Jenny (00:32)
selling at farmers markets is actually my favorite sales outlet. This is kind of controversial. Some people hate them, some people love them. I think it really depends on the farmers market because not all of them are created equally. However, if you do have a good farmers market in your area and you want to find success with it, if you want to increase your sales or you just want to do a better job at it, this episode is for you. So.
I'm going to be telling you a little bit about do's and don'ts to increase your farmer's market sales and to generally have a better brand at your farmer's market. So I love farmer's markets because it's super easy and super stress free for us. And a big part of that is that there's very little communication ahead of time with customers, like with weddings and events, there's a lot of back and forth communication. And for me personally,
I just don't like doing that. I don't need to worry about exact flower type and color inventory with the farmers markets. Like I literally just bring whatever we have and it sells beautifully. I have been stressed before selling to florists because they generally require like really specific flower colors in very specific flower types. And generally my frustration with them is that they don't know when anything is in season.
takes a lot of education. And so for me, farmers markets have just always been super easy, like really simple, low stress with very consistent sales. If it's the right market, we've gone to farmers markets before that have been terrible. You make like $60 and sit there for six hours. Like that is not worth your time or my time. However,
You know, we go to a farmer's market where we do thousands every week and super consistent sales. Like we have developed a really amazing solid customer base there. It's just the atmosphere is super fun. Um, and it's great because there is this already waiting market of people. There's this huge bunch of people there that go to the farmer's market. They go there to buy stuff. They are there to buy stuff. That's why they go there.
And so you don't have to do a lot of the marketing. The farmer's market is doing a lot of that marketing for you. So you get to sell those retail prices without really doing the work of marketing for retail. Now, I will say we still do our own marketing for the farmer's market, you know, when we go to the farmer's market for our own brand, but it's just been kind of a no-brainer for me because I have the opportunity of a good farmer's market in my area.
I love just being able to bring whatever flowers we have that are blooming that week and they sell great. So not only that, but farmers markets have also allowed our business lots of exposure so we can effectively market our other sales outlets. A lot of our original farmers market customers have turned into CSA customers and CSA is just a farm subscription. Okay. Stands for community supported agriculture.
But a lot of our farmers market customers have signed up for our CSA subscriptions. In the past when we used to do weddings, they became our wedding clients. We got so many wedding clients from the farmers markets. And we still do like a few of these like, you know, like bulk bucket orders and stuff. I tried to stop doing them for a couple of years, but we got so many requests from them from our farmers market customers, we decided to start doing them again. So it's just a great way to network.
with other entrepreneurs in your area, meet other farmers, meet other people in the community, get the word out. We've met all these really influential people.
in our area that buy flowers from us. Like this guy who owns like a hundred restaurants in the Rochester area. Like he's one of our customers and refers us to all of his other like restaurant people and all of his other rich friends. And it's quite nice. So, we love just being able to have those connections and those interactions with other people in our community.
It's how we found other businesses to partner with for our CSA pickup locations. There's been several places where we've had our flower subscription pickup at. There have just been other business owners that we met at the farmers market. So it's been super fun in that way.
If you have a decent farmers market with a decent following, there are generally a few things that you can do if you get into that market, if you go to that market to dramatically increase your appeal and your sales at these regular farmers markets. And we're going to be going through my tips and tricks for that today. Okay. The first tip for increasing your income at farmers markets is to be consistent.
It is hard for sure to show up every single week, especially if it's a weekend farmers market, like every single time the market is open. But showing up every week and staying for the entire market really helps to build trust and loyalty with your customers. They want to know that you will always be there for them when they need flowers. You want to become a part of their weekly routine.
People are gonna expect to see your smiling face every week and they really will look forward to chatting with you and stuffing their noses into your flowers. You wanna be the type of business that they can depend on. Like randomly missing markets is going to erode your customer's trust and they'll be much less likely to buy from you. Because the one that's, it's just bound to happen. The one day that you don't go.
Is the one day that someone is going to go there looking for your flowers. And then when you're not there, they're going to be like, well, crap. Now I got to go to the forest down the street and I'm never coming back here to buy flowers again. Cause it, they just wasted my time. You know, I would be like that for sure. So being consistent is really important. We have never missed a regular farmer's market. I think maybe ever.
maybe once, like my second year at the market, maybe, I don't even think we, honestly don't think I've ever missed a farmer's market. And because of that, we have built this super loyal following there, and we do a lot of sales at our farmer's market every week because they know that they can depend on us. So it might not be me personally going to the farmer's market, but like our business is there. There have been times where I've had to lean on my family, my friends,
especially in the beginning before I had employees, like I remember a couple of times my sister-in-law went to the farmer's market for me when like my grandpa died one year and I had to go to Connecticut to see my family and she went to the farmer's market for me. Like that is how important this is. And so obviously I paid her to do that and stuff, but I'm just saying do whatever you can to be as consistent as possible. My second tip for you is to display abundance.
