This blog is a transcript from our Facebook live recording on Thursday 26th May.
Just how much work should we as Florists put into booking a client in the beginning stages? Should we be compensated for that time? Join me as I chat to Tasha Flowers, a US Events Florist and Floral educator, and discuss these questions, as well as how we can use our online presence to prequalify clients, minimise our workload, and ensure we're dealing with as many ideal clients as possible.Tasha and I approach this from different angles, but ultimately have the same goal.
Speaker 1:0:06
Well , hello there , my fellow wedding, florist friends, and welcome to the wedding florist social podcast. This is the podcast for wedding florist to learn all about acing their online presence. I'm your host Vicki Laffey, and as a wedding florist of over 10 years now, and a certified digital marketer, I want to help you get the right clients. Get more followers and never be stuck for content ideas. Again, click the link in my description to get your free wedding florist guide to social media content creation today.
Speaker 2:0:34
Well, hello everyone. And welcome to the next episode of wedding florist , social. Uh , thank you so, so much for tuning in and listening and downloading and subscribing. I appreciate every single one of you for , uh , for your support. Um, so this week , um, I have, it's quite an interesting conversation. I'm actually interviewing , um, an amazing florist from the us . Uh , we have Tasha flowers here for all the way from Baltimore , uh , in , in the us . So , uh , hi, Tasha. Hi. Hi, how you all? Good. Thank you very, very much. It's uh , absolute pleasure speaking to you. I know it's sort of earlier in the morning where you are, I think it's, it's 10 30 here where you are. It's three 30 in the afternoon here. So , um, this has taken a bit of organizing with , with time differences , but , um , I'm so , so pleased , you're able to , to make time , um , to chat about this fascinating topic . Fascinating . So this week you guys were, were basically going to be chatting about , um , the whole process of kind of onboarding clients and , um, you know, how you should be compensated for, for that sort of thing, if you should be compensated or, you know, cuz Taha and I , um, well we met on the , um, in intrigue teachers, Facebook group , um , Sarah's Facebook group and Taha posted a very interesting question on there a few weeks back , um , BEC basically surrounding the fact that, you know, should you get compensation for the time you put into consultations? Do you compensate yourself for the time you put into those? Um, should you be compensated for all the admin work and the , the time you put into the onboarding process, you know, do you charge for consultations, things like that. And, and a lot of people got really into it and , and there was a lot of answers on there . My reply to that was that , uh , you know , my sort angle that I come to it from is, is that I run my business in such a way that I try to , uh , attract as many of the , you know, higher proportion as possible anyway, the most ideal clients as I can with my online presence. Um, rather than attracting just a ton of people on , on Instagram or something. Um, you know, I've tried to attract more, a higher quality , uh , uh , high proportion rather of quality people , um, quality clients that are more aligned to what I do and , and more , more an ideal client. And, and I don't put too much work into , um, the whole kind of consultations and, and the , the quotes and proposals and , uh , all of that sort of thing. But , you know, before I've even got assigned contract from them , um, but I'm realizing that not everyone works like that. So it was very interesting that sort of here Tasha , um, kind of proposed that, that question , uh , on the Facebook group. And there , there was a lot of different answers to that. Wasn't that Tasha?
Speaker 3:3:29
Yeah. There were a lot of different answers about how that's approached. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:3:35
And how do you, how do you personally approach it then ? You know , what , what do you do in your business with regards to that? Do you put a lot of work into, into this sort of thing before , um, you know, you know, a consultation and a quote and things like that.
Speaker 3:3:47
So I do put a lot of work into it, but I also charge a fee for that work. Mm-hmm
Speaker 2:3:53
<affirmative> , mm-hmm <affirmative>
Speaker 3:3:53
Because I wanted to be a really personable experience, right? This is their wedding day. So it , as important as it is to them to have a great wedding day great experience, it is equally important to me that the entire planning process for the flowers is enjoyable because I understand that working with people who may have never been married before never purchased a great deal of flowers at one time before don't have any knowledge base for what flowers cost . So I need to make sure that they're included that they're comfortable and as a result I charge for my time.
