Jenny (00:29)
People say this to me all the time. Well, I can't charge $10 a stem for peonies because I don't live in Boston or New York City or California or wherever. And if you have thought like that, this episode is for you. This is one of the biggest objections I hear from flower farmers is that they're in a rural area or a small town or a lower income market and therefore, for whatever reason, they can't be profitable. And today I want to very
gently but very clearly break that belief because location and being in lower income markets or areas, that may affect your strategy, but it does not decide your success or your profitability and I'm breaking that down today.
Because I'm just gonna jump right in. High prices don't automatically mean high profit, okay?
Those big city prices that you see some flower farmers charging where they charge like $10 a stem for peonies, or one grower told me they charge like $27 a stem for heirloom mums, like, ⁓ my jaw hit the floor, like super cool, right? But those prices look impressive, but they may not actually be that profitable for them. Maybe, but maybe not, and here's why. Farmers in really,
big areas like major cities like New York City and Boston, they have to charge more because one, their land costs are dramatically higher, their labor costs are higher, their operating expenses are higher. Like for example, my farm, I'm be very transparent here, we bought 24 acres for $113,000, okay? This was way before COVID. I'm sure, I don't know what it would be now, probably a lot more, but like,
At the same time that we bought this property, a 24 acre property just outside of New York City or Boston probably would cost millions of dollars. Okay? So obviously they need to charge higher prices because their costs are more. And this is why higher prices don't necessarily equate to higher take-home pay. Sure, in big cities, there are a lot more people, which means there's usually a lot more demand.
because there are probably a lot more people with higher incomes, more disposable income. Like, yes, that is probably all true, but it's also true that their pricing is higher because their expenses are higher.
So when you're like me and you're in a low income area or a super small town like I am, you actually have an advantage. You have a profit advantage because your costs are less, okay? Even with lower prices, the only thing that really matters is that your profit is revenue minus your costs, okay? So, you know, let's just say that it costs you $5 to...
grow a bunch of dahlias, as long as you're charging like $10 or $15 for that bunch, you're earning a profit. And a pretty decent one as well. ⁓ So it all comes down to understanding your costs of production and your profit margins.
Yes, it may be because the demand is there and they can justify those prices, but it's also because their costs are so much higher. And so they may be earning a very similar margin to the one that you are earning in that small town or low income area.
Jenny (04:08)
Hey, real quick, I made something special for you for being a loyal listener of the podcast. Because one of the things I find most frustrating about the education available to farmers out there is that it's just random information without any context as to what you should be focusing on in your specific situation and your stage of business. So I've spent the past several years analyzing a lot of different flower farmers' journeys, including my own, and created a way to give you a personalized
Profitable Flower Farm Roadmap. It's all free. All you have to do is answer a few questions and we will send you a personalized roadmap that tells you exactly where you're at in your business and what you need to focus on to grow and most importantly, what you can ignore for now because it's not gonna move the needle. So if that sounds interesting or helpful to you at all, go to trademarkfarmer.com forward slash roadmap. Again, that's trademarkfarmer.com forward slash roadmap.
I'll also drop the link in the show notes.
Jenny (05:10)
Now, speaking of low income or small towns, demand for flowers, I think, exists everywhere or almost everywhere.
It just looks different. Just because there's fewer people doesn't mean there's no demand for flowers there and there's no opportunities to have a profitable business. It just means it might look different. Cause people in small towns still get married and have weddings. People still die and there's still funerals that they want flowers at. There's still holidays where people gift flowers to each other. There's still special occasions and gift giving moments like birthdays and anniversaries like
People may be more price conscious, but they're still buying things to give as gifts and they're still consuming flowers. Maybe not as much and maybe in different ways, but it's still there. And you don't need everyone to buy, you just need like the right slice of the market. So like, I want you to stop asking like, well, I'll never be successful because, you know, I can never charge New York City prices.
or like anything like that. I want you to start thinking about who needs flowers here and why.
because you don't need $5,000 wedding package minimums to be profitable. Okay, here are like two equally valid paths. You of course could do high-end full service weddings, but if there's no demand for that in your area, it's gonna be hard to pull it off. You may have to move somewhere, you may have to branch out, you may have to drive further, you know, those are all solutions for that. But if that's not a possibility, you can also,
offer a la carte weddings on like a one to $2,000 budget for a couple. I did this for a long time and I loved it. We offered these sort of like a la carte wedding packages where people could just order off of our website the items they wanted for their wedding. So, know, bouquets, boutonniers, arrangements, all that kind of stuff. And then they would come to the farm and pick it up and they would set it up at their wedding. So we wouldn't be
you know, going through all these like design consultations, we wouldn't be going to the weddings to set them up at the venues, we wouldn't be doing tear down, none of that stuff. And we priced those items for profit and removed honestly like a lot of the work that we had to do. And it was still a very profitable offering for us. And it met the demand of something very problematic in our area because
I could never afford ⁓ a $5,000 wedding minimum like when I was getting married. There was no way I could have ever afforded that. And there are so many people in that position. In fact, most people should not be spending $5,000 on flowers at their weddings, right? And so this is just an example, but like I aligned, like my values aligned much more with couples like me and my husband that couldn't afford those high.
packages and so we created a product that allowed people to have beautiful, sustainably grown, professionally designed flowers at a fraction of the cost where it was still profitable for us and affordable for the consumer.
This is exactly how we built profitability early on. So profitability comes from structure, not prestige or prices.