And this is probably one of the most important tips we're gonna go over today. So there's this phrase often spoken about in the organic vegetable world. It's called pile it high and watch it fly. Or another version of that is pile it high and kiss it goodbye. And what this means is you want your display to look as big and as abundant as possible. These things are really true when it comes to selling any kind of product.
but especially flowers. So you want to make your flowers look as abundant as possible. We make a wall of flowers. There's like plenty of depth to give the illusion that we have more than we actually do. So we put flowers on the floor, like on the ground, a couple feet off the ground on low benches, on tables, and then on crates on top of the tables. And sometimes we even hang stuff from the top of the tent. It's literally.
wall of flowers. So this gives the illusion of abundance which sparks attention and it draws a crowd to your booth. And here's the thing about crowds. Crowds draw crowds. If there's a bunch of people just looking at your farmers market booth because it's so big and abundant and beautiful, people from the other side of the market are gonna see that there's a crowd out in your booth and you'll be like what's going on over there and they're gonna come over and look.
And so it really works. It really works. And even if everyone doesn't buy from you, if you make an impression on them, the next time they need flowers, they're probably going to think of you and be like, that farmer's market booth. They had the most amazing, beautiful flowers that one day, like let's go back there and buy flowers for them from them. So if you go into any kind of like nice grocery store, like whole foods are like around here, we have Wegmans is a really nice grocery store.
Go walk around their produce aisle. Like I have this challenge for you next time you go grocery shopping. Go walk around the produce aisle and just look at how they display their vegetables, how their flower displays are. If it's a nice and reputable grocery store, they will have piles of apples. All the tables, like little display tables where they house all the oranges and apples and grapes.
There are special tables that have special slants on them. So as they arrange things on there, it makes them look like these huge piles of fruit and veggies. And that's because there's a whole science and psychology behind this. The more abundant you can make it look, the more flowers you're going to sell. And so we sell way more flowers at the beginning of our flowers market than we do at the end because we have less flowers at the end of the market.
No one wants to buy the one last sad bouquet sitting in the lonely empty bucket on your table. Like it just looks pathetic and sad. And so if you don't bring a lot to the farmer's market, you're probably not going to sell a lot. Okay. And again, this all depends on the farmer's market as well. If it's a vibin amazing one with food trucks and music and everyone's having a good time, like these things will work. If it's a piddly little market where there's nobody showing up and it's just like you and
the veggie guy down the street and like some crafter, it might not work. Okay. But this is all has to do with sales psychology. So these are all things that are like really studied by people who are way smarter than me. And this is what I've learned from them. And it just really works. So as we sell flowers throughout our market, we actually constantly restock to make our displays look full. when I say restock, I actually just kind of mean rearrange.
So we put everything out that we bring. Everything comes right out front and is on display. But as a bucket starts to empty, we'll take a couple of bunches that are left in that bucket, put it in a different bucket, and take away the empty bucket and just fill in all the spaces so it continues to look like a wall of flowers. We don't ever have empty buckets just sitting out at our farmer's market. So we always want it to look full.
So we're always consolidating those flowers to make it look abundant. And another thing that we do with our display is we try to arrange our flowers in blocks of color, or at least experiment with different presentations. I found that putting certain colors together will help the overall ambiance of the booth, and unusual color patterns can draw potential buyers. And so we do a lot of straight bunches, which I highly recommend you do at your farmer's market. And so we'll have a bunch of pink.
Renunculus and yellow, Renunculus and orange, Renunculus and you know, whatever, white Renunculus. And so we'll put all the pink ones together, all the purple ones together, all the orange ones together. So it's really like vibrantly color blocked. We try to do things like rainbow patterns or ombre if we are able to do that, like just trying to make it look different and mix it up and just really visually appealing. It really can draw potential buyers in.
