Literally just going through my old, I have an external hard drive with a whole bunch of shenanigan stuff on it old, old, old work stuff from past careers, you know, to keep these random things. I'm sure I have my old resume on there. One of these days, I should really dust that thing out. Get myself a new job, get myself a real job, guys. Let's go get real jobs. Anyway, I, um, was going through and found the very first wedding proposal that I had ever put together.

This is for the beautiful Pru and Paul getting married in October of 2015. They had like a beautiful wedding. I do still remember her wedding dress, stunning, stunning, but I, I was digging through those old documents and this was a keynote document. Yes. A keynote document didn't even know at the time. I'm not even sure if they existed, but I didn't even know at the time that people used things like Dubsado and honey book, I just used what I knew how to use through from corporate land, obviously did a huge number of presentations.

I was like, well, I know how to use keynote. I can make something look pretty in here. I was under the impression that I had to do all of this back and forth and create this epic document that like mood board slash proposal thing had eight versions of it, eight back and forth iterations of it. I was even looking at like the variations on the quote that I had given her.

I thought like, yeah, it's just all over the place, my friends all over the place. But it really got me thinking about if I could rewind the clock and go back and tell Kathleen of October 2015 and 12 months before that, what would I want to know about how to navigate the wedding inquiry process? And very specifically, let's go in and like debunk some of these myths around doing wedding consults.

It's so helpful for every single one of us to have a bit of an under of the context of a wedding consultation. Like what is the point of a wedding consultation? And really start to question what we right, what you, as the business owner, as the head of sales want to do with your wedding consultation process. And I wanted to pass along my five part framework to really give you some guidance in terms of, if I was starting from scratch, how would I plan a wedding consult?

How did I get here from there? And what do I wish I had known back in the day that could help really set the stage and give some understanding about the value of a wedding consultation. And it never even crossed my mind. I didn't even know to think about and give some thoughts to, or understand the point of a wedding consultation.

My thought process was, well, I want to be seen as legitimate. So I need to just keep doing what I see other people doing. I didn't have that community of flower friends, right? Small town. Everybody's very like insular stuck to themselves. I was the newbie. I had a weird foreign accent, like definite outta towner, fresh off the boat that this idea of I had no context and no understanding of how other people ran consults in their business.

So I just made it up based on what I could glimer from other business owners. And I realized how wrong I was in that approach, because I didn't know that there was a strategy to follow when it came to conducting wedding consults. And if we zoom out, right, if we take the 10,000 foot view and the process that you set up for connecting with your clients, building relationships with your customers, and really setting yourself up for being able to make the work that you love and knowing.

Oh, right. Okay. So that process actually starts from the minute from the second, from that millisecond that your customer finds out about you, the process of vetting your clients actually happens before you talk to them. And this is the value of your Instagram feed and the you in particular of your website of that vetting process of steering your clients in a very specific direction of leading them down.

A customer journey happens well before you as a human being, talk to them. But we're taught all of this in such a bass awkward way. And here's a really fun exercise. If you are anywhere near your computer, if you have your phone anywhere near you, don't do this while you're driving, but Google, how to do florist wedding consult and go in and look at the first one or two blog posts, right?

The first one or two bits of advice, they'll probably be from either planners from floral designers from magazines. But go in and like just click on the first couple. And a couple things really shocked me.

One how detailed some of those demands are like the list of expectations of what you're supposed to. And I say that in quotes, what you're supposed to go through at a wedding consultation, I was like, whoa, like I'm exhausted just from reading this list, let alone having even done the consultation itself.

I know for those of you guys who are like me extremely introverted instead of being like, I need to go lie down, just even at the thought of going through all of these questions with the prospective client, but this idea of what is the traditional narrative within our industry and how our industry is educating our customers to show up at a consultation so that like other floral designers are writing blog posts, or this industry is writing content to tell our clients that you need to have your colour palette and bring your invitations and what is your dress colour, and what is this?

