Coffee Wine & Flowers Podcast

In this episode I share one important mindset shift that paved the way for me to pursue wealth in my business. Early in my business I was on a repeating cycle of feeling maxed out and overworked and lacking a sense of direction. What started with investing in a finance course to get my books on track led to a series of discoveries that allowed me to shift my focus to the future. This started a chain reaction where I was able to restructure my business and find ways to expand and diversify my offerings in order to reach a financial goal that I never before thought possible.

Part 1 - The Vision Board

As the first module in the finance course in which I had enrolled, the assignment of creating a vision board had me a bit confused but turned out to be a turning point in realizing the future I wanted for myself, and the part my business played in attaining that desired future. My course experience and the exercises therein allowed me to discover that I needed to diversify my income in order to not only keep my business afloat but to obtain the wealth and life of freedom I desired. This exercise revealed to me the importance of having a very specific list of goals and a concrete overall vision for my life, so that I could adjust my path to reach my goals.

Part 2 - The Numbers

This course was unique because it started with our wildest hopes, dreams and desires and worked backwards to reverse engineer a business structure that would serve as our catalyst for achieving that life. But the steps involved in restructuring my business involved me obtaining a clear picture of the current state of my business finances. This was the second major step in me being able to craft a meaningful and logical direction for my business. It was through this process that I came to the reality that my wedding floral services were not going to provide enough income to reach my goals, which then led me to diversify and brand out to more offerings under my same brand.
Part 3 - Becoming a Risk Taker

The last piece of the puzzle was figuring out a way to close the income gap that was standing between me and the financial future I desired. I came up with the idea of streamlining the wedding side of my business to make room for a new set of offerings. I decided to explore offerings in the realm of passive income so that while increasing my revenue I could also pursue more freedom and time in my schedule at the same time. This new endeavor involved me acquiring a new skillset and practically learning in an entirely new industry from the ground up, but I was up to the challenge. Despite the doubts I had, I knew that I needed to take the risk and put myself out there, doing what it took to own my new title of a floral educator. My actions were imperfect in the beginning, and I dealt with all the usual fears of what others would think. But it was by trusting in myself and trusting in my plan that I was able to move forward in confidence and saw immense growth in my business as a result.
Conclusion:
My biggest takeaway from this experience in taking a real assessment of the state of my business and measuring it against my life goals and desires was that it gave me a powerful bird's eye view of my business. It allowed me to see what needed to change and find a way to adjust my course to reach my destination.
I hope that if you listen to this episode, you will take some time to write down your goals and perhaps explore taking a similar assessment of your business, so that it may open up new doo

Floral Business Tools & Resources:
www.mulberryandmoss.com/shop
Podcast Home Page:
www.mulberryandmoss.com/podcast
Follow on Instagram:
@mulberryandmoss

You are going to love this conversation!
In this episode, Janelle Thomson, owner of Lavender Flowers and Tono & Co, shares her inspiring story of how she fatefully acquired Lavender Flowers (on Craigslist) and transformed it to align with her creative vision. She walks us through how she rediscovered her creative voice after hitting her "business rock bottom," and figured out a way to create financial sustainability in her business without sacrificing her creative urges.
Ever encountered the dilemma of feeling pulled to those irresistible blooms that are outside the client's budget? Or trying to communicate budget realism to clients without causing disappointment? In our conversation, Janelle shares how she has overcome budget restrictions and managing client expectations, and we also reveal our shared discovery of how structuring tiered offerings can help you communicate value in a streamlined way while setting your business up to scale.
Janelle and I close this episode with sharing our excitement of our upcoming in-person workshop, along with a preview of what students can expect.
Interested in joining us at the workshop this April? We'd love to have you!
Here's how to redeem your special bonus!
1. Click here to purchase your workshop ticket.
2. Send an email to [email protected] (or DM me @mulberryandmoss) after purchasing your workshop ticket, provide your order # and mention this episode of Coffee Wine & Flowers.
We will sign you up for a free 1-hour coaching call with Janelle or myself, redeemable at any time in the coming year.
Click Here to Explore all Workshop DetailsChapters
00:00 Introduction and Background
03:02 Taking Over Lavender's Flowers
06:05 Shaping Lavender's Flowers
11:50 Managing Pricing and Budgeting
28:04 The Importance of Mock-ups and Communication
29:12 Understanding Client Expectations and Budgets
37:00 Creating a Lower-Tiered Offering
45:28 Streamlining Processes for Efficiency and Profitability
51:00 The Excitement of the In-Person Workshop
55:52 Final Thoughts and Words of Encouragement