Speaker 2:4:36
Yeah. And, and I think that's, that's something I hear a lot of people do . I think over here in the UK, perhaps it's not to common, but I hear a lot of the , the us Flo talking about that approach as well. And I can certainly see the, the appeal of , of doing that. Um, cuz I think we've all been there. Haven't we? And you know, you meet with a client and uh , you know, maybe even if, if it's not in your studio, maybe it's a coffee shop or you know, wherever you go and you put lots of effort into it and you maybe buy them a coffee and you spend lots of time kind of researching exact flower types and varieties and pricing things out. And for them to just ghost you or yes <laugh> or party
Speaker 3:5:22
Haven't we all experienced that one time, too many mm-hmm <affirmative> you know, and , and that's just it. So I charge $250. Okay . That alone eliminates a big portion of people because I know you're not serious. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and I really want like you, I want people who want to work with Tasha flowers. Yeah ,
Speaker 2:5:44
Absolutely.
Speaker 3:5:45
You are , you are ready. You've selected me. Not because of price, but because of the quality of the product that, you know, I can deliver to you and for you.
Speaker 2:5:55
Absolutely.
Speaker 3:5:56
But I order just weed out people who are just kicking the tire, you know, squeezing the melons,
Speaker 2:6:03
Lot of those <laugh>,
Speaker 3:6:04
You know, it's, Hey, this is where we are because, and I always tell people, if you don't like the new rule, you can thank the last customer because it's because of their behavior that this is what we have to do now. It's not something that I started out doing. It's certainly not the way things were in the beginning. Yep . But I've lost hours and hours of time crafting a proposal that's unique to this couple only to get ghosted. Yeah. And it became a thing where my time is just way too valuable. Yeah . You know, to just give two hours to you and two hours to your proposal, take time. It take a lot of time. So.
Speaker 2:6:51
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, this is why, partly why I wanted to talk to you because, you know, I think we both have the same aim and the same end results in , in that respect, but we kind of come at it from two different ways. You know, you , you , um, the way you weed people out is , is , is to charge for the , for a good amount for the , for the consultations and the proposals and things like that. And , um, whereas if I come from the other side, I , I, I , I try to basically pre-qualify my , any sort of potential clients , uh , online, you know, with my website, with what I put out there on social, things like that. So that higher proportion as PO of people as possible are coming to me as ideal clients. Um, I see on my website, for example, and I , when I look at Google analytics and , um, I'm a bit of a nude with Google analytics. I , I love , uh , kind of getting right into that . Um , but you look at the behavior flow on, on Google analytics and , um, yes , I see a lot of drop offs on my inquiry form, but that is absolutely fine by me. <laugh> I don't get worried about that. That , that is my inquiry form doing its job as far as I'm concerned. Right , right . Um , so people come onto my eye website. They , um, they will see, you know, I , I'm certainly not a cheap florist . I'm not the most expensive flourish , but I , I certainly don't do sure . Cheap blow cost kind of budget weddings. Um, and , uh , it's got friendly wording cuz I wanna attract people and we're just friendly and easygoing and uh , you know, the imagery, the wording, everything is, is geared towards my ideal client. And the final stop is the inquiry form , uh , where it talks about things like budgets and you know, it gives me all of that information that I need. Um , mm-hmm <affirmative> but it also whittles out the , um, the , the people who perhaps don't wanna spend 10% of their wedding budget on their, their flowers. And um, you know, at that point, people , a lot of people drop off and which is exactly why I , um, you know, if , if I get DMS on Instagram saying, Hey, are you free on such and such a date or, or , or my personal favorite when people just commenting how much please, and, and things like that. <laugh> um , <laugh> I see that, or
Speaker 3:9:08
Don't forget this one, they literally send the entire wish list .
Speaker 2:9:14
Yeah .
Speaker 3:9:14
And say, send me a proposal.
Speaker 2:9:15
Love it. Yeah. But
Speaker 3:9:17
Ma'am who are you <laugh> how did you get
Speaker 2:9:21
Here ? I love , I love that. And , and , and I just, all I do is say reply saying , thank you so much. I'm free on your date . Here's the link to my inquiry form. Go fill that in all I , all that information you've just put on that, go put it into my inquiry form . Um, because you know, it's, it's important for them to kind of go through that process and see my website and, and see the kind of work that I do. And, you know, if they, for example , uh , wanting all of this stuff, they've just emailed you, but only have like a 500 pound budget for like 20 cent pieces or, you know, whatever. Right . Um, then the website will, will do that job of whittling them out. And, and um, you know, I haven't, I don't therefore have to spend yeah . Like two hours preparing for a consultation, having a consultation. Right . And then goodness knows how long, you know , doing the proposal or quotes as we call them and yeah . Um , things like that. Um, so yeah, it's that , that process in itself, you know, the , the inquiry process and , um, yeah . You know, the online presences doing is that that's kind of how I come at it and, and , um, that's, you know, what I , what I suggest for everyone, you know, I , I , I often see florist on Facebook groups sing . Um, I , I'm doing a quote for a bride and can anyone recommend , uh , a variety of rows to go with this particular bridesmaid dress and all of this? There's a , there's lots of things like that. And I'm like, you know, guys, you haven't even got , uh , that , that you haven't booked them yet , you know , like ,
Speaker 3:10:52
Right , right .
