We're gonna have Asha maybe because Asha was kind of responsible for this. Yeah. And I will never forget that. So first off, I'm just I'm so excited for curry to be here today. Because I haven't been in town and like a hot minute. And we got to do a wedding together kind of recently. And it was just nuts. And she was like, you were sharing some things with me. And I'm like, This is why I'm a control freak. Yeah. And this is why I started doing planning and design and all these other things because and now like, I'm like, now she's experiencing the exact same
light into that wall that I went through.
And so that's what we're talking about today is the different places you are in life and your business and how things just change based on like, the situation. Yeah. And like that's how we're calling it full circle. And there's, I mean, it's perfect timing, though, because whenever we did that wedding, I'm just like, hurry. You can control all of this. Not everything. But a lot of it you can you can control things with communication. So that's what we're going to share with you today. And just talk about like, it's hard to have a conversation with someone, and they can't empathize with you because they've never been through it. And then like we get mad as people. Yeah. And so I've made the decision. Like if someone's never experienced what I'm experiencing, or what I'm going through, there's no reason in me talking about it. You know? Yeah, that
was, that was very interesting. One thing. It's,
it was it was God, we got past that we're talking about you today, okay, and your your experiences and your business. And if you missed the Thanksgiving podcast episode, it's actually the shortest episode I've ever had. It was like under seven minutes. And it's called a lifeline. And it was something that you could do with your family. And it talks about like, it's like the year you were born, and then where you are today. And then you draw a line. And for some of us, my mother had like three sheets of paper. No, and you know, depends on how old you are. But you draw on no paper and then you put the high and the low of every single year. And what's so fun for the kids is for them to see every like you really have to think for a minute and like I'm terrible with time. I'm not a numbers girl. And so I'm like, Oh my gosh, but the most important thing is you get to see a trend and you start to find a pattern of in the pattern that came out of the 90 minute exercise that probably could have taken two days. But we had to like abbreviate it, but I was actually proud of my little family for like sitting down. And usually they make fun of me. They're like, stupid activities, your business activities. But it wasn't about business. Yeah, it is. But and it helps you see the patterns, but it's not it was about the kids sharing stories about like, their grandmother and us growing up. And so that part works if you missed it. But I told Carrie, I'm like, I feel like we're like it a lifeline point here. Where are I like, met you. We were both in health care. And I met you and then you started, you're like, I'm going to start this floral business. And then I'm going to get into the luxury market. And now I'm going to take on and be a planner and design. So I want you to right, so I want you to share this journey. Like the first thing that a lot of people ask me is, how did you decide? Okay, it's time to walk away from my secure job. Yeah. And start? Yeah, like What the What's that story?
So just to like, give you guys a little background, if you want to know the full story, Angela actually has two other podcasts that we did together. One talks about just SOS and the contest and how that whole thing went about. The second one was like, Where Are They Now what's happened in your life since that contest and what has grown and what has happened. And then here we are for a third time because it's full circle, because I feel like my business really didn't kick off. And I didn't see the light until I met you until we did that contest. So here we are. December 7 made 11 years since I decided to be in the wedding industry. I know when I didn't celebrate it. Cuz I was just like, I gotta make it to Christmas, y'all like we gotta get through this year. Because hopefully 2023 will be like, better and not such a warm shit show, right? I'm like, let's make let's make it through guys. Let's do this. So what in what people don't know only a few people know. But what happened is, is that my healthcare industry, job ended, I took a lead position as an administrative, like, worked in the office at a long term care, rehab, did it missions communicated with the hospitals and I worked for some really not nice people. Really, really important. And they were only worried about the money and not the patients or the people that were there. And it was I felt like because I was this ray of light that I could come in and I could shine some light on this place. And I could, like help it get out of its bad reputation. And I can be here for the patients because this was during COVID time where their families were like literally through the windows waving at them talking to them. This was a difficult time for everybody in healthcare. But people don't know but COVID came into Nashville via Frankland, from a Franklin doctor at Williamson medical who traveled brought it back to his wife and his kids and his kids went to battleground Academy and spread it to their friends. And so in Franklin is where it first arrived in Nashville. And I caught it and the owners of this company thought that I was lying and that I had a cold. And I'm like, oh, so I'm just sitting on the beach sipping mai Tai's. Meanwhile, my husband and I are sharing an inhaler, trying to determine who can't breathe worse. And the only thing that kept us together, which was our saving grace is that we had kids. So somebody had to get up and cook the chicken nugget, somebody had to give aid in a bath somebody had, you know, we still had to move and that moving is what allowed the mucus to not settle in our chest. Because the first round of COVID was way deadly, then,
Oh, I almost died. Like Like, we both had it bad.