Floral Business Tools & Resources:
www.mulberryandmoss.com/shop
Podcast Home Page:
www.mulberryandmoss.com/podcast
Follow on Instagram:
@mulberryandmoss

Welcome to the Coffee Wine & Flowers Podcast! I named this podcast after 3 of my favorite things, and to serve as a reminder that life is not just about the work that we do but also the little things that make it enjoyable.

I wanted to start this podcast to shed some light on what it’s like to be on the inside of building a business around your creative passions, while acknowledging the simple joys and lessons learned along the way that make it all worth it. Whether you’re new here or know me already, I want to say welcome and thank you for listening!

My name is Sarah Wahhab and I own a wedding floral design company called Mulberry & Moss in Orange County, California. A few years ago, after about 8 years of working in the industry as a wedding designer I began my journey of becoming a floral and business educator. First through offering group floral workshops, then moving onto 1:1 workshops, and then after the pandemic started in 2020, I turned to sharing my knowledge digitally with my followers on social media. After seeing a crazy amount of growth through content creation I discovered a need for more approachable floral education and resources for floral business owners. I created my first digital product: My floral recipe e-books along with a few other digital resources and, eventually I launched my first digital course teaching my approach to floral design.
While all of these resources fulfilled some of the need, I still felt that there were missing pieces and parts of my own story that could benefit other floral entrepreneurs in their journey. This was was led me to start this podcast. I hope that through sharing honest stories of successes and failures, and sharing valuable systems and strategies that have helped my own business to grow, I can connect the dots of how to build a successful brand that also guides you closer to the life you desire.
Here's what you will see in the episodes to come:

A zoomed out view of my business growth story, including some of the mindset shifts that served as huge turning points in my journey.
- Practical systems and strategies that I built leading up to where I am today and that hopefully you can implement in your own business to help you grow your audience, streamline systems to free up time and make things run more smoothly.
- Parts of my journey of how I got into flowers and started and grew my business, for those of you who are curious about what getting into the wedding floral industry looks like.
I hope you stay tuned - there is so much in store!
Copyright Mulberry & Moss Floral Design

Floral Business Tools & Resources:
www.mulberryandmoss.com/shop
Podcast Home Page:
www.mulberryandmoss.com/podcast
Follow on Instagram:
@mulberryandmoss

Your product is quite possibly the most important component of your business. Because no matter how many prospects or customers you have, and no matter how good you are at sales, and no matter how clear you are on your business model, your business is nothing without a product to sell. And if you don’t understand your product - truly and fully and intimately - from the way it’s structured or built to why it’s priced the way it is and how it can serve your customer, you can not properly sell your product, and you might have a hard time growing and making money.

Today I want to talk about what having a product or offering truly means, why getting clear on your product is so important, the process of designing a signature product or offering, as well as the importance of expanding, evolving, or adding to your offerings and the role this plays in your business growth. If you have listened to my past episodes, you know that I am a big picture kinda girl and strong believer in finding motivation for our decisions and actions by looking towards the future and what we want to achieve. By the end of this episode you are going to see why this is such an important key concept in achieving real wealth in your business.
Chapters of this Episode:
What is Your Product?
If you are a wedding florist, in a general sense, flowers may be the thing you sell, but your product is more contextual. Your product is the service that you provide, it’s the unique designs you create, it’s the way you package them and present them, and the way the individual pieces make up an overall design. All of these things make up your product. Your product is the experience that you offer to your clients through your flowers. That is what you offer and that is what they are paying for. Your product is really your service. You may offer a wide list of different products. Or, you might have variations of one product.

