THE WEDDING FLORIST PODCAST

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Episode 22 | Quoting for delivery setup and collection for weddings and events

Pricing and quoting is a struggle and exactly what I have struggled with in my business journey. If you aren't quoting for delivery and set up and collection you are losing money from your business and you need to be making sure that you are charging this.

  I have done this where I haven't charged delivery setup and collection and it has affected my profit levels immensely so I want to tell you today so that you can charge and quote your customers correctly and make sure you don't make the same mistakes as me.

Keep listening, grab a pen and paper and make notes so you can go away and apply this to your business.
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Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Florist Podcast where I delve into all things floral, mindset and business.  

And in today's episode I will be talking about the struggle that wedding florists have with pricing and quoting for delivery setup and collection.  

So let's start the main thing that you need to know about delivery setup and collection is that this is actually a real cost and it's a part of a service that you are providing. the items are not magically going to appear at the venue without the transportation, the staff and the time required and you really need to know how to present this to your client on your quote and keep them educated and informed.  

So there are three things that you need to understand so that you are charging delivery setup and collection correctly for every job.

Firstly, you need to understand that you have to spend time and effort to deliver, set up and go back for the collection. You need to think about this.  Is this something you can do yourself or do you need a team? Do you need transportation and how many people will you need? Is it a small event or is it a larger event and let me tell you one more thing, it's better to overestimate then take a random guess.  

Knowing you have to charge

Now I didn't realise the early starts and the late finishes and how much I really underestimated the costs. If you look through the whole process of delivery setup and collection you need to first pack the flowers from your studio or your garage or your shop and play a game of tetris to load them onto the vehicle and then when you get to the venue you've got to unload them and then get them to inside of the Venue where they are going to be set up and sometimes you're going through staircases lifts, lobby areas of hotels, through kitchens and so many other places and you need to consider the time it will take to do this and when you get to your venue you're then having to unpack the boxes and the trolleys the buckets so that you can assemble everything together.  
 
So what you need to be doing is learning from my experience and don't take a guess because I assure you you will be the one who is losing out.

You need to make sure you are taking into consideration  
- how long will it take to deliver and set up  
- how far is the venue from my studio
- how many miles is it to and how many miles from and how long is that journey going to take  
- how much time will I have at the venue for the setup  
- which suppliers will I need to wait for before I can set up
- will there be a turnaround if there's a reception and what's the time frame for this  and
- if you have to go back how much time do I have for the pack down  

So you need to map this all out one by one. It's a full workflow of its own.

Understanding Charges 

Understand your staffing and freelancers rates and how much you need to charge your clients   so in the UK we have a minimum wage which tells businesses what they need to be paying their staff so freelancers if you're employing freelancers will give you their rate and we're in 2024 and they're going right for freelancers anywhere between 15 to 18 pounds going all the way up to 65 pounds per hour and this charge depends on the skill level the experience the hours of work that are required.

so you really need to be taking all of this into consideration and this gives you a good indication of costs for staffing you need to stick to these rates the rate to charge a customer is different from the rate you are paying the freelancer or your staff member and ideally what you need to be doing is just like you mark up your flowers you need to be marking up the staff and what I would do is Mark it up by two so if you are being charged by a freelancer £15 pound an hour you need to be charging your customer £30 an hour and in the UK we do have a minimum wage I'm sure that's the same with other countries where you are and in the UK you can get the charges from www.gov.uk.  okay so let's now understand more on why you would be charging more than your employees and your freelancers are asking for. And the reason you are charging more is that you've taken out public liability insurance to cover the events which is not cheap and then you need to take out the time to coordinate the process and the logistics of delivering your flowers and setting them up and also the timings are very unsociable so this needs to be chargeable.  by unsociable I mean if the event starts at eight o'clock in the morning you will need to be set up by 8 o'clock in the morning and therefore you will probably need to be at the venue a good few hours which means you'll be leaving your studio at possibly three four o'clock in the morning and for receptions that finish at midnight you are then having to go there and collect your belongings after the guests have left which again means you'll be out till early hours of the morning once you've collected your bits and pieces and making your way home.  and this is just the Bare minimum but if you are doing something more risky or more sophisticated then this needs to be reflected within the price because you will need more expertise and skill. so don't be afraid to put these prices up to reflect this for your customer.  

Present this to your customer

When you are quoting you need to list it all down and be transparent and explain it to your customer so that they understand sometimes there is a lot of labour involved when we have to do an installation so the best way is to separate the costs out and have delivery as a what as a charge and then collection as a separate charge.  

What I do is break the charges down to account for the number of vehicles that are required for the job and then add the number of Staff that you require for delivery and then for collection.  

And by breaking down the costs it makes it easy for the customer to understand the costs associated with each part of the process. By doing this, make sure you think about it and then make you charge correctly for each item based on the time it takes you and your team to put it together.  

This also makes it easy to communicate it to your client and educate them so that they don't say you're too expensive. Also,  it gives you credibility and helps to  build trust because you're giving details on what is going to happen on the day and iit shows the client that you are thinking ahead and planning for their day. Also by charging correctly, it allows you to become more creative and deliver better events.  

So let's recap the three things that I've gone through above

1 you need to understand the need to charge for vans staff Logistics
2 you need to make sure you charge the correct rates for your vans and for your staff
3 you need to present the charges to your client as different items so that they understand your process and they can see the transparency within your quote.

I hope this leaves you empowered and confident to work out the charges for delivery setup and collection for weddings and events.  

So, here are various ways you can work with me

Now If you've enjoyed listening to my podcast please show me the love and give me a review on i-tunes. Take a photo of this podcast and post it on your instagram stories tagging me in and I'll be sure to share some love back. If you think this podcast will help your biz bestie then be sure to share it with them too.    

So, here are various ways you can work with me.
 
I have free resources to help you in your business

Get your Complete Guide to Write Winning Proposals and The Ultimate Social Media Kit with a social media calendar, florist specific hashtags and strategies to grow your audience.

Watch the free training on how I went from hand ties to installations and grew my wedding flower business to a 6 figure profitable business.

I know how hard and time consuming it can be to have the right resources in your business and that's why I have created various digital templates and resources that you can use in your business and these are available for instant download in the Etsy Store

That’s it for now - if there's a topic you want covering in the future let me know and I'll get it sorted for you. So until next week, stay blooming and take careBuilding a strong network  Wherever you are in life it is really important to build a strong network and this is really important for wedding florists too. You can really get a lot of emotional support through the rollercoaster of your business journey but also open up opportunities for growth and collaborations. You can share ideas and learn from each other and help each other on projects.  So how can you do this? One of the ways I have done this is going to networking events and attending workshops and also connecting with like minded professionals on social media to get more of a global reach. I have a facebook group for wedding florists to connect with each other and the link is in the shownotes. The idea is to be part of a support and uplifting community.

Hey there Wedding Florist

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