Episode 62: Over Coffee - Pricing Your Products with Erin Shackelford and Jesalyn Pettigrew

Learn how to price your products and services with advice from four small business owners - Erin Shackelford, Jesalyn Pettigrew, Quynh Nguyen, and Jessie Chui, in the paper flower, floral arranging, and flower farming industries. 

Does your stomach tie up in knots at the thought of pricing your products or services? A quick search will show that paper flowers come with all sorts of price tags attached. How do other paper florists come up with those price points? Are you charging too much or too little?

Camas Design

“I looked back on what I had done that summer, thinking I had done great for that first year…But when I looked at my profit margin, I realized it was not a sustainable business model.” - Erin Shackelford

 

Paper florists aren’t the only ones to struggle with this problem. Small business owners of all kinds lose sleep over the pricing question. That’s why on our Season 3 premier of Papertalk we took on this important topic and...

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Episode 61: Over Coffee - How to Be Part of the Paper Florists Member Directory

over coffee season 2 Aug 27, 2020

Hey Paper Florists - Do you want to spend more time on your craft and less time chasing down clients? Or are you a vendor who needs to reach more paper florists?  

Well, look no further. Quynh and Jessie talked about this project in Episode 57, and now it's live. The Paper Florists Member Directory is finally here!  When you sign up as a Member, you’ll be listed in our worldwide directory, the first of its kind for paper florists and vendors. With just a few clicks, potential clients can connect with you like never before. We’re talking commercial businesses, photographers, fresh florists, event planners, and more. 

We’ll do the heavy lifting with advertising, spreading the word on influential podcasts and blogs like Botanical Brouhaha

All you have to do is sign up at thepaperflorists.org and pay a small annual fee —only $4.08 a month! The same as that fancy latte you love. And it goes to maintaining the tech-related stuff for the...

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Episode 60: Friends of TPFC - How to Beautifully Photograph Your Products with Caroline Tran

friends of tpfc season 2 Aug 20, 2020

Photographer Caroline Tran lets us in on the secret behind making more online sales: showcasing your paper flower product in its best light, both figuratively and literally.
 
Have you ever browsed the competition and been shocked to find that other paper florists are charging way more than you are for similar products? How are they able to make such a higher profit? Why are customers swayed by their offerings? 
 
Caroline Tran of Caroline Tran Photography sold her own creative goods, once upon a time, and was puzzled by the price discrepancies she found. After some sleuthing, she figured out the reason why and let us in on it in this latest episode of Paper Talk. Here’s a clue from Caroline: “The way you present your stuff is going to make the difference between whether someone’s willing to pay $80 for it or $8 for it.” 
 
 
She also provided extremely useful information about photographing your products to showcase online....
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Episode 59: Artist Spotlight: Giving Yourself Permission to Chase Creativity with Ann Wood

artist spotlight season 2 Aug 13, 2020

Listen to mixed-medium artist Ann Wood talk about her international exhibit and how she keeps herself inspired and challenged with her art.

Have you ever found yourself in a creative rut? Found yourself no longer joyful with your work, but simply slogging through? Maybe you’re having difficulty even imagining a different way to do things. Maybe you have a dream to chase, but the risks seem too big.

If that sounds familiar, we have perfect inspiration for you! 

In this episode of Paper Talk, we chatted with Ann Wood of Woodlucker studio. She is the amazing mixed-medium artist behind a plethora of hyperreal insects, feathers, vegetables, fruit, and flowers. These incredible creations have been featured in many publications including Martha Stewart Living, as well as NPR’s Cultivating Place podcast. Her dream to create a massive botanical wall led to her current exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Den Haag in the Netherlands.

 

Here’s what you’ll learn...

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Episode 58: Artist Spotlight - Recognizing and Seizing the Right Opportunities with Ceres Lau

artist spotlight season 2 Aug 06, 2020
 
Listen to world-renowned paper artist, Ceres Lau, about finding the confidence and perseverance to get your paper flowers featured in fine art spaces.
 
Does the idea of submitting your paper flowers to a gallery strike fear in your heart? Or maybe you’ve tried in the past with little success and have become disheartened. We have heard so many paper florists express apprehension about exhibiting their paper flowers as fine art. There’s a lot of unknowns: Where do you begin? How do you deal with rejection? Is your creation really worth it? 
 
We’ve all felt those doubts. But what if we told you that we know the secret behind finding success as an exhibiting artist? The best news is, it’s totally something you can do.
 
On this Episode of Paper Talk, we chatted with Ceres Lau, a paper artist in Malaysia, whose incredible work has been exhibited around the world and extensively online. She literally cuts, carves, sculpts, and creates...
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Episode 57: Over Coffee - The Paper Florist Industry is About to Get a Whole Lot Stronger with Quynh and Jessie

 
Learn about the exciting new projects you can participate in that will promote and grow the paper florist community, and help us all succeed in our new industry.
 
