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Episode 35: Sweet Root Village - Finding Your Voice
146 Plays6 years ago
Today’s guests are Lauren and Rachel, the founders of Sweet Root Village, an event floral design company in the Washington D.C. area.
Lauren and Rachel chat with me about starting Sweet Root Village, and their journey from an ‘all-in-one’ event shop to specializing in high-end floral event design. Their story is such a good lesson in narrowing one’s focus, and intentionally growing a business with the resources you have.
In addition to that we talk about how to engage an audience with Instagram stories. Everyone I chatted with that is familiar with Sweet Root Village has brought up their Instagram stories, so dive into how they create engaging stories and use that platform to grow their business.
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Transcript
The Illusion of Perfection on Instagram
00:00:05
Speaker
Nobody's life is perfect behind the scenes. And you know, we kind of see that's what our front page of, you know, Instagram feed is a little bit more for those curated, beautiful images. And everyone likes to see behind the scenes and makes, you know, these unattainable, perfect things and people and businesses seem a little more attainable.
Introduction to Brands at Book Show
00:00:29
Speaker
Welcome to the Brands at Book Show, where we help creative, service-based businesses build their brands and find more clients. I'm your host, Davy Jones.
00:00:41
Speaker
Today's guests are Lauren and Rachel, the founders of Sweet Root Village, an event floral design company in the Washington DC area.
Sweet Root Village: Evolution and Growth
00:00:48
Speaker
Lauren and Rachel chat with me about starting Sweet Root Village and their journey from an all-in-one event shop to specializing in high-end floral event design. Their story is such a good lesson in narrowing one's focus and intentionally growing a business with the resources you have available.
00:01:02
Speaker
In addition to that, we talk about how to engage an audience with Instagram stories. Everyone I chatted with that is familiar with Sweeper Village has brought up their Instagram stories. So we dive into how they create engaging stories and use that platform to grow their business. But before we get to that episode, if you're revisiting your website this season, you need to check out our professionally designed website templates available in the Palm Shop.
00:01:25
Speaker
We now have designs available for both Show It and WordPress, and we've recently launched an e-commerce design for those of you who sell products online. Just go to DavianKrista.com and click on the palm shop. Be sure to check out the show notes at DavianKrista.com for the resources we mentioned during the episode, and I'd like to hear from you about what kind of content you'd like to see on the Brands at Book podcast as we move forward.
00:01:47
Speaker
I'd also like to know what episodes have you enjoyed most so far and why. To leave your feedback, head on over to the Davey and Krista Facebook page and send us a message. Now, onto the episode.
Interview with Floral Designers Lauren and Rachel
00:02:03
Speaker
All right, today I'm excited to be here interviewing I think our first floral designers to have on the show. I'm with Lauren and Rachel from Sweetroot Village. They are a, I guess, a floral event designers here and or event floral designers, which which the proper one of those is right.
00:02:21
Speaker
here in the DMV area. So first floral designers here on the show. So I'm excited not only to jump in and talk about building a floral design business, but also when I asked for recommendations for the show, Lauren and Rachel's names have come up and everybody talks about their Insta stories. So one of the things that we're going to focus on in this interview is their strategy for Insta story and how they use it to engage with their clientele and audience. So welcome to the show.
00:02:48
Speaker
Welcome. Thank you. We are welcome. You're welcome to our show. We also actually have Lauren's newborn with us too, Nelson. So maybe he'll make an appearance at some point throughout the interview. So we always start the show just getting an understanding of how you all got started. So you all have been in business for like nine years now. Where did it all begin?
00:03:11
Speaker
Well, nine years ago this summer is hard to believe will actually be Rachel's wedding anniversary. And that was the beginning of our business. We started by doing flowers for friends of friends weddings. Rachel and I met in college. We also went to church together as where we originally met and.
00:03:26
Speaker
I just kind of dove in out of nowhere. We were in college. I had had some floral background. Rachel's background was in graphic design. We were both interested in a lot of creative outlets, photography. We're both super very type eight organized too. So we did flyers for her wedding and a friend's wedding and we just loved it so much and literally started our business overnight.
00:03:50
Speaker
We just had a bottle of wine together and just talked about how it'd be amazing to do this every day and kind of had this epiphany like, wait a second, we're grownups. We can do whatever we want. Like, why can't we just do this? So obviously we couldn't do full time overnight, but we figured out a name that night, started a blog that night and just kind of went with it.
Focusing on Floral Design
00:04:13
Speaker
Got a business license, not too much longer. And basically we had no idea what we were doing. And here we are nine years later.