Like I didn't get back to normal until after 30 days. Oh, girl, obviously, I'm still we're all struggling. And I went back to work. And they gave my job to the marketer. He didn't know my job. He didn't know how to run insurance. He didn't know how to communicate with the hospitals. He was not me. He did not know anything that I knew in putting stuff into the system, nothing. But that whole time they gave my job to him. And they said, Oh, well, you'll help out of different areas. I was so grateful to be alive, to still have a job or real that I didn't care. And then after two weeks, it was like, well, we're not going to bring you back to that role. We do want to keep you but we're going to reduce your income by $23,000. And at this point I'm making about maybe $87,000 I have a car, you know, an allotment for you know, $300 a month for my car and yeah, but it was a really decent job right and And it's like, no, I'm gonna reduce your income and all this other stuff. And I was like, Are you kidding me? So I got stressed out about it. I like went into a depression about it, I kind of like, ate through my feelings and just gained unnecessary weight and just all these things. And there was this moment where it was so dark for so long, and then the light, like I was driving to work one day from where I live all the way to Franklin is about 40 minutes to an hour, depending on traffic, that's just one way off. That's just one way. And I'm driving on 840. And I got there and don't even know how I made it to work. Like I was just driving. And I was just, it wasn't even sick. It was it was the mental that I was going through, it was just like a very dark moment in depression, where you're just driving, and you don't even know how you're turning the corner, how you're turning the light, the blinker on any of that stuff. And I made it all to work. And that was a moment where I just kind of cried out to God and I was like, Nope, no more. And I went in there. And they expected me to take this harshly and act up and rebel and like not do work and show up to work late. And I did everything of the opposite of that showed up on time still took care of my patients. I'm not even a nurse. But there's certain patients who don't get to leave their room because of COVID. So to see me for a few minutes, so we can talk about flowers. Or we can talk about something or I can braid their hair because nobody knows how to braid their hair in the building. Like that meant the world to me. So I still did all of that worked up to my last day, even the last day threw a party for the entire building that they asked me to do because they knew that I was a party planner, because that's what they call me a party planner. I'm like we party, you know, so here I am. And I'm like last day, and they were so impressed of how I handled myself that they wanted me to be in a different role in a different position. And now when they were trying to figure out ways to to increase my income and get it back to close, I'm like, No, God's ever told me that this was not it. This is not it. And I stepped out on faith. And I was like, Lord, I don't know what's gonna happen. But you don't want me to be here, you see something different from my life, and you're pushing me out of the way. And so pretty much make a long story short, I started working for myself full time. During that time to help supplement income I was freelancing. So because I have a skill with floral, a lot of the other floors would call me and asked me to do things with big installations, because they knew that they didn't have to train me or teach me that I just jumped in and did whatever followed their recipes. And that helped for a little bit. And then wedding started picking up for me. And all of those things that I was wanting to happen here. I was only taking a few weddings because I was trying to juggle work life balance. And now it's like no full steam ahead, go you have so many dog on inquiries. But during that time, and that was three years ago that this happened. So during that time, there was a lot of takeaways, there's a lot of things that I learned, have upgraded my software, I've changed a lot of things, you know, how I handle things. But then here we are. And it's so something's magical about the number three, because here we are done three years, by myself full time working for myself, and we're going into the fourth year and it's like something changed. And I started seeing a need. And I kept saying okay, well, I'm the only African American luxury florist and all of Nashville, literally only only, okay, there's people let me say there are people here that are African American that does floral, but they're not in the luxury sector different. Not that they can't be right, because there's some people that I'm helping grow their business because I want to see all of us when, right and they're like, Well, what are you doing? I was like, Listen, this is what I had to do. And I do consultations with them. And I help them out. And I'm helping other small florists, flower shops, come to the 20th century and do more updated arrangements and not use Teleflora. Like there's a lot of things that I'm doing on the back end that people don't know about. And I'm not doing it because I want to brag I'm doing it because I want all of us to be okay. Yeah, I want all of us to be feels because I know how it feels terrible.
Yeah, if you use Teleflora, us lovingly, I'll tag lovingly. Thank you. Great company.
