So many entrepreneurs have difficulty sticking a dollar sign on their work. That’s why Jessica Zimmerman relocated her thriving wedding florist business to the back burner and built Zimmerman Education, a business dedicated to teaching creative entrepreneurs how to turn their passion into real money. If you’ve ever had difficulty pricing your service, systemizing your operations or managing your work-life balance in your creative business, this episode is talking to you. Tune in for incredible value and authentic business advice.
Jessica Zimmerman is on a mission to help creative entrepreneurs turn their passion into a wildly profitable business. But she didn’t start out that way. Jessica was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy working 16 hour days, with a daughter at home who barely knew her mother, infant twin sons, and an ill-husband who lost his job. From broke to boss, she took massive action.
After successfully scaling a 6-figure floral company designing $100,000 weddings that attracted A-list celebrity clients, Jessica scaled to 7-figures in one year – with no advertising and no affiliates – working less than 30 hours per week.
Jessica has been featured in People Magazine, Thrive Global, OnceWed, Martha Stewart Weddings, Style Me Pretty, Southern Living, BRIDES, and more.
[2:42]: And I was just doing it because I thought well, yeah, that’s what you got to do. And I started tracking, and I would ask every single client, how they found me. At the end of the year, I realized not a single client found me from any of the places that I was advertising. And at the time I was advertising $20- $25,000 a year.
[7:59]: I just always wanted to own my own business, because I saw how difficult it was on my mom when I went to college. She poured everything into me and I was her job, basically. And then I was gone, and she didn’t have anything that was just hers. And I just told myself, I’m not ever going to do that.
[13:04]: The first question I always as is, do you want a business, or do you want a hobby? There’s nothing wrong with it being a hobby. But if you want to be a business, you have to know business, you have to treat it like a business, you have to know that businesses make money.
[19:24]: There are flower designers who have really great courses out there, but they’re sharing maybe 65% of what they know, because they can’t share it all because they’re still very invested in that business. I’m okay if I never did touch another flower again, so I’m willing to share everything.
[27:16]: You can’t build something if you’re looking left and right all the time. You’ve got to keep your head down, you’ve got to work on your own thing. Because it’s not going to grow. You’re never going to move the needle on your business if you are constantly trying to emulate what other people are doing. And it’s easy if you’re following somebody and you’re just like, you know, let’s be honest, like going to the bathroom and you’re on your phone, and then you see a competitor and they did a floral pop-up. You’re like, “Oh no! I need to do a full pop up”, which is a natural human reaction.
[38:18]: There’s one thing that I know, its sales. Sales is three parts. Sales is the sales pitch. Sales is the actual sale. And most importantly, it’s the follow-up.
[49:32]: I have all kinds of struggles… And we had a team meeting. And everyone on the team meeting is talking about what we have to do in the next four days. And I interrupted the meeting at one point, and I said, “Okay listen, guys in April…” And they’re like, “Jessica, no. We’re dealing with right now.” And I’m like, “Wait, someone needs to make this note, because this needs to be done for April.” And y’all know in April, I’m going to be thinking about October.
And I’m not a businessman. I’m a business, man!
Go with your gut.