Your value as a florist

Have you ever stopped to think about your value as a florist?

I had a powerful conversation recently with several EveryStem members and our special guest, Kathleen Drennan, florist business coach and the founder of Little Bird Bloom.

She rocked our worlds with her impactful POV on how to establish your value as a florist!

And I am thrilled to share her insightful tips with you in this recap.

Kathleen is the kind of florist business coach that focuses on helping you build an abundant, confident, and positive money mindset. She offers 1-on-1 florist business coaching packages as well as monthly group coaching through Little Bird Bloom’s Flower Boss Academy. 

Kathleen wants to help you build a business with passion, profitability, and purpose. And in this chat, she serves up her best florist business coach advice and even shares a specific process you can use to establish your value as a floral designer before you engage with your clients.

But, let’s start with a little about who Kathleen is and why she loves coaching florists.

Click on Kathleen’s image to grab her free flower recipes e-book.

How did Kathleen become a florist business coach?

Kathleen has a bachelor’s in commerce, worked in corporate marketing & advertising, went to formal floristry school, and afterwards got her MBA. She followed the famous designers who make running a floral business look easy, but once out in the real world, it didn’t translate to her own retail floral business. She needed to bridge the gap between school and running a profitable business. 

Kathleen spent a lot of time figuring out her floral business the hard way, through trial and error. The journey involved self-doubt, uncertainty, and brought a whole lot of humanness to the table. It led to her becoming a 6-figure Flower Boss, which she teaches about in her coaching programs for florists.

One of Kathleen’s favorite phrases is “Break All the Rules”. And I think it’s why she and I get on so well! :)

The floral industry is very secretive, but she’s shaking things up by sharing her wisdom and experience to empower, motivate, and inspire you to be the most helpful florist you can possibly be! 

Want to get a taste of what it could be like to have Kathleen as your personal florist business coach?

Watch our replay here or continue reading to get all the benefits of our conversation!

Establishing your value as a florist.

Are you stuck in your business growth because you aren’t confident in your value?

Establishing your value before you engage with your customers is a great place to start building confidence from within.

And Little Bird Bloom and EveryStem are two great resources to empower you because both are based in the belief that you need to come from a place of confidence in order to be profitable. Your mindset can be what’s either getting in the way of or supporting your business growth. And it’s up to you to decide you want to make a change.

How do you feel about selling flowers?

You might think you have to be extroverted or like a used car salesman to be good at sales. However, it is not about sleezy sales tactics, but rather about showing up as a CEO in your own business and learning how to make money as a confident creative entrepreneur.

Kathleen wants you to think about sales in a new way.

She says “Learning about sales is a skill to develop just like wiring flowers or creating an asymmetrical arrangement. It is one of the best gifts you can give yourself and your business! Don’t be intimidated. You learned the skills to be a floral designer and you can learn the skills for sales and profitability too.'“

Sell yourself on the value of your floral design work.

Think about this.

If you don’t believe your casket cover design is worth $1000, you simply cannot sell it to a customer for $1000.

Here’s how the scene plays out in Kathleen’s head.

You tell your client the casket cover is $1000 with a shake in your voice. Your lack of confidence causes you to hesitate and second-guess yourself, the customer asks for a discount, and puts you in the difficult position to lower your price.  Have you been there? I have and Kathleen has too.

Everything started to shift the minute Kathleen sold herself on the value of her floristry!

The good news is she’s sharing how to flip that scenario on it’s head with a simple process you can start using today.

Let’s start here.

Think about the value YOU offer the world: 

• Emotion

• Art

• Creativity

• Convenience

• Expertise 

• Fill in the blank…. what other value do you bring?

Kathleen says going through this process to sell yourself on your value is part of running a flower business and part of the process that she went thru to shift her confidence. She went from questioning why anyone would by from her to booking high budget events with this mindset hack!

Kathleen started by selling herself on the value of one single lily stem.

The customer could get this single lily stem from the grocery store or from her flower shop.

So she had to do the work to sell herself on the reasons why it was a good thing that her price was higher than the price at the local grocery store.

But, how?

Here’s the exact process Kathleens used to unleash her value as a florist!

And you can do it right now. Grab a pen/pencil and piece of paper. Write down for yourself every single step you’ll go through to provide your customer with your product.

Here’s an example with the lily stem:

• Order product in from the wholesaler

• Pay for delivery or drive to pick up product. 

• Process the product, take off foliage, inspect quality.

• Put product in buckets with fresh water and possibly flower food.

• Place product in a cooler to maximize shelf life.

• Establish a phone number / email / website for customer to get in contact with you.

• Have relationship with the wholesaler for best lily quality. 

• Wrap lily in tissue, tie with a bow, attach a care card.

• Time to transact with client and process payment.

Don’t be surprised if you end up with 2 pages at the end of this exercise! 