00:04:20
Speaker
knowing a fair amount more about what we're doing and loving it more. So you were good friends before you got started? Yeah. Did you meet in college, high school before that? In college. That's when we met about maybe senior year, junior year, something like that. Probably 10, 11 years ago. Okay, awesome. And so how did you come up with a name? The name you came up with back then, is it the same name today? Yes, yes. And it's actually really difficult to say over the phone. So we realize now, like the words all blend together.
00:04:47
Speaker
People really struggle, apparently. Yeah, we're at Sweet River Village. They're like, huh? Sweet River Village, huh? There's a lot of spelling. We do a lot of spelling. We didn't know anything about marketing or branding, really. I was a graphic design major, but I hadn't taken my branding class yet.
00:05:05
Speaker
Truthfully, when we started our business, we wanted to do a little bit of everything, not just flowers. Many people don't know this, but when we started, we did photography, wedding planning, we made invitations, a graphic design. We did all sorts of things in addition to flowers, so we couldn't be something like sweet root flowers or sweet root photography. We needed something that encompassed all the things we wanted to do, and we love the term
00:05:27
Speaker
Village like it takes a village even now as I'm holding my baby someone else holding my baby in a few minutes it literally takes a village right now and then you know because there's two of us we couldn't be like Lauren's floral company or Rachel's photography you know so we just kind of smushed a whole bunch of words together that we liked honestly there's really no good story behind it so here we are
00:05:46
Speaker
No, I think that's a great story. And you know, it's funny because when I heard your old names for the first time, Sweeter Village, for whatever reason, I just feel like your work matches up with that name. You know, I feel like it is a good name, even if at the time you hadn't taken your branding class. And that's really interesting that you all started doing all sorts of stuff from florals to invitations to photography. Really, how did you decide to narrow your focus down on floral design?
00:06:11
Speaker
Like a lot of it had to do with becoming more known in a way, becoming busier. The busier we got, the less we felt like we could do super well. We needed to pare down. And so then it was mainly focusing on what we were most passionate about. Quickly day of coordination and planning.
00:06:29
Speaker
Elements were cut just cuz we weren't quite they were there because we felt like they needed to be there There was a need in the market quickly realized less of a need of a mark in the market photography We were both really passionate about in the beginning. So that was harder to realize that we needed to cut
00:06:46
Speaker
I think it just because there's two of us and so one person kind of hinted at the idea of maybe I'm not quite so excited about doing this for other people anymore and the other person's like oh no way kind of me too wait are we joking no we're serious okay let's run the numbers can we afford to like cut this slightly larger moneymaker because there's not as much cost involved compared to flowers where there's a lot of hard goods and flowers so we had to kind of run a bunch of numbers figure out if that was doable
00:07:11
Speaker
figured out it was. So photography slowly got scaled back. First, we just stopped doing weddings, then eventually we cut out family photography, newborn photography, kind of everything and flowers grew really big. So that's exciting. I mean, that's a really interesting concept, though, is that you cut things out of your business and all of a sudden your business grew. Do you think you're more profitable now? I mean, on one hand, you might be more profitable just because you've been in business longer now. But do you think you're more profitable now having cut all those
00:07:37
Speaker
additional services out and now really just focusing on flowers. I guess as a secondary question, do you feel like you can charge more for your floral design services now that you specialize in that?
00:07:48
Speaker
I would say yes and yes. I think the fact that we are really putting all of our energy into one service, you know, one within the industry, I think it helps our brains really focus better and which creates a better product. It also creates, I think, a little more value to our business not being a one-stop shop when we're more of a specialized company. Because in the beginning, we kind of liked the idea of being a one-stop shop and, you know, someone come to us and do
00:08:17
Speaker
behalf of their wedding vendors. But as we went along, we realized that that actually wasn't quite for us.
The Importance of Studio Space
00:08:24
Speaker
So we definitely I think all of the above, we're definitely able to do some bigger weddings now that we're just doing one thing and not a million things. Sure. And now you all are more than just Lauren and Rachel, right? I mean, you have a whole team of people that work alongside of you. I guess when did you transition from being there or trying to be a one stop shop to just focusing on floral design? And how have you grown your team since?
00:08:48
Speaker
It was a slow process. We chose to grow our business slowly in general. We didn't, you know, do loans or anything to kickstart it. So everything, the first three years were definitely
00:08:59
Speaker
pretty slow pace. I think three years in is when we even hired our first part-time employee. We just kind of started building our staff slowly one by one and that took several years. Now there's six of us in here almost on a full daily basis. So that was all as needed and then mainly hired I think initially the part-timer because I got pregnant with my second child at the time and when I was pregnant with the first in I don't know second year business.