Speaker 2:10:53
Going through all of this for them not to, to book. And , and I know you've gotta provide as good service and what have you, but , um , sure . Do all of that and then not be compensated either, you know, with , with , with your method or with the booking , um , or at all. Yeah . So, so yeah, it's , um, I , I think it's great that you come in from one angle and I come out it from another, but we've both got the same kind of outlook .
Speaker 3:11:16
Yeah. Because a lot of my brides are referred to me, their planners , um , introduced them to me. So that work has already been done. That same background work where, you know, you're pulling them in from the content. The planner has already seen the content they've already met me at some place, maybe a bridal show where they physically saw the work that I I can do, or we've had some sort of interaction in the past and they're saying, oh, well, I have this right . I want you to , uh , meet with her. And I say, okay. And I tell them there's a $250 consultation fee. Yeah . They pass the information on to the bride and people pay it. Mm-hmm <affirmative> they pay it. Right. Because they really want pretty flowers. They're taking the recommendation of their planner or a friend of theirs. Whomever said , Tasha can really do this for you. You should use her
Speaker 2:12:13
Mm-hmm
Speaker 3:12:13
<affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative>. But the $250 is not even a loss to them because when they sign the contract, you know, and make their retainer deposit , um, the $250 is credit back to them. Mm-hmm <affirmative> so there's no loss at all. All I'm doing is guaranteeing that you're not wasting my time and that you really want to move forward because I really want to help you mm-hmm <affirmative> but we have to make this a fair transaction.
Speaker 2:12:43
Absolutely. And , and it's , um, obviously about wasting our time or not, but it's also about wasting their time as well. I mean, I , I mean, if you are not the right florist for them, if you are gonna be too expensive or just not the right person for them, or , um , that then you know, that , that they don't wanna sort of pay that and , and then find out that don't want a book or , um, so it's , it's gotta be a two way thing, hasn't it? And , um ,
Speaker 3:13:10
It does, it , it really does because sometimes, you know, Vicky , sometimes you can be it's your , you are great match on paper. Mm-hmm
Speaker 2:13:21
<affirmative> mm-hmm
Speaker 3:13:21
<affirmative> but the energy is bad.
Speaker 2:13:23
Yeah. Yeah. Like you meet someone in person and , and right . Oh, what happened there ? <laugh>
Speaker 3:13:30
Right. So it's, it's about those connections and I'm really huge on making connections. Mm-hmm, <affirmative> , I'm really big on being your personal forest mm-hmm <affirmative> and as such, like, bring me in, I want to lean in closer to whatever you have going on, and I want you to lean into me as well. And let's talk about what you need, what those things look like. Let's talk about this wishlist. Is it realistic? Mm-hmm <affirmative> , you know, do we need to scale up or scale back? You know? Absolutely. And they get , you know, I'm giving them handheld service. Mm-hmm <affirmative> so for, you know, that's and that's what I want to do. I want to be personable and I want to feel like we are a team mm-hmm <affirmative> and for those brides who don't want that handheld service , um, the website will allow them to shop a LA carte .
Speaker 2:14:22
Absolutely. Yeah. That they can go elsewhere or shop a LA carte . Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:14:27
You know, the only problem is you won't get customizations, there'll be color limitations. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and you most certainly will not get personal service. Yeah . You'll get quality flowers, but you won't, you it'll be like you went to the grocery store and yeah . Just bought some, you know, canned goods off the shelf. You don't know the company that made the food. You just, I just need to get some canned corn today. So I'm getting can corn , you know, I , I don't think that's a great way to plan one of the absolute, most important days of your life. Well , that's it . But if that's what the budget calls for, if that's what your preferences dictate, then that's what it is .
