Let's talk about how to raise our prices. And this is such a fascinating topic because my answer is you just raise them . But I think it's so helpful to really understand that the thing that's getting in the way and the thing that always gets in our way is our human brain. That's just like a fact, this is the way that we are programmed to operate. And in many instances, and particularly like absolutely.

100%. I know for me, when it comes to raising prices, my brain immediately goes into fear and scarcity, and what's really important is this is a very, very simple question. How do you raise your prices? I bet if we looked it up in some sort of like textbook or like Wikipedia, we'd be like, you raised them but what's really interesting is for every single one of us, the idea of raising our prices.

And I think this is such a good exercise is it's going to show us where our fear resides. Like what is going on inside of our heads that is actually getting in the way of us increasing our profitability of us, actually doing the scary thing. And we all have a primitive brain.

This is how you are alive. It is why you do not cross the busy street. It's why you are still here as a human being. So it's super helpful. But the work that I find really interesting and really powerful is understanding that so much of that unconscious fear still exists within our day to day existence. Like it's just there. And most of the time, we're not even conscious or aware of it until all of a sudden, like I come along and be like, Hey, you should double your price. And it just brings up that knot in your stomach, right?

It's like, oh, I couldn't do that. And many floral designers, many business owners, many creatives will continue to argue as to why I can't do it. And what's so helpful is to meet that with a sense of compassion and curiosity, and really understand, like you get to decide, you get to decide what you wanna do in your business, what you wanna do with the continued up and down in terms of floral supply, flower availability, wholesale prices, labor supply, labor availability, labor prices, all of these kind of economic infrastructure.

I wanna say details, but they're so impactful. all of these line items, all of these circumstances that we need to navigate in so many instances what I'm beginning to see and what I'm beginning to notice in myself is, huh, this is really interesting. Like the up and down and floral supply is actually just simply this exercise of a magnifying glass being Sean, is that even the right word?

I wanna say, Sean, but that's what you do to sheep anyway, somebody's taken a magnifying gas and really just exemplified, exacerbated most of our human fears. And it's so helpful to know that in the majority of cases, I don't actually have any data to prove this, but I would be willing to do a scientific study of it's actually simply our fear based scarcity, primitive brain. That's making so much of the anxiety happen.

When we surround ourselves with people who are anxious, when people who are as scarcity focused, insufficient, and just really feeling like I cannot do anything about these increased prices, we keep ourselves stuck. Right. And we really start to see, oh, that's so interesting. It's so interesting. How, who I surround myself has a direct impact with my perspective on the world, how I consume media, the media that I do consume how much news I watch absolutely has an impact on your perspective.

And the more we can even just step outside of ourselves and start to become aware of the stories that we're telling ourselves and really understanding like, is that serving me? Is it helpful? Is that a story that I continue to wanna tell myself, or is my perimeter brain offering it up? Because it's a version of fear. And when we can start to come at this work from a place of curiosity and compassion, we can start to take our power back.

We can start to show up in a way that allows us to have complete and utter authority over our own existence and our own being. And when we think about navigating all of the circumstances of being a floral designer, I feel like in 20, 22, it's this idea of so many things have been put under the microscope and it's exacerbating so many of our limiting beliefs that we didn't even know that we had.

And I thought about this the other day. And I was like, I wonder how many people have made the joke of like, before COVID it's like, are we gonna start writing the next version of the Bible of like BC I don't even know, but this idea of it's always gob smacked me that certainly here in this little bubble, like going to the wholesalers, you didn't necessarily see a steady increase in flower prices year upon year upon year.

I find it so fascinating from a super geeky economic perspective. It's like there should be a two to three to 4% increase in wholesale flower prices every single year. So that if you're running a business for five years, 10 years and 15 years flowers should economically speaking, right? Like scientifically speaking on paper, everything should increase by at least 3% per year. But what I always found so interesting is that that doesn't necessarily happen.