And what is that? And as many details as they possibly can to the day and the challenge that, that sets up for us as creatives and that, that sets up for us as designers is it really paints us into a very specific box. The idea that we're setting up all of these expectations and asking our clients to come to the table with a list of 300 things, paints a very finite space for creativity and for opportunity. And it sets this tone of being very directive, very like listy, very reactive and much like, okay, well, we're just gonna do a specific number of things.

I think the biggest challenge that that content sets up for our clients is this expectation that they're supposed to know everything, even this expectation. Like I could not even imagine. I could not even imagine if I was a human being, getting married, the number of decisions that you have to make.

Then you're gonna ask them to get down to the level of like, yeah, what's your colour palette. And they are then not even aware of the fact that your colour story can fluctuate through the experience of the wedding, but being painted into this box. And I know for me, this idea of having our clients come to us with this very directive list is such a turnoff.

It's like, oh my gosh, this is such an incredibly missed opportunity because you could, as a poor client, think I'm supposed to know everything. So therefore I'm gonna spend hours and hours and hours researching things. And then you're gonna show up and I'm gonna be like, well, pennies aren't available in August. And then they're gonna feel a fool. And I'm probably not gonna get that wedding. Like, because I just made them feel embarrassed because they've just spent all this time and energy trying to get themselves to a place of knowing the information. And I was like, well, you're wrong.

Of course you can deliver that information in a very empathetic way, but I really just want to open your mind to the possibility that your consult is just one step in the process. And that content that you put out ahead of time, like your content strategy on Instagram and the content that you have on your website to help you educate and to help you vet your clients sets you up for so much more success within your business.

I know that it sounds really simple, but this idea of being the floral designer, who gives your clients permission to not know a damn thing, no, you don't need to have a colour palette. You don't even need to know the name of that really white, fluffy flower. Nope. You don't need to know this. And you definitely don't need to know that. Here are the three things that I would like you to have when you come in contact with us or whatever you want that process to be.

Because at the end of the day, we all know as human beings that we are very self centered creatures. This is how we are programmed. We are individualistic within our community and within our culture this is how we just operate outta the box as humans.

We as the floral designer are super focused on ourselves. And we're really worried, like we're all walking around, waiting for the flower police to show up. We're all walking around, waiting for somebody to knock on the door, being like you can't do it that way. We're all walking around, waiting for somebody to call us out and tell us that we're fraud.

That's how we are operating within our businesses. Like this is the human condition within our business. And your brain comes up with all sorts of horrible, like gut-wrenching scenarios. Like what if they ask me about my experience?

What if they ask me how many weddings I've done before? What if they tell me I'm too expensive? What if they ask me about my qualifications? Right? Like, because our brain is really like protecting us from in the fear it's scanning the environment. And it's assuming that your next client is gonna ask you all of your worst case scenario questions and in our industry.

You will hear so many kind of like shortcuts and tips and tricks on how to navigate inquiries. Like, should I give them a gift? Should I make sure that we're ready to do a mockup? You know, make sure your studio is, is absolutely spotless and you need to have this fancy proposal template and that kind of brochure. And then you need to have all these bells and whistles and you need to make sure that you take them out for coffee and then buy them champagne.

You'll hear things as well, like compounding all of our own self doubt and hesitation, right. And also just meeting strangers. And then I'm supposed to like do all these things, because all these other floral designers say that they do these things in a consult and then these common phrases of like you only get one chance to make a good first impression. Don't fuck it up.

And it's like, oh great. Yes. Let us all put the weight of the world on our own shoulders. Are we setting ourselves up for success? No. Like no wonder we lose sight of the whole point of a consultation.

Because we're all spinning in our uncertainty and our overwhelm totally lost focused on what matters the most like really what matters and why the heck even hosting wedding consultations in the first place? Like what is the point? My friends. So I'm here to tell you, at the end of the day, you have two goals with a wedding consultation, two goals.

One get clarity. This is about painting the box, understanding the information. So what needs to be done by when, what are their expectations? What is the budget? What is the list of deliverables? What is a framework for them that you need to work within? You are on the information gathering detective trying to really understanding like what is the box that we get to play today.

