My name is Franceska McCaughan, The Hotel Florist™, and I’m here with an important message:
You can be in love with your business and have consistent income.
But it wasn’t always like that for me.
Some months were good. Some months were really good. But most months, I was struggling with how I was going to pay rent, and I couldn’t even think about hiring a team even though I really needed to.
Booking wedding and event clients – well, really, chasing them down – was utterly unreliable income.
How could I grow my business when its foundation was so uncertain?
I remember the time I had one month’s rent left in my savings and telling a friend, “If I don’t figure this out, I’m done. I’m going to have to close my doors.”
Then it clicked.
I combined my hotel and restaurant management background with my floral business and niched down to exclusively serve one client: hotels.
First, let me backtrack a bit…
In 2015, I launched my business, Franzie’s Floral Design, in the United Arab Emirates.
That’s right. I was a female expat in my late 20s living in Ras al Khaimah, a tiny little spot about an hour outside Dubai, UAE.
I had pivoted from events and then modeling and even owned a cigar business (that’s for another episode), but I was committed to making this floral design business a success when I started in August 2015.
Before I knew it, I was officially a wedding florist because that is what I thought successful florists were. I mean, who spends money on flowers? According to Pinterest, it’s brides.
It wasn’t until a year later in 2016, when my husband and I moved back to the States, landed in Houston, and opened the second location, that I realized that weddings were not my jam anymore.
I loved my couples. To this day, I’m honored to have been a part of one of the biggest days of their lives. But, ultimately, it did not feel in alignment for many reasons, so I began to look for ways to supplement the income I was losing, turning away from weddings and events.
I landed my first hotel client without any hotel floral experience, 7 months later.
By 2019, I had worked for almost every single hotel brand in some capacity, even serving as the artist-in-residence for the Fairmont Dallas, designing solely for the hotel and living in the hotel for 6 months.
My floral design business, Franzie’s Flower Design, was also specializing in high-end retail, handling all 7 of Tiffany & Co.’s Texas stores, and in talks about taking on other states. We also became Chanel’s preferred florist in Texas.
However, I was burnt out and decided I needed to hone in on what I really wanted to do. So, in the Spring of 2019, I launched The Hotel Florist™, turnkey floral solutions for luxury hotels.
Fast forward to everyone’s favorite year, 2020.
A lot of my clients disappeared. But my hotel clients saved me.
They have always made sure that I stayed in business, and that’s one of the reasons I’m so passionate about educating florists on hotel partnerships.
As my hotel clients came back, they came back monthly at first, and then on a full-time basis, but they came back. They always take care of their people.
At the beginning of 2020, The Hotel Florist™ expanded into online education which was great, but something was missing.
I taught you how to pitch, but what about the contract?
What about designing for hotels? What flowers do you use? How do they stay fresh for 7 days?
How could you automate your business to take your 6-day work week to 1 as I had?
How could you take your floral business to the next level?
So in November 2020, I launched the Hotel Florist Profit Method, and it is everything you need to know to be a successful hotel florist – literally.
I have brain-dumped everything I have learned in the last four going on five years of partnering with hotels, and honestly, anyone can do it.
Hotel floral partnerships make the floral and hospitality communities stronger.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for reading this.
My name is Franceska McCaughan, The Hotel Florist™, and I’m an industry disruptor, helping ambitious florists navigate the seas of landing hotel partnerships, so you can say hello to consistent $5,000 months and goodbye to unstable wedding and event income.
Let’s get blooming.
Binge all episodes The Hotel Florist Podcast on iTunes or on Spotify
P.S. Be sure to check out my FREE masterclass for florists looking to create consistent 5k months through hotel partnerships here.