Thank you. That was I love that. How you slipped there. Yeah. Perfect. So now here we are. And we're going into 2023. And I noticed that there were more outside wedding planners that were having to come into Nashville to do a lot of African American weddings. Now. I work with everybody. I work with everybody. I work with same sex couples. I work with other cultures. I work with anybody who loves my flowers and loves what I do. As long as you love what I do. I don't mind working with you. I'm not here to haggle about price. I'm not the cheapest in town. No why? Er B, but you're gonna have an experience with me, and I'm going to take care of you a little bit more than the average person because I'm very late, empathetic, and I care. And I want to, you know, but I'm learning my balances of what it's like, oh, no career, you need to get somebody else who's a gold to fill this role. Like, I've been learning about True Colors and trying to implement that, because it's not just fluff. It's like real, it's real. And it all makes sense. And it's like, oh, you're stupid for not even like even looking into this, whatever. And, and I kept saying, Oh, my God, we have all these planners from other states that are coming to do these, you know, destination weddings in Nashville, and they don't know what they're doing in there. It's a hot mess. And I was actually talking to another florist that you and I both know and have close relationships with. And she was telling me how the planner did something on the PDF and messed up the entire seating chart, and everybody got the wrong meal at the Skirball horn. And I was like, Y'all don't hear about that stuff on the back end. So people who are vegetarian was getting beef, and it was like, and then you can die from that our sweet calligrapher friend was like, I made all of this dummy proof it, you mess it up. And I'm like, listen, these brides, they're wanting to, you know, they're wanting to get a planner who looks like them. And they're wanting to get vendors who look like them. And that's fine. But they're the luxury market is so small in Nashville. And that's when I said, You know what, if you build it, they will come, if you, I'm going to have to do it my damn self, because there's no options. So our goal in 2024 is to be inclusive, and provide everything that these clients need. So not only curry is going to take care of your floral needs, but I'm going to talk take care of your wedding planning needs. And I've created these relationships behind the scenes that people don't know about. So when it comes to my preferred vendor list, I have three cake people that I love working with, I've tasted their cakes, I've worked with them, I know that if they're missing something, and they're missing a pen, they know to go that they're okay to go in my toolkit and pull out what they like. It's about relationships, and making sure everything is smooth. Because when you hire your cousin, and this is another thing too, and I don't want to deviate from the conversation. But Angela's podcast, they are just the most free, amazing information, I swear to God, it should be $1 a download. It really should be
on Instagram subscriptions, I think for like $5 A month or like for exclusive content.
I'm serious, because there's so much great information on there. And because of those things that I learned from you for free, that I was able to implement into everything, just my client that I'm doing for wedding planning for in September. She's like, well, she's like, my, she's like, we'll see see sister makes cakes. And I was like, No, immediately No. And I was like, no, like, why are they? No, they were like, why? And they thought that I was gonna say something negative about her cakes. And I was like, Sure job is to be a family member and to enjoy in this day, and she cannot make bake a cake, deliver it set up flowers, run back to the hotel, get dressed, come back, sit down, then go over there and help y'all slice it because she doesn't know how to sit down and be a guest. Like there's just all these things, right? And I'm like, who like and so when I said it to them like that. They were like we understand so all of these things that you have taught us the information you have given us we're implementing these in real life day weddings, and it makes sense in the flow is good and there's a rhyme and reason to things. But just let's even take away the fact that we're talking about you know, African American brides or saints. Brides period are now wanting everything they're they're not wanting to have to go to this this cake tasting this food tasting. Talk to their planner about this talk to their mom about this. They want a planner who has relationships and everything is already inclusive. We know who our draping is. We know who our DJ is, we know who who's going to do our specialty linens and who like we have bartenders that can do specialty cocktails and like my client is from California initially and she likes to smoke weed I'm like it's not legal here in Nashville but she likes to smoke weed and I was but her fiance is the sheriff and I'm like oh you are you can't you know, so I found this really cool like hemp infused sparkling water that I'm like we can buy cases of it and get them to put it at the bar you know for you like really cool things and I was like we can even spice it up and so we got these like we got these ice ice shapes that are shaped like a weed like the silicone model so that they'll have like a button It's like a little homage to like, you know, California or whatever. But this year is it. It's about me connecting and really connecting with people because I am not someone who's like churn and burn and churn and burn, like my brides actually stay friends with me. It's really weird. And people don't understand. I'm like, Yeah, I got date date night with, you know, yeah, with my old brides. And we go out and we hang out, and we talk, and they call me when they have baby showers. Or when their sisters are getting married, or their cousins are getting married, because it's truly an experience. If you want churn and burn, there's multiple people for you to choose from. It's not curry, and I'm okay with saying no, I'm perfectly fine with saying no, but it's like, half to working with you, I got an opportunity to see what communication and organization actually looks like. And there's a streamlined process. And I'm like, anybody who does not do this, I don't even know how you guys are taking people's money. And how you're even doing wedding planning, period? I don't understand.
