Lauren & Rachel of Sweet Root Village joined Yvonne on Mornings with Mayesh this week. These two talented ladies shared how they stay organized, tips for hiring the right team, their thoughts on how to scale your biz without losing your brand identity, along with answering live viewer questions!
Stay tuned for the next show that will be in January & keep on sending in your floral questions! With that said, thank you so much for tuning in throughout the years. We truly appreciate your time and support and we wish you and your family an amazing holiday season.
SHOW NOTES
- First up - how do you two stay organized?
- April sent in a question that relates to this as well: I am entering my 4th year in business and will have a full schedule next year. I would love to know some of your key organizational tips & time-saving tips that help keep you sane throughout the year.
- share one email address
- use the colored star system
- RES = read, edit, send
- clear the inbox at the ned of the day
- send email to themselves to create a to-do lists
- Streak https://www.streak.com/
- Google docs, google calendar, DropBox
- Curate https://curate.co/
- we're obsessed with clearing the inbox and color coding for events! Google Docs, Streak, Dopbox are our go-to programs!
- What tips can you give on how to hire the right team?
- Another great question from April that is about hiring: Any tips for hiring/, training & retaining designers/helpers? I would like to build up my team so that I can delegate the workload.
- starting small
- hire someone that can lead events to help avoid burnout
- look for people who fit the personality and work ethic
- use enneagram when hiring https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/
- hire from Instagram - have better results over job posting sites
- have them come and help at an event to test it out
- You were also asked, "how to scale your business without losing brand identity". What steps do you suggest to achieve this?
- We've grown a LOT over the past decade and gone through waves of brand identity, so this may be a good place to start chatting... GUT FEELINGS- be yourself
- https://simplysweetroot.com/
VIEWER QUESTIONS
- Lynn: How have you adapted from scaled-down events (if you have) and have you created any new products to increase business in light of COVID?
- April:
- What have you changed or implemented in your business model moving forward due to COVID?
BONUS QUESITONS THAT WEREN'T ANSWERED LIVE DURING THE SHOW
- Nancee: What would Lauren & Rachel recommend for marketing a new business? I realize in the past, Facebook, Instagram, etc. have worked out great for many and businesses took off. However, it seems that there have been many changes with how everything is controlled with social media.
- Honestly, instagram is the main and really ONLY way that we market our business. We don’t pay for advertising or pay for vendor guides. We just focus on sharing in a very “real” way that feels true to us (showing our faces and behind the scenes) on a platform that we feel comfortable on. Instagram also seems to be where our clients, planners, and fellow florists spend most of their time as well. Growing very very slowly in the beginning with social media is very normal and very okay. It can feel so discouraging feeling like you're “competing” with people who have thousands and tens of thousands of followers, but just keep focusing on showcasing yourself in a way you feel proud of and doing your best to connect with other people in a very genuine way and those connections grow and sustain you and expand your reach, especially through social media.
- From Oak & Willow: can you provide information on how you price out floral installations?
- We break it down into bite size pieces! Yes, looking at this giant arch, i would be overwhelmed trying to figure out how much to plan for with flowers and greens. So we just pull out one small foot section and plan out what we think would fill that space, and then multiply each element by the total of number of feet we need to fill! Boom!
CONNECT/LINKS