00:09:26
Speaker
We really didn't have very much going on, so it was easier for Lauren to tackle and pick up the slack where I was lacking. Second time I got pregnant, we were a bit busier. We had a studio space rather than working out of our homes, and Lauren's like, oh no. It was a surprise for both her and I, for everyone involved. She's like, I can't do this by myself anymore. So we'd quickly hire a part timer that kind of fell into our laps, and it was a good fit.
00:09:49
Speaker
And then took off from there and then i think because we had taken the initial because we felt like we had to use your to take additional leaps and higher additional people cuz we kinda had it figured out a little by then and your question about how you know at the pace we took away services that was pretty slow too so we didn't overnight i mean overnight yes we decided to get back to your feel back wedding coordination.
00:10:10
Speaker
but we took a slow process. We still had clients that had booked us and we of course wanted to finish off those contracts and do our best with those and we were excited about those weddings. It took a year to phase out wedding planning and then it took another year or so to phase out wedding photography and then maybe another six months to a year to phase out family photography.
Launching Simply Sweet Root
00:10:30
Speaker
Everything we've done while we're notorious for making spontaneous business decisions overnight and just launching a sister company. We've launched it overnight too.
00:10:41
Speaker
Notorious for those decisions, fast decisions, but we sometimes, you know, do obviously have to take time to scale up or down the business. Sure. I think there's probably a lot of wisdom in that though too. You know, it sounds like you guys have a really good balance between working quickly or moving fast, but at the same time understanding that certain things just take a lot of time. I also want to say Lauren and our listeners can't see this right now, but you're just holding Nelson, you're a pro. I'm so I'm jealous of this just because having Jack
00:11:08
Speaker
Yes. But you know, having Jack, if I had Jack in my arms right now, I wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything that I was trying to ask or say. So I'm just so impressed right now. You need to know that. One thing I want to talk about is a physical space. You all have a studio. How important is a physical space to, you know, having a floral design company? We have to have some space, but that space does not have to be out of your home. We actually worked out of my second floor
00:11:37
Speaker
apartment for the first two and a half years of business, two years, something like that. And my roommate, I had a roommate at the time because we were in college, she was allergic to flowers, but we were doing flowers right there in the kitchen in the living room. And we had, you know, on the tiny little porch, we had a little storage closet and
00:11:56
Speaker
So we highly recommend keeping your overhead as low as possible for as long as possible and home floral studios are a wonderful thing because you don't have to commute anywhere. You can stay in your pajamas if you want. It's awesome and there are limitations though. We did find ourselves doing a lot of client meetings at Panera and Starbucks and that got exhausting and
00:12:18
Speaker
As our weddings got bigger and our clientele got bigger and we started working with higher-end wedding planners, it just wasn't as professional in our businesses. It would be a little unexpected. It grew out of necessity. Also, the bigger weddings we did, the more space we needed. We found a need eventually for more refrigeration space. Everything again grew slowly and organically, but I definitely say space of some sort is a necessity.
00:12:44
Speaker
but to be wise about how you're spending that money. As soon as you get rent to pay and utilities to pay on a whole second space, it's a whole other level of pressure to be paying the bills. If you have a home, because we both had apartments that don't really work and you can't ask your clients to walk up three flights of stairs to your tiny little apartment studio, but if you have a home somewhere that's in a really beautiful area or a whole basement area that's your entire studio with a separate walk-in, you could totally do
00:13:11
Speaker
High-in-client meetings if you've got a cool space. We just didn't have that. Things had to change for us out of necessity, but there's lots of people who can totally make a home studio work for their entire career.
Scaling and Learning in Business
00:13:23
Speaker
He's a little jealous of those two who can. That's definitely a difference between, we're a two person, we have two business owners versus someone who is a single business owner that we have two people to consider. Two lives to plan around each other. Where are you going to live? When are you going to have babies? When am I going to have babies? Are you done having babies? It's my turn.
00:13:41
Speaker
We got a lot of things to plan. Which house do we even have the studio at? It's a lot more to consider when you have two people and two families on the line. And I ask partly because of the refrigeration space, and I feel like the floral design studios that I've been in before, there's just tons of refrigeration space. So even in your apartments, you were able to make that do for the time being. I think we didn't have a full walk-in refrigeration space for five years, five or six years of business.
00:14:09
Speaker
So we blasted the AC and said a lot of prayers. Yeah, I think that but again, I think there's just so much wisdom in that you all were able to build this this really great business, but you did it, you know, just scaling up as you needed to over over time. So I want to fast forward a little bit because now you're doing pretty high end events, right? And you started this sister company, simply sweet root. Basically, I guess why did you start the sister company? What hole are you trying to fill kind of in your business?