So your display is just super important here. And another piece of your display is actually your signage. So there's also a whole bunch of sales psychology behind this, but studies show that if you have prices out, you will actually sell more flowers. This is because nobody wants to ask you what the price is. A lot of people are too timid to ask. They don't want to.
they feel like it's weird. They want to just be able to look and see what the price is and be able to use that information. And then if you have just the price on the sign and nothing else, you are less likely to sell that than if you have the name of the product or something about the product on there.
So if you have a sign on a bucket of snapdragons and you just have $15, great. Maybe some people will buy it, but if you have a bucket of snapdragons and on that sign, you say something like sunset snapdragons, $15, they are way more likely to buy. Anytime you give them just a little bit of information about that product,
first, it is going to make it much more easier for them to buy. It's also a conversation piece that they might read something or see something on a sign and ask you a question about it. It induces some kind of curiosity. And if you can get them to talk to you, can almost certainly, maybe not certainly, but you have a higher chance of closing that sale with them.
So your display and your signage are really important. Now moving on to my next tip, tip number three, it is looking professional. I cannot believe the amount of people who go to farmers markets wearing their dirty, nasty farm clothes with the worst signs ever, just their kids blackboard.
with like messy chalk writing on it. Like you look unprofessional. Presentation is important. You want to show up looking clean, professional and friendly. You know, just show up wearing clean clothes. don't have to wear like a uniform or have like your hair and makeup like specially done or whatever, anything like that. But people want to buy from people who look clean, approachable, friendly. They don't want to...
buy from people who look dirty and gruff. It's just like not a good look, right? This is why salespeople are always wearing like suits or really nice clothes. I'm not saying to do that at your farmer's market. Look the part, but you want to just have that professional look. And part of looking professional is having professional product as well. So this means keeping flowers out of the sun so they're not wilting or just don't bring flowers that are prone to wilting to your farmer's market.
That is a lesson I had to learn. And I know that can be a major challenge at some farmers markets, but you just want to do whatever you can to keep your flowers fresh. You want to keep everything sparkling clean, inviting. We don't leave food out on our farmers market booth. If one of us goes to grab lunch, we eat it behind the table. We don't leave our food sitting out, or we don't leave our coffee sitting out. We want it to look super clean and professional.
There are so many farmers out there who could dramatically increase their sales just by cleaning things up a little bit, just by like putting a tablecloth down, like taking your dirty rags away, having clean buckets and clean displays, having nice, like beautiful signage by wearing nice clean clothes and not looking like a
Like we normally do, right? Like I look like a homeless person on the farm all the time, but I don't dress like that when I go to the farmer's market. I wear nice clean jeans. Like sure, I'll probably wear my boots, but they'll be clean. They won't have like mud all over them or something. And I'll either wear my trademarks flower farm t-shirt or a sweatshirt. Like, you know, I'm not wearing anything fancy, but I look clean and professional. Okay. So tip number four is to be attentive and welcoming.
Again, may sound like a no brainer, but I'm always shocked by the number of vendors who sit behind their booth, sitting as a no-no with their heads down, scrolling on their phones. Okay. This gives the impression that they are uninterested. It makes them seem unapproachable and like they don't care because truly that's the vibe you're giving off. Like I guarantee these people sales suffer because of it.
So we stand the entire time. There is no sitting unless it's like a complete. Poor like rain down pouring weather disaster. And there's literally not a soul at the market, which hardly ever happens. But like in that case, like, yeah, we might like sit down on some crates or something. But besides that, we are never sitting down. We are off of our cell phones the entire time.
There is rarely a dull moment at our markets. There's always something to do. Like we have waves of when there's times when there's really busy and then you have a lull in customers, then it gets busy again, then there's a lull in customers. But there's always something to do. Like we're always constantly consolidating our buckets of flowers. We're tidying up the display. We're talking to people as they walk past us. Really paying attention to everyone who walks past.
So you want to look approachable, you want to be welcoming and attentive to everyone who's walking past you at the market. You don't want to be distracted, you don't want to be looking down or on your phone. It's really gonna hurt your sales. Which brings me to tip number five, saying hello and genuinely connect with people. So this goes hand in hand with just being attentive and welcoming. I make it a point to smile and say hello to nearly
every person who walks past our booth if I'm not dealing with a customer. This really creates an inviting experience so people feel welcome and it makes you easy to approach. Like I bet you I make thousands of dollars in sales each year just by saying hello to someone. I swear to God. Often there'll be people like walking by my booth and I can see them looking at the flowers like with curiosity, but they're still walking. And if I just say, Hey there,
Nice weather today. They will, it's actually amazing. They will sometimes like spin on a dime, stop in their tracks and come right over to me like a magnet. And they'll say, my gosh, these flowers are so pretty. I'll say, thank you so much. They're all grown on our farm in Clifton Springs. And they're like, no kidding. Like, yeah. And then sometimes they buy and it's amazing. A lot of times they buy, sometimes they don't, but they'll remember you being a friendly face that they had a great conversation with.
