Is it Worth the Investment? 💸

It doesn't matter if something costs $10 or $10,000, spending money to grow your business can be stressful. How do you know it's worth it?

In this episode I share three simple, but powerful questions to ask that will guarantee you get value for money every time. 🥳

Transcript

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Welcome to the Thrive Podcast. I'm your host, Kathleen Renan. If you're a floral designer on a mission to build a profitable and thriving business, then you're in exactly the right place. I'm on a mission to bust through the secrecy of our industry, make it easier for you to know exactly what to focus on to help you build your business. And teach you my favorite mindset hacks so that you can learn to show up with more confidence and authority as you grow your business. I'm so grateful to be able to share my journey with you, pass along my best shortcuts, and get you on the path to feeling more confident and making money doing what you love. No matter where in the world you're tuning in from, remember you've got this. I have invested tens of thousands of dollars into my florist business from$35 apps to$3,000 workshops to almost$70,000. Hiring my first manager, and every single one of these investments taught me something that completely changed how I think about money in my business. I'm about to share the exact three question methods. That helped me build the confidence to invest like a CEO and turn my florist business into a thriving high profits business. If you've ever stared at a price tag, whether it's$25 a month, a hundred dollars investments, or you're thinking about paying$10,000 and you've ever paused for a minute and thought, is it worth it? This is for you, and here's what nobody tells us. As business owners, we're never actually taught how to invest in our businesses. We learn how to arrange flowers, color theory, seasonal availability, pricing formulas, even things like SEO, setting up online ad campaigns and building a website. But when it comes to deciding. Whether to invest in that new software, that mentorship program, or that new piece of equipment, we are flying blind, and especially as women, we are battling all of these underlying societal narratives that make us believe we're not good with money, that we aren't worth the investments and that paying. A premium to solve your problem is frivolous. And I've heard so many talented floral designers say these exact words to themselves, and it breaks my heart because it's compounding the frustration, the disappointments, and standing in the way of success. But here's what I know to be true. Flowers are fun and so is making money. And when you learn how to invest with confidence. You stop being afraid of price tags and you start getting really excited about what's possible for you and your future. So let me share with you the three questions that changed everything for me and every time I'm considering an investment, and I mean every time, whether it's a$7 purchase, a$35 purchase, or an$8,000 investment. I ask myself these exact three questions. Question one, am I crystal clear on what problem I'm solving with this investment? This sounds so simple, but this is where most of us mess things up. We get caught up in the shiny object, the promise, the what ifs, and we forget to pause long enough to get crystal clear on the problem to be solved. Here's a very real example. There was a time in my business where I was consistently paying a thousand dollars to hire a photographer to help me update my portfolio, take new images, and keep my online catalog fresh every single time, a thousand dollars out the door. I knew I needed new content. I knew in the digital age that I needed to keep things fresh on brand premium aesthetic. But I also knew, okay, there must be a better way. And that's when I realized I was actually outsourcing something that I could solve myself. So instead of consistently paying a thousand dollars to hire a professional photographer every single time I wanted to update my website. I decided I'm gonna pay$35 for these editing presets. I'm gonna learn how to photograph my own work. I'm gonna set up a little photo station within my space. I'm gonna make sure that once a quarter I take a few cute little selfies drop done. That's$35. Investment has been one of the single most prized investments I've ever made in my business. It's also saved me thousands of dollars. All because I finally took the time to get crystal clear on the problem that I needed to solve. And it wasn't that I needed to have big, long, multi-day photo shoots. It was that I wanted my photos to look professional. So I got to work, learning how to make it happen. And then I knew the real problem I needed to solve was in the editing process. So that's when I found out about editing. Presets paid my$35, and I've never looked back. And one of the biggest mistakes we make in our businesses is that. We pay for stuff that we don't need and invest in something without being clear on the problem that you need solved. And that typically looks like buying a piece of software because everybody else is using it. Going to a workshop because somebody else suggested it was a good idea. Buying vs. With no real purpose and no real intention on using them. Buying flowers with no real vision or no real idea of when they're gonna be used in the design. Or paying for new equipment just because it's on sale. And if you're not clear on the problem to be solved, you're gonna have buyer's remorse every single time. Question number two, and this one's a good one. How do I need to show up to 10 x this investment? And this really is one of those questions that separates the highly