You want to connect with more clients. You want your amazing creations to be enjoyed. Spending time to promote your work is not what you imagined doing when you became a paper florist. Well, we’ve got your back. There is strength in numbers, and the paper florist community is about to get a whole lot stronger, together. 
 
Paper florists are scattered all over the world, which is why you’re reading these words! You want to connect with others in our industry. That’s always been the heart and soul of Paper Talk and the Paper Florists Collective. This is why we are so excited for some big projects coming down the pipeline. These projects will include all paper florists who want to participate, and they will help us all to promote and grow our industry.
 
In this episode of...
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Episode 56: Friends of TPFC - Getting Your Paper Flowers Featured in Magazines and Blogs with Tonneli Gruetter

friends of tpfc season 2 Jul 23, 2020

Learn from a marketing expert, Tonneli Gruetter, how to reach across industry lines to grow your paper floral business and gain exposure in print and digital publications.

Let’s face it: our paper floral industry is strong, but still has lots of room to grow. To get our work out there and to help our community flourish, we need to collaborate with other industries. Getting featured in the magazines or blogs of other groups is a fabulous way to grow your business. An obvious one is the fresh florist market. We can create pansies with long stems or an iris for a dried bouquet. The possibilities for collaborating with florists are endless!

You may wonder if a fresh floral magazine or blog will feature your paper flowers, and the answer is yes! On our latest episode of Paper Talk, Tonneli Gruetter— a marketing expert and writer at the Florists’ Review magazine—spoke eloquently about the amazing collaboration that can happen when we choose to look outside of our...

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Episode 55: Artist Spotlight - Teaching Workshops after Covid-19 with Jasmine Sing

artist spotlight season 2 Jul 16, 2020

Although South Korea did not formally implement a lockdown, South Koreans were encouraged to practice physical distancing and to wear masks in public spaces. Most of their economy is back to "normal" and we thought it would be interesting to speak to Jasmine Sing of Merremade about how she went about re-commencing her in-person workshops in South Korea, as it would be equally relevant in other countries once the physical distancing policies start to loosen up.

If you want to know more about Jasmine, be sure to check out Episode 15 where we first spoke to her about the paper flower industry in Asia.

 


 

First, let's learn a bit about Jasmine:

1. Tell us about yourself Jasmine!

The Asian with big dreams, and the brain & hands behind Merremade. I am born and raised in Singapore but moved to South Korea 7 years ago. Still trying to learn & adjust to this not-so-new environment. Everyday is an adventure and I have so much I want to achieve. I am usually...

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Episode 54: Over Coffee - When to Work for Free with Kate Alarcon

over coffee season 2 Jul 09, 2020

This week on our Paper Talk Podcast, we want to talk about when it's ok to work for free with our friend, Kate Alarcon.

As much as we hate to admit it, we've all made paper flowers for "free" in one way or the other. Often, it's in the early stages of our paper flower journey, when we're desperate for exposure, when we don't have the guts to ask for the right kind of compensation (or any compensation at all), when we're not all that confident about work. If we're lucky, we come out of it a better artist or entrepreneur with opportunities that we never dreamed of. On the other hand, if those opportunities aren't fruitful, we might feel slightly disappointed, even resentful perhaps. 

Above: Quynh's Cherry Blossom exhibit at Fran's Chocolate

When would you work for free? In this episode, each of us explain when we've worked for free and why those opportunities were or were not ones that we would ever do again.

 

 Above: Jessie's...

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Episode 53: Friends of TPFC - How and Why Branding and Marketing Go Hand in Hand (Part 2) with Kalisa Jenne-Fraser and Missy Palacol

friends of tpfc season 2 Jul 02, 2020

Last week on our podcast, Paper Talk, we dove into the world of branding with Kalisa Jenne-Fraser and Missy Palacol of Kalyx Group. We loved and learned so much from our conversation that we extended into this week’s episode. Our focus shifted from finding the heart of your business (in short, the brand) to the ins and outs of marketing your business.

If you haven't listened to "How and Why Branding and Marketing Go Hand in Hand (Part 1)" be sure to listen to that Episode!

 


Let's learn a bit about Kalisa and Missy:

 

1. Introduce yourself to us (again)!

Kalisa Jenne-Fraser is co-founder of Kalyx Group, a brand and marketing consulting firm headquartered in Seattle. Kalisa is a brand marketing consultant who specializes in strategic brand planning, content marketing and digital media strategy. She has spent almost her entire professional life delivering marketing strategies and insights to global brands, non-profits and startups alike. In 2016, after...

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