That's the problem. They don't under it. And here's the thing. And I think I've been said this to you. We don't have enough education in our industry. Yeah. Especially in luxury industry, because it's kind of like the accident. Oh, I mean, most of
them can all start that way. Yeah, no shade,
all of us. Yeah. But like, we were even talking before we started recording how, like, I'm not in my hometown a lot. And it's not that I don't want to be it's just that I had to seek things outside of our industry here because I was bored. And not only that, it wasn't serving me as a business leader to grow. And if you're at the top of the ceiling, it's not about being arrogant or, or anything. A mentor said to me, if you're the smartest person in the room, how are you getting value from this? Right? You're not. And so you know, you go through all these feelings of like, I feel bad. And then you know, people talk, I don't give a shit what people say about me. I really don't
like and I'm at that point you it's not a bad thing, either. No, it's like, Listen, I'm at a different place in my life than you are, especially in business wise, and I'm okay. And we don't have to cross paths. But I also realized that I am careful about the rooms that I'm in. My time is very, very precious, very, unless I'm specifically going there to bid on a presidential dinner. I'm not going to be in the room. No, I'm just not, I don't have time for it, because COVID still a real thing. And people act like it just completely disappeared, and it didn't. Another thing is we are starting to go to different cities. So we know that we we we did our first wedding ever in Memphis this year. I was born and did such a good job that a plant the planner called me back to do another wedding for her. And we did that went and it was just it was great. And I just want to give a quick shout out to the ladies over at Sweet root village. They are a florist team out of Alexandria, Virginia. And they have a team of like 1213 people. And they these ladies are amazing. And they have a thing called a school house. Okay. And so we get to communicate and have different meetings every single month, we can talk about whatever topic we want. I've also done some business coaching with them. And they also give us really cool recipes and mechanics. And we learn how to do really cool things that they've done that if we had aspire to do we kind of know what we need to do. So those ladies helped me out a lot in the last few years. But we are venturing to Swan house in Atlanta next year. Because I have a lot of so people talk about like, what's your brand? And what does that look like? And brands are forever changing? Right? But I really had to sit down and think who I am as a person. And what I love as far as wedding planning and flow and design and all that stuff. And I've really been gravitating a lot to like a lot of Italian photographers. I know it's weird, but I'm like really into this Lake Como vibe. And it's like I love dresses that are long sleeve and lace and covers the neck. And I'm like, those are the type of clients, you're not going to always get them. But if you put that out into the world and you put that energy out there, they're going to pick up what you're putting down. And so I'm going to travel back home to Miami and we are going to talk with the ladies over at the skya which is a historic museum that's right off of the water in Miami. We also have a connection with we're going to reach out to the person at the Mandarin Oriental because come to find out the guy who runs that is actually like best he's the brother to like my high school best friend. It's a small world but the thing is, is we want to really work with venues that we love. And we love Nashville as well. where my heart is is just t can be in different places, right? So we're just learning about that we're learning a lot more about what we want and what we want brides to like about us. And I'm not everybody's cup of tea, but I'm somebody sugar cube. That's a quote. Like, seriously, it's just, it was a lot of thinking it was a lot of praying about things and moments where I wanted to give up and moments where I said, this is not enough money. And the fact that my right knee is not working the next day, and I barely can walk. And I'm not doing that for a couple of dollars. And it's nothing personal. It's not about like, getting all this money for the client. No, it's about pricing yourself correctly. And price charging for your time. Because my time is very, very important. And I started utilizing my little time tracker on honey book, like I started doing those things. I don't take little one off phone calls. And hey, girl, are you free? No, I'm not let's, let's schedule it, we have to schedule everything. And it's just, it's about living in your truth. And as you get older, a lot of stuff that you didn't think of before just makes more sense now. And I try to get to the chase. Like, if we're doing this, like I need to know who's cutting the check. I don't want to have time to sit back and figure this out. If If grandma says she's paying for floor and a cake, I need to know that. And when we talk about those subjects out of respect for her, we need to get her on the line. Unless she's 90 and just wants to watch her stories and doesn't care about this and just wants to like write a check. That's fine. But all of these things that I was so afraid of talking about before with clients, you know, we may start charging. When they start paying 20 and $30,000. In floor alone, you're just like, no disrespect to anybody. But what are we doing? Right? What are we doing? Right? Like, if Uncle Ned is buying the dress, because you're his only nice. Uncle Ned, how would you like to do that? How would you like to pay for and these are
real things.
These are real things.
Real in our budget like spreadsheet, I like to I don't particularly love the B word. It's funny. People are like B word. I'm like, I'm not talking about big budget. I'm like, What are you comfortable allocating because you don't know what things cost curve? So if you're not comfortable there in the people with us, they're like, Oh, I mean, we don't really know. We don't know what things cost, but you've got to learn to not test people but kind of where it's like okay, I see what you're showing me. I see what you love. Are you aware that that's an eight top table so that table alone you're probably looking after you've got the vases the candles the flowers, the labor the China flatware, glassware, the BNB all the extra knives because it's a four course not a three course. And then you've got the chairs and the cushions and especially linens and the overlays and the people see me there and the people but in the couch like they have no
clue no idea. I'm like absolutely not eight grand
a table it is and you have 250 people on your list and so that's just for your your table stuff.
That's not head table that's not installations. That's not arbors
your photo your video that's none of that.
None of that. And then another thing is that we've been Oh, this this podcast should be like a series I'm so serious. It should be like the small short series of weddings unveiled revamped. 2.0 I'm so serious. Like if you recognize a red flag, listen to your gut. Listen to your gut follow if it's like something don't feel good, walk away from it all money is not good money. And I've learned that I've learned that and if you have a relationship with a vendor, you used to use them a lot. It's okay if you guys are not in the same space anymore. And that relationship needs to move on you're still like have advertising yourself to be like budget this and budget that and budget that and and you're like No, like I'm trying to sell the Lake Como dream baby like I don't understand. That's another thing that just really affected me this year is there was a lot of relationships that are no longer. Same thing happened to me and and you know that that's God moving you into transition and putting people at like, it just means that your time in my life in that capacity is up. That's what I'm a snotty bitch.