You see flower prices increase from a supply and a demand point of view, right? If we go back in the days of BC before COVID and we take a product like stock, that was one that I really would notice is at the beginning of the season, that would be a premium on it. Like when it was first coming into season, same thing with verus this idea of like in the first couple weeks or the first month of availability, there would be a premium on it because supply isn't as plentiful as you go through the seasonal availability of one of these ingredients, you'll start to notice that the wholesale prices begin to settle into a new equilibrium. And then it might be that that product price increases again at the end of their season. And it's so interesting to be like, this is the perfect example of a micro economy.

When supply kicks off, it's going to be at a premium. The price that these things are being offered at is going to be at a premium, as more supply increases, the prices will drop. And then as supply goes down again, the price will increase. That is like the bare bones of basics of economy.

It is like paperwork, textbook economics as supply increases prices go down as supply decreases prices go up and in learning more and more and more about wholesale flowers and supply and demand. And particularly here in Australia, because it is incredibly complicated. And so much of it is like, you have to really dig in to find the information, but it's possible that wholesale flowers are a perfect economy that prices increase as supply decreases and prices increase as demand increases. It's so fascinating that on paper, I wonder, and I kind of would love to do this one day.

If anybody knows any fancy academic economists, maybe somebody could do their PhD on the floral wholesale market. But this idea of from a pure economic situation, the wholesale flower market might be the perfect example of an economy. Now giant big fat caveat, every country, and every state is going to have its different subsidies. It's different payment systems, payment schemes, reimbursement systems, or lack thereof for the farmers and for the growers, not even getting into that.

But if we just look at it on paper and say, okay, so during the season of Ranunculus, for example, as more crops come into season, as they come into their prime as more supply, is there the wholesale prices decrease as the supply dwindles, as it comes to the end of the season, the wholesale prices increase. It's like economics 1 0 1, 1 of my favourite classes in university, absolute favourite classes.

And it was so interesting to me. It's like, I was shocked in the first couple years of going to the wholesale market that there wasn't just this steady increase in the price of wholesale flowers. Like how was it that Ranunculus every year were between like 12 and $14 over like many, many, many years. It wasn't like on year one, it was $12 to $14. And then on year five, it could be economically speaking prices could be steadily increasing by two to three to 4% so that you will actually start to notice a difference in increase in price every couple of years.

It's been interesting to just hypothesize that maybe like if the wholesale flower market is the perfect economy, that what is happening right now with the implications of all of the disaster cluster ness of the last 24 months and all of the domino effect of every single farmer having to make the decisions that they did to just exist to just function, right?

Which putting so much pressure on floral supply right now that it's very possible that what's actually happening is basic economics or just sorting out this industry. And the floral design world is kind of feeling caught off guard because it's been such a long time that we've ever seen such an increase in prices that the economy of the floral supply industry is finally just catching up with where it should be.

It's like, we've just taken for granted the fact that flower prices haven't increased in a really long time. And now it's like, I don't even wanna say overcompensating because it, maybe it isn't like maybe where wholesale flower prices are right now is exactly where they should be. If you just try on that concept, just go, oh, that's like, okay, like roses are supposed to be $90 or a hundred dollars a bundle. And it's really interesting because you can decide that we're gonna argue with reality and be like, I like to go back to the days when they were $50 a bundle , but they're not they're $90 or a hundred dollars a bundle or 150 a bundle or whatever it is that you're paying for them.

Like if you're paying $18, $19 for 10 stems of carnations. Okay. And instead of arguing and wishing that the prices were different when we can take a deep breath and go, Hmm, okay, well this is what it is like the prices are the prices, the input prices, the product prices are the prices and really accepting that fact and just trying it on instead of being in resistance and wishing that the prices would go back to the way that they were, because it is actually a really helpful exercise.

It's a really helpful exercise for you and your business to just decide that the flower prices are never gonna go back because then it's all of a sudden, it's like, huh, I could just accept that these are the prices we can then layer on top of it. The fact that we can accept that the industry standard approach to pricing still works still applies and has been around for decades.