profitable florists from the business owners that are barely surviving. This is about taking full ownership of the outcome, and this is particularly helpful when you are investing in courses, workshops, mentorship classes, because this is one of those times where if you take a little bit of time and energy ahead of time and decide, okay, if I'm going to pay$3,500 to go to a workshop, what do I need to do to get$35,000 worth of value out of this workshop? Just asking yourself this question opens your mind up to so much possibility. And this is what I did when I made my single biggest investment in one of the design workshops that I did, and I ended up paying close to$8,000 for the workshop, travel costs, accommodation, everything involved, but I decided ahead of time, okay, what do I need to do to get$80,000 worth of value outta this workshop? If you show up with that mentality and you make yourself a very specific list. You are going to extract so much value from that investment, it's going to pay off in your business again and again and again. And that's exactly what happened to me. So I knew, okay, I need to show up in a way where I can get$80,000 of value out of this investment. So I sat down, I pre-prepared questions that I wanted to ask the other people that were going to this workshop and the people that were hosting this workshop. I knew I wanted to walk away with a new headshot and more images for my portfolio. So I decided ahead of time, what am I gonna wear? What am I gonna do for my hair and makeup? I literally went through every single thing so that I knew I was prepared. The day that we were doing photos, I knew I was gonna get exposure to different ingredients, different color palettes. Different things that I had never used before, so I just wanted to come in eyes wide open. I also knew that one of the biggest things for me that became so incredibly valuable was the personal connections. So me as the hyper introvert that I am, I knew that like energetically I had to prepare myself before I went to this workshop. Four showing up as my best selves through this entire workshop. I didn't shy away in the corner. I didn't kind of hide away. I showed up and I said, okay. I'm here. I deserve to be here as much as the next person. I'm going to walk away with friends for a lifetime. And that's exactly what I did. It still gives me goof bumps when I think about it, but that one decision, that one thought process of going, okay, I'm gonna pay$8,000 to go to this workshop and I am gonna put in the work to decide I get to 10 x the value from this one investment. And I swear to you, like even now. That workshop happened six years ago that I still extract the value from that workshop today, all because I asked myself, how can I 10 x the investment? And you can take this mentality, and I know that this sounds a little bit silly, but it's so empowering when you show up with that thought process, even if you're paying like.$7 for a template. Ask yourself, how can you extract$70 worth of value from this investment? If you're paying a hundred bucks for a course or a training, how can you extract a thousand dollars from this investment? It's so incredibly empowering, and you will just notice that you show up with a completely different energy. You take full responsibility, you own the outcome, and you'll be like, that was one of the single best investments I've ever made in my business. It's so good. It's so easy for us to spend money on things that we think are gonna help solve a problem and then feel really disheartened when it does nothing to help us grow our business. Then in many cases, we shame ourselves, we blame ourselves, we tell ourselves we're not good enough, and that little voice in your head starts to question whether you are actually cut out to do this work. I want you to flip the script. I want you to get crystal clear on the problem that's gonna be solved, and then I want you to decide that you are going to take full ownership of the outcome and you are gonna put the work into 10 x your investment no matter what the price tag is. Which then leads me to question number three in my wildest hopes and dreams. What does success look like with this investment? Because now you're gonna be clear on the problem that you're gonna solve. You're gonna have made some notes for yourself in terms of how you can show up to 10 x your investment, regardless of the price tag. But this is where you get to wave a magic wand and you get to be like, okay, so if I pay for this new app, if I pay for this piece of technology, if I make this new hire, if I pay for this template in my wildest hopes and dreams, what does success look like? This is super helpful, particularly when it comes to paying for apps and paying for software, because you're probably gonna be paying either an annual fee or a monthly fee, and there's always going to be that learning curve. In the beginning, you're gonna get frustrated, you're gonna wanna throw your laptop across the room, you're gonna question all of your life choices. You're gonna be like, should I have really paid 20, 30, 50, 60, a hundred bucks a month to do this? Which is completely normal because you are learning a new skill. Getting yourself clear in terms of like, what does success look like by me paying for this investment? This was the thought process that I went through when we made the decision to invest in a CRM system. So you might use HoneyBook, you might be thinking about dub, you might be doing something completely different, and you might be wondering, is it worth the price tag? So for me, when it comes to investing in apps and software, in my wildest hopes and dreams, I'm thinking, okay, is this gonna be more cost effective