You may even decide to raise your prices at the end of it. You will have so much more conviction and believe in your product, quality, and design. You will feel so good about charging a premium. And you can come back to this list anytime you feel like your are slipping backwards into a less confident place.

Backed by this mindset hack and a tangible list of your value, you know without a doubt that the experience you are selling is way better than the experience at the grocery store.

So go for it! Do the exercise for yourself and see the difference in the way you feel about your value as florist afterwards.

Pick a stem that works for you. Or pick a design that you feel you stumble over when it comes to telling customers the cost. If you don’t have the conviction to sell something, work through this process and see how you feel afterwards. 

Write down everything you must do to make that flower sale happen. 

“You just built yourself a value equation, and now you will feel more confident when saying this price out loud to your customer”, says Kathleen.

The more you say these numbers out loud, even to yourself, the more confidence you will have next time you have a real-life conversation with your customer.

You've done the exercise and sold yourself on the value of your product. Congrats! 

 Here comes the hardest part. Take a deep breath because it’s time to tell your customer the price of your floral designs. 

Make room for the discomfort you feel.

You may have sweaty palms, shakiness, and feel anxiety bubbling up. Hold space for your nerves and your quickening heartbeat the minute the price comes out of your mouth. 

You may even want to keep talking out of fear that the customer will reject your offer. Don’t get in your own way. Sit in the awkward silence. Wait for the customer to respond. Let them process and absorb what you shared with them. It’s up to your client to decide if the price is acceptable. So give them the time and space to make that choice before you undercut yourself! 

Florist friend, here’s your homework.

Sell yourself on the value of this task. It has an incredible domino effect in your business. Keep practicing because you CAN master this skill just like you learned to make a hand-tied bouquet! Once you establish your value as a florist, no one can take that away from you.

Use this mindset hack if you have the urge to blurt out “I can do it for less”, pretend you work in someone else’s business. And tell yourself that as an employee you don’t have the authority to give discounts!

Running your own floral business is at least 80%, if not 90%, mindset work.

Kathleen gets it. She’s been in your shoes and understands that you don’t want to be seen as a price gouger. You don’t want to be seen as greedy. So naturally your money scarcity thinking kicks in. You may need to repeat this a few times for it to really sink into your mind.

What if you’ve already done this exersice a few times, but you’re still struggling with establishing the value of your floral designs?

Kathleen suggests selling yourself on the benefits of making more money in your floral design business.

Here are 4 examples. You can steal these and come up with a few of your own!

• All the amazing things you can do in your local community with your added profits.

• The people you can hire within your local community. 

• The ripple effect you get to have by supporting others through your profitable business.

• Upholding your value system and having great client relationships at the same time

Remember, you get to decide whatever you want to do with the profits you earn in your business. And that is a powerful anchor to use when you need to stay firm in your pricing.

Different people value different things and spend their money on what matters to them. Just like you get to spend your profits as you see fit. Allow your customer to spend what they see fit even if it’s more than you’d personally feel comfortable spending on flowers. This seems contradictory, but it’s often done subconsciously. 

Work on believing in your price and value first.

You provide something unique and special. It is special to your customer, and that creates value. Acknowledge yourself and the value you are bringing with the product, your skills, talents, and experience. This is key in knowing where your value lies and establishing this for yourself before you reach out to a client.

Keep building your confidence and strengthen your mindset.

Whether you are starting a business, or you have been in business for 15 years, you must do this work on a regular basis. It is so important you practice Kathleen’s exercise to build your confidence. When it comes to not making the profit you desire, you might call this overbuying, but really - you are underselling and undercharging! I encourage you to role play with friends and family. Just like building recipes and creating beautiful designs, when it comes to marketing, confidence, and customer service skills - these are all teachable and learnable. You have the innate ability to do this work!

Imagine the first time you arranged flowers; you always must start somewhere and push past all the yuckiness and awkward feelings to build your skills!

Establish your value first before engaging with a customer, and it will take you far!

Are you interested in working with a Florist Business Coach?

 Take some time to think about:

• What’s not working in my business?

• Where do things feel out of alignment?

• Where are things going wrong?

• What do I want to do to fix it?

Kathleen has a Florist Business Coaching program. Hiring a coach is something that can be so valuable and helpful. It may feel like a big investment, but if you feel stuck and don’t know where to go, reach out to Kathleen or head over to Little Bird Bloom to learn more. She can help you decide if going through one of her programs or working with her as a Florist Business Coach would be beneficial for you. 

Being the CEO of your business can feel hard, awkward, challenging, overwhelming, frustrating, and disappointing, but Kathleen and I are so convinced, like Marie Forleo said, “if that dream was planted in your heart, it’s for a reason.” We believe in you and are here to help you grow and define what a successful business means to you. So please reach out with questions anytime!

Cheers to you running a profitable business! 

Until next time, 

LuAnn