We recently connected with Jessica J Fox and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jessica J thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

To be 100% honest, it really hard as a florist for find information about how to price, run a business, and more. We mostly sign up to do creative stuff and then find out we have also signed up to run a real profitable business.

When I started my business I found that there is not much of an “industry standard” anything in the floral world. We kinda just make it up and learn a bunch of different techniques and then choose what we like best.

It was hard to find information and REALLY hard to find information on business and pricing. Luckily, I found the industry standard pricing model. Which florist still struggle to use because many attach their pricing to their worth. Everything anyone does wether design, marketing, or business is completely their own in this flower world and, I’d add, as a business owner.

I have noticed a huge trend in what florists do regarding, trying to get more clients, how they market themselves, and there mindsets towards money/being a business owner. So we will call that trend, our “industry standard.”

Because of this, and to answer the question, I do marketing a lot different than most of the other florist out there.

Some of the big problems I noticed my other Florist Friend’s running into are price shoppers, trying to be better than the next florists designs, comparing themselves to other florists, doing whatever the customer wants instead of designing how they want then feeling miserable, struggling to figure out the business side of being a florist, and I could go on!

I constantly run into Florists out there who are giving money away, doing content shoots for free, Working for no money and losing the love that they had for designing and flowers because they don’t know how to run a profitable business.

What I do differently is focus on my ideal client. I know who they are, I know what they’re like, I know how to market to them, and I know where they are looking for me.

This instantly gets rid of multiple problems other florists are dealing with. I no longer focus on what other florists are doing, and get to focus all my marketing and attention on my clients.

All of my marketing becomes different because I am focusing on my client and their needs. I use my marketing to educate my customers on how much flowers are going to cost so that I don’t run into price shoppers.

I market designs that I want to create so that clients see those designs and ask me to make them. I constantly remind my customers that they hire me because of my work and style. This allows me to do the work I want to do.

Overall, because my mindset is in a place of “how can I help my customer?” It removes all other roadblocks that are keeping me from being a profitable business and doing what I love.

I understand that I am a business owner running a profitable business. One thing that many florists have not wrap their heads around. The fact that they are a legitimate business owner running a legitimate business. This makes it so I am able to understand that my prices do not equal my worth. We’ve been given an industry standard pricing model! It allows us to do the math and provide a price that it is what it is. SUCH A BLESSING.

Just hop on my Instagram page @whitefoxfloral and you can see a visual difference between what I do and what other florists do. You can see that my goal is to help my clients and future clients. 100% of my focus is towards marketing for my ideal client.

I have much much much more to say about this but for now I’ll leave it at that.

Jessica J, 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?

Hi! My name is Jessica J Fox. Most people call me Jess or Jessie J.

When I’m not designing you can find me in the mountains hiking, enjoying the streams, rivers, and wild flowers! I love to sing, dance, and celebrate! I can watch Harry Potter & The Pirates of the Caribbean movies on repeat, I am always down for live music, farmers markets, and trying new things. I can live off of a charcuterie board, but my favorite meal is a homemade hamburger!

My journey to the floral industry begins when I worked as my cities flower bed architect. I planted thousands of flowers every summer and flowerbeds all over my hometown. Just me and one other person. I did this for three years and it’s where my love for flowers began.

I spent most of my time in the flowerbeds or in the mountains. Once the mountain started blooming I found myself gathering the wildflowers and creating designs.

I loved it so much I took a basic flower arranging class in college. The first and last time that class was offered during my college career.

My friends loved my designs and when they started getting married they each asked me to do their weddings. I had created a fun Instagram page for my flower posts and random couples started to find me as well and asked me to do their weddings.

I started doing weddings for more than just family and friends. I thought about making it into a real business and after the demand was getting to be a lot. I decided to go for it!

Unfortunately after a few months of struggling to find information, making literally $0.80 cents an hour, other florists being super vague/withholding help or information and not being able to figure out the business side, I decided to quit.

I knew I couldn’t do it without the information I needed to run a legitimate business. One that made a profit allowed me to pay my bills and live a normal life. I wasn’t going to waste my time.

I got an outside job where I could work with my hands and started listening to podcasts.

To rekindle my love of flowers, I found podcasts about flowers. I also found business podcasts, and then business/flowers podcast.

It was here I found the missing information I needed to become a successful floral business owner. I found information on how to price flowers, run a flower business, have the mindset of a business owner, and more. I knew I would be able to figure it out.

I kept my outside job while I built the foundation of my new floral business. I decided what part of the industry I wanted to be in, I rebranded, shifted my mindset, figure out how to market a floral business, and felt confident I could do it!

