Do you want to know what happens when you lower your prices to appease the bargain shoppers??? You turn yourself into a sweatshop. Your own personal factory of work, with little to no gain. I did it once, many years ago. I worked non-stop for a couple of huge, but low-paying projects for hours and hours. I got almost no sleep. I ignored my child to keep working. And nothing came from it. No usable portfolio pictures, no referrals, only sweatshop pay that I had foolishly agreed to. Never again. 🙅‍♀️👎 Keep your prices where the industry tells you they should be. Use the pricing formulas. Write your contracts so everyone gains value. If someone can't afford your price, let them pass on by. Stay open and ready for the clients who are agreeable and ready to pay for your professional expertise.

Floristry is a relationship -based business. Trust, communication, and kindness are key! For success in the floral industry, build relationships with new customers, suppliers, and all local floral wholesalers. If a customer comes to you with a small budget, treat them well anyway. Provide reasonable, but top-notch service. Who knows how impactful your help and attention will be to them. You probably can remember when you received excellent customer service, and lousy service too. I bet you happily return to the business where you were treated well. Seasons change, people change, budgets can also change. A few years ago, I helped a young home-based florist with her small budget for a wedding. She remembered my guidance a few years later, when she took over a very successful, luxury flower shop. Her budget changed, but she came back to work with me, because of how I had treated her in the past. "People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." - Maya Angelou

Geez. These floral Facebook groups are something else. So much criticism, so much unnecessary rudeness. People who are trying out this creative venture as a hobby, innocently post a picture of something they've made, and they get slapped with harshness by self-proclaimed experts. It's at a point where people posting literally have to request that the feedback "PLEASE BE KIND". 🫣 I've worked in some flower shops where my bosses were unnecessarily critical - I've had managers say I would never be a good designer, that I didn't know how to make an XYZ arrangement. I even had one floral shop owner REDUCE my hourly wage because she said my arrangements were crappy. You want to know what I did? I left her little flower shop the next day and got a better job at the MGM Grand. For more money. Her opinion was nothing more than her opinion. The manager at MGM had a different opinion, which amounted to "you're hired". 💸💲😎 The bare truth is the only opinion that matters is your own. If you think you need to improve your floral design skills, then do that. Experiment, look for inspiration everywhere, and work on learning techniques and design styles. If you are proud of your style and your creations, then find an audience who loves it as much as you do. They are out there. They are ready to applaud you, pay you, and refer you to others. I wouldn't go searching for that in a floral group on Facebook. They really seem hellbent on discouraging new designers. I've started a community for floral designers, and DIY designers. It's going to be a positive, encouraging forum, where new and experienced floral designers can share questions, tips and tricks, talk about flowers, weddings, the supply chain, wholesale resources and more. It's brand new, and free to join. Come check it out, and help me build the best floral community on the Internet. https://www.skool.com/floral-design-9325 #florist #floraldesigner #weddingflowers #flowershop #floraldesign