than hiring a va? Is this going to over time, help me speed up my process and save me time? Is it going to be something that I could potentially train somebody else to do? Is it a more cost effective? Solution than me doing everything manually. If you can take yourself to the place of, in your wildest hopes and dreams, what does success look like? By making this one investment, then you are going to be able to push through the frustration and the disappointment, and the, oh my God, I bloody hate technology, which we're all gonna run into every time we have to learn a new piece of software, a new app, a new bit of technology. And the reason that I love these three questions is that. It ensures that you make very strategic, intentional decisions in your business because it actually has nothing to do with the price tag. It doesn't matter if the thing that you're buying is$7$70,$7,000,$70,000, but if you can answer those three questions for yourself, you're gonna be so much clearer in terms of how you can extract the full value of any investment that you make in your business. And the mindset shift that changed everything for me. The difference between investing and spending money isn't about the price tag, it's about ownership of the outcome. And when you think about things like spending money, you hand over your cash and you expect somebody else to just deliver a result. When you think about it in terms of investing money, you hand over your cash and you take full ownership of creating the results that you want. It's so normal for us to believe that if we're hiring experts, that means that we've completely outsourced responsibility. We don't need to do anything. We're paying them a lot of money to make it happen. But that thought process is actually just simply a mindset around spending. It's not the mindset around investing. And when we made that decision to hire our first team manager, I'll tell you, I was terrified. I thought it meant I was going to lose control until I realized that it wasn't my job to completely hand over the reins and just outsource full responsibility of operations to her. But instead, my job was to set her up for success so that we could all win, and she ended up being one of the best hires I've ever made because I took full responsibility of the outcome. I got clear on what I needed from her. We communicated our expectations very clearly so that she understood what a good job looked like, and she understood the scope of her work. The team performed better. Everyone was so much happier, and I got so much more of my own time and energy back so that I could focus on the things that I knew were going to help us increase our profitability and grow our sales. And that's the difference between. A successful investment and throwing money down the drain is taking ownership. before we wrap things up, a couple of red flags to watch out for the next time you're thinking of investing in anything in your business. And it's especially true when you are investing in software, some sort of like digital expertise, SEO agencies. Or kind of anything to do with online marketing. And the biggest red flag is when you are not clear on what the deliverables are. And this is especially true with software and digital marketing services because let's be honest like we are so stepping out of our own comfort zones, it's very easy and it's very normal for us to be really intimidated by all the tech stuff. So we automatically kind of outsource responsibility. We sit back and we think we should just trust the experts and not ask questions. But here's what I want you to know. Being intimidated is not serving you and it's not serving your business. You need to show up empowered. You need to show up in control, and that comes down to just asking the right questions. I will say this is where chat GPT can become your absolute best friend. And before you invest in any sort of software agency, website, platform, tech solution, jump on chat GPT and literally type in all of your dumb questions, knowing it's a very safe space. Ask it to explain the details of what the SEO agency has said that they're gonna do. Ask it what questions you should be asking a web developer ask it to help you understand what you should expect from a CRM system. That way you can show up to the next conversation with the salesperson or the agency rep. Feeling so much more in control, so much more knowledgeable and clear on what you need. You're way less likely to get taken advantage of and you're way more likely to get the results that you want. Which also means Ted Xing, your investment becomes so much easier. So the next time you're thinking about investing anything in your business, whether it's$25,$25,000,$250, remember to ask yourself these three questions. Am I crystal clear on what problem I'm solving with this investment? How do I need to show up to 10 x this investment? And in my wildest hopes and dreams. What does success look like from this investment? Write these questions down. Screenshot them, save them on your phone, because these three questions are going to change how you think about money in your business. And you are the CEO of your business. You're smarts, you're capable, and you're absolutely worthy of investing in yourselves and your dreams. So stop playing small because of the price tag. Take these three questions so that you can start investing like the successful business owner that you are. And remember, flowers are fun and so is making money. And as always, thank you so much for being here. I hope you have the most amazing week. And don't forget to drive safe. Drink your water, get some sleep, eat your vegetables, and I'll talk to you again next week. Bye for now.