So I want you to paint the picture and get really clear, right? You get to ask really probing questions because you're here to gather information. It's like, you want to get the data out of your client's head. And in most cases they've never thought about some of these things before and that's okay because you're just gonna ask really helpful questions. So goal number one with your wedding consultation system is to get clarity, right? This is like, what are we trying to achieve? What does success look like within this wedding or within this event?

Number two, the second reason that you would go through the consultation process is to build a relationship, to really get a sense of who they are as human beings. And what matters can you help them? Do you like them? Are they a good fit for you? Can you even deliver what they're looking for or is it a totally outlandish request and is working with this client, something that your business wants to do?

One of the mistakes that I made early on and it was 2018, when we really shifted our approach to wedding consultations was not using the wedding consultation itself as the end all be all for this relationship. I didn't want it to be the first time that I was gathering information from these clients. And I didn't want it to be the first time that they were hearing some of our design principles or some of our kind of philosophies around flowers and season and less is better and leave it to mother nature and be open minded etc.

I wanted to, to make sure that when my clients came for the consultation, that it was a really good use of their time, as much as it was a good use of my time. Because I think that was 2018. And if you go way back in the archives, you will hear the podcast where I explained this a little bit more, but it was 2018 where I did hundreds, my friends, hundreds of consultations, I am not even exaggerating.

I didn't book anywhere near the percentage of what you should like traditionally be booking, talk about the definition of a waste of time, which is such a great gift because it taught me, Hey, there's a better way. Which also means that you get to learn, Hey, there's a better way.

So in this season of a thousand billion bajillion weddings happening the world, trying to catch up with everything that's been going on in the last couple years, really recalibrating and using, particularly if you feel like you're in a hectic wedding season, if you are one of the florist who kind of really hates the in quotes, I'm spending all this time on admin, or I don't feel in alignment with getting back to my clients or I need to get my systems and my processes in place. Great.

I actually highly recommend that you navigate that where you can, I don't want you to get to like adrenal fatigue and burnout, but this idea of it could actually be to your advantage to try and navigate and streamline your systems through the hectic busy seasons.

Because if you can navigate your systems through these moments where you only glimpses of time, then when you recalibrate maybe in your own off season, or maybe when you feel like your business has returned to some level of whatever you want normal to look like, you're gonna all of a sudden feel like you have an abundance of time.

So I just want to throw that idea in there because I know it might kind of shock some of you guys where it's like, what do you mean? You want me to take some of my busiest seasons and start to navigate and streamline my approach? Yeah, because then you'll see the greatest payoff.

It's so powerful. My friends because like as Mr. Good old Albert Einstein says, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again and hoping for a different result and this idea of whoa, like let's take this busy, crazy season and this to bajillion 11 billion number of weddings that are happening in 2022 and actually think, oh, okay.

How could I use this hecticness as an opportunity to simplify? So where you find yourself spending a lot of time, if you're spending a lot of time on wholesale orders or navigating inquiries, right? Those are the things that you know, that you need to refine and simplify within your business.

So I will also just, you know, shameless plug, come join us inside our flower boss bootcamp because I just give you all of my systems. But when it comes down to the idea of a consultation, I want you to really think about this as like a one time interaction, like the actual face to face, even if you're hosting it on zoom, but the actual like human live interaction with another human being that is going to set the foundation for more creativity and more freedom within your designs so that you can do the work that you really wants to be doing.

I want you to think about your consultation as a way to set the foundation for your creativity. You're not doing a consult to vet your clients. You're not doing your consultation as your first point of contact with your customers. Instead, this is like middle of the road.

This is really about paving the way from more creative freedom on the day. So when you can come at it from that perspective, when you can come at it from, okay, so we're part into this building a relationship with a client. Now this is about setting the next level in this relationship building the next layer of trust and really understanding like, what is the box that I need to play within? How far can I push these boundaries? What are they open to? What are they amenable to? What's stressing them out and in the beginning. I absolutely.

And I'm sure you guys can even find somewhere in all of the free stuff that I've thrown out into the world. I know that our wedding consultation questionnaire is out there, which is old, right. And I'll also for those of you guys inside of the bootcamp, you'll see how much our process has evolved since then.