00:14:38
Speaker
Well, based on our business model and how we structured everything, we do have quite a large minimum investment for our clients to do full service floral design with us. We're not quite able to take on too many small projects, but we're getting so many inquiries from some amazing clients that are like, I follow you on Instagram and I want you to do my bouquet and my bridesmaids. We can't necessarily do the whole wedding with you, but I definitely want you to make my bouquet. I love your work.
00:15:07
Speaker
It was just heartbreaking to us to have to turn those orders down. There's a lot of reasons on the back end that we have to order in such bulk. It's really hard for us just to make one bouquet without having tons of waste. There's a lot of factors there where we unfortunately had to turn a lot of that business down. It was so sad when these clients loved us so much. We saw a little bit of a hole in the market because a lot of the other floral designers we know also have minimum investments for the similar reasons.
00:15:32
Speaker
So we decided to create a handful of floral collections that include bridal bouquets, centerpieces, boutonnieres, corsages, some of the basic staples, using flowers that we could source year-round and geared towards different styles, you know, a very garden-y bride or a very classic client or wedding or, you know, whatever it is.
00:15:53
Speaker
made it all a cart. It's like the Amazon of wedding flowers made by Sweet Root Village. You can literally just go add five centerpieces and two bouquets and three boutonnieres into your cart and check out and we deliver it. So it's still made by us. You're getting our style and our expertise. But it's a little bit more affordable. It's all the cart. So there's no customization and there's no consultation and proposals and contracts.
00:16:16
Speaker
But that also makes it a little easier for our clients, too, who just say, like, you know what? I'm getting married at the courthouse. I just want a really gorgeous bouquet and boutonniere. Click, checkout, done. And we've really loved doing that. And we're hoping to even expand some of those collections this year. And we've been doing it for about two years and hoping to market a bit more towards some corporate clients. DC is a huge corporate market.
00:16:38
Speaker
So having some good items for hotels and conference centers is going to be a goal. Baby showers and rehearsal dinners, just anytime you need just a handful of floral pieces, it's perfect for that. And you will deliver those just to this area or can that be ordered really anywhere domestically?
00:16:55
Speaker
It is supposed to be within 60 miles of our studio. Okay, cool. That's good to know. Just in the area.
Building a High-End Brand
00:17:02
Speaker
I'm sure there's people listening and thinking, I need to do that, you know, but it's there in California.
00:17:09
Speaker
And Rachel, you mentioned that this is an idea that you all basically implemented overnight, or at least came up with, you know, in a single night, what did that look like? Or how did you even come up with this idea? It looked like firstly, a business retreat, we have started doing little business retreats for two or three, three or four years now, where just the two of us go away for a whole weekend, and usually at a hotel or somewhere that has room service, like bring me food, and I'm gonna sit on this computer for
00:17:35
Speaker
so many hours and I'm going to go crazy. We work on some major business overhauling or new ideas or relive the past year and see what we can make better, things like that. We're not the first to have done this. There's definitely others who have done this. We took some inspiration from others and felt like it was a perfect need, especially for our business, right in our area.
00:18:00
Speaker
Yeah, we just went for it and literally in that day overnight we made the logo, made the website and launched it I think within the next week or two once we were able to get all the flowers in, make everything, photograph them, get them up on the site. Which is, you know, we alluded to earlier, it is nice being photographers. That is one of our backgrounds that we are able to photograph our own work and that is a huge help for our blog and everything too.
00:18:24
Speaker
Oh, yeah, for sure. And I mean, just props to you all for being able to get that up over a course of two weeks. I think anything ecommerce, you know, there's just so many components to it, so many integrations, so many things that, you know, have to be worried about on the back end of things. So that's awesome. But I do want to transition into talking about kind of how you guys made a name for yourself in the DMV area.
The Role of Wedding Planners
00:18:41
Speaker
We often talk to people and you know, I guess one of the complaints that we hear is that they're working in a really saturated market.
00:18:47
Speaker
You know, and I've written before about, you know, whether I think kind of saturated markets and all of that kind of exist or not. But if there is a saturated market, I assume that DMV, the DMV area would be considered one of them, right? I mean, you have three major cities, you have photographers, floral designers, you know, all sorts of wedding pros and creatives within a stone's throw of each other. So, you know, what were some of the things that you guys did to make a name for yourself in the area and really build this reputation as high end floral event designers?
00:19:16
Speaker
I really think a turning point for us, maybe about three or four years into our business, because up until then, we weren't really well known, definitely.
00:19:25
Speaker
The market definitely had some big players in it and we were not one of them. But that's okay, we were still pretty small. I think the big turning point for us was getting in with some great wedding planners and being able to show them, kind of prove to them that we were worth it and we could do great work and we could handle the hustle of a large event. And it kind of happened by chance. A friend of a photographer, so and so, recommended us to a wedding planner who was maybe a little hesitant to use us because we were new and she had never heard of us.
