Jenny (00:29)
Over the past three weeks, I have had three different flower farmers ask me essentially the same question: is how do I book more weddings? And even if you don't do weddings, this episode is going to address whatever it is that you sell. And the interesting part really wasn't my answer to their question of how do I book more weddings? It was what happened when I actually looked at their marketing. I basically did a full audit and we're gonna dive into it.
On this episode, because honestly, I see this mistake all the time. And it isn't really about weddings, it's why so many flower farmers struggle to sell literally anything: your CSA, your subscription, or bouquets, or workshops, or wholesale flowers, or DIY buckets, or whatever it is that you sell. Because I'm gonna say this with love. People cannot buy something they don't know you sell. I'm gonna say it again.
People can't buy something they don't know you sell. And so that's the overarching theme here. And I'm gonna help you figure out whether that's the real problem keeping your marketing from working and give you a simple framework you can use to fix it. Before we dive in, real quick, my name is Jenny Marks. I have been flower farming for about 11 years. I've been farming for literally my entire life. I built a multiple six-figure flower farm business.
Growing flowers on less than an acre and working less than 30 hours a week in my business. To be clear, I worked more than that in the beginning, but I made it. So it was a very manageable and sustainable business, earning a really good living from it. And now I have this podcast and I also have a program called Six Figure Flower Farming, where I help other flower farmers reach that manageable and profitable business stage. So let's get into it.
Now, the first thing is what do you actually sell? Because most flower farmers think that they're marketing their business and what they sell, but in reality, what they're actually mostly marketing is that they just grow pretty flowers. And there is a big, big difference here because most people don't care if you sell pretty flowers or that you grow pretty flowers, I mean. Like it's a big difference. People shouldn't have to guess whether you sell weddings or subscriptions or bouquets.
Or wholesale flowers or workshops or DIY buckets. If you assume that they'll connect all the dots, they probably won't. Because here's an example of one particular flower farmer that I had a conversation with about this. She was probably about a third-year flower farmer. Revenue was less than twenty thousand dollars a year. They had this beautiful place, this beautiful farm in a
Beautiful area where there were tons of other wedding vendors and wedding venues everywhere. And they just really, really wanted to sell more wedding packages, but were super struggling. I
So this flower farmer basically got their first few weddings and events through friends, friends of friends, you know, word of mouth. but they really wanted to start doing more so they could make more money and grow the business. But when I opened up their website, they did not have anywhere on their website listed that they do weddings and events. They did not have a single picture of a bridal bouquet or somebody getting married.
Or literally anything like that. They did not have wedding and event packages listed on their website. They did not have an inquiry forum listed on their website. Literally nothing about their website told me that they did weddings and events. They had pictures of beautiful flowers on there, but I would have never known that they did weddings and events.
And then I went to their Instagram. And again, they did not have a single photo or post anywhere about bridal bouquets or boutoniers or arrangements or arbors. They just had some pictures of flowers in their fields. It also did not say anywhere in their social media bio that they booked weddings and events or that they had availability for 2026 weddings or 2027 weddings. Okay.
They were not getting inquiries or booking weddings and events because no one knew that they did weddings and events, because they simply were not marketing it. They just I I think assumed that because they were marketing their flower farm as a whole and that they had flowers, that that would automatically mean people would ask if they did weddings and events. And that's not the case, okay?
If I had found this business online, like if I was somebody who was getting married and I was looking around at all the options and I came across this flower farm, I would have absolutely no idea that they wanted to book weddings. Not because they weren't talented growers, not because they didn't have beautiful flowers in a beautiful flower farm. It's because their marketing wasn't communicating what they actually wanted to sell. And so I recommend that you audit.
Every single place customers find you. And again, this is whether you sell weddings or you have a farm stand or you go to farmers markets or whatever it is. Go to your own website, or better yet, ask a stranger or a friend to do it for you. Have them go to your website and your social media and ask them, What do I sell? Is it obvious within the first five seconds? Like, am I showing the actual product?
Instead of just random flower photos. Literally go and ask yourself this and go ask a friend, like or a stranger. Just find somebody, like your brother's friend or something like that. Be like, hey, I have this project for my business. Would you mind helping me out with it? And go sit down with them or like do a Zoom or whatever and screen share. Have them go to your website be like, What do I sell? And if they just say flowers, be like,
Okay, I failed, right? But like what kind of do what do I sell? Is it wedding packages? Is it subscriptions? Is it just bouquets? You want them to say whatever it is you are specifically trying to sell at this moment in time. Okay. And ask them if it's obvious within five seconds. And as they're looking through your website, you look at it too and look and see, am I actually showing the actual product?