If you guys dig around, you can find it. I'm sure if you Google it, you'll be able to find it, but you can see how much of an order taking exercise I thought that the wedding inquiry or the wedding consultation itself was, it's kind of like, I thought that the wedding consultation itself was like when you're in the restaurant, placing your order. Right. But this idea of, instead of showing up and being the floral designer that asks questions, like, what flowers do you like and what colours do you want?

I'm just realizing like, those questions just set our clients up for so much overwhelm and our poor clients, like those poor couples that I met with through 20 17, 20 18 and realizing it's like, oh my God, I was just like adding so much pressure to the experience for them because how are they supposed to even know like literally, how are those amazing humans supposed to know what's possible?

When we ask some very specific questions and we put the expectation on them, that they are prepared with information, we're inadvertently compounding the stress for them. So while they're trying to navigate, you know, their relationship with their mother-in-law and how much they're gonna spend on their wedding in total and, you know, maybe is grandma gonna be there? Is she gonna be able to make it? Is she not gonna be able to make it who's freaking out, who's having drama, like all of the normal family dysfunction that comes to the table when we're navigating weddings, right.

Let alone compounded by COVID. But this idea of, oh wow, we could be doing a disservice to our humans and to our clients by asking them. And by assuming that those are questions that they have prepared for. And in most cases they might have answers to it because they think they're supposed to have answers to it.

We are just compounding the situation and making it even more stressful for them. And we're painting ourself into a corner. Right. We've all done that. Like I vividly remember knowing I had committed to a client like burgundy and I had to find those burgundy carnations. Like it was just so stressful running around the city flower market, just trying find those carnations. I didn't even care if they were crappy quality. I just like I had to have them. And like it's such this domino effect of, because it was so specific from the very beginning.

And then the box gets tighter and tighter and tighter. And then in Australia in the middle of winter and you're dealing with all of the import flowers and the uncertainty of agricultural Australia and like all of the ups and downs that we have to navigate.

I was just making it so difficult for myself and I was making it difficult for our clients. So through all of that and really unpacking everything and remembering, like, I remember having a really great conversation with one of my favourite hair, makeup artists. And she had such an incredible way of talking about colour palettes with her clients.

I remember listening to her once, explain this to one of our brides at the time and realizing like there's so much about colour that I didn't even necessarily understand in relation to makeup. And in relation to the skin tone of our like bride and realizing like, even as somebody who loves colour and has studied colour for a really long time, it's like, oh right.

You throw like a human skin tone into the mix with a certain colour dress. And then you have to change the dynamic again. So this idea of that many of our clients don't even necessarily know that those like really bright fuchsia shades and pink would be absolutely stunning and amazing with a certain skin tone and completely awful with another skin tone, nor did they necessarily know, like there was that wave. I know it would come back again of like wanting to have Navy as like a really strong accent color on flowers.

Having to find like whatever the closest blue Navy flower is, and, or spray painting and, or including Navy ribbon on the bouquets and then going, you look at those finished products and those finished images and you realize like, oh wait, like navy a really hard colour to include in like the photography spectrum when you've also got like white and ivory and cream and blush, you're like, oh, like, wait a minute.

I remember in the good old days, this would've been 2019 at the time of that real insurgents, actually it was probably 2018, but that real push on burgundy and blush, and that's what every bride wanted. And just listening to the hair, makeup artist going like, yep burgundy doesn't necessarily suit everybody.

But really recognizing like we are trained in our industry to be like the servers in a restaurant, right? Like you just show up at the order pad. It's like, can I take your order please? And in our case, unless we've created a set menu, which I know you guys inside of the bootcamp is part of the process.

So you're covered, but for most formal designers, if you don't have a menu in front of you, they're then using Instagram, Pinterest and something that their mom told them as the placeholder, right. They're fine. Trying to find information that they can use as their menu to then come to the table, looking like they know what they're doing. And you see this in so many places. Right. And I will tell you guys, if you have a couple of minutes, go down the rabbit hole of like Googling wedding floors consultation.