Like, again, this is where it's like, people, unfortunately, you're stuck. Sometimes we know. There's something more and there's something different and we're gonna keep searching for it. We're gonna keep so we're just gonna keep going until we You find where it's like, okay, this is where I'm like, This is what I'm supposed to be doing, this is what I'm supposed to be doing, then you're gonna get bored again, correct. And then you're gonna keep building,
keep building and keep going, you can't stop. No,
it's a different, our DNA is just made up differently. And there's all it takes all kinds of DNA. That's why I say like, everyone has all four colors and your colors, everyone has it, we can all function that way. But typically, naturally, you function at your best when you're naturally doing something that you enjoy Correct. Or you're learning it the way you need to learn it. Because of the way you need to do things correct. And, and unless you have a mentor or a business group or you, you listen to podcasts, something
to bring you back into focus every time. Because I mean a lot, it's been a lot of change. It really has like all of these things you're like, it's almost like you're awake and your blinders are all. I mean, I've had a lot I've had a lot of people take advantage of me this past year, I've had other freelancers that stole my imagery and put it on their website, trying to promote it as if it was theirs. I have other colleagues that have like, utilized my rental space before and like left it trashed, like they're sued like I've been through,
ever, would never
listen to her. And they may hear this podcast, and I really don't care. But this isn't like the level of disrespect that has been going on and I put my foot down about all of it. I said, No, he's not going to deal with any of this stuff anymore. Life is too short. People are dying every single day. Everything looks Pete relationships are non existent. And I was like, I don't want to be like this anymore. I don't want to live like this anymore. I don't want to run my business like this anymore. I want to be I started this business so that I can help someone because nobody was around to help me when I got married. We had nothing. We had nothing. We had MySpace. That's right. Oh my god. That's all we had. I did have a MySpace account we do. I had some corny song that came on when people clicked on your profile. I mean, that's all we had. We had that in the yellow pages. And it was not these brides now have Pinterest and they have all these things. And there's all these websites and different places they can go for inspiration and blog posts. And we didn't have any of that
inspiration when you don't know how much things cost. Correct. So that's how you gotta get on fitfully. Because now you when you drag it in to your little budget area, yeah, it populates based, like how much roughly things are gonna be really the AI. It's like, oh, that's a failing offices orchid and you want, you have 20 tables, and you want one per table. So it's like literally aggregating every Are you serious? It's really, really, really dope.
We don't have we didn't have any of that. And I just felt left in the wind. Yeah. And, and I said, No, that's the whole reason why I wanted to do this was to help other brides navigate through this. You find yourself sometimes being a counselor, you find yourself having a like a mom figure to some of them, because some of them have lost their moms during this like, it's a lot mentally. And I'm just like, You know what, if I have to do this five times a year, for very special brides that I want to work with, I'm willing to give myself to them, how to price not this for free, but I'm still willing to do this. It's an investment. It's an investment. It's an investment. And it's me giving you not my time and my expertise and I'm also loving on you too. Because people don't see you having a breakdown in the bathroom right before you walk down the aisle. This is not the wedding planning movie with Jennifer Lopez that was fictional and exaggerated and is no that's not the true real life that you don't know what it is to see somebody and you're like What the Why is the photographer not here and the photographers palette and because he didn't get his last bill paid you know and it's like
a hot meal and Tom Oh, bring your own snacks sometimes like that's a whole different podcast show. I mean, we got to have Amanda actually be part of
we do. We do. We are talking about this has been a rough year for a lot of our this has been a rough year for a lot of people. I mean I have been I've been taking to the to the to the wringer I have but I feel good about every single wedding that I've walked away from this year because you did the best you could. I did the absolute best
piece for my which is a very important piece but every scene single piece and vendor, which is about roughly 45 on everything. It's all important. And if one vendor or one little thing, then the domino effect. And it's it doesn't, you don't even have to be in the wedding industry to fill all this, like, this is literally every industry, if you don't have the right people in place, if you don't have processes, if you're not clear
on, I just saw a video about nurses walking out the other day, because they were like, we don't have enough coverage for this department on Saturday. What are y'all gonna do these are like critically ill patients that really need somebody and it doesn't need to be one nurse per 50 participation, that was the ratio and it's in every single industry, like you said, that we're dealing with, it's just like, You got to and then also, we're building a dream team, you got to have good people on your staff, I realized real quick, that there's a lot of people who just want to get close to you and learn what you want to learn. And then they work with you twice, and then all of a sudden, they have their own company called bows and lilies. And it's like you've literally done two weddings, you've only worked on arbors you've never done anything else you don't do personals, you don't do boot nears, you don't do table designs or composts or any of those things. Every time I asked you to do something new, you slightly throw up in your mouth, and it's like now all of a sudden, you've done it twice. And you have you know, caterpillars and in roses, it's like what's the name of your business, stop it like I, I can't, and um, people don't want to pay their dues, you got to clean buckets, you got to do the small things before you can get to all of this. And so finding team members who genuinely want to see you win in your company, and they support you not because they're trying to learn and do their own business in 30 days, and I'm like, You're delusional. So I've been through a lot of stuff. And it's just crazy, because it was all for a reason. And I feel like next year, like I have such a rockstar team of flow, freelancers now that are great at what they do. great at what they do, but it was hard. I had to kiss a lot of damn frogs to get to these points.