and they will know where to find flowers the next time they need them or want them. So a lot of these people make those impulse buys, which is great. But, you know, I'm not just saying hello to every person who walks by, like just for the sale. Like I'm not disingenuous. Like I genuinely am interested in the people at my market. I'm genuinely interested in hearing their stories and in talking to them and getting to know them. I've made a lot of really great friends and lifelong customers.
just by greeting people in a friendly manner, like starting polite conversation and just getting to know them. And I think that this is something that is hugely underrated when it comes to sales in general. If you are somebody who is not making enough sales, you're not generating enough cashflow, this might be a missing piece for you. That truly scaling a business and like getting sales and like getting lots of cashflow,
a lot of times just really comes down to boots on the ground, meeting a ton of people, getting to know a ton of people, having friendly conversations with them and
networking with people, just getting to know people in your community. Like it truly could be the missing piece for you where you just need to find ways to like get out, meet people and talk to people. And yeah, it takes time to develop those relationships, but business really does come down to the strength of the relationships you have with your leads and your customers. So saying hello, genuinely connecting with people, trying to make people's day, even if they don't buy from you. Like I.
I love giving people compliments because I like getting compliments the other day. was random tangent, but I had run out to the grocery store. We were out of milk and my son needed milk before bedtime and I was wearing like cruddy clothes. So like not how I'd go to the farmer's market looked kind of homeless. was tired. My hair was dirty. Hadn't washed in a couple of days and I was at the checkout counter.
And the checkout girl was like, you look beautiful today, by the way. And I was like, Oh, you probably say that to everyone. She's like, no, really? I love your hair color. And I think she was genuine and it literally made my whole day. And so that's what I try to do for people at my farmer's market genuinely, because if they're not going to buy flowers from me, at least I can make their day a little bit better some way, somehow. So finally, my last farmer's market sales tip for you is to.
Tell people about you. Like, don't be afraid to talk about yourself and your business. And I know that can feel weird for people. It definitely is still for me sometimes, but we communicate with customers and potential customers via our email list and social media. So very often on Fridays we'll post on social media, the flowers that we're bringing, we'll send emails out to our email lists. And I am always amazed.
how many people mentioned that they came to the market just because they saw our Instagram story about it. So we take advantage of the seasonal nature of our flowers in this way. The seasonal nature of flowers means that it kind of creates natural scarcity and a sense of urgency to check it out. For example, peonies are only in season for a few weeks. So you got to come out to the market and grab some before the season is over.
So it really works when you tell people that you're there, tell people about you, when you meet people at the market, tell them more about your business, about you, about what you do, maybe your other sales outlets. There's just a lot of ways that you can tell people about you, so don't be shy. It can really generate a lot of sales in the future. So I hope that these tips,
are helpful and that you can use them at your farmer's market or pop-up markets, even in your farm stands, any place where you have flowers out on display for people to buy, these tips work for all of those. So let me know how these help you out. They've really helped me build an amazing reputation in our community and I've really earned a significant portion of my total revenue from our farmer's market and from sales that come from the farmer's market.
with our other sales outlets. Although it's not for everyone, I love farmers markets and I think that they can be fun, easy, profitable, and can be a really good way to get rid of excess flowers that don't sell through your other flower or your other sales outlets. Maybe it's also a great way to get your name out there if you're just starting out. So make sure you put these six tips into effect and let me know how it goes for you. Thanks for joining me for this.
episode of the Six Figure Flower Farming Podcast. If you haven't left a review yet, please, please, please leave a review. Those reviews are so important to help other flower farmers find this information that they need to build a profitable and sustainable flower business. And a rising tide lifts all ships, my friends.
So please do me and all the other flower farmers out there a favor by leaving a review. Now it takes less than 30 seconds. You can leave one on Apple or Spotify, wherever you're listening to this podcast. And if you've already left a review, thank you so, so much. I really appreciate you. That's it for today. So I'll see you in the next episode of the Six Figure Flower Farming Podcast.
See you next time, same place, same time.