Because then you'll see things like your clients have to bring photos and fabrics watches and invitations and stationary and like, oh my gosh, it's so interesting. How much of a corner we can paint ourselves into just by that idea of how we set up the point of a consultation. And I know for me, it seemed like such a good idea on paper.

Like I was so not wanting to be called out as a fraud that I thought that this is what I had to do, even though I was like, I am okay to talk you through this process and to get you to open your eyes to the fact that there's 70 billion other flowers out there other than a pennies I just didn't know that I was allowed to do that. And I am such a firm believer now of really thinking through your customer experience and ahead of time.

So I'll tell you guys like put this together in your content strategy, around your Instagram posts and the content that you have on your website, around how, and when you educate your clients on the system and the process that you're going to take them through and really map out for yourself so that you can then clearly communicate it to your clients around the system that they're gonna be navigating. And the process like how the heck does this whole thing work.

I am a huge fan of giving your clients permission to not know a dang thing. Because they're so intimidated. They're so intimidated by this whole experience that if you can really meet them where they're at and I'll literally be like, no, create a graphic image, throw it up on your Instagram feed that just says permission granted. And then in the caption, explain to your clients, you don't need to know a thing. That's why you're working with us.

On one hand, we want the freedom to be able to pull out the best blooms from the growers. And like, if there is that little surprise element that texture, that little delicate, like dancing flower, we want to be able to use it if we're called to use it.

In order to do that, it all comes from the beginning of setting this relationship with your clients. And I just want to invite you to create a way that really sets you up to create the work that you want to create. I want you to think about the wedding consultation as the pivot point, right? Really setting the foundation for the creativity of the rest of the experience. I want you to move away from having your consultation as like the first point of contact. I want you to set up your inquiry process, right?

If you think about how we teach you guys to do this inside of the flower boss bootcamp and the number of steps that you and your clients will have gone through before you even get to the consultation process. But also know I want you to take the framework I'm about to walk through and I want you to make it your own, right? This is just something that Kathleen finds really useful.

So take the pieces that, you know, work for you and then make it your own. And I want you to just wipe the slate, clean, like forget everything that you've ever been taught, or you think that you should be doing from a wet in consultation perspective. And let's just come at this from five different perspectives. So step one, right? The first part of the framework is I want you to actually create a framework for yourself.

I want you to think about you are setting up the stage. You are creating a play and you're putting on a performance. And I want you to think about mapping out kind of the choreography of what you want your consultation experience to look like, what you want that system to be, what you want that framework to be and how you want to show up and think about this from the moment that they actually book in the consult.

What do you want that book experience to look like? What do you want it to feel like? What do you want to say in the confirmation email? How do you want to educate them? How do you want to tell them to show up on the day? How do you want them to prepare? How long do you want your consult to be? And then of course, there's the consult itself and all of this, you get to choreograph, you get to decide if you're gonna have your consultations onsite, you're gonna decide if you're gonna have it in a co-working space.

Maybe you have it in a studio. Maybe you have it in a coffee shop. You get to decide all of it. And then there's also the actual like follow-up to the process. So I really want you to tease apart and think to yourself, okay? So there's the booking and the experience around the booking.

Then there's the preparation that you are going to educate your clients on. Like what do they need to have prepared to come to the consultation? Then there's the actual conducting the consultation and then there's the follow-up. So really tease apart that entire process for yourself and think about how you want to map that out in your business.

Part two, I want you to put yourself in your client's shoes. I want you to really think about what it is that they are thinking about. And most importantly, what is it that they are worried about?

I'm gonna tell you what, they're probably not worried about your portfolio, or have you ever done a wedding here or how many weddings have you done? They're probably worried about budget. They're worried about being in agreement or disagreement with their fiance. They're worried about what their mother-in-law's gonna say. They're worried about X, Y, Z, over here, right? They're worried about having to go then meet the cake maker.

They've only got 20 minutes, whatever they've done in terms of their own schedule, put yourself in your client's shoes and ask yourself, what are they most worried about? What might they be thinking also, if you were your clients, what would success look like if you were the client showing up to the consult, what would they like to walk away with after the consult for me, I know. Okay. I'd really love to know as a client, what's a good framework to follow in terms of my budget.