I love that. But it's not even that it's just, we have to go through these hard times and in business and in life. Otherwise, it didn't we're not those strong people. Yeah, on the other on the other side, like I'm not able to be, I wouldn't be able to sit here and like be as calm. If I hadn't gone through all this other stuff. Yeah, I wouldn't be able to fit back into my clothes. If I just laid around so sick if I hadn't had a near death experience and takes those near death experiences sometimes where it's like, we wake up, and we're like, what the fuck am I doing? It's like, you start to evaluate what makes you happy. And what I'm finding with a lot of people, a lot of business owners, and even not just the business owners, but like I've gotten more into like working with all the team members, all employees, all freelancers, all the contractors, and hearing their side of it, which as a leader is it's hard to hear sometimes when you're like, you weren't awake for three nights in a row, you're not back here, spending 60 hours a week, figuring out payroll and figuring out all this shit that you don't know what the hell you're doing. But they don't care. They don't care, nor should they, it's no one's fault. It's just that even as a leader, like you have to know your role. And you have to know the role of the support. Correct. You can't do it without support. You can't do it by yourself. But 90% of the time, when I if I go in and like go through my little four B process, which really can be life changing. It is it's it's it opened your eyes to where it's like, okay, I can do better and slow down and create processes. And that's exactly what we did. I mean, we're doing 200 And something and now you understand why we said we're only doing full service. We're controlling everything. Yeah, no more than 30 Now it's like no more than 10 Now we're kind of, I'm personally gonna like five, my my team's like, please don't show me got this Oh, teach. But that's where we are.
Right? It's like a long time to get to that place and to have the right people in place for you to be able to have the freedom to go and do what you're doing and know that the ceiling isn't going to fall in on everybody.
And it's it's a it's a we need to take a stepping stone because if no one's doing it, I mean, think of all the first things that we've gotten to do in Nashville, like we were the first to hang stuff in the Skirball horn. We were the first to hang in the downstairs country, Scott, just because we asked, and well, I don't know about that. Like how and I'm like, we worked through it, and then other people started to do it. I love stuff that I'm like, I love inspiring people every single day, you know, when people say this copying, but
sometimes they got to pay their dues, and they got to give credit where credit is due. And I'm like, Oh my God, you are literally in what's so crazy about it is I'm like, you can still go out there and see a lot of your original designs, that stuff is still available in these people, they still can't design, they still can't design and you can see the thought and the love that you put into every single thing. Everything was thought out so perfectly. It was intentional.
And the thing is, you can't teach that. No, you either have it or you don't. Right. And so that's where it's like, I would rather go and teach the facts as like the processes because and I want you to be careful not to build this monster of something that's not replicatable, which is why people pay us the big bucks, like people say, Okay, let's talk about how much time, effort education, money you've invested over the years. So when people are like, Oh, you charge that? Yeah, we've been doing it for over 20 years, that knowledge and all those hard knocks, that's priceless. It is. And that comes with a price. And it actually is it's not about even that it's like we know our numbers. We know I mean, things are changing, you have to stay relevant you have to do, you don't have to be you should do a business assessment and evaluation every single year, you should know your numbers. And sometimes we don't do the numbers as business owners because I didn't want to know, I didn't want to know it hurts when you didn't know how to chart not you but me. I didn't know how to charge. And like that. I'm like,
oh, at one point, I
didn't either. But it hurts so bad when you work so hard. And you put your love and your sweat and your tears into it. And then it's like, you feel like you're on an island alone, because everybody else is bitching and complaining. And they have no idea really how good they have it. They really don't. So okay, so what's what's next, like I know, so you're gonna, you're adding meaning to your service adding
planning, we're going to revamp our website, we're going to our my logo is fine. We're just using, we have a different Pantone color that we're using. And it's this. It's, it's like literally the evolution of pinks, to like this dark, creamy, Mavi brown all the way like it's, it's stunning. I can't wait to see it's stunning. I mean, and then we're starting to get more into corporate as well. So we're doing a lot of corporate things. And we're also we're going to have a Valentine's Day pop up. So there's a building of like five different entrepreneurs and they are leasing out this space for three months. It's down the street from Centennial hospital, okay, and for three days, they're going to allow me to have a space in there to do a floral pop up for Valentine's Day. Okay, so we are going to be I know we're going to be doing some really beautiful arrangements and we'll have delivery people and everybody can pop up. So with Emma's being gone and knocked down. There's nothing really even close. So I wanted to give people a small option to grab something to take to their loved one from the hospital. And this
was the oldest florist in Nashville. And it was like a little pink building. Yeah. And they delivered all the flowers to the hospital. Yeah, I mean, when it works, it's so
fun. Fun fact when they closed and they did the auction I won their cooler their flow cooler shut. Yeah, people don't. Yeah, I know it's speaking
of coolers. Don't ever go into the cooler by yourself. When people aren't there because you know about the guy in the restaurant, downtown Nashville who was working late one night he on the restaurant and Italian restaurant in town. And the little thingy when the door latch it was broken and he was on his to do list to get it fixed. And he couldn't get him to tell me this man. God Yeah, he passed away. This was years ago. And I was just didn't later with my travel husband, like literally pulling flowers out of a cooler. I was like Brian, don't ever go to court by yourself.