So let's not question that either. Thank you to the thousands of florists who have tested this thing out in the past, thank you to the decades of designers who have put this industry standard pricing model to the test. I appreciate that. You've done that for us. We don't need to worry about it anymore.

Now we just to plug in some new numbers, the work that we need to do in our own recalibration of understanding what to expect, because I find myself resisting the fact and being like, God, do you remember when carnations were $8 a bunch? And now they're $18 a bunch. And instead of walking around, waiting for that day to change, when we can stand here and really accept the fact that it's like, okay, well they're now $18 a bunch. Okay. Now what? And you can begin to propel yourself forward. I often think of it like the weather, like there is nothing we can do when it rains.

And instead of wishing that it was sun shining out or wishing that the wind wasn't blowing or wishing that it wasn't raining, we can just accept what is, and that has been the biggest lesson to practice in the last 24 months for me is just accepting what is them's the facts and it does. It takes like for those of you yoga fans out there, like this is a practice. It just is.

Instead of coming in with all of these expectations, and I know like we put so much suffering on ourselves when we're in resistance to reality, when we wish things were different, when we wish things were going differently. But when you can take a deep breath and go, okay, these are the prices maybe for the last decade, maybe for the last 30 years, we've been getting away with way underpriced, wholesale flowers, and maybe the flower economy is just catching up.

I mean, it's possible. It's absolutely possible. And it's possible that the floral supply market might just be the perfect economy. And it's so helpful to just try on this concept because instead of looking at a bunch of flowers and going, oh, do you remember when we used to be able to sell them for $50? Like instead of really dwelling on the past, we get to go, okay, so this is the math, this is the way that this works right now.

Now we're gonna sell that same cluster of flowers for a hundred bucks. What used to be 50 is now a hundred dollars when we're in that experience of resistance and wishing that we could just sell it for $50, we're creating so much angst and anxiety for ourselves. And then that perpetuates and we continually see that our customers are always gonna be coming to us and being like, oh, flower prices have increased so much.

And like our brain will just pick out all of the confirmation bias as opposed to when we can be in that space of understanding the price is the price. Instead of resisting the price increase, we come to a space of acceptance. It's a little bit like gas prices, petrol prices.

The price is the price we get to decide if we wanna fill our car up with gas or not, everybody gets to make their own decision. And this idea of okay, if the floral supply market is the perfect economy, if prices have increased exactly the amount that they should, instead of wishing things could be different. Let's get to work, understanding the impact that that's gonna have on our marketing and really knowing we get to change the game. We get to put our energy into building our brand, into understanding the service, into understanding the sales process into really offering phenomenal customer service.

And it's so much more empowering to just come to the table and go, well, the math has already been done for me. Thank you very much. That's awesome. Now let's get to work, really understanding how to sell a luxury service because that's what we get to do. And that is what is being demanded of us right now in this day and age of wholesale prices, having double tripled and quadrupled. In some instances, maybe this set of circumstances is absolutely perfect.

Maybe it's the perfect opportunity to step outside of your comfort zone and to really level up your marketing and to really understand the power of your businesses brand. Maybe this is where we really get to separate ourselves from the plain bunches of flowers at the grocery store. And we really get to double down on phenomenal customer service. Maybe this is where we as an industry, get to really educate our customers and show what actually goes into making flowers happen instead of apologizing, instead of feeling bad, instead of carrying the burden, instead of not increasing your prices, maybe this is the perfect opportunity for you to change your game in your business it's possible.

When it comes to thinking about and making a plan for raising your prices, let's go through it step by step. The first thing I want you to do is I want you to sit down and I want you to do the math and really accept the fact that these are the wholesale prices. And I'm going to increase the prices in my flower business accordingly, where I get myself into trouble and where you might be getting yourself into trouble is by wishing that you could still sell the $50 bouquet for $50.

