We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Emily Pennington a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Emily, thanks for joining us today. Alright, so one thing we think people don’t talk about nearly enough is investments – either time or money. What’s one of the best or worst investments you’ve made and what did you learned from the experience?

Our branding. Hands down. We started in January 2021 and we did some basic branding a simple logo and color palette. We planned on working with someone to create more elevated branding during our second year of business once we had a more robust portfolio under our belt. But after just a couple of months in, around May I think, we started to really feel the need for a stronger brand identity. Our bookings were getting higher budget and we were really leading our business with our personalities and showing up as ourselves on social media but didnt feel the simple branding we had was a good reflection of that. We we hired a designer much sooner than we had planned. We did alot of research and really tried to find someone that resonated with what we felt our business style was. It wasn’t cheap but it was SO worth it. We saw an immediate increate in budgets for the weddings we were booking. Once she finished we decided we also needed our website to reflect this new identity and hired her for that as well and it just changed the game for us. There is so much power in having your business reflect who you want to be. We worked with Hannah with Duede Design by the way and 1000/10 recommend.

Emily, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

We are Mahina + Soul Floral Design. We are based out of Sacramento in the most modern flower shop you ever did see, if I do say so myself. We got our start in 2020 when I (Emily) met my now business partner, Ashley. She had been doing some florist work here and there and was ready to really get her own business off the ground and I had just been let go of my corporate job at a local consulting firm in town due to COVID. My background was in marketing and business management and Ashley and I met through a networking group. She asked me to help her with a marketing audit and when we got together for that meeting something just clicked and we decided to go into business together. The first year and a half of our business was devoted to weddings and events and then in May of this year we got the keys to what we had planned to be a studio to work out of but turned into a flower shop due to demand. We are in this really cool space where we connect well with our audience via Instagram and they literally tell us what they want! And they wanted a flower shop! I think that is what I am most proud of in our business. We have created this amazing community where we make life long friends with our wedding and event clients, we try to make sure every person that steps into our shop feels a sense of safety and welcoming, and there is an amazing small business community in Sacramento that surrounds us. I think that there is something to be said about organic relationship building. Gone are the days of sticky sweet sales and now people just really want to feel like they are a part of their communities growth.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

This isn’t an easy story to share but I think as I am more open about it I am getting so much feedback from women who have experienced something similar. I grew up in a space where there wasn’t room for all women. My example of women to women friendships and relationships were unkind and full of negativity and judgement. It took me almost 30 years to unlearn that. To understand that there is room for everyone and that someone else’s shine doesn’t dull yours. As women, especially as women in business, we have to be there for each other and we have to be a resource for each other. Specifically we now have a group of florist friends in our area and NOTHING is off topic. We talk about pricing, client etiquette, coach each other through tough situations, we have even sent out copies of our contracts to each other for comparison. With this we have created a strong referral network as well because not every client is the right fit and it honestly feels good to refer a bride to another florist that I know can meet her requests better than we can because we all have different styles and budget minimums and we all offer something different.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Instagram. Because we are in the wedding market Instagram is still a main took for finding wedding vendors. I would say about 80% of our clients find us on there. We are starting to see a slow shift to tiktok but that is coming more from education based posts rather that inspo like you see on instagram or pinterest. I think tiktok shoppers want to work with people who really know what they are doing.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.mahinaandsoul.com
• Instagram: mahinaandsoul
• Yelp: mahina and soul
• Other: Tiktok: Mahinaandsoul

Image Credits
Amanda Bellamy Photo Jenelle Fedrizzi Hailey Ayson