Speaker 2:15:13
A hundred percent . I , I mean, it's, it's one of those things like flowers just simply aren't important to everyone. Um , but those, aren't the kind of people that I it's astonish . Yeah . Yeah . I know. I , I don't why obviously, but , but , you know, I , um, I just, where , where was I going with that? I've kind of , uh , I laughed and then flowers,
Speaker 3:15:35
Aren't important to everyone. <laugh>
Speaker 2:15:37
Thank you . Um , so yeah, flowers, aren't important to everyone. And I always say to people , um, you know, spend your money on things that are important to you in your wedding. Don't just go get like a wedding cake, because you're supposed to have a wedding cake at a wedding. Um , you know, if , if , if you , um, if , if cake is just not really important to you, then then go to marks and Spencers or trader Joe's, or, you know, what , whatever , um , your supermarket and get a , get a re premade kind of plain cake or something. Um , but, but if it's , um , really important to you, then spend the money on it. It's the same with flowers, you know? Um , yeah . And I , I , my ideal client , uh , our people lacked , um , flowers are a really important part of their big day. And they want to have that trust in someone and know they're gonna good job. Um , and
Speaker 3:16:29
I do the same thing. I , I say the exact same thing that you say what's , whatever is most important to you is where the money should show up. Mm-hmm
Speaker 2:16:37
<affirmative> .
Speaker 3:16:38
I also tell people that when you <affirmative> , but when you see your wedding space for the first time, you want to be blown away.
Speaker 2:16:50
Yeah.
Speaker 3:16:50
You're trying to invoke a feeling, you know, the intangible, likewise, when you're guests come to the wedding, they are expecting to have a feeling they're expecting to embrace the intangible. So you are creating a mood for your day mm-hmm <affirmative> your pictures and your memories will be the only thing left after your wedding. So you should create an environment that you want to capture in your pictures. No one's ever going to say cheese. That was a great steak,
Speaker 2:17:28
You know ? Yeah , no
Speaker 3:17:29
One's ever gonna say that was the most sparkling water I've ever taste , but they will all say that was a beautiful room. It was so well decorated. The flowers set , the, they all say it. I've never been to a wedding where the ambiance was not the thing that was most memorable aside from the bride, of course, yeah . To the guests and to the bride. It is the ambiance . It is the emotion that they're trying to invoke into the room. And I'm sorry, you can't do that with good looking linen on the table, though. It helps you can't do that with, you know, the, all the forks lined up just perfectly in the knives, in the right place, in the spoon, going across the front of the plate and a thousand packets of sugar and 10,000 matching sets of salt and pepper shakers. None of those things are things that people will remember, but they will remember that centerpiece. They will remember, you know, how we decorated the spot for the , to say your vows. They will remember that because it becomes the focal point of the room. And if you don't believe me, just look at any wedding, big or small from a friend or a colleague or on television mm-hmm <affirmative> , and it will be the total seamless , um, conglomeration or whatever of the room. It's the peeling, the intangible, it's the look, it's the mood, it's all of those things. And we are the ones that bring it to you.
Speaker 2:19:11
Absolutely. And , and that's also how you get a lot of referrals as , as , as well. You know, the amount of times people have come to me , um , you know, whether they be brides or grooms or whatever they identify as , um, and they'll say you did the flowers for our friend Kate's wedding and exactly. Wow. They were amazing. You know, and , and this really, you know, when I , uh , went through a rebrand back in sort of 20 16, 20 17 and , um, really sort of up leveled what I did and , and focused more on people who wanted to come to me for , for me, and not just because I was the local flower shop. Right . Um , that started to make a huge difference because, you know, I put my prices up. I started making more , um, you know, statement kind of pieces, like a huge fireplace kind of ,
Speaker 3:20:00
Of course,
Speaker 2:20:02
And Archway and things like that , because I was attracting people who could afford that, but who valued that as , as well. And , and that's what my online presence did. I , I, I split my websites. I split my branding from , I had the shop branding and I had wedding branding. And it would ,
Speaker 3:20:16
Yes , yes. Absolut
Speaker 2:20:17
Absolute
Speaker 3:20:17
Wonders.
Speaker 2:20:18
Yes . Um , so, you know, for anyone out there wanting to, to do that, I would highly recommend it. Um, you know, you can absolutely have it all incorporated on one website, but I found it attracted to different sets of, of people. But when , when you're making these things, you know , that's what looks impressive on the photographs that is going to attract, you know, a huge fireplace piece or an arch or something like that is gonna attract more people and make more people go, wow, that's looked amazing. Um , that then a little sort of Mason jar with baby breast in it, you know, everybody's saying a million is like , um, so yeah, I get that. I ,
Speaker 3:20:58
I so agree. I so agree. And in your, your spot on with, with what I am doing, I am separating , um, these lanes, right? So in my business accelerator program, I share with them that I am, I , I do well in sympathy and I do well in events. Mm-hmm , <affirmative> however, it's difficult to , uh , convince a bride, to look at funeral flowers while trying to plan flowers for the happiest moment of her life.