I'd really want to be talking numbers, because as much as we'll be like, I want to pitch all these grandiose amazing ideas. My brain as the client is gonna be like, how much is it gonna cost me? And I'm not gonna pay attention to any of the ideas, any of the add-ons any of the solutions until I understand some of the costs.

So then for me as like the head of sales in the consult, I am going to be prepared to talk about money. I'm going to have my tools at the ready to be able to create a quick quote, to be able to talk through budget guidance, to be able to give them some guidance and direction, to be able to give them some indication as to just how far off is your wish list from your actual budget and how much more money will you need to go out and find in order to make your entire wish list happen.

So this idea of put yourself in your client's shoes and you're gonna have so many aha moments about how you want to set up your consultations and really give yourself permission to let go of what you think it's supposed to look like. And I want you to come to the table with like a partnership mentality and this start it's when you think about, okay.

So step one is think through the entire framework of the consultation. Step two is put yourself in your client's shoes. And then step three is I want you to find your own balance between the big picture dream, right? Paint, the vision. And then the practical details on the day. One of the things I noticed with our clients is that very rarely did they feel like they had somebody in their corner and for our clients, most of the time they're not dealing with, or they're not working with a planner, they might have a stylist, but in a lot of cases with our clients where I found our relationship really hit a great groove, was understanding.

They needed somebody to advocate for them. They've got so many different perspectives being thrown at them. So many expectations about, are you gonna invite uncle Jerry and aunt Jenny and our Sue and Bob gonna come down from the UK and like all of these little details. And it's like, they just need somebody to come back to remind them of the excitement on the day.

The reason that they're getting married and the fact that they're allowed to have fun and really advocate for the magic on the day. So the thing here is to like put yourself in the driver's seat. I want you to drive the consultation. I want you to drive the machines at the stage and tell them this whole dang thing is gonna go down. And this even starts before you have the consultation itself. And I want you to share on your Instagram, on your website, maybe you send them emails ahead of time in your questionnaires.

Maybe there's even a template email that you have where it's like how to prepare for your wedding. Consult, give them the tools to help them feel empowered. And don't ever hesitate to be open with your expertise and share your ideas, because this will really separate you from the competition. And I want you to come to the table focused on solutions.

I also don't want you to ever hesitate with pointing out potential problems. Remember even in a best case scenario, your clients have done this. What like months before, like maybe 10 year, 15 years ago, like best case scenario. And even now like for our clients who were doing their second wedding, it was like, well now I'm gonna do everything I wish I had done on my first.

So five questions that you might want to ask in the consultation. One, what's your vision for, I want you to paint me a picture of how you see this whole thing unfolding. I want you to get into the dream. I want you to tease it out for them. Just get them talking. Two. What is it that you're most excited about on your wedding day? Let's talk priorities. Let's talk about what's most important to you guys, right? So we're gonna go from really big picture down to, okay. Let's get into the excitement. Like what are you guys caring about the most? And they're all gonna have different answers.

We've had clients who are like, I can't wait to just be pampered and get my hair and makeup done and hang out with my girlfriends. Others have been like the food and the music. A lot of them have been like the flowers and the beauty and the joy and just having everybody together, every one of your clients is gonna have a slightly different answer, but get them by having them talk about what they're most excited about on the day that one question will really help seed and understand what their values are.

So you'll be able to see, oh, okay. So they really do care about the flowers or the flowers are indispensable. Like you can create a little bit of a hierarchy in your own head in terms of like what matters to them the most so that you can also tease out from them priorities and talking about what's most important to them. Number three, what is stressing you out the most?

Nobody else will ever ask them this question except a really experienced photographer or hair makeup artist. But if you can ask your clients the question of what is stressing you guys out the most about the day, you are going to build such an incredible relationship with them and what you will be able to then deliver on the big day will be that much better because you feel like you will know your clients at such a deeper level.

They need somebody to advocate for them and you get to be their quasi therapist by asking them what is stressing you out the most, right? I've had clients say, you know what? If it rains, I've had clients be really honest about the dysfunction in their own family. I've had clients talking about their mother-in-law or talking about, you know, is my sister even going to be talking to me like sometimes it's really powerful how honest and transparent your clients will be.