When you know, you should be selling the $50 bouquet for a hundred bucks, the recalibration needs to happen in your own head. It's like, oh, I was wrong for thinking that the a hundred dollars bouquet should now be sold for $50. The recalibration is the a hundred dollars bouquet needs to be sold for a hundred dollars because that's what the math says.

And instead of waiting for the day that wholesale prices go down, let's assume they're never gonna go down instead of waiting and praying for the day that wholesale prices return to the good old days. What if we just decide that we're now in the good old days and now our business gets to catch up. We get to update our prices. We get to grow the flower economy.

We get to employ more people. We get to celebrate and buy more product from local farmers and really nurture this industry for the next level of success. And I love thinking about, okay, so if you are a farmer and you have all of the crazy, I mean, we've all had crazy in the last two years, but I just think about trying to be able to navigate agriculture on that scale with all of the ups and downs of COVID like my brain cannot wrap my head around that.

And it's like, oh, okay. So the wholesale prices that we're seeing now are a direct implication of decisions that farmers had to make in the last 24 months. So it's all working out as planned. And now it's up to the floral designers to catch up with what needs to happen within our economy. It's like this ripple effect, the farmers have done their sorting through the mess and the puzzle. And now it's time for the florists to catch up with what needs to happen. So step number one is to sit down and do the math.

You take the industry standard approach to pricing and you then set up your new price list. We are allowed to just forget whatever our prices used to be. This is one of the most beautiful things that took me a long time to realize as the floral designer, but every new day, there can be a whole new set of customers.

There can be a whole new group of people who wanna work with you. And when you start to kind of see your businesses like every day, there's a new opportunity to reposition yourself. There's a new opportunity to add value to your customers. There's a new opportunity for surprise and delight. There's like this revolving door of goodness that can happen instead of holding on to what's happening in the past. And what was just coming to terms and accepting, what is, this is the current lay of the land. Okay? These are the facts let's move forward.

Let's get to work. So step number one is to do the math and step. Number two is to then go out of your way and make sure you update your prices on everything. Go onto your website and update your prices. If you have your quick quote, worksheet, update your prices, wherever you advertise your prices, wherever it is now is the time do not wait for Monday, do not wait till the first of the month.

Do not wait till the first of the quarter, do not wait till the next financial year. You get to go in there right now and update your prices because there's a new customer about to find your website for the very first time right now. So go out there and raise your prices. And then the thing I want you to do in terms of managing your communication with your customers.

I want you to put all of your customers into two groups, one, the group of customers, who you have a long standing repeat relationship with, and then the rest of your customers for the vast majority of us, actual number of customers that we have on a repeat basis is a pretty small percentage. Everybody's business is different. And obviously if you do corporates, if you do subscriptions , if you do kind of accounts, if you do things where people have a recurring relationship and they're used to a very set menu and they order regularly, and I mean more than once a year, it's not just Bob who comes in and buys flowers from mother's day.

Customers who actually are paying attention long, standing high value repeat customers. What you're going to do is craft your communication and craft your plan to manage their expectations. And I have to say so Tia who edits our YouTube videos wrote the perfect email, I think, and I'm gonna pass it on to you guys so that you have it, but her prices are going up on the 1st of May. And she emailed about a month before.

So I want to pass this on to you. And I want you to go, this is a great email to borrow from your message to your customers could be something like hello, insert name from July one. Our floral design package will increase from insert original price to insert new price. This is due to increasing cost of floral supplies, but it will also enable us to continue to provide high quality services to you and your team.

Then you can take the next paragraph to outline the updates that they will see in their upcoming invoices. And if you need to supply a new contract, whatever the logistics around your relationship are, and then you close, thank you very much for your continued business and support over the past insert timeframe that you've been working together. I look forward to continuing our work together as its work that I truly value.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out at any time. Now, this email from Tia short to the point, very factual, very matter of fact, very helpful, but what I loved about it, she did not apologize. She did not over rationalize. She did not come from a scarcity. Greedy woe is me energy. Very to the point, there's so much to be learned from this instance, because it's so easy for us to go into the, I feel bad.