Speaker 2:21:30
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:21:32
Two different lanes, very lucrative lanes , but they need to be separated. Mm-hmm <affirmative> , mm-hmm <affirmative> , you know, so I totally agree with you on that. If you want to be known as a wedding and event, Floris have a separate place for that. Mm-hmm, <affirmative> give your brides something to SW over, give them something to focus on, remove the distraction, get rid of the clutter and the distraction. And the clutter is going to be your sympathy flower . It's gonna be your everyday flower . It's gonna be your subscription flowers . It's gonna be anything that's not weddings and events. So you wanna reduce the chat or reduce the noise and get them thinking about wedding flowers. Not only that you're selling your brand to them, you're selling what you do. So whatever you want them to know that you specialize in is in fact, the thing you should be pushing. So if you don't want to do the Mason jars of baby's breath, what the bur left hide around it, then don't put that on the wedding site. If you want , you know, if you wanna do grandiose pieces, you wanna do flowing , um , tablescapes and garlands that pull onto the floor and you wanna do , um , huge laterals and you wanna do ceiling installations. Then those are the things that you should put on your website. Yeah . And even if you don't have enough of your own content, it's easy. You can always say here's what we are loving today. Yeah . We love how so. And so did this. Mm-hmm <affirmative> let me recreate that for you. I mean, it's, it's not possible that you could have done it. All right. It's just not possible, but it is possible to do some things, do style shoots , um, do some things at home, turn your dining room into a floral Oasis. You don't have to pay for the venue space. You already have the table, you have chairs, throw off some pipe and drap , close it off, make it look beautiful. Do it again and again and again and again. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:23:38
Absolutely. Uh , you know, you may have , um , spare flowers left over from, you know, some gift Booker work that week or something , uh , you know, absolutely make a bridal book out of them more , just set up a little tablescape or, you know , um , by , by the way, I , I am very, very glad that that whole baby's breast Hessey and boil up jar thing has, has , uh , left us now. Uh , but , but, you know, a , a prime example is , um, you know, like in January I had an absolutely lovely couple who in , who were in every other way, an ideal client, you know, they , they came to me, they were , they were actually thankful to me for, for working with them and yeah . You know , they were like, oh , I'm so pleased free. Thank you so, so much for, for , you know , working with us. And, you know, there were lovely people. Um, and you know, that we're coming from, I do a lot of like destination weddings, people come to our area , um, yeah. In every other way, but what they ordered , uh , bouquets were fine, but for their send AFUS , um , they just ordered , uh , they were avid skiers, so they wanted ski boots filled with flowers in the top.
Speaker 3:24:45
Oh , wow.
Speaker 2:24:46
Well, I know. Right. Um, so a whilst I made them look beautiful and , and they , they loved them. It's not the sort of thing I'm going to post on my social media. Exactly . And it's, cuz it's not, I mean, I'm all for personalizing things, but, but it's , I'm not gonna say to people, Hey, look at this thing, you know, I want everything to look kind of pretty right . And um , very young brand. Right . Um , so that was a little off brand . So I didn't really post about that , um, on online . Yeah .
Speaker 3:25:14
And I , I think that's normal. I think that you don't have to post everything mm-hmm <affirmative> um , and you can always post the same things over and over. Yeah. And I think even for myself, I don't like doing it, but I do it because the people who saw it the first time are not necessarily the people who see it the fifth or even the sixth time mm-hmm <affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative> so it's okay to post the same content more than once. It's okay to do videos and do like ten second snippets. And let that be a piece of content. You can focus on one thing of that content. Maybe today you are focusing on your composts in this wedding and tomorrow you'll focus on the elevated pieces. Maybe it was the smile of the bride, you know, you never know, it could be the way the tails were flowing in the wedding from the flower girl basket mm-hmm <affirmative> . I mean, there are different ways to capture things, to create more content, so that you'll have those things on your social media fees and on your website that you want to promote as opposed to things that yes, I did do that
Speaker 2:26:27
<laugh>
Speaker 3:26:28
But is not really in line with the branding. So it's not gonna make its way to the website. Absolutely .
