Jenny (00:28)
Welcome back to the Six Figure Flower Farming podcast and I have a big announcement to make in this episode. So I'm just going to cut right to the chase. I'm giving away a free online course on flower farm business foundations, like to everyone. And yes, it's 100 % free. It's a legit course on basic flower farm business foundations that I made just for you. So in this episode, I'm just going to go over
why I'm doing this, how you can gain access to it, who it's for, what it's all about, and what you'll learn from it. I've been spending the better part of this year putting together this course to help beginning flower farmers get the information they need to start their flower farm, get it off the ground, get their first customers, get their finances set up from the start, and find confidence that it's going to work for them. And so I wanted to make this basic yet critical business information accessible to
everyone. Because when I first started, I really didn't have the money to invest in myself right at the beginning, even if there was information available, which a lot of it really wasn't when I started. And I don't want to let that stop someone from getting a good head start. So if you don't have a ton of money that you're starting off with, like me, you know, I don't want that to be a barrier to entry for you, because you could definitely still make this work even if you don't have a ton of extra money.
And so this free Business Foundations course is basically Business Foundations 101 for beginning flower farmers. And it's called How to Start a Profitable Flower Farm from Scratch. And you probably already know this, but I am a huge proponent of investing in yourself and really learning critical business skills. And it's because if your farm was to fail, let's just say the economy crashes or a tornado hits your farm.
or we go into a nuclear war, there's another pandemic or some other crazy, but maybe not so crazy scenario that happens. You know, the business that you're starting right now or maybe just started might not be the same one on the other side of whatever disaster arises. So investments in things like perennials, infrastructure, greenhouses, houses, know, those all might be gone and not be able to help you make money or have a business in the future, but.
If you've put the time in and invested in learning really important business skills like money management, planning and forecasting, marketing and sales, like you can pick back up and start whatever other business you want after. You can use those business skills and the confidence that you've gained with those skills and just sort of move on with your life, whether that's picking back up with a business that you had before or starting something new. So, whereas if you don't...
develop those business skills like planning and marketing and sales, like you'll be SOL or, you know, crap out of luck. And I've seen this happen. Like I've seen farmers that have had their businesses destroyed by the pandemic and they had to pivot and they had to change things. And because they had really good business skills, like they knew the basics of marketing and sales or whatever, it might have seemed like they were starting over from scratch, but they were able to make it happen.
I know farmers whose farms have been completely destroyed by hailstorms and tornadoes and hurricanes and you know, your infrastructure is gone, but those business skills that you have allow you to start over way easier than you would have if you didn't invest in those skills. So this course is going to give beginning flower farmers a glimpse into the necessary skills to learn when getting your flower farm business off the ground.
And this course is specifically for beginning flower farmers, like year zero to one, maybe year zero to two, like you're just starting your flower farm, you're learning how to grow, or maybe you already know how to grow, but you're not really sure about some of the business things. So if you're someone who feels unsure about how to actually make a profit at this, like how to begin thinking about things where your farm can be profitable, now whether that means you wanna earn,
$100 or $100 ,000. The process is really the same. So no matter what your goal is, if you are unsure about how to actually look at your business as a profit generating machine, this course is probably going to be really good for you. Also, if you're unsure, if you've considered all of the business side of things associated with owning a flower farm business, like insurance or taxes and general like making your business official, this course will be good for you.
If you're someone who needs reassurance that you're doing this right and you're headed in a good direction, or if you want information on things like general legalities or best business practices, business models, bootstrapping, we're going to talk a lot about like finances and bootstrapping, and sort of money management type stuff in this course, taxes, all that stuff. And also beginning to market your business. So if you are struggling to get your first few customers,
I have a step -by -step formula that you can use that's really simple, really easy to follow to help you get your first customers and start building a loyal customer base. So if any of those things struck a nerve with you, then this beginning flower farmers course is probably for you. After taking the free business course, you should feel totally confident that you've set your business side up and have covered your bases and have a concrete plan as to what
business model you're going with, understand how most people get their businesses off the ground, know, financially and workload wise, and feel like you have totally got the things that you need to make this happen already or can get them because the truth is that you do. And I made this course because I had like no idea when I started my first business that I needed things like an EIN number from the IRS and I needed to set aside a percentage of money for taxes and
I needed to figure out how to get my first customers. Like quick side story. I just went on Facebook and was like, Hey, I'm opening a flower farm business. I'm open for sale. And I expected a bunch of people to just come like rushing over to the farm to buy flowers and, spoiler alert that didn't happen. All I heard was crickets. I was like, crap. Like I actually need to figure out how to market and sell things. So if you don't know what an EIN number is, or you don't know how to get one or know anything about.