Getting Clear on Your Product
In order to really be successful with both selling and marketing, you must know your product inside and out. How well do you know yours? How familiar are you with the service you offer and what exactly your clients are getting when they hire you?

Designing a 'Signature Product'
Getting clear on your product is something that you can more confidently refine and shape over time through experimentation and getting more familiar with your strengths, your specialty, and what sets you apart from other brands. I refer to this refinement process as building and designing your signature product. Buckle Up, Niche Down
There is nothing wrong with having a more broad collection of offerings as long as they are all profitable and as long as you can make it make sense from a marketing perspective without confusing your audience. But, if you’re really serious about your business, it is wise to pare down to the parts of your business that really drive revenue because this will allow you to streamline, maximize efficiency and make room for the things that are going to generate more revenue. Own What You’re Best At
You can create a more impactful, more quality client experience by honing in on what you do best.Designing My Signature Product - The Process
The exercise that helped me understand what my work should be valued at, helped me make sure I wasn’t accepting jobs that didn’t align with my brand, and helped me in my selling process, to feel confident about my numbers so that I could sell more p

Floral Business Tools & Resources:
www.mulberryandmoss.com/shop
Podcast Home Page:
www.mulberryandmoss.com/podcast
Follow on Instagram:
@mulberryandmoss

Today, I am sharing with you my best kept secret. If you’ve listened to past episodes I’ve shared with you that there were some discoveries I made a few years into my business that came as good news and really changed my whole way of thinking. One of them specifically was the idea that I could build and craft my own ideal business, and reverse engineer the steps to help me generate enough income to support my goals and dreams.
When it comes to crafting your ideal business and life, I really believe that the steps I'm going to share with you are the foundational building blocks for getting you from point A to point B (without getting sucked into a chaotic whirlwind!) As a business owner, you should be in the driver's seat!
I will start off by saying that success looks different for everyone. What does success look like to you right now, today, as you imagine your business and your lifestyle several years from now? Take note of that.
Okay, here come the steps.Step one - Imagine the life you dream of for yourself.
Whether you’re starting a new business or you have a business that you would like to hone and refine to really start working for you, it’s important to spend some time dreaming and really thinking about the life that you want in the future, so that you can allow these goals to be the foundation that support your business decisions and actions, while guiding you towards your destination.
As a part of this visualization of your dream life, include the salary you would like to have that will support your goals and ideal lifestyle. Consider what your monthly expenses will look like in the future (5 to 10 years from now) including how much you would like to save monthly or annually towards vacations, investments, or other endeavors you noted on your wish list.

Step two - Determine your business revenue goal
Remember that your personal income and your business income are separate, and your personal income will be a salary that you pay yourself as a portion of your business net profit. So you will want to figure out the salary that you would like to pay yourself, and from that, figure out the gross income that your business must bring in in order to pay yourself that salary.
Download my free resource: How to Set a Salary & Revenue Goal for Your Business
Use the resource above to calculate your ideal salary & revenue goal for your business based on your personal goals and dreams you wrote down in the first exercise. You can use this equation to test different scenarios and decide on a set of figures that you feel comfortable with as a goal.
This is meant to provide you with a business revenue goal to reach so that you can keep your eyes fixed on your ideal future and making it a reality in a reasonable number of years. You can inch closer to your goal by making profit-focused choices for your business that steer you towards growth.

Step three - Choose your business model (or income plan).
Did you know there were many different business models for your specific niche , or different ways you could structure and design your business offerings? I certainly did not know this when I was starting out! But as it turns out, no two businesses in any given niche are exactly alike. YOU get to decide how to structure your business, what services or products you want to offer, how you want to price your services, and every other detail

Floral Business Tools & Resources:
www.mulberryandmoss.com/shop
Podcast Home Page:
www.mulberryandmoss.com/podcast
Follow on Instagram:
@mulberryandmoss