Speaker 2:26:34
So what I did do with that, for example, it was all nice whites and green kind of flowers and foliage. And , um, I , I took pictures of the flowers and foliage on their own, you know, maybe laid on the table or, you know, I got the content out of it. Absolutely <laugh>
Speaker 3:26:48
Or, you know, sometimes I've even , um, cropped a picture and then used the crop parts , maybe like a background to some other kind of just verbiage, you know, there are ways to get around it . Um ,
Speaker 2:27:02
<laugh> absolutely
Speaker 3:27:05
To manage your Brandy. You do
Speaker 2:27:07
A hundred percent , um, you know, just, I mean, I think we're both quite passionate about this, so we could probably talk about this, a nerd out about this for a long time. Um, you know, I , I know you've got a day full of admin ahead, so I was just going to sort of , um, you know, get , get sort of back to what we were talking about at the beginning a little bit about, you know, onboarding and , um, yeah . The amount of work you should put in the things , uh , in advance before you've even got assigned contract , um, you know, do you use a particular system to do that? I mean, I use a system called 17 hats, which I absolutely love and I recommend to everyone. Yeah . And a link in the podcast show notes, if you want to get , um , 50% off your , um, your subscription and a free trial as well. But , um, I use that because it's fantastic and in terms of my process and, and making that slicker and quicker and easier, cuz I used to, you know, stress and put things off and , and it would be like two weeks before I get a , a quote out to a couple or something and you know, you put it off cuz you think , oh, it's gonna take an hour or two hours or whatever. Um , whereas this, I can be doing it whilst I'm on the call with , with someone, you know, I do a zoom call , um , much like we're doing now and, and we'll talk through things. Um, so I don't even have to leave my house. Um, and I can be , uh, you know, creating the quote , adding the items on it as, as we go through it. Um , even my inquiry form is with 17 hats. So when people fill that in, it goes straight, their information goes straight into my system. Um , uh , so I , I , I do that and it means I can get quotes out within sort of 15 minutes of, of ending the call and then it's done, it's ticked off my list and then I'm not stressing about it or adding to my todo list or anything like that. Um , and that includes all of the , um, the , the , the quotes, sorry , not the quotes, the contract that they sign and, and things like that as well. Um, you know, is , is there something that you use , so what , what's your sort of process?
Speaker 3:29:06
So I have heard of 17 hats, but for inquiries and capturing information, I use honey book .
Speaker 2:29:14
Okay . Yeah. Mm-hmm
Speaker 3:29:14
<affirmative> um , it doesn't have any bells and whistles. It's not designed specifically for Floris , but it gets the job done. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and that's really important to me , um, as well as transparency. So for me , uh, if we are, if I'm , if I found the bride on my own, then I definitely want them to go through the inquiry process. If they're coming to me by way of their planner, then most of that work has already been done for me. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and they pay the two 50 , um, through , uh , square mm-hmm <affirmative> and then we have the consultation, the consultation, you know, we talk, we go through everything, I take my notes and, but I do a vision board next mm-hmm
Speaker 2:29:57
<affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative>
Speaker 3:29:58
Because what I've found is that either a, I did not understand exactly what the bride was trying to tell me mm-hmm <affirmative> or the bride wasn't really clear on what she wanted things to look like. Yeah. So I had broken down my process into steps that best work for me. So it is , it's not what most people do at all, but what I've found is that for me to stay in control of the process and not miss a step, I have to break this process up into smaller chunks for myself. Um, but it's , it has a lot to do with the way I learn and process information anyway. Yes . So this works for me. Um, and I can minimize some of the chatter about, oh, that's not what I wanted. I didn't mean this. I meant that. So yeah, I use honey book to grab information and it will feed it into the proposal in contract for me. So that part is already done, but I will do a vision board for every bride that has paid for the consultation. And then I do a cost proposal for the wedding flowers. Like here's a line item. Everything that you've asked for, this is your time to make changes. I'm gonna send this to you, make whatever changes you want to make, because by the time we get to contract, I need you to sign it and send the retainer payment.
Speaker 2:31:22
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:31:23
We've already gone through the old, the Heming and haw and I'm not sure, can we do this? Can we do that? It's everything's laid out for you. And in that cost proposal is the vision board. So you get to see everything that we talked about the first time mm-hmm <affirmative> and now you get to see line by line what these things are going to cost you, because I don't allow for a lot of changes once we've gone to contract signing. Yeah . As a matter of fact, you can't make any changes outside of a 5% reduction.