how to start marketing your business like this free business course is for you. This course is not for people who already have their business set up, you're already growing and selling flowers and just kind of like doing the dang thing already. I have another course, which is a paid one called Six Figure Flower Farming that I teach every winter. And it's much better suited for folks who are a little bit more experienced and have at least a year of flower farming under their belt. And registration for that opens in January,
but the free business course is open for registration now. So like I said, this free course is really just for beginners to learn basic business foundations and then six figure flower farming. The paid course that opens in January is for people who are a little bit more experienced and all. I have lots of information on that on my website if you wanna check it out, trademarkfarmer .com. So anyways, back to the free business foundations course that you could take right now.
There are seven modules in this free business foundations course. Yes, seven. There's several hours of instruction. I said at the beginning of this, I've been spending the better part of this year putting this together and I wasn't lying. So I wanted to actually call this a mini course. but the truth is that it's not a mini course in any capacity. So it's too big for me to call it that. So I just had to call it a regular course, but anyhow.
The course is a video course and it has all pre -recorded lessons so you can just watch them on your own time anytime you want. There's no time requirements or scheduling requirements or anything like that. It's really, you can watch and learn from the lessons on your own time. However, this course is only gonna be available to watch for a short time right now. So if you are interested in taking it, try to sign up for it and watch the video lessons as soon as possible. But let me walk you through exactly what you will learn from the course if you sign up for it.
The first module is truths about entrepreneurship. So there's a little introduction and I am going to go over the whole truth about owning a flower farm business. And I'm going to give you some hard truths. Like I'm not sugar coating anything in this course. And I wanted to do this because I, I'm very encouraging of anyone who starts a flower farm. I love it. I think it's the best career for me.
It's amazing. And there's so many benefits and amazing things that come with being a business owner. There's so much freedom and you're in like control of your time and you have lots of flexibility with what direction you want to move your business in, what the decisions that you make. But there's also a lot of things that people can consider cons. And so I go into all of things that you can expect to encounter when you're starting a flower farm business. Some
hard truths about entrepreneurship. And then I'm also gonna give you some general tips for success and things that I have found helpful along with lots of my other flower farm friends I've talked to over the years. In the second module, this is where we're gonna be talking about how to make your business official. So this is basically like generally legalities, best practices, like I mentioned before, getting an EIN number, getting set up with your local governments and zoning departments, things like that. And I'm also gonna be talking about
insurances to consider. So I'm not giving you any like legal advice in this course. I want to make that clear, but I'm giving you all the pieces that you need to think about and consider and who to go talk to as far as professionals go. If you need more help in deciding on a business structure or, you know, planning out your taxes or things like that.
So I have a checklist for you to make it super simple and easy inside of the course that you can print out and just check things off to make sure you've kind of covered the majority of your basis there. Then in the third module, we're going to be talking about defining your business model. So really sitting down and thinking about who you'll sell to, what will you sell, and then setting your farm up for success. So layout wise and then just your general business model.
And there's so much to consider when you're thinking about where you wanna bring your business and the direction that you wanna bring it in. But just to get started, we're going over the basics of defining your business model.
Then in module four, we're gonna be talking about finances. And this is where we're gonna talk about basic financial definitions, some basic things about taxes, and then common startup expenses, where I will give you a supplier list. I have a little list of resource for you in one of those lessons to help you look up some of the startup expenses you can expect and help you price out some of the things you may need to purchase.
So we're going to talk a lot about common startup expenses. Of course, every business is different, but just things to think about. And then also in this module, we're talking about funding options for beginning flower farmers. So some different programs, some funding you can get, loan options. And then a big part of this, I'm going to be telling you about debt -free flower farming. So basically bootstrapping on a shoestring budget. That's how I did it. I know a lot of flower farmers who've done it this way.