Oh my God, I cannot raise my prices. Every one of my customers is going to leave. Of course, that's what our brain is gonna offer up. But when we can come back to this energy of every client is entitled to their opinion. If they decide that now is the time they wanna break ties. That's great because it could open up the opportunity for a new customer to come your way instead of over-explaining instead of over rationalizing, instead of being hugely emotional on your explanation, let's come back and borrow what tier wrote hi from insert date.

Our floral design package will increase from X to X. This is due to the increase in cost of floral supplies, but it will also enable us to continue to provide high value, high quality services to you. Then you can insert any updates when they can expect updated invoicing.

If you have to supply a new contract, very logistical, very specific, thank you very much for your continued business and support over the past year and a half. I look forward to continuing our work together as its work. I truly value. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out at any time. It's so good. It's so good because it's to the point it's upfront, it's honest, it's helpful and it's not highly emotional.

All they wanna know is what is it increasing to and what are the impacts it will have. And it's okay if some of your customers decide that now is the time that they no longer wanna work with you. It's opening up the possibilities for new things to come your way. The other thing, and this is like the last step is that you are then going to have the price increase and the communication to the general public.

And here's the thing. You don't have to explain anything. You don't have to rationalize it. You don't have to contextualize it. You don't have to apologize for it. You just get to tell them you want a bouquet delivered to your Nana great price to start at is $150 or $200 or $300. You're getting married. Wedding offering starts from $4,000. Floral archways start from $6,000.

This recalibration gets to happen anytime you want. And one of the things I wish I had known earlier on is you get to raise your prices anytime you need to, and you do not need to explain yourself. And most importantly, you do not need to apologize for it. One of the biggest mindset shifts that has helped in this business is really understanding that every new day you get to hit reset and you get to attract a whole new group of customers.

You get to completely reinvent yourself, which means you could decide that today is the day you're finally gonna increase your prices. And if anybody is paying attention, if you have customers who have been longstanding customers put a plan together that you're gonna communicate with them and then know that the rest of the humans are not paying enough attention.

So many of the stories that we tell ourselves so much of that internal dialogue that we have is the absolute toddler wielding a knife, primitive brain, going ape shit based on fear, totally normal it's way we are programmed. And it could be one really helpful exercise. That's super useful to do is sit down and sell yourself on why raising your prices is the best idea you've ever had. How can you deliver even better service to your clients? How can you really over and above surprise and delight?

And I don't mean like put more energy and effort in, I mean, huh, I'm actually earning enough money that I could hire another freelancer or, huh. I actually could say, I'm not gonna do that event on that weekend. Take a weekend off and wake up on Monday morning, refreshed.

Talk about revolutionary concepts but instead of this like relentless pursuit of, oh my God, I gotta get myself outta this cycle of not earning enough. It's like sit down and sell yourself on why raising your prices is a single best thing for your business, for your clients and for yourself. And then step in to that persona. So my friends, you have permission to go out there and raise your prices. One of the things that's really helpful, and I really, really love doing this work and understanding that you get to sell yourself on the fact that it's quite possible.

The wholesale flower market might be the perfect economy. It might be a textbook example of how economics works. And the only thing that we need to do is adjust our own expectations and adjust our own perspective because we have an industry standard pricing model, which is the greatest gift that we could be given. Thank you so much for those of us that don't wanna spend time on math, wholesale flower prices might finally be catching up with what they should have always been all along.

Maybe this is exactly how much wholesale flower prices we're supposed to be. And our industry is finally catching up. It's such a fascinating concept to try on, and I'm so curious to see how you go. So go out there, raise your prices, make it happen. And my friends is always have the most amazing week. Get some sleep, drink your water, drive safe, and we'll talk to you again next week. Bye for.