00:19:53
Speaker
went out on a limb and used us and the client really liked us and wanted to book us. That wedding planner is a great friend of ours and we still work closely with her all the time. Truthfully, that was a turning point in our business because we did that wedding with her and through social media, I want to say, and word of mouth through her, all the other wedding planners in the area started being like, oh, you worked with so and so. I saw that and there's definitely a very tight-knit trust
00:20:17
Speaker
between event planners in this area and who they work with. So that was huge for us and now we work with so many different event planners that bring us amazing clients and amazing events.
00:20:27
Speaker
and that definitely allows us to stand out. I mean, we have to keep our game up, definitely. I mean, we have to make sure our quality is excellent, and we're really catering, giving that personal touch to
Instagram Stories: Engagement and Authenticity
00:20:38
Speaker
every client. And as much as this is a saturated market, DC is also pretty unique in that the competition is, of course there's competition, obviously. It's a huge saturated market. But everyone's friends. We're friends with almost all of our, quote unquote, competition. Everyone is rooting for each other. It's a strange,
00:20:56
Speaker
but magical area where it all just works really well. And while there is a massive amount of people in every industry in the event world, there's a massive amount of people getting married and hosting events, like more so probably than other areas, it's three large cities. So it all bounces appropriately. Sure. Sure. How important do you think it was to get in with wedding planners, especially in the wedding world, and especially trying to book higher end weddings like you all do?
00:21:24
Speaker
completely we wouldn't be where we are today if it wasn't for the wedding planners that we work with. That was 100% the cause for where we are, 100%. If we get featured on a blog or in a magazine, usually that's also a huge thanks to the planner and the photographer because they're putting together beautiful floral arrangements, but they are putting together all of the other details that
00:21:48
Speaker
enhance the flowers and the flowers enhance the other details and the photos are incredible and they're the ones sending off the submissions. So that makes a huge, huge difference. And then the more we're featured and publish and associated with those planners, the further we go and just kind of a cycle. And we really, I mean, with those planners, we're connecting, making sure to connect over social media. So when we do get, you know, get tagged in something or get a feature and we post it or they post it, we find it really important to share that. And there's definitely a few tips with
00:22:18
Speaker
Sharing content that are really important. Yeah, I'm just I mean tagging I think everyone knows you should tag other people but the more tag in both the caption and the image for us It sounds weird to say but with so many so many notifications from Instagram coming in all the time if we're not tagged in an image itself I oftentimes will miss the caption post because it'll scroll down through our notifications and disappear completely in very little time. So Just yeah, lots of tagging in images
00:22:47
Speaker
has been a huge thing once that feature was available on Instagram. And obviously, Stories has made a huge, huge impact over time once that became available and became super huge. Yeah, and I definitely want to talk about Stories specifically here in a second. Going back to tagging as well, you all have a background in photography, so I'm sure you can take a number of the photos that you share across social media.
00:23:09
Speaker
But do you make it a point to use other photographers' work of your work, other people's photos of your work is what I'm trying to say, when sharing, just to contribute to that ecosystem of showing off some other people's work as well? Yes, especially if it's something that's been featured, which does happen a fair amount of times. But if it's been featured, it's
00:23:29
Speaker
Definitely more important for the photographer to get the credit than for ourselves. Not that we're sitting there quoting ourselves, photo by me. Definitely when we have images, we're trying to post from the photographer just to help the cycle of tagging.
00:23:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's great. I do want to talk about stories in particular, because again, when I talk to people, you know, I'm like, Hey, I'm interviewing the girls from Sweeter Village. I think hands down, people are like, Oh, I watch their stories. You know, I mean, that's the I mean, of course, you guys do beautiful work. But you know, a lot of people talk about watching your stories. And one friend in particular, Jill Powers from Big Spring Farm. She was the one I think, who originally mentioned you all. And just, you know, one thing she said was just that you all do such a good job of
00:24:12
Speaker
sharing, you know, especially the stories or the behind the scenes of a day or an event in a way that's really engaging, you know, and that's sometimes hard to do because when you're behind the scenes, it's hard sometimes not just to do the same old thing, always, or just to be a series of pictures. And then, you know, people just hustle through them, right?
00:24:30
Speaker
But when people talk about your stories, it sounds like they stick around and they watch the entire thing. So was there an initial strategy behind using stories or is this something that you all just kind of stumbled upon and found success? What did that look like?
00:24:44
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like it was a stumbling upon type of a thing. I don't know when it became like, I'm going to turn this camera around and talk more to it. I don't know exactly why or when that happened specifically, but I do remember following some people not in the event industry that I found really inspiring, specifically Jen Gotch in Orlando Soreo.
