How to start a flower business from scratch!

Hey guys my name is Alexis and I have been a florist for the last 6 years. I have a Youtube channel and blog dedicated to helping aspiring florists become masters florists and help jump start their career in floral design!

If you have a passion to become a florist in 2020 but you aren't sure where to start,... then sit back, relax and grab your pencil because I am about to share with you the steps I took to start my own flower business from scratch!

Click to watch the full video below

But for those of you who would prefer to read,...

In today's video/post I am going to walk you through the five steps I took to help advertise my business and get paying clients FAST!

For those of you who don't know, I moved to Alabama in October. Because I moved away from my home town in south eastern Pennsylvania, It put me in a position where I was FORCED to find all new clients in a completely new state I knew absolutely nothing about or the people.

Here are the five key steps I took to advertise my business!

Optimizing your name on social media,

(Specifically Instagram!)

The first thing I recommend you do when starting your flower business from scratch is actually changing your instagram name to something more searchable!

In the instagram title you have your @name

ex: @flowersbyalexis and then the black bold letters that most people use to put their full name.

We are going to be focusing on the black bold letters. Let's say I am looking for a makeup artist in the Philadelphia area. When you search on instagram, “Philly Makeup artist” all the accounts using the black bold words title “Philly Makeup artist” will actually pop up FIRST in the instagram search bar.

What this means for you: you are going to change your name on instagram from

ex: Alexis Christine to Philly Florist, Alexis

Making this little change alone, you should notice an increase of followers but it will be people in your location area that will now be following you.

Optimizing your social media name on instagram really helped new clients find me alot easier and It's definitely a key tip in growing your business when you are starting out!

BONUS TIP: This also ties in when you are actually posting your instagram content. When you are posting using the instagram platform you want to make sure you are also GEOTAGGING all of your pictures so people can also find you through location.

Advertise in Facebook groups about your

flower business

A thing I did that really helped advertise my business when I was starting completely brand new was joining popular facebook groups in my area and posting in these groups about my flower services.

Personally, I thought facebook was a dying app, I did not think anyone used this app in 2020 but to my surprise people are!

People in these groups so far that I have found are very supportive. I had people sharing my business posts to other people looking for a florist and that right there is super amazing!

The best thing about facebook groups is that You can search in the group questions people are asking. What I do is look up someone looking for a florist for a wedding and I comment under these posts like hey, I would love to help you on your special day, let's set up a time where we can do a quick 10 minute phone consultation, or something like that.

This has been very successful for me and I recommend you do it as well!

Leave behind a flower arrangement and business card to high traffic businesses

This option is good if you have a little extra moola lying around and you are looking to get a little creative!

I got a bunch of flowers sent to me from Petal Driven, I reviewed their product and made a centerpiece using their flowers so If you have not seen those videos already, go check it out!

I had a ton of flowers left over from that project so I used the rest of the flowers sent to me, and bought some new blooms of my own from my local wholesaler.

I made 8 small vases and attached my business card and a note card sized sheet of paper with some more information about my business!

At the time, I was trying to push my flower subscription service so I attached information on that.

I went around to the popular businesses in town that got alot of foot traffic and dropped on one flower arrangement per business.

A Lot of the businesses were so happy to get free flowers, nobody turned me down even though I was soliciting my business.

One business, cookie dough magic, gave me a free scoop of cookie dough which BTW… I wish I got 4 scoops. It was literal heaven on earth! I got the butter cookie flavor [:

Try to be as happy and positive as possible! I think it's important to put a face with the business and have people remember you so I recommend doing that in your hometown.

Make a Google my business account

You know when you look up a business on google and you get the hours, the location, pictures, all that,... well that's a google my business account.

Someone who worked for that company physically made an account for that store and added all the information and now whenever you look up “party city near me” the nearest google location pops up.

Add your business to google and make a google my business account. This process does not take long, about 20-30 minutes.

The hardest part is getting reviews. If you already have some clients who could write you a solid review then have them write a google one for you.

Collaborate with photographers in your area

Photographers are usually picked before florists during the whole wedding process because some couples choose to take engagement photos. The question “do you know a good florist?” comes up during these shoots.

You want to in the first recommendation in the planning phases of the wedding process.

Make friends or build professional relationships with photographers and have them recommend you as the florist to these newly engaged couples.

My friend Sarah Sewell Photography located in Conshohocken PA does all my pictures you see on my instagram (minus the ones I take using my phone but you can clearly see the difference of Sarah's photos vs my own lol.

Sarah recommends my flower servies to newly engaged couples all the time and because of Sarah, I have gotten so many clients this way!

Florists and photographers in my opinion go hand in hand! Build good relationships with photographers and the money will start flowing!

BONUS TIP:

Register to wedding sites like the knot or wedding wire and pay to have your services advertised!

The knot and wedding wire offer paid advertising services that you can use to advertise your business to newly engaged couples in your area.

These options can be a bit pricey, so I recommend having a good savings built so you can afford these services.

I personally do not use these apps to promote my flower business. however, I know plenty of florists who do use these two apps and have had lots of success finding new clients

.

Thank you so much for reading and or watching this video today!

Let me know what tip worked best for you! If you have any advertising tips of your own leave the in the comments section below so we can all grow as a community of florists!

Make sure to check out these helpful articles to JUMPSTART your floral design career!

WHAT IS A FLORIST?

HOW TO BECOME A FLORIST IN 2021 WITH NO EXPERIENCE

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A FLORIST

HOW TO START A FLOWER BUSINESS FROM SCRATCH!