Like the actual bouquets, the actual wedding packages, the actual whatever, instead of random flower photos. Because weddings, if you're trying to sell weddings, your website should show weddings. Now, this sounds so obvious saying it out loud, right? But so many of us are just so close to our businesses and we're like in the weeds every day. We're so caught up in like the growing and the harvesting and trying to post on social media all the time that like we don't even sometimes realize.
How confusing it is for other people. Like we don't even realize that because it's so obvious to us what we sell, that we don't understand it's not clear to other people. So this is just a great exercise for everybody. You know, subscriptions, if you're selling those, should show bouquets arriving at your customers' homes or set up at your pickup locations. You know, wholesale, if you're selling wholesale, you should show your designer buckets and your forest orders, you know.
Workshops, if you sell workshops, like have a picture of people standing at your workshop arranging flowers. Like it should be crystal crystal clear. Okay. And if you're new, set up a photo shoot. Have like just do whatever you can to get that proof that you do, like you have what you sell. So for example, before I
Actually, I started selling flowers at my farmer's market and through my CSA. I went and I bought a bucket of flowers from another flower farmer. And I had a photographer come over who was just a friend of mine who I like bought her dinner or something like that, and had her take photos of the flower bouquets I put together from those buckets. And that's what I used on my website because I wanted a good representation of what they would look like. I also used some stock photos at first, which like I don't love, but
If you're just getting started, it's it's a great way to just get started. But I recommend investing the time in like if you have workshops, for example, have a group of five of your girlfriends or maybe not girlfriends of whoever your friends come over and do a little mini flower ranging workshop for them. Have a photographer come over and take pictures to put on your website.
This is so incredibly important because you need to stop making people assume that they can connect the dots about what you sell. They need to look at your business and know instantly what it is that you do. It has to be so crystal, crystal clear. And so if you're somebody who is struggling with selling things, this could be part of your problem. I'm doing this episode so you can kind of do a self-evaluation to see if this is something that needs work in your business. All right. So first thing is.
Crystal clear, what is it that you sell? Everybody should know exactly what you sell. And it's not flowers, okay? It's wedding packages, it's farm stand bouquets, it's wholesale, it's whatever it is you sell. Now, second point here is how do they buy from you? So even if somebody knows what you sell, we're just gonna keep going with this wedding example. Can they figure out how to actually buy?
From you? Or is it buried somewhere? Are you making them work for it? Because a lot of flower farms accidentally make customers work way too hard to actually give them money. People shouldn't have to hunt for the information. People shouldn't have to ask, you know, DM you and be like, hey, I saw that you do weddings. Like, how do I get in touch with you about that? Any extra clicks or extra questions gives them another chance to leave and say goodbye. Because marketing.
Isn't just about like attracting attention and just getting people to know about what you sell. It's removing friction around actually making that purchase, right?
So for example, I told you before that this flower farmer I was talking to on their website, they didn't really have anything about wedding packages on there, but they had nothing about how to get in touch with them about weddings. They didn't even have a contact form on their website. And so again, this all sounds obvious, but sometimes these are mistakes that we're making. We're not even realizing it. So, like, I'm not saying that this flower farmer like necessarily did anything wrong or that they are
You know
bad at this or anything. It's just that sometimes we don't even realize. And it just takes an outside perspective to realize it. So I want you to go through, you know, your website, your social media, who however you sell things, like you are a very first-time customer. And again, if you have a friend or a friend of a friend or a stranger that can do this for you to give you direct feedback, even better. But as
You go to your website, for example, if you're selling weddings, ask yourself, okay, I see that they do weddings. Where do I click? How do I inquire? What are the packages? Is pricing available? Now that's up to you whether you want to put that on your website or not, but you know, a lot of people are looking for that. Do would I know your service area? If I went to your website, I can't tell you the amount of times I've seen a flower farm.
pop up on my Instagram or, you know, come up somewhere in conversation and I go to Google them and I cannot figure out for the life of me where they are located. And it's like you're a local flower farm. Like people need to know where you're located. So like for me, I if I was still doing weddings and events, or even if I'm not, like I have on my website Rochester Flower Farm selling in the finger lakes.
Flowers in the Finger Lakes region of New York. You know, you understand what I'm saying. You want to make it ridiculously easy. There should be a very, very clear button telling you what areas I service and how to actually purchase. Make it super easy. So some ways you can do this is have dedicated pages on your website for major products. So if you do weddings and events, have a big page for that. And then if you have a subscription, have a separate page for that. You know what I mean? So all the information is there.