And sure, it's probably easier to do 10 weddings at $10,000 each to make $100,000 rather than do 50 weddings at 2,000 each to make $100,000. But as long as the margins work out in both scenarios, like either way, you're earning a profit. And so I hate it when people are like, well,
I can't do these like giant weddings or charge all this money, so I'm not going to be profitable. It's like, that's not the problem. It's that you just need to make sure whatever you offer is profitable, right? Because profitability comes from structure, OK? And ⁓ honestly, in so many areas, I see a huge demand for these things like a la carte weddings. Like, maybe you're in a place where that could be your niche, that could be your specialty thing that you
Develop systems for you, bang about every week and you have fun doing it and you make money. Who knows? But in your local area, wherever you are, if you are in a small town or you're really rural or a low income area, just simply do a little analysis of like what's going on there to see what could work. This is something I call a SWOT analysis. It's S-W-O-T. You may have heard me talk about this before, but it stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
And so basically what you're gonna do is just make a list under each category in your local area. And for you personally, like what are the strengths? What are your weaknesses? What are the opportunities in your area? And what are the threats in your area?
So your strengths might be that you have lower overhead costs, that you have a smaller amount of land, so like you can be really efficient on it. It could be your labor, it could be like you, whatever your strengths are. Your weakness could be that you have a smaller population where there's lower disposable income. But opportunities could be weddings within driving distance. If there are weddings in your area, it could be supplying event florists.
If there are nearby farmers markets or cities within an hour drive, that could be an opportunity. So that's something I do. 45 minutes away from my farm is the city of Rochester. So we drive there every week, and that's where the majority of our customers are. So look around you. And if there's something around you that is promising that has a more affluent area, it might be worth driving there a couple times a week.
But you know, more than anything, the opportunity could just be you are the flower person locally. Like everywhere you go in your town, you bring flowers with you. So everyone gets to know you as the flower person. So when it's their anniversary or it's their mom's birthday or their daughter is getting married, they think of you for flowers, whatever that looks like. Now, threats could be underpricing, trying to do too many channels, burnout, know, whatever it is. But
This is a really simple example that probably everything I teach sounds really simple, but it's effective. Simple can still be super effective. So think about sitting down and doing a SWOT analysis and just sort of looking at what opportunities might be in your area where there might be demand, where people might want flowers that you can attack and you could fill your, that niche in your area. You are allowed to have a small, boring and very profitable business in
small towns and low income areas. Okay. You can do it. And there's always shipping. I mean, I kind of hate to throw that one out there, but like, if you live in the middle of nowhere, your costs to produce flowers are probably like pretty low compared to some of these bigger areas. And you could ship them to areas where there are people who want your flowers. Now, of course, shipping is not easy. There's a lot of logistics and stuff that go with that, but like, it's an option that people do. So.
I'm not giving you any excuses to say that you can't have a profitable business because you live in an area that doesn't have a lot of people or not a lot of disposable income. So kind of like all this to say, profitability truly just comes from like finding demand and filling it and making sure that you are pricing appropriately to earn a profit. And pricing confidently and profitably comes from knowing your numbers. And guessing your prices.
especially when you're in an area where there's not a lot of opportunity or demand or people or disposable income, like, guessing your prices is what's going to keep you stuck. Because I'm not gonna lie, flowers definitely are a luxury item, right? Nobody needs flowers, right? We are selling a luxury item. However, people can still consume them and you can still price things lower, but at
a really good profit margin and that's what's going to make the difference. Because a lot of farmers don't truly know their costs, their break even prices, like what they need to earn per hour. And that uncertainty fuels a lot of like comparison and underpricing and second guessing whether you can have a profitable business in your unique situation or not. But when you know your numbers, whatever location or
low income area or whatever excuses for you really loses its power when you finally understand your numbers. And inside of my business program, Focus Flower Farming, we have a business accelerator program now. This is exactly what we help farmers clarify calmly and realistically, okay, without like throwing a ton of information at you that you don't need or, you know, learning stuff that's not actually going to help you.
And there you can really dive deep into your numbers and get a solid understanding of what you need to charge in your area so you actually can have a profitable business.
Because the answer is you don't need a bigger market, you need clearer decisions. And if you need help making those clearer decisions, I have a free tool that will help you with that. So if you're still feeling unsure about your pricing or your profitability, I want you to know that you don't have to guess. I created this thing called a personalized profit roadmap specifically for you that will help you figure out what you need to be focusing on in your business right now to.
get that clarity and get you unstuck and moving forward. Here's how it works. If you go to our website, there is a free diagnostic where you just give us some information about your business and we will tell you exactly what stage of business you're at, what the common roadblocks, challenges and bottlenecks are and what you need to fix to unlock that next level and move forward in your business. So it's totally personalized. All you have to do is go to trademarkfarmer.com forward slash roadmap. It's free.
I'm also gonna drop a link to that in the show notes so you can just click there and head on over. But if you're still feeling like kind of unsure about all this and you have some unique situation or something going on where you're not sure if this can actually work for you, I really think that this personalized profit roadmap is gonna help you a ton. So go check it out, trademarkfarmer.com forward slash roadmap. So to wrap this all up.
If you're a person who's in a rural place, a small town, a low income area, I just need you to know that you don't necessarily need a bigger market. You just need clearer decisions and this will help you out with that. So thanks again for listening to another episode of the Six Figure Flower Farming Podcast. Don't forget we publish new episodes every Monday. So I'll see you next week. Same time, same place.