Some of my favourite clients have all shared the idea of like, what's stressing me out on the day being this centre of attention, but having that conversation with them and bonding with them on that level, because then you can make the joke of like, well, that's great because now we're gonna have like a really wow ceremony installation. So we're just gonna completely shroud you with flowers and they love it, right?

Because you totally get them. And question number is get clarity around budget. And in actual fact, I'm gonna tell you, ask that question in your inquiry form so that you can then come to the table with an even more informed point of view for the vast majority of us talking about money in person with a client is really uncomfortable.

So do yourself and do your clients a favour by getting question on your original inquiry form so that you are simply there presenting back the facts to them, right? They said they have $1,500 or they said they had $15,000. Now you're just presenting the information back to them and you can have a conversation about it. It's such a more casual and safe space to be talking in as opposed, put the spotlight on and be like, give me your budget and not having actually talked about that before.

Question number five, and this is probably one of my favourites, although all five are good, but if you could ask me anything, what would it be? totally open ended question. It's so helpful. Like give them permission to not know anything and make them feel like they've said their piece at this consultation and they will love you. It's like, they don't even care if you're bridle bouquets are five times more expensive than somebody else's they're like this person's amazing. I'm like, yeah, I know.

So those five questions are super helpful, my friend's super helpful, but framework aspect, number four, there is no one right way to do a consultation. Literally. I want you to lean into your strengths. I was thinking about this the other day, because in the community and flower boss bootcamp, we were talking about the free version of zoom and the time limitation that it has on it. And my first reaction was perfect way to limit the length of your consultation.

Don't bother paying for it. Just limit your consultation. Like say your consultations are 30 minutes. You have a 10 minute buffer. Thanks for coming. So just know that there really is no one right way to do a consultation and in actual fact, you don't even need to do consultations.

I want you to really just clear the slate and come up with your own process that works for you. And the fifth aspect of the framework is to remember that there is always room for improvement. There's always more clients, more opportunities. Everyday, new people are getting married everyday.

New people are getting engaged everyday. New people are finding out about that venue and booking in the date. And then they're gonna find you through your hashtag strategy. Like everyday new people are gonna come your way. So really understanding you get to lean into the abundance and if you feel like you've tried something, this consultation and made a total ass of yourself, the good news is you'll have another one next week.

And just knowing you always get to come back and tweak and change and iterate and evolve. The most important thing to remember is that the reason for having a consultation is to get clarity on the project and the expectations and to build a relationship with your customers. You don't need to be an order taker. You don't need to ask them to bring 1700 details to the table. You get to set up a consultation process and a system that works for you.

Remember, I want you to sit down and I want you to think about that entire customer experience from the minute that they book in the consultation, to the emails that they receive to the actual consultation, to the follow up. What do you want that process to look like? And if you haven't spent any time putting yourself in your customer's shoes, do that ask yourself like, what are they worried about?

What are they thinking about? What's stressing them out. What would success look like from your client's perspective? And then in your consultation, I want you to come up, use the five questions that we went through, but I want you to come up with your own balance between the big picture dream and the practical details. Come up with your own own questionnaire, your own flow, your own script. That really works for you because remember there's no one right way to do consults and there's always room for improvement.

Don't forget if you want my exact approach to wedding inquiries. If you want all of our templates, our entire system, the whole strategy, all of it. It's just inside the study vaults within the flower boss bootcamp, it's all in there. Every email, our contract, the entire process is mapped out for you step by step. So if you feel like you're a floral designer who is spending so much time on admin and you're like, I really wish I could streamline my approach.

And I don't even know where to start. And I hate systems come join us because you don't have to reinvent anything. You get to learn the exact strategy that we follow. When you get to really learn how to show up and attract better clients and you get to take all of my systems.

I am here to make it easier for every floral designer within this industry to really elevate their game, to make more money, to enjoy this work again, my friends have the most amazing day and take care of yourself. Get some sleep, drink your water and we'll talk to you again next week. Bye for now.