How to achieve your floral design business goals; systems are the key to massive results.

Your goal is to build a profitable floral design business. 

You’ve already spent tons of time and energy trying to focus on your goals and you still feel like you are barely treading water.

When you are treading water in business many tasks can fall between the cracks and continuity can seem unattainable.

However, it IS possible to regroup, catch-up, and achieve continuity in your business by building systems that work for you.

Floral Designers, welcome to part 1 of my 7 part series on systems!

Part 1: Introduction to systems and continuity.  

I’m going to share some valuable knowledge that I’ve learned over the years.

James Clear says it best.

“Goals are good for planning your progress and systems are good for actually making progress.

Goals can provide direction and even push you forward in the short-term, but eventually a well-designed system will always win. Having a system is what matters. Committing to the process is what makes the difference.”

What this valuable nugget of information is telling you is that goal setting alone isn’t enough.

So, have you been focusing on achieving your goals, but still feel like you haven’t made the progress you intended to make?

Then, consider this.

Results have very little to do with the goals you set and nearly everything to do with the systems you follow.

It’s a commitment to making the system work that achieves your goals and exceeds them.

Now you know systems are an essential part of making progress. So, you CAN take steps towards building systems into your floral design business. Systems that you can commit to daily and will propel you closer to your goals.

Now, let’s take this one step further.

Bride at Hummingbird House with bouquet

Systems are essential because not only do they help you achieve your goals, they also bring continuity to your business.

Continuity is the unbroken and consistent operation of something over a period of time.

When your business is running like a well-oiled machine that is what I call continuity. It’s when you have systems in place that work whether you are there or not. Don’t get me wrong there is no substitute for a small business owner who runs their business with passion! However, in today’s environment, your focus needs to be on the big picture while your systems and team handle the smooth operation of your day-to-day tasks.

I want to explain a few reasons why you need systems and continuity in your business.

• Continuity increases the resiliency of your business.

• Systems allow for different people to handle many different tasks.

• Systems provide you the opportunity to create a cycle of continuous improvement.

• Continuity helps keep the focus on your customer as the hero of their story.

Let’s dive into more detail here.

It’s important to understand the reasons why you need systems and continuity. You can use these reasons as a source of motivation to make progress on the systems in your floral design business.

Continuity increases the resiliency of your floral design business.

You need resiliency in your business because stuff happens. Unexpected stuff.  Have you considered what would happen if someone on your team sustains an injury or illness and is unable to work for some time? What if that person was you?

If that were to happen is your business able to transition easily without a ton of extra work landing in your lap? Could another person easily jump into your business systems and understand what needs to be done next?

If your answer is no or I don’t know, then this series of blog posts is going to be beneficial for you.

When you have systems in place, you have plans to deal with any situation, so your organization functions with as little disruption as possible. Over this series, I’ll share actionable steps you can take towards increasing the resiliency of your floral design business.

Your floral design business systems allow for different people to handle many different tasks.

Let me explain what I mean here.

Intuitive systems allow for employees and freelancers to do their best work. When you have systems in place that skilled workers can easily follow, things go smoothly. Workers can also be more efficient with their time which in turn increases your profitability.

When I work for a floral design business for the first time there are 2 things I do right away.  The first thing I do is familiarize myself with the layout of the studio. I want to locate everything I need to do my job.  The second thing I do is familiarize myself with the project I’m asked to work on.

If a floral design business is organized, I can locate everything I need to do my job and familiarize myself with the tasks at hand with a quick tour around the place.

A well-organized floral design business helps me to increase their profits by being prepared for me to work when I arrive at the job site.

If a business is disorganized and doesn’t have the information I need to do my job readily available, then I am less efficient. This only hurts the profitability of the business I’m working for that day.

A standardized system that allows employees and freelancers (or even friends in the case of an emergency) is important to the overall function of a business.

You and your team will be able to spend less time seeking things out and more time executing the tasks at hand. It also allows for new employees or freelancers to jump in and quickly make a positive impact on the business instead of waiting for direction.