00:25:04
Speaker
who are just really really comfortable completely being themselves whether they're crying or singing or whatever they were doing on camera they just felt so genuine and i really found that inspiring so it became easy to turn the camera easier to turn the camera around and just be okay with whatever was showing and
00:25:23
Speaker
show all the kind of craziness behind the scenes and not feel like we had to filter very much or show a perfect look. We appreciated that InstaStories felt like it could be its own versus what we show on our feed and what we're presenting. So that was just received so quickly, so well. It was very strange and unexpected, but we're just kind of rolling with it. So yeah, as much as possible, we're just cruising through showing everything. One, I think
00:25:49
Speaker
The fact that we can do good stories on site at our weddings has to do with the fact that we built a really great team. We've built a really great team. And having great people on site to help execute the event means we have a little bit more brain space to show all the behind the scenes, which has gone very far, I think, in that. And we have some tips, I guess.
00:26:08
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's great. I want to dive into those tips. What are some of the things that you experience? I mean, when you start doing anything, you know, if you got no feedback or no engagement, you'd probably stop doing, you know, whatever it is, right? So it sounds like you initially got some really good feedback around stories and saw some engagement there. What were the kinds of things that you started seeing that made you think, Oh, I think, you know, because
00:26:29
Speaker
I'm sure you would agree now that you guys have a strategy behind insta stories on some level, you know, you all seem to share most events. I mean, if you go to your account on a consistent basis, there's a story there. So I assume that there's some sort of intentionality there at this point anyways. So what were some of the things initially where you're like, Oh, wow, you know, I'm posting here. What was some of the feedback and responses that you were getting that made you think, Yeah, we should do more of this.
00:26:55
Speaker
Well, I think we were getting a lot more feedback from other designers and started getting a larger following of designers because of the things we were posting and a lot of tentative questions about what we were doing and a lot of engagement in terms of every element that we posted.
00:27:12
Speaker
Which, yeah, just encouraged us to figure out what is better to post, I guess, be more thorough in what we're posting and sharing a lot more details and people freaking out about how many details we're posting and as if it's this new novel idea to share a lot of the ins and outs, which I guess to some it is. So that was huge. And then, um, going to networking meetings and then having random people approach you.
00:27:35
Speaker
like, fangirling was a very strange new experience. Like, I watch your stories every day and they'll, you know, some weird, it's just weird interactions that were not uncomfortable, but new to us. Because we're just like normal people showing all these goofy things behind the scenes and it's being so well received that it's encouraging to continue both in person and online. We're getting, we had a lot of great feedback. It's very,
00:27:57
Speaker
that's all and wonderful and that's awesome even that you have a community of designers to that that fall along with your stories and again just to mean not that it's all about father's or anything like that but you know I think there is some social proof you know in there as well just I'm sure when a bride is recommended to you all referred to you all by a
00:28:16
Speaker
I'm sure when a bride is referred to you all by a planner and they go to your Instagram account and see that you guys have, you know, 20ish thousand followers, you know, and then of course see your work beyond that. And then of course, even in addition to that, get to see some of the behind the scenes. That's probably pretty affirming for them that okay, these people are professional, they do a good job. Yeah, I think so. So you do have some tips for people who want to, you know, you implement stories more in their business. Let's go through those. Yeah, I mean, I think the first and foremost,
00:28:46
Speaker
Everyone says, be yourself. But it's so true. It's very easy to tell apart a genuine response to something or genuine conversation than it is something that's rehearsed or crafted or I've got this outlined thing. I know exactly what to say in this small amount of time. For me, eye contact, trying my best to look at the camera versus myself. Little things about just
00:29:11
Speaker
We'll get a lot of comments about someone will say it feels like you're talking to me every time you're talking I feel like you're you're literally talking to the screen to me and That's encouraging that makes me feel like I'm doing it correctly before just being ourselves and not trying to craft some experience We're just showing the real life and people seem to really really gravitate I know I gravitate towards that and what I'm watching So I recommend I definitely recommend that just completely being yourself and figuring out what what that looks like and what that means I think it works every time
00:29:41
Speaker
Yeah, I've been trying to get better at that because myself is in sweats 99% of the time, you know? So I feel like, you know, Chris is like, can you get on his story, share about whatever? I'm like, I feel like I have to shower and change out of these, you know? So I'm trying to get better at that.