I got to a point where I could leave my full-time job and do wedding flowers full-time instead.

Here I am today, running a wedding floral business I am proud of and love doing!

It’s alway fun to get to know who you are working with and I love meeting new people. What most important is you and what we can do for you on your special day!

I am a wedding florist lead designer and owner of White Fox Floral. I provide a full service including flowers for your entire wedding day, set up, take down and all designs. Centerpieces, installations, wedding party flowers, hanging flowers, Arches, Aisle flowers, Bouquets, boutonnieres, flower crowns, personalize/unique designs for your day and more!

My goal is to make the flower part of planning your wedding as simple and stress free as possible. I help you make the most of your money by being transparent about how much items will cost and where we can get the biggest bang for your buck. I provided options on where I think your money can be best spent, Where we can cut back and where we can spend more.

We love a fun, cute, and carefree couple! You don’t need to know a thing about flowers, that is why I am here. Leave the details to us and we will take care of everything.

We work closely with our local farmers to get the best product for your day. Nothing is better then local flowers cut fresh from their farms. We always stay within your wedding color palette and use the best of what mother nature can give us.

We love a fresh, wild, and carefree design. We may had some dried elements for texture.

To get our BEST work, all we need is a color pallet, and a couple willing to let us work our creative magic.

We offer both pick up and delivery. We also have a service where you can buy all your flowers online through our website. No consultation needed. This is perfect for couples wanting a simple wedding flower solution needing just wedding party flowers and/or centerpieces.

For your unique wedding we do our entire consultation process online. We like to keep things simple with our four step process.

1. Inquire online through our website to see if we are available (bio.site/whitefoxfloral)
2. If we are, you’ll receive our online design Q&A and we will set up a 15-30min FaceTime/Zoom consultation to talk money, budget, and your what your wishlist of items costs.
3. Book use for your special day, receive a mood board/design guide and finalize all the details for your day.
4. Your wedding! Relax, enjoy, & take it all in!

You will never be lost on what happens next throughout our process. We will communicate every step of the way. Nothing needs to be set in stone until one month before the big day. So we are always happy to make changes and talk through any needed details.

This is YOUR DAY! You get to do whatever you want! We are here to celebrate you! Let’s make a day to remember!

I want the flower part of planning your wedding to be as simple and stress free as possible. We have plenty of resources in our Instagram page and website. Feel free to take a look or reach out with any questions. That’s why I am here! Don’t feel like your supposed to know anything about flowers. We know all the things so you don’t have too!

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I run a very different business compared to other businesses around the world.

I run a business that caters to a one time costumer, with a specific need, at specific location, on a specific date, with a specific color palette, with a unique couple, with unique needs, and unique circumstances that I’ve never worked with before.

My marketing is a lot different. Followers do not matter. The number of likes do not matter. The number of views do not matter. Unless these views, likes, and followers are my next client. More than 90% of these people are not my next client.

I had to unlearn this. I’ve worked with SEO professional wanting to get my website more views or my Instagram more likes.

More views on my website and Instagram is great unless those views are from places around the world other than my specific location. If they don’t need a wedding florist in my specific area then their view isn’t important me.

Obsessing over likes, views, followers is something that needed to be unlearned if I was going to be an asset to my customers.

I cannot sell my fresh flowers and services to somebody needing them in Florida. I cannot send a freshly made vase arrangement to someone in New York.

However, I can sell my full wedding service to somebody coming from Florida to elope in Utah. I can sell a freshly made vase arrangement to someone from New York gifting it to their family in Utah.

With some businesses views and traffic works really well for them because they can send their product anywhere in the world. I cannot. This is something I had to unlearn and my business is better off for it.

I needed to focus on my client and how they could find me. Not just any person and how they could find me. My marketing strategy is different because of that I’m better off because of that.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Word of mouth has been my most effective strategy for growing my clientele And my Instagram bio.

When people are looking for vendors for their wedding, I find that the first thing people do is ask their friends, or search Google or Instagram “florist near me.”

My Instagram bio and Google search information is very clear and straight to the point. I state my business name, what I offer, how they can inquire, and where I’m located. They don’t have to do a lot of digging.

It’s a very effective way for people to find me. And I often ask my clients how they found me, the most common response is a friend told me about you or Instagram search

Contact Info:

• Website: Bio.site/whitefoxfloral
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/whitefoxfloral?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA==
• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/whitefoxfloral/
• Other: Tiktok: @whitefoxfloral

Image Credits
White long sleeve shirt: @mb.photofilm Last two with the dark brown backdrop: @Elishabraithwaite