Have those inquiry forms, those frequently asked question pages, and very, very clear call to actions to either buy right from your website or submit an inquiry and get the information to you. Okay. So that's the second point is making it very easy for them to actually buy. So one, understanding exactly what you sell. And number two, making it super easy for them to buy from you. And then number three is.
Why should someone choose you? Why should someone choose you over somebody else? Like, this needs to be really, really obvious. Because people don't just buy flowers or wedding packages or bouquets or whatever it is you sell. They buy confidence. So when someone is deciding whether to hire you or purchase from you, inside of their brain, they're subconsciously thinking, like, can I trust this person? Do they know what they're doing? Do they have experience? And like, even if you are new.
And you don't really know what you're doing yet, and you don't really have experience, that's okay. But you want to put their minds at ease, all right? Because we're all learning all the time, right? But this is where social proof comes into place. Not because social proof is like trendy, it's because it actually reduces uncertainty. So you want to build confidence in your potential customer by showing things like,
A portfolio of photos of all the past weddings you've done, every bridal bouquet you've ever made that you like. Or like, you know, showcasing the things you actually want to sell. So if you love working with colorful flowers and colorful palettes, and you only in an ideal world wanna work with people who want to do colorful wedding packages, show pictures of colorful wedding packages that you've done before, you know.
So number one for sure, having a portfolio on your website and your social media if you're doing weddings and events. And if you're not, having that portfolio of whatever it is that you sell. Have testimonials, reviews, behind the scenes videos, you know, highlight customer experiences, real customers and real weddings, real things that have actually happened in real life. Don't hide your proof. Use it.
Let your work tell the story. So any way that you can instill confidence in your customer or potential customer that you have done this before, you have had happy customers, and you are well on your way to helping them with whatever they want, whatever the solution you have for them is, great. And again, if you're just starting out, I'm sure you have given a baby to a friend before or you have
Given a bouquet to somebody. Ask them what they think. Say, hey, could you just like give me a little bit of feedback on this? Could I use it on my website? Like, all it takes is one sentence of somebody saying, Jenny had the most amazing flowers. It was the best, whatever it is. And you can put that on there, and that's social proof that will get you started. So just ask a friend or somebody to give you feedback when you give them flowers. That's all you have to do. Now
So those are the three things. Once you have made it crystal clear about what you sell, then you worry about making it easy for them to buy and making it obvious that you are the right choice. Only after you have those three things, then you worry about getting more people to actually see it. So many flower farmers jump straight to worrying about like,
Instagram reach or Facebook ads or search engine optimization or algorithms, but none of these things actually matter if your message isn't clear. If it's isn't super crystal clear what it is you sell, how people can buy right now, and why they should buy it. clear marketing beats clever marketing every single time. And now
Before we kind of wrap up this episode, I just want to give you the three critical tasks I put together for these particular flower farmers that I've been mentioning throughout this that have been wanting to sell more of their wedding packages, but have really been struggling with that clear messaging and visibility.
And honestly, you know, these are the top three critical tasks I gave to these flower farmers wanting to book more weddings, but these will apply to your business as well. So number one is making your website crystal clear so visitors instantly know what you sell. So this means for them setting up that portfolio, a dedicated product page with an inquiry form, having information about their packages. So whatever that is, if it's all a car, if it's, you know, our full service wedding packages start at $3,000 or
Or maybe you just do bulk buckets, just general information about it. Frequently ask questions page, the service area. So we serve, you know, the Greater Rochester area and the finger lakes or whatever it is. And then with testimonials. So really making your website, if that's where you're sending people, super, super clear. Then turning Instagram.
or Facebook or whatever social media platform you use into your portfolio. Post about what you want to sell. So if you're somebody who's doing weddings, every bottle bouquet, every centerpiece, every, you know, whatever it is you sell, if you're doing workshops, every workshop, every DIY bucket.
Like my Instagram feed is full of just buckets of flowers. And like we have, sure, we do put pictures of buckets of flowers that we've harvested, but they're pretty darn close to like what they get in the bunches that we sell. So that's what we post pictures of all the time. And when we want to sell DIY buckets, we post pictures of our DIY buckets. So just following that and using your website and your Instagram as an actual portfolio. And then finally.
And this might be one of the most important things once you get those two right, is going to where your customers already are for quick customer acquisition. So for example, this flower farmer was like, I just need to book weddings like right now. And I was like, okay, here's what I think we should do. They were already posting fairly consistently on Facebook. So I said
Let's go into Facebook. Let's find local wedding Facebook groups. Because, for example, here in my area, the Rochester area, there's like Rochester brides, there's Rochester couples, there's Rochester engagements, there's all these weird Facebook groups for people. and there's a buy and sell one too for people like selling their wedding stuff and other people buying it. I think it's Rochester wedding buy sell or something like that. I can't remember the name of it.
