Are you ready for next year? 2022 is set to be another year for the books with so much uncertainty, supply chain issues, and who knows what else. Being prepared and planning will help you make it through another crazy year and that is why Ryan O’Neil from Curate joined me for this episode. We talked about pricing, margins, planning for the unknowns, and whether now is a good time to start up a floral business. Even if you’ve begun your new year planning or still need to get started, be sure to listen to our podcast or watch the replay!
Below is the podcast, video replay, and show notes:
SHOW NOTES
- Before we get started, can you introduce yourself and share a bit about your flower story?
- Ryan O’Neil. Founder of Curate. I married this incredibly strong woman who was an awesome florist and we started our own floral company in 2013. We weren’t getting back with customers fast enough and we weren’t confident in the pricing or proposals we were sending. So we started building Stemcounter.com, what is now Curate.
- What are common pricing structures to ensure profitability?
- It’s incredibly common to utilize a markup of 3.6x on your florals and 2x on your hardgoods. You’ll hear a lot of people in the industry saying a 3x markup on florals and 20% labor and the importance of charging for labor. Some of our most math-savvy florists were just doing a 3.6x markup or 4x markup because it’s just simpler than trying to remember.
- You’ll also want to remember to bump your estimates on pricing if you’re pricing things out when you initially create the proposals.
- How do you plan around pricing differences when they're unknowns going into next year?
- Raise the estimates on your floral pricing. If you’re a Curate customer, we have a mass edit tool built right into the software where you can just go bump up the prices on all your flowers without breaking the rest of your events.
-
- You have to be confident in your pricing. I saw today that wholesale prices went up 9.6% across industries in the last year.
- if it turns out prices drop next year, then you can always refund the money if you want. lol.
- Planning for 2022. Florists are saying they want to work with the opportunities they're most excited about. What kind of tools are people using to help win those deals?
- Automation is huge. You have to respond extremely quickly. Make sure whatever software you use integrates your form with your software.
-
- You have to use gorgeous proposal software as well. Expect to invest in it. There are tools like Curate, Details, True Client Pro. You may have heard of BloomTrac and they became a part of the Curate family last year. You’re going to be looking for clients that want the best experience so you have to be willing to invest to give THEM the best experience.
-
- Make sure whatever you use is mobile-friendly.
- Two types of proposals: one that tells the story of your brand and one that tells the story of the event. You’ll want to ensure you’re telling the story of their event. Color palette is a huge deal to help them see the vision.
- At Curate, we just released our brand new inspiration theme that has color palettes, professionally designed mood boards, is mobile friendly.
- With so many weddings, is now a good time to branch out for my own company?
- Absolutely. 2.5m weddings next year. That’s more weddings since 1984. Want to know how long ago that was? “Last Christmas” was written then. And more florists who are declining weddings.
- How should I get started, if I want to start my own company?
- Get your education cap on. We’ve done education documenting our process of starting it. Also, a little Nike, but just do it. If you wait 4 months before your logo is perfect, you’re going to miss the opportunity. I’ve seen proposals for $100k weddings that were sent to the client on a spreadsheet. Is it the best? No. But it goes to show that the people who are doers are figuring it out. Link
- For those who may not know about Curate, can you share more about how it can help florists?
- Curate is an entire wedding management tool that came out of the floral space. We save you time, increase your profit, increase your alignment with your team and freelancers, and most importantly, we give you confidence.
- I know you and your team are continuously working on evolving Curate - what’s new?
- We just released the brand new inspiration theme right in time for the 2022 season.
- We also have some top secret things happening behind the scenes that you’ll want to keep an eye out for in March of 2022. A year and a half ago, we had two people on our software development team, now we have 13 who are working away hard.
- From Penny: what do you use & or educate for social media marketing?
CONNECT