Speaker 2:31:57
Yeah. I think I've got a similar percentage. Absolutely . Yeah . Um ,
Speaker 3:32:01
Cause we've gone through this process. We've gone through, I want this, I want it to look like that. Okay. That's round one, round two is his line item with everything. Make your changes now mm-hmm <affirmative>, mm-hmm <affirmative> a lot of time we get to the contract. You're good to go. There are no surprises.
Speaker 2:32:18
Yeah. That they're not worried. They're not thinking, oh, how is this gonna turn out? Has she really got my vision in her mind or anything like that? Yeah. Um, so I guess it's , yeah, it's kinda similar for , for me as , as well in that , that respect and you know, I like to book people who , um, kind of just trust me and they're confident in me. And I always say during consultations , um, you know , uh , you know, if you are at the end of this meeting , feeling confident and more clear about what , what you're offering and confident that I've got my, your vision in my head and then I've done my job properly. Um, because I don't want people booking me and then saying , um, okay, so what are my flowers are gonna look like on the day? Uh , and , and I'm like , you know , right
Speaker 3:32:59
There , <laugh> , that's not right there .
Speaker 2:33:02
Don't get just through the net . But , um , you know , I think by that point, they're just like, oh, you know what? That was great. Here's my money go for it .
Speaker 3:33:14
Because we , we do like every, every event for us . We'll get the question. Um, two questions. What will it look like? Mm-hmm <affirmative> and have you ever done this before?
Speaker 2:33:25
Yeah. Yeah. I get that sometimes. Yeah . Okay . Um ,
Speaker 3:33:28
So here's my answer to that second question. <laugh> um , even if I've not done this specific thing, I've shown you enough past performance to give you the confidence that I can execute, that it's not possible that I could have done everything in every color
Speaker 2:33:51
Everybody's wedding's individual as , as well. So ,
Speaker 3:33:54
Right . So if I've done this elevated piece over here in those colors, I can do your elevated , elevated piece over here in , in these colors.
Speaker 2:34:05
Yeah. Like , you know , you have the same thing in our minds really. It's just right .
Speaker 3:34:08
You have to trust me. So if you see, you know , um, floor pieces that , um , rise up to the table level, then that's the same concept. If I did it on a stage mm-hmm <affirmative> , you don't know that as the bride , but I know that because I'm the professional and you have to trust me that I know how to get this done. And even if I don't, then you have to trust that I'm smart enough to ask someone else in my industry. How do do I achieve this? What are the mechanics behind it? So ,
Speaker 2:34:42
Uh , it's thankfully those questions don't crop up too often because
Speaker 3:34:46
Thank
Speaker 2:34:48
The way you work. Um, because people are confident and you know, they've already paid that two 50 retainer for you. Um, you know, and if they don't book me, then that's fine. I don't want anyone booking me who isn't , um , kind of aligned to me or doesn't
Speaker 3:35:06
Like those connections .
Speaker 2:35:08
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um, do you , do you ever get anyone not booking you after they've paid the two 50?
Speaker 3:35:14
I do. Yeah . I did have someone to not book after paying the two 50 and I'm really not sure what happened. She , um, I know she has some kind of family issue going on and I was following up, but I just, I think that , um, if I had to say what happened, I would say that the planner and I were not aligned mm-hmm <affirmative> and , um, I am really clear with my clients that I work for the couple mm-hmm <affirmative> I do not work for the planner.
Speaker 2:35:51
Absolutely.
Speaker 3:35:52
And so, you know, the vision, I can't give the planner , her wedding. I have to give the bride her wedding. So whenever I see and it's , you you've seen it, it's easy to see the planner saying , um, oh no, don't do that, do this. And , and I'm sitting there looking like, okay, bride , is this what you, what ?
Speaker 2:36:13
Like, here's, who's the professional here. <laugh>
Speaker 3:36:17
And who's getting married and I , I understand , understand the bride's vision. Yeah . But whenever I'm in a situation where the Brad has very little to say about her own wedding, that me nervous.
