Pro tip: You don’t want to book every customer! You only want to book the right customers.
When I was first starting out in my business, I thought the goal was to book every client….no matter what it took!
- Lower the price on a few things to meet the budget? Sure.
- Meet at a super inconvenient time for me? Sounds great!
- Schedule a second call to go over “all the things” before you decide to work with me? Um, OK!
Whatever reassurance a customer needed to be persuaded that I was the right florist for the job, that’s what I’d do!
But over time, with experience and concerted efforts to dive deeper into who my ideal customers actually are, I’ve come to realize that I don’t want to book every customer!….not by a long shot. I only want to book the right customers for me.
Who’s “the right customer”?
Well, it’s someone who doesn’t need to be convinced that I’m the right choice because she can already feel that I’m the right choice from her preliminary experience with my company and my brand.
I set the rules to clearly communicate the steps in our booking process, so neither one of us invests too much time before we’ve decided we’re a good match.
I share how I’ve perfected this process over the past 16 years in my courses for wedding florists: How To Write Proposals That Sell and my Wedding Workflow pdfs show you how to spend less time before booking a client and how to lay out the steps for clients to follow from the initial inquiry to post-wedding day follow-up, click here to read more about my courses.
It takes a lot of work to learn how to speak directly to the heart of your ideal clients.
By tapping into who my clients really are and what they really care about, I’m able to reach them on a deeper level and develop a level of trust before we even speak.
I’ve streamlined my proposal process so that I’m not “giving away all the details”, yet I still provide enough detail that a client can trust that we’re on the same page.
It may not happen over night, but with time and practice, the booking process starts to take shape and you’ll be able to prequalify clients before investing too much time.
You can find all my downloadable pdfs here!
Keep doing beautiful work, floralpreneurs!
With love from me to you,