00:29:56
Speaker
That's so like that's so good and that kind of is exactly our second tip is to show the behind the scenes and you they don't have to be perfect. They're behind the scenes because nobody's life is perfect behind the scenes and you know we kind of see that's what our front page of you know Instagram feed is a little bit more for those curated beautiful images and everyone likes to see behind the scenes and makes you know these unattainable perfect things and people and businesses seem a little more attainable and
00:30:23
Speaker
And even our clients, so we kind of feel like we have, in a way, like two or three different audiences on InstaStories. We have our clients are watching, other industry professionals are watching, which I was thinking like other planners and photographers, but then there's also our peers are watching, our other florists are watching. And we have to remember that the whole time, but we kind of feel like all of them like seeing that. We have some clients that will come in for their initial consultation and be like, oh, look, there's baby Nelson. I've been waiting to meet him.
00:30:53
Speaker
where are the dogs today or you know ask about those things and they'll be like wow your studio looks so different than it does an insta stories or oh there's the famous sweet your village wall. It's just so much fun that I think it immediately makes things feel more personal and I think in a digital world and everything's perfect world and everything's out there.
00:31:12
Speaker
for us to see, I think people are really looking for that extra personal connection and they're almost more inclined to come meet with us because maybe they've seen those behind the scenes. And oftentimes the mess is what draws people more. We just got another, we got a message I think yesterday from a designer who just got their first studio space and she's like, it's real rough but I found pictures of your studio space when you first got it on your blog and I'm equally inspired and relieved.
00:31:41
Speaker
But you got to show the mess, you know, you can't have the the good isn't quite so good without seeing the bad in a lot of aspects of life. But it was very profound. I am so deep right now. I had two cups of coffee. It's so nice. It's relieving in a sense to get to just you show what you show. It doesn't matter what it looks like.
00:32:01
Speaker
And people love it it's crazy why do people love it i will try man a little bit on this to say we are very real and we show up behind the scenes we even show a lot of our mistakes but we also do remember that our clients are watching and so you know just as a word of advice is like we will show mistakes but we're also. Why is about how we handle them on insta stories to make we don't make any clients nervous we wanted to don't want to be like oh my gosh they're screwing up every two seconds.
00:32:25
Speaker
So if we do show a mistake, we're more showing it to be like, this is how we fix these things. This is why we're really good at being crisis managers, really, and because we can tackle these things. So we do try to keep that in mind that we don't want to lose people's confidence in us because we're showing every little crack of ourselves. Well, we want to show that we're real people and that we're not perfect, but we also know how to manage that because we've been doing this for 9, 10 years. That's, I think, really a make or break in
00:32:55
Speaker
this business is you have to know how to manage a crisis.
00:32:58
Speaker
fix a mistake and make it right. And I think we've gotten pretty good at that. Yeah, that's great. I imagine people are just, you know, like you mentioned, there's just a lot more comfortable when they come in, because on some level, they feel like they know you. It's probably nice for you all thinking, okay, yeah, this person watches our stories, they know that we're, you know, who we are. And so that probably takes some of the pressure off too, just in terms of the consult itself. Yeah, no, absolutely. And most more times than not, it's, it's really nice. You already feel connected with somebody and they feel like they know you
00:33:27
Speaker
Although we've got to make sure I turn on the jokes a little heavier in person just as much as online. Yeah, I guess you come off one way online really funny and people meet you, they expect more of that. Generally speaking, most people do say that we're all the same. We're the same online as we are in person.
Sharing Insights: Speaking and Mentorship
00:33:46
Speaker
We do our best to keep it that way. But it's really fun. That's great. Yeah, our third sort of main tip was just to mix up content.
00:33:55
Speaker
We try not to show our face 100% of the time, but we try to show our face 50% of the time. There's definitely a difference between always seeing through the lens what the other person's seeing versus turning the camera around on yourself, and I think both are really important.
00:34:08
Speaker
both showing behind the scenes. We show a little bit of behind the scenes of business. We show a little bit of flowers. We show all the pretty as well as the bad. Like really mixing up the content on stories has been fantastic and keeps all those types of people following us that we want on all different schools. I don't know about you, but when I'm watching Insta stories, if it's too much of the same, I just want to swipe to the next person.
00:34:33
Speaker
If I see that someone has 20 stories posted and the first five are just their face talking, I'm like, yeah, I do want to hear this content, but I want to see a little bit of something else. So even if we're going to do a series where we're just talking, just sharing information and just looking at Rachel's face all night, she's so good about mixing in things like putting a link on this one or putting some text or a funny
00:34:56
Speaker
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00:35:17
Speaker
you're kind of doing the same thing, mixing it up a little bit and encouraging people to interact with you. You know, putting little polls or little ask me questions or things like that. Really, really do that. Engage your audience.