Speaker 2:36:31
Yeah. What , well, that , that probably not your type of person there's that they wouldn't be my type of person either. Um, you know, I'm all for like people, I like people to leave me to it and not micromanage and things like that. Um, but, but if they've literally got no vision at all, it's like, I need something to work with here . You know, <laugh> gimme
Speaker 3:36:52
An tell me about you. Like what should I know? Um, so yeah, that was the one time that that happened. Um, but most brides, we moved forward. I have a couple now that, oh man, I'm hoping that whatever issues they had, you know, we talked about it. I helped them to find ways to overcome it. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and we'll move forward, but they haven't paid they're . Um, for the wedding flowers, they paid for the consultation, but not the flowers. And I don't know, the budget got away from them. And you , it happens.
Speaker 2:37:28
You've still got a pretty good conversion. Right . Though. Even if those people don't <laugh>
Speaker 3:37:34
Right . Yeah .
Speaker 2:37:34
I mean, there's definitely a logic in the way with the way you do it as well. And you know, like I said, at the beginning , I don't , I don't like to do too much work. I like to do as little work as possible before the actual booking stage, you know, I'll , I'll do a zoom consultation or a phone consultation, which is one thing I'm actually thankful to the pandemic for, because that's normalized zoom consultation .
Speaker 3:37:55
Yeah .
Speaker 2:37:55
It's never gone back to in person consultations afterwards. Um, so that online presence , uh , you know, that having an online system is helps me in my process and helps me , um, kind of for convenience for , for the couples as , as well. Um, so, so yeah, I , I don't like to do too much at , at all. And then, you know, once, once the do book , um, you know, that's fine. I don't mind do , you know, answering all the queries and , and maybe, you know , providing them with some pictures or , or whatever. But, but to be honest with you , by , by the time it gets to that point, by the time they actually book me , um, that that's when they feel confident anyway, you know, they've shown me all their inspiration pictures, I've talked them through absolutely zoom and it's all groovy, you know? So , um , but yeah, so this is very interesting. Uh , we could talk about this all afternoon actually, but , uh , I , I I'm gonna leave it there. Would , would you like to just tell the, the followers, the , the listeners rather , uh , a little bit about where they might want to find you , um, and you know, your , your Instagram and, and what have you, all of this will be in the show notes anyway, guys, but Tasha, where , where , where can we find you?
Speaker 3:39:03
Absolutely. So I try to keep my social media handles pretty simple. So I am everywhere. Uh , Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at miss Tasha flowers. And miss is abbreviated to Ms . So that's M S T a S H a flowers. Um , and again, that's Instagram, Facebook and Twitter on TikTok , which I am trying to ramp up. I am the real MIS flowers . Um , miss is still abbreviated to Ms. And currently the Facebook is Tasha flowers.com . But as I said earlier in the conversation, that site is going to split , um, it focus one lane on weddings and events and another lane or anything. That's not weddings and events. I mean more to come on that. So that's definitely how I can be found and all the contact information. Is there the phone number , is there email address? Um , you can fire it off if you, you know , have a burning question about your wedding, you just treatment email at events, Tasha flowers.com .
Speaker 2:40:12
And I think you are , you are implementing your own florist education , um, kind of process later in the year as , as well. So I can't wait to see what you yeah . Uh , what you come up with, we'll have to have you back. Uh , and it , all the florist that are listening will be able to kind of hear a bit more about what you do and what you offer. Um, so yeah, look ,
Speaker 3:40:31
That's gonna be really fun. Um, and I think it's gonna be necessary because I know we didn't really get into it, but cash flow in managing , um, the business side of the business is really, really important. And I've seen , um, you know, like you've seen in different groups and discussions and posts where , um, it seems that the business side of the house doesn't get the attention that the flowers get.
Speaker 2:41:00
Yeah .
Speaker 3:41:01
Part of the house .
Speaker 2:41:03
Are they the use it's so sad? Are they they're usually either one or the other <laugh>. Um , yeah. Yep . But yeah , that sounds like a fantastic , uh , pod topic for, for another podcast. We'll have to have you back later in the year , uh , once you've got everything set up and , uh , I'll look forward to, to seeing that. Um, but thank you so so much , uh , for joining me of an absolute pleasure and , uh , I hope everyone listening has enjoyed listening to Taha . And I chat about that sort of thing. If , if any of that resonates with you, do you know, drop me a DM or an email or something like that at the content quarter, I would love to hear back from you. Uh , so take care and flower on you guys.
Speaker 1:41:43
Well , thanks so much for listening all the way to the end of wedding, florist , social, remember the heads subscribe so that you don't miss out any future episodes. And if you want access to some free community and support, then head across to Facebook and look me up on the worldwide wedding flourish community group. I look forward to seeing you there.