No. I mean, it got closed and went to Jenny's and started freaking out. This was like years ago, though, when I first like first first started. So when I first started doing floral, I was working out of Jenny's I would lease or rent one of their little tables in the back. And I would do florals and I went into the cooler and luckily I had my cell phone and I called Thomas. And they were like, no, don't freak out that back. Cool. You just have to, like push this and move this and I was like, okay, so luckily the floor the cooler that I have in my shop is just open with the doors. It's not a walk in yet. Okay, good. We are inspiring to get to that. But I know we're kind of at the stage of the podcast where we're kind of wrapping up. And I wish we had more time but like we're gonna do it again. You know, don't worry. I think one of the questions was like, Where do I want to be in five years and I mean, I want you I live I want to be downtown Nashville. I want to have a studio and a design space downtown Nashville. where literally, there's like, I went to New York recently and fell in love with all of the windows. So I used to do window treatments years ago, like 22 years ago for Victoria's Secret, I absolutely did all of their window treatments for the holidays, know when a new fragrance came out, and I always fell in love with it, and then having this love for interior design and doing that years ago, like I just fell in love with it. So I want these literally the floor to ceiling glass windows, and I want you to be out of red light on, you know, I don't know, on demand brand or something and you drive by slow and you see these gorgeous chandeliers. And I want it to give you this idea of just like New York windows and high end luxury, and how people need to know that I'm very determined, I'm very determined, I know what's going to happen, I want people to walk in there. So the goal is to have a maybe like a contract or something with one of the local rental companies. Or even like my dream would be to have Nuage there and like have them shipped me every single linen and I have a whole Nuage wall. And I want to be able to have a whole wall from like my rental company, like please be seated and have like all of their charges there. But a space that's for me and my brides for them to come in. And for us to play in linens and tables and chairs and flatware. And all that and the flowers are there and these huge, you know, televisions that are constantly playing anything that we want in the background, like that's my dream, to have the most gorgeous soft seating area and these, like, oh my god, like it's all in my brain I wrote this down years ago, it's on my little dream board, you know, and it's it's going to happen, but I want it I want curry to be looked at as this all inclusive, you know, couture kind of high end. You know, I want to be there with you, when you get your gown, I want to be there when you guys get your tux. I want to be there for the entire moment. Because that dress and that Tux is going to inspire the rest of everything. Yeah, from the fabrics, to the draping to the softness to the color palette, to the textures to everything. I want people to have an experience and walk away and not feeling like at the end of their wedding, that they've gotten taken advantage of that they don't know where their money went, that their photography is terrible. And they wish they got that shot of grandma because she died six months later. Like all of these things. I don't want people to have what ifs, I want them to walk away and say this was the best damn night of my life and not because you consumed half of the damn bar. But because the entire process was seamless from the beginning to the end.
Yes. There's two big takeaways here too, that are very important. Okay, number one, I don't know if you I'm sure you know this about yourself. But you get out. You get out. You get outside of the city, you get outside of your comfort zone, you get outside of your cliques you We even came in and she's like, I mean, I'm struggling with. I was okay. Because it just it's some of the things that you've been around. And it's like, I know there's more. And like, stop
limiting ourselves
taking emotions and putting it on yourself that you feel bad that you're like, Oh, well, I'm not going to work with that person anymore. I tried to I've tried to lift and bring a lot of people up, you know, like, but if they're if they're not wanting to, like that's okay. And you've realized that and you see don't need to feel bad about that. Yeah,
I do. But I don't anymore, because it's not personal. No, we're in two different places in our lives.
It's not even business. It's about happiness. Correct. If you're bored, and you know, there's more, you're gonna go out and get it. I mean, you've mentioned multiple places you've traveled. Inspiration. That's one really important thing, you got to get out. You've got to get out. If you want to grow and do something different. You've got to do something different. So that's the first thing that you've done. The second thing is you know exactly what you want. Yeah. And there's many people that never know what they want.