00:35:28
Speaker
Yeah. And I like how you guys have a sense of who you're speaking to as well. Like you have three sort of clearly defined groups of people that you know you're engaging with when you do a story. And I'm sure that helps when it comes to kind of varying and planning out the content that you're going to share. And I do want, and I think that's a nice segue to talk about some of the things that you guys have going on in 2019 here. I'm sure that these designers that engage with you, especially over Insta stories, and you've already announced this, but you have some workshops coming up as well.
00:35:58
Speaker
We do. We are, yeah. We're speaking at several conferences this year, which we're super excited about. And it is such an honor to be asked to speak at things. I think that was kind of a weird moment for us when we started being asked to speak. We're like, wait, we have things to teach. You want us? Us? We love teaching. We always really, really have loved teaching. And so it's really fun for us to do these. So we have a few things coming up. And one is in New Orleans, Baton Rouge area.
00:36:28
Speaker
at the end of March. We're going to be speaking at a conference in Charleston in August, at the beginning of August, and one locally here in the Maryland area in April. So kind of all over. And all three, Hannah, have a different one is focused more towards freelance floral designers. One will be probably the main and only speaker over the course of a couple of days. And one will be us. We're one of like 10 to 15 speakers. So they're all three very different experiences.
00:36:55
Speaker
And we're going to hopefully be launching official details on all of those, but none of them, we're hosting none of them, which is kind of fun to not be the host and just show up and getting to spend time with people, the attendees.
00:37:06
Speaker
So yeah, we'll definitely be posting that information on our main Instagram feed, but definitely watch on stories for all of the specific details on locations and dates and links to sign up and all of that will be on our Insta stories. And then we even personally are hoping to launch some educational opportunities ourselves this year.
00:37:26
Speaker
including mentorships which we've already launched we love just talking one-on-one with people in the industry it's usually floral designers just looking to i would say people usually in the first few years of business ready to kind of take that next step for someone who's about to hire the first employee or they want to move into a studio space or they're in a red or something like that and our mentorships are a really great way just to kind of hash through things with us and get some advice
00:37:52
Speaker
And those are about you know one hour was to a phone call or a face time or something and really get to ask us anything you love being an open book and the business of flowers i think is where we find the most passion we love flowers obviously we wouldn't be doing what we do if we didn't but we've equally fell in love with our own small business and.
00:38:10
Speaker
talking business to everybody who will listen. We love talking business. Which is a huge component of doing event florals or anything, whatever it is. There's always a business side of things. Definitely helps if you enjoy that aspect of things. Do you feel like Instastories has helped promote this kind of stuff or give you these kinds of opportunities to go and speak places? Absolutely. I think how you heard about us too. The fact that the more we share, the more open we are. I think the bigger of an impact it has
00:38:38
Speaker
And the more someone will trust that what we have to say means something, that it will help them.
00:38:44
Speaker
that has gone really far and is the reason we're speaking. Yeah, we are. Well, that's great. And I do want to say again, I'm just I wish that this podcast there's a video aspect to it because you know, just I'm so impressed with how you all can manage this interview, baby in tow, walking away when you need to for a second here and then coming back. It's just it's just it is so I'm just so impressed by it. And I'm sitting here thinking like I can never do that. You know, if I jack in my arms right now, if you would have already lost it, you know, I would not be
00:39:13
Speaker
You have to be really good at multitasking for sure being a working parent. Yeah, you all are crushing it and it's almost it's inspiring on some level too because you know even just I mean seven months in now and I still feel like oh man I'm just every day I feel like I'm learning. People ask us all the time like what's the secret you guys bring your kids to work you you're rocking it you're doing so great. I'm like there's no secret. It's hard. It's really really hard.
00:39:39
Speaker
Yeah, but I love it. You're just going with the flow here. This is great. So if people who are interested in finding out more, where are the places that they can go to connect with you all? Instagram. Yeah, that's definitely the best place. The most current content always is following us on Instagram and checking out our stories pretty much daily. Rachel's pretty good about checking in all the time. And obviously, our main Instagram feed. We're on Facebook, I think. Sometimes, occasionally. Basically, email if you want to talk to both of us.
00:40:08
Speaker
And Instagram, if you want to talk, well, Lauren falls along, but I respond to every message that comes in. So you send me a message, I will be responding to you. Awesome. And I'll make sure I'll post all of that in the show notes. And I'll make sure that I reach out to Lauren and Rachel about specifics around dates and things like that for your all, you know, the speaking out now, not only where you can follow them along where they're speaking, but then also for any sort of educational opportunities they are offering this year. Thank you again so much for your time this morning. Thank you. Thank you so much.
00:40:40
Speaker
Thanks for tuning into the Brands That Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a review in iTunes. For show notes and other resources, head on over to dvandchrista.com.
00:41:02
Speaker
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