23 Things to Do to Kick-off & Grow Your Flower Business in 2023

2023 is the year!! Right? Are you READY?!

If you’re unsure, you can still start off 2023 by making some little changes that will be good for the long run. I put together 23 things that you can do to grow and help move your business forward in the new year. I know it can be a lot to do! Some are really super easy and quick, but some do require a bit of planning! The first 2 things are a must before you do anything else. Then I tried to put the items in order from easier to more time-consuming tasks. If you have an assistant, offload some of the tasks to her so you can free yourself up to do other things. If not, some of these you can do in one sitting or just plan it out little by little to get them done.

1. Write down a scary but attainable goal for 2023 on a Post-it and put it in front of you on your desk or bathroom mirror. You need to see it everyday and be reminded of your goal! Make sure it’s one that scares you but also attainable. If you’re too comfortable with the goal, you can definitely do better!
2. Take that goal and break it down into smaller goals. What are you going to accomplish the first 90 days of the year? What are you going to accomplish the first 60 days in order to help you hit the 90 day milestone? The first 30 days, first 2 weeks, 1 week? This is not a quick task but let’s just get it started and keep working on it. A reminder also to set CLEAR & SMART goals I talked about in a previous blog post.
3. Change your mindset from “maybe I can do it, let’s see what happens” to “I can definitely reach my goals this year. My dream business is inevitable!” If you’re thinking “maybe that will happen” sorry you already lost… you need to be determined to make it happen! It will happen, not if it happens.
4. Add a photo of yourself to your email signature. I love when others have a photo of themselves in their email signature, it just makes the conversation more real. I’m talking to a real person and they can put a face to the email. If you have other team members answering emails, make sure they sign their names too. I really have issues with customer service reps not signing their names and just writing “Regards, xx floral company”. Can you please be a little more personal <wink>
5. Add a CTA (call-to-action) in your email signature. You need to get used to call-to-actions more! Often times we are too shy to ask clients to do anything. In your email or on your website or even on social media. Always have a call-to-action. You don’t get what you don’t ask. Simply “check out my gallery!” would do the trick.
6. Review your social media CTA’s. Do you have too many links in your #linkinbio? Too many choices aren’t good, narrow down to only the ones that you really want your potential clients to click on i.e. “contact”, “view gallery”…
7. Unfollow competitors and accounts that aren’t doing you any good. Stop looking at your competitors and feeling intimidated, comparing or being jealous. You do you! Who cares about others! Also, make it a point to stop scrolling through social media endlessly. Let’s do something more productive with your time!
8. Cancel memberships or subscriptions you’re not using to their full extent. I know I have some I need to cancel because I no longer need them or I ended up not using much. If there’s a while until membership expiration, I put a reminder in my calendar a few days before the expiry date.
9. Reach out to past clients to say Happy New Year! This shows that you’ve been thinking of them, not just bye bye after their wedding was said and done. This will allow you to be top of mind when their friends might be engaged over the holidays! I love doing this as it’s all part of the client experience, and no it doesn’t just stop once you delivered and setup their wedding flowers.
10. Reach out to 5 vendors to say Happy New Year! Choose 5 (more if you can!) vendors or venues to wish them an amazing year ahead. Remember, choose vendors who are already working with your ideal clients.
11. Audit your website gallery and Instagram profile and delete the images that do not represent your best work or the work you want to attract. I talk about this a lot. I posted any and all that I’ve created, I had trouble deleting anything of my work. But let me tell you that ain’t the way to go! If you want to attract your ideal clients, delete the work that you don’t want to attract. It’s hard, but trust me on this one!
12. Set or raise your minimum spend per wedding. I raise it once or twice a year as I book more weddings so that I can keep scaling my business. I don’t want huge weddings but I’ve a sweet spot and goal for this year. If you keep taking on small weddings with budget of i.e. $1k, you will be too occupied with them and will need to book more of those to hit your revenue goal. This means more running around to different locations per weekend instead of doing one decent size wedding in one shot.
13. Time to raise your prices! Always aim to have a 70% or more profit margin on your flowers for every wedding. If you’ve already reached that 70%, great! I have and still I keep raising my prices every year, or even a couple of times a year.
14. Update your Google My Business profile to reflect your best work. If you don’t already have one, time to get one! It doesn’t take long: https://business.google.com/create. You’ll get a better chance of being found in Google local searches.
15. Reach out to 5 past clients and ask them to review you on Google My Business. Social proofs are extremely important, if you’ve read my prevew blog post, you’ll know why and I’ve given some tips for you to get some testimonials. Time to take action if you haven’t done so.
16. Make it a habit to schedule things on your calendar. Whatever is not on my calendar will never get done! If it’s on my calendar, it means I will make time for it. Use your calendar more in the new year.
17. Automate one task. Think of a task that you can automate. What is it that you’re spending a lot of time on that you don’t really need to? Back and forth with booking client consultations? Put in place an appointment scheduler. Aim to automate one task a month!
18. Make one template. What are you always starting from scratch doing? For the longest time I was doing proposals from scratch. Silly me, I knew I should have a template but I just never did it. Put aside time to make one template now.
19. Choose at least one thing you can invest in for the 1st quarter. You can figure it out allll by yourself, I tried to for the longest time. But sometimes you just need to suck it up and invest in yourself and your business in order to get it going! Invest in a course, a CRM (Client Relationship Management), a task management tool (a lot of them are free and robust!), purchase some done-for-you templates so you don’t have to spend time figuring it out.
20. Invite 3 vendors to do a guest post on your blog. Again, choose vendors that are working with your ideal clients. This is great for your website SEO, so remember to choose your keywords wisely.
21. Invest in a brand photoshoot. This photoshoot is all about you, the floral designer. Get your hair and makeup done and let’s get some shots of you behind-the-scenes, working on your laptop, playing with flowers and a couple of headshots. Plan out the shots so that they bring out your personality. These are great professional images of you that you can post throughout your website so that when potential clients visit your website, they see your face and as they browse, they will feel that they have already gotten to know you. They’re also great for social media because how often do you see florists post a photo of them on their account? Let’s get your face seen!
22. Plan a styled shoot with intention. This means not to plan a styled shoot just for getting pictures for your own website or social media. Do it well and so well that you can get it published on a local wedding marketing website or a popular wedding blog. This will get a link back to your website and give you the “media bling”. Start collecting those logos!
23. Delete your Instagram photos. Delete photos from your Instagram or online website gallery that doesn’t align with the couples you want to attract. What you post matters. Whatever style you don’t want to attract, don’t show those images. Show more of what you want to attract.

Alright, I know, seems overwhelming! But let’s take it little by little and get these done. Set a deadline for each one so that you’re not likely to take action! What will be the first 5 things you will do first to kick off 2023? Share below so we can keep each other accountable!

If you haven’t already, take a look at my blog posts on how-to and the importance of doing a year-end review and annual planning for your flower business. Let’s really take action, the right actions! to grow your dream business in 2023!

Cheering you on!