So if you're not like independently wealthy, which if you are great, I'm very happy for you. But in my case, like I didn't have any money when I started my business. I was working a government job, making very little and started my flower farm on the side. So I didn't really have any extra money to put towards my flower farm. And so I just bootstrapped the whole thing. And I'm actually so glad I did it that way because those constraints.
of limited finances turned out to be a total gift. I had to be way more creative with how I started my business, which I think made me a way better business owner. I kept my overhead expenses super, super low. So I was really profitable early on and I was able to reinvest in my business and grow it faster than I would have without that. And so I go into all of it in the course. So if you want to hear more about that, sign up for the free course.
So yes, lots about finances, bootstrapping, budgets, and that kind of thing. Then in module five is all about getting your first customers and getting set up to get paid. So there's a lesson on actually getting set up to get paid. So options like your website and POS or point of sale systems and how to actually get set up so you can collect money from people. And then also,
a lesson on a step -by -step method for getting your first customers and beginning to build a loyal customer base. A lot of people like to really over -complicate marketing, and I'm just making it super simple for you in the beginning. And then in Six Figure Flower Farming, my online paid course that I opened in January, we dive deep into marketing. We dive deep into things like ideal customer avatars, websites.
marketing online, marketing in your local market and all kinds of different strategies and techniques that you can use. But if you are just getting started, I think that this simple method I go over in the free business foundations course is going to be really helpful for you. Then at module six, we talk about data driven decision making, which is all about data and essential record keeping so you can have the information you need to make great decisions for your business.
I do a ton of projections and forecasting for my business. It's, I think, one of the key things that has made my business successful. And projections and confident decision making are always based on data collection. Data gives you confidence to make really good decisions and it takes a lot of the risk out of things when you have concrete numbers to look at and make decisions from your business. And so I'm gonna be telling you the...
records that you should be considering keeping in your business and how to keep them. So going over that data -driven decision -making. And then finally, in the last module, module number seven in the Free Business Foundations course, we're talking about next steps for success.
So once you have the basics covered, the next steps to consider when growing your flower farm business. And we're going to be talking about things like budgeting, money management, diving deep into marketing, sales, and other skills that you should be considering learning and developing as a business owner and entrepreneur. So we're going to be talking about next steps for success in the last module. So if all of this sounds like something that you really need in your life, I encourage you to go sign up for it.
And I encourage you to sign up now because this course is really only going to be available for a short time because this winter we'll be teaching our online six -figure flower farming business course for more experienced flower farmers and all of our time and energy goes into that. So this free business course is only going to be available for a limited time. So you can go sign up right now at trademarkfarmer .com forward slash startup, which is S T A R T U P it's trademarkfarmer .com
or you can just click the link in the show notes of this podcast episode. So when you click these links, it will bring you to a checkout page to register for the course. And it's a free course, so you won't be any money for it, but you do need to register for the course to have access to it through this link. So when you click the link, you'll see sort of like a peachy pink colored square that will say, how to start a profitable flower farm from scratch. And on the left side, it will ask you to input your email, your name,
your address and make a password so you can access the course. Once you sign up through that checkout page, which again, it's free, you'll receive an email that will have directions on how you can access the free course, which is through the Trademark Farmer Learning Platform where a lot of our courses are hosted and you can start learning right away. If you want to feel confident in your business, be reassured that you're getting things set up right from the start.
Go sign up for the free Business Foundations course now at tradenbergfarmer .com forward slash startup or click the link in my show notes
And hopefully I'll see you there. Like I said, I have put so much of my heart and soul into this free Business Foundations course because I just want this information to be accessible for everyone. When I first started my business, I really did not know what to do. I didn't have a mentor to ask. I didn't have anyone to just bounce ideas off of. And I was just doing all this research on the internet and kind of like asking.
people I knew that sort of had other businesses what I was supposed to do. And so I don't want anyone to start a business feeling like that. I don't want you to feel alone. I wanna be able to help you as much as possible. And so that's why I've made this course. And I really hope it brings a lot of value to you if you decide to sign up. And so I really hope I see you there. Again, that link is trademarkfarmer .com forward slash startup to sign up for this free Business Foundations course.
And if I don't see there, hopefully I'll see you next time on the Six Figure Flower Farming Podcast.