But wherever you live, I guarantee there's some of these groups. And we had her go and post about her availability, her packaging, all that in there. So she could start generating some interest right away from within those Facebook groups. Then we also put a plan together in place to start attending wedding expos, you know, bridal shows, wedding expos, going to other local vendors like dress shops, venues.
Caterers and just developing a relationship with them and attending community events. So this person was already doing a farmer's market. So I was like, at your farmer's market, have a big, huge sign that says, we do weddings and events. Have an inquiry form that they fill out right then and there. So you get their information, call them and talk through it with them. Try to get them booked on your calendar. So
Going where your customers already are and taking advantage of the places where you already have exposure to people. Excuse me, where you already have exposure to people. So go where buying decisions are already happening. So the broader lesson here is like maybe you don't sell weddings. I know we talked about that a lot in this episode, but you know, the same exact lesson applies. Like if you sell subscriptions, does your website scream, we sell subscriptions? If you sell farmers market bouquets,
Do they know where, when, and what they'll find? Like if you go to my farm Instagram, we post about it like two times every single week. Exactly where, exactly when, and what we're gonna have. If you sell wholesale, would a florist know that in like five seconds? If you sell workshops, are they front and center or are they buried in a blog four from like two years ago? So it doesn't really matter what you sell.
The overarching lesson here is just being super crystal clear about what it is you offer and making it easy for people to buy.
One last thing here before you wrap up is that I want you to understand that marketing isn't just about posting. It's more about communicating clearly. Because posting pretty flowers isn't the goal. It's helping the right customer understand exactly what it is that they can get from you and how you can solve their problem. All right. And I know selling flowers is kind of a luxury thing.
And sometimes there's not a problem, but it's a status thing. Like they want to feel like their house is clean. Like that is kind of a problem that you're solving for them. Maybe they want to feel like they have the most beautiful setup when they have their dinner parties. Like that is a real thing. And then of course, if you're getting married and you're looking for affordable wedding flowers or the most over-the-top gorgeous wedding flowers you've ever seen, the most luxury ones, like these are all problems you're solving for your customer. And this is the marketing piece that you have to get.
very, very good at is making it very clear, you know, who you're for and what it is you sell. So one of my favorite analogies to think about this is imagine walking into a grocery store. Every single shelf is full. There's all these products on there, all these boxes and jars, but absolutely nothing has a label on it. There's no signs, there's no prices, there's no directions. But if you walked in there trying to buy like a can of pasta sauce,
Eventually you could probably figure it out, but it would be really frustrating, right? And if it were me, I would walk in there and be like, hell no, not worth my time. And I would go to the grocery store five miles down the road where they actually have signs and prices and everything has a label to make it easier for me to buy. And I think unknowingly, a lot of flower farmers kind of do this. They have a grocery store.
With no direction, no labels, no pricing, and they're expecting people to be willing to buy. So this is what your marketing should look like a good grocery store with good labels, good directions, and very clear messaging. Beautiful, but not confusing at all. So before you spend another dollar on advertising or worrying about your Instagram reach, before you convince yourself your market is saturated and you're just not gonna succeed.
Open your website or social media as if you've never seen it before. Ask yourself these three simple questions. What do I sell? Who is it for? How do I buy it? And if those aren't obvious within the first five seconds, that's the first thing to fix. Because marketing isn't about getting more people to your business. It's about making sure when they get there, they immediately understand how you can help them.
That's it for today. But before you go, if this episode was helpful, I would love to know because we're thinking about doing some more farm fix episodes where we take a real challenge from a real flower farmer from one of our listeners and we break it down here on the podcast. So we would do this, but in more granular detail, basically coaching you through your specific struggle on your flower farm right now.
Now, this is something that we do inside of our program all the time, but we thought it might be cool to do some podcast episodes about it as well. So if you'd like the chance to have us audit a specific problem on your flower farm, head over to trademarkfarmer.com forward slash farmfix. That's F-A-R-M-F-I-X, and submit it there. And if you're looking for more practical strategies that can help you attract better customers,
and build a more profitable flower farm. We have an upcoming free training coming up soon. So head to trademarkfarmer.com forward slash training to sign up. That's trademarkfarmer.com forward slash training to sign up. I'll put that in the show notes as well. Thanks again for being here for 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. Bye for now.