I've had this dream. And you know what have dreams about that? Yeah, like, you know what you won 11 years ago. I saw one of your weddings. And I just sat there with my mouth open. It didn't even close. I was like wait a minute. What is this God, like people don't even know they can do the behalf the woman that you was six years ago.
It's like it's crazy. It's not and that's the thing about that. I want people to also know walking away luxury. Yes, it can come with a price tag. And it isn't. It was never about money for me when you have to have money to run your business and live. It was about the experience and the creative outlet right. And everyone wants something different. Yeah, but that's where you there's only certain brain tie You know that it's like, how can you pick up and replicate those things? Yeah. And so keeping at a minimum in your business, the things that cannot be replicatable that only you can do, and only do those things. So that's where like now, you know, I'm involved very, very small. Because once the vision is there, and all the numbers get put together, we have a team that can
can do it. Yeah, seamlessly. Because there's process there's processes put in place, Jesus, yeah, I just got to the point now, where I don't, I'm not going to have a strike. I'm not going to be part of my strike team next year. I can actually be home with your kids and, and like train people. And my strike team is all guys. It's all guys. I
just need to get a good 24 gold to make sure that it's it's loading out, right?
Yeah. No. And that's where it came in. Because I was telling about that earlier. So my husband, like I said, he works for this company called Freeman and they do all corporate, he handles, he's, he handles all of their breakdowns. Like I'm talking everything. And this is where people come and have big I mean, we've had everybody here, they even did stuff for CMA. Like they do all like when you're having a big thing, and you're you're having 150 booths, they all have draping, there's carpeting, there's all of this stuff involved. So we have been training people and having people come with us and do break down and learning and know how to pack my stuff and where to put it back when they're done. How to unload the truck, how to wrap my carts correctly, how to put things back and yeah, there's a process of how we do everything even down to break down and I got to the point where I finally got a three person breakdown team. And on top of that last thing and I know we gotta go, I guess it was what was the biggest blessing with my husband's company. He has the schematics to every single loading dock and all of Nashville, every single last one my husband can get into every single loading dock he knows the procedures he knows the security. He knows the people all the way from I mean from like he knows all of the docks at Opryland
y'all this is like a golden key like you don't even know I really as a whole is my dad. When he was alive. His retirement job was hidden security at Opryland. Oh I know this loading docks like the back of my hand, but I will. I will. Yeah, it's
yeah, he knows every single one every single hotel like are you overloading
this is what it's like, you got to have a load and schedule loadout and you gotta be on time and otherwise it is because
that can be a good and I was like, if that wasn't God telling us like it was just that I'm so excited. And if everybody if you want to follow along if you follow along, I'll be grateful if you don't you miss the now I'm sorry. Like I don't just post like fluff and bullshit. I don't know. We're real. We're too old for this. We're absolutely too Oh, we
have too much experience.
You have too much experience.
Experience. There's there's words that I am subtracting from my vocabulary. Okay, so what is it period where experience to be like, I'm so old. I'm like, it's really it really is a mindset like really? I love my age. I love like it's just, it feel good.
I feel like I know what I want now. I would not want to be 20 and not
there's a tick tock y'all. It's like 21 Do you know this one? No, it's like 21 and then these are the funny words that I say in my head and like bring me some food and less at the pin. Never going to jail. Yeah, like we make up funny things. We're gonna do like little movement things every week and like cinema to be funny because I'm makeup these things in my head to be funny so I can remember things. But it's like, my best friend. We were doing it the other night and she was like, Don't you wish you were 21 again? And I was like hey to the No, no, no,
I was somebody's mom already.
Yeah, it was like oh, like I'm good. Well, thank you for your time today and thank you for coming back. I want to go back and like see some of our stuff. And I will put all the links like website Instagram your great honester Like you damn and like get back to people.
I do. Yeah, I do. I took a little break for the holidays just like mental because I love it. And I'm actually deactivating Facebook, it does nothing for me. It absolutely brings me no joy in my life. I'm like, if you call me and we text, then you have my number, but I'm not going to be on Facebook anymore for people to just see quote unquote, what I'm doing as a way No,
but that means making you making money to then go play exactly if you're listening or watching. Thank you. So much for being here and be sure to tune in next week to another episode of business and
possum alcohol GSD
I know too much work next time. That's it for this week's episode of business unveiled. Now that you have all the tools that you need to conquer the world and GSD get shit done. Would you share this with your friends and fellow business leaders? One thing that would really really help us and help new listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a comment and Apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you tune in and listen to business unveiled. You can check out the show notes at Angela proffitt.com/podcast and link up with us on social media so you can share your biggest insights and I want to know your aha moments. Until next week, remember the profitable shifts and structures you're creating in your business help you be more present in your life. So get out there and GSD