars over the course of a year, thus making the point that it’s important for designers to “count every stem”.

IS THIS A CONTRADICTION?

I received a few questions about how these two ideas can exist at once so I want to be crystal clear about the difference (and similarities) between not counting stems for customers, but still counting stems for your recipes.

Click HERE to watch “Stem counts vs floral recipes.”

I kept this one short for ya. Thanks for taking about 4 minutes to watch.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

If you missed my video on Why you don’t have to give a stem count click here,

and you can find How a single rose can derail your flower business here.

THE TAKEAWAY

Set some minimums (on bouquets, centerpieces, arbors, delivery, etc.) and work out your flower math to ensure that your quote is accurate, but don’t feel the pressure to reveal your recipes to clients who aren’t even booked yet.

Your comments and feedback inspired this post!

Thanks so much for reading and watching. I really appreciate hearing from you.

And thanks to everyone who’s joined me over in the NEW FACEBOOK GROUP!

Real Flower Business is the name of the group and it’s a good crew of floral pros.

Request to join the group here:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/RealFlowersBusiness 

(If you include your business name or some clear marker that you are, in fact, a florist that will speed up your approval! I do have a waiting list of people I still need to vet….and that takes time so the easier it is for me to see that you’re a floral designer the sooner you’ll be approved!)

I’ve been livestreaming every week and you can catch the replays any time on Facebook. There must be close to 5 hours worth of free videos in the group so far including topics like proper markups and some of my best tips on building a brand that lasts. 

ON A PERSONAL BIZ NOTE…

So far it’s been a wonderful wedding season with each and every customer falling into my “ideal customer” category.

There’s not a name on my calendar that makes me cringe or recoil or ask “WHY?, oh why did I take this?”….And that’s certainly contributing to a feeling of success.

I hope you are off and running with a busy and successful season!…and lots of ideal customers of your own.

This year I’ve been relying more on others to assist in running my biz (and my life…thanks to an awesome part-time nanny. This is the first time I’ve had reliable childcare in 4 years!).

I brought in 3 designers for my “big, big” wedding in June and I’ve had more “hands on deck” on a weekly basis than I have for the past 15 years. It’s been worth every penny!

If you need profit clarity for your business this year, check out FLOWER MATH here!

It’s now on sale…save $100 off retail!

As always…

Keep

doing

beautiful

work.

With love from me to you,

Alison

P.S. If you’d like to submit a question for a future video or live broadcast shoot me an e-mail anytime at info@floralartvt.com.

P.P.S. If you’re a floral designer who’s digging my content and/or my courses, please share the Real Flower Business love via e-mail, Facebook, Instagram, sky writing, what-have-you with a florist you know and love. (I truly appreciate your support in cultivating other floral pros.)

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