Systems provide you the opportunity to create a cycle of continuous improvement.

“The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game. True long-term thinking is not about any single accomplishment. It is about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement. Ultimately, it is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress.”  - James Clear

Continuous improvement is essential to your floral design business.

Learning from your experiences and making changes to your systems based on those experiences is vital to growth. Small improvements each day can add up to a powerful impact at the end of a year.

By using systems, you expose the weak spots in your business and can more clearly see growth opportunities.

Lastly, Continuity helps keep the focus on your customer as the hero of their story.

Your focus must always be centered around the customer. So, I saved this one for last.

Your customer is the hero of their story and you are their guide.

If you aren’t familiar with this concept yet, let me give you some epic movie examples.

Star Wars: Luke Skywalker is the hero and Obi-Wan Kenobi is his guide.

The Wizard of Oz: Dorothy is the hero and Glenda the good witch is her guide.

The Matrix: Neo is the hero and Morpheus is his guide.

By making your customer the hero you are telling their story. You are their helpful guide. It’s your job to share valuable information and provide the solution they need to achieve their goals. It’s all about the customer.

Yes, this is a marketing strategy, but it’s also a cornerstone of a successful business mindset.

When your business has continuity, it runs like a well-oiled machine. This allows you to focus on providing the best experience for your heroes!

You can create a business that offers reliability and service by using systems and creating workflows that keep your customers top-of-mind.

A mindset where the customer is the hero matched with continuity in your floral design business is the ultimate combination.

This combination allows you to play a supporting role that turns your customer into the hero of YOUR story as well as THEIR story, and when those two things align, you easily make the sale.

Now, you know the reasons why systems and continuity are essential to your floral design business.

Next Up. I want to share with you where this series is going to focus on for the next 6 weeks.

Here are the 6 main areas of your floral design business that systems can help improve.

• Inquiries: Part 2 shares a system for new inquires and Profitable Floral Design email subscribers will receive my Email Nurture Sequence PDF.

• Proposals: Part 3 covers floral proposals and the systems that workfor efficiency.

• Preparation: Part 4 is focused on a system for planning and preparing for every event.

• Execution: Part 5 is all about delivering on the event day. My Event Schedule Templatewill be shared along with this post for my email followers only!

• Planning: Part 6 is how to use systems to map out your business. I’ll share systems for organizing the systems in your business.

• Ordering: Part 7 is my favorite part of the business side of floral design. Flower orders! I’ll introduce my system for flower orders. It is easy to use and customizable to your business and ordering style.

Don’t forget to Sign Up Here for the PDFs that accompany these posts if you haven't already joined the Profitable Floral Design email list.

Each part is an important piece of the puzzle that is your floral design business.

Some of these areas may be strong points in your business and others may benefit greatly from a systems overhaul. Each business is unique, but I’ll be covering these 6 topics in depth.

It's up to you which ones you’d like to focus on to make the biggest impact!

You may feel you have a great system for your proposals. Your team books most of the clients you create proposals for, but you feel less confident in your flower ordering. So, you know there’s room to improve your profitability with a better system. There will be valuable takeaways in each part of the series. So, I’d love for you to read them all!  

I’ll be sharing my insights on using systems and creating continuity in each of these areas over the next 6 weeks.

So, quickly review each area of your business before you read the accompanying blog post. You can compare the systems I suggest to what you currently have in place. Then, adopt some of my systems or tweak them to fit into your current business processes to increase the continuity in your floral design business.

This series of posts will share details of the systems I used in my own business to consistently hit my financial goals for over a decade.

The important part of this process is to bring your business into a mode of continuity.

As James Clear wrote “A systems-first mentality provides the antidote. When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy. You can be satisfied anytime your system is running. And a system can be successful in many different forms, not just the one you first envision.”

So, I want you to know that refining your systems, adding to them, and tweaking them over time is an integral part of running a small business. Keep that in mind as you read through this blog series and seek to improve your business over the long-term.

Next week I’ll jump into the first system on handling inquiries and how a nurture email sequence can automate that process for you.

Until then,

LuAnn