Case study: How this florist scaled up her business reputation, pricing, and more

Learn how Allison Lunde uses HoneyBook Smart Files to save time, book more clients, and scale her business. By upgrading her branding and creating a seamless process, she can communicate her value more clearly to clients.

HoneyBook’s new features let her better communicate her business value and helped potential clients decide to work with her more quickly. Allison even found that her clients were more likely to book her higher-end packages, meaning she saw an immediate increase in revenue. As a result, she was able to successfully represent the benefits of her upgraded services.

Allison Lunde owns a flower shop in Fargo, North Dakota, called Floret & Foliage. Like other Independent business owners, she leverages her talents as a florist and flower handler to offer unique services like full-service wedding design while also overseeing all business activities behind the scenes. 

Floret and Foliage represents Allison herself and her desire to make people’s lives a little happier. Before starting her own business, she worked at a flower shop in Minneapolis, where she learned how to design florals for multiple weddings each week on her own. 

With hands-on experience and passion, starting her own business was the perfect way to spread her talent and joy to others on her own terms. As an Independent business owner, she works the way she wants and makes the best decisions for business growth.

With hands-on experience and passion, starting her own business was the perfect way to spread her talent and joy to others on her own terms.

With hands-on experience and passion, starting her own business was the perfect way to spread her talent and joy to others on her own terms.

As Allison’s business grew, her processes started to feel more disjointed and not as representative of herself or her brand. With multiple tools and steps that weren’t scalable, the processes couldn’t evolve with her growing business.

Though she had more leads entering her pipeline, they would experience roadblocks and sticking points in the booking process that would take time to work through. These issues would slow down the booking momentum and require more energy from Allison to resolve for each client, taking time away from her floral design work.

In her former process, Allison spent much of her time going back and forth with clients to answer their questions and wait for replies. She also used a few different tools for each step of her process, including sending mood boards using Canva and Pinterest, signing contracts via email, and sending online invoices with HoneyBook. She didn’t have enough insight into the client-side experience while using separate tools, and when issues came up, it wasn’t easy for Allison to help her clients move forward.

With HoneyBook, Allison streamlined her booking process and present her business more professionally at each step. Now, she uses visual mood boards, and her clients can answer questions directly in the interactive files to make sure they agree on the vision before moving forward with booking. 

Rather than searching through endless email threads and various tools, all her clients’ responses are also organized in her HoneyBook account for easier management.

She can apply her company brand to everything that’s sent out, and use templates to save time, creating a more professional and cohesive experience at every touchpoint. To enhance the client experience, she ensures the images and descriptions are always personalized. The new builder makes this easy by letting her save templates that she can edit by dropping in new package descriptions and Floral design photos that match each client’s specific vision.

By combining her proposal, contract, and payment into a single booking template along with her intake process (mood boards and questionnaires), she no longer needs personally walk clients through each step. 

Much different from before, her clients even enjoy going through the interactive files, getting everything done all at once. Instead of sending individual, static files, the smart files take up less time to create and review for herself and for potential clients, making it easier to convert leads faster than before.

The way I feel about HoneyBook is the way I feel about my tattoo artist: I told her what I wanted and who I am, and she took care of the rest.

The way I feel about HoneyBook is the way I feel about my tattoo artist: I told her what I wanted and who I am, and she took care of the rest.

Elevating a brand to the next level

One way HoneyBook helped Allison scale her business was by elevating her brand. In the past, she was using documents that didn’t have as much cohesion with her unique personality, which is central to the Floret & Foliage brand. 

The intuitive builder allows her to set a theme that includes her font and colors across everything from titles to button styles. The customization helps her deliver more value without taking much time. Instead of working with a designer or creating brand elements on her own, HoneyBook lets her incorporate her brand easily using professional, chic templates.

With more robust branding throughout the entire clientflow of inquiry to booking, Allison’s clients immediately understand her value and high-quality services. 

Thanks to the elevated presentation and improved client experience that she gets using HoneyBook, Allison was ultimately able to increase her pricing. In fact, she booked one of her highest-value weddings soon after implementing her new files templates.

My branding before was not me, and now I feel really confident in my branding, my business, and sending things out from HoneyBook.

Using personalized mood boards to increase conversions

HoneyBook provides a simple-to-use builder that allows you to incorporate photos, descriptions, and interactive elements such as questions. Instead of hopping between different tools, you can recreate and combine nearly any type of standard file into a smart file. 

For Allison, she used to build the individual elements of her mood board in Canva before switching over to HoneyBook. Now, she takes much less time to update her mood board template, customizing it for her clients’ specific events and visions. Using smart files also saves her clients time by reducing the volume of emails sent since multiple steps in the process can be accomplished in one smart file.

By creating a unique experience for each client, they feel better understood and more catered to. The process of creating mood boards is also no longer tedious for Allison, which means she can shift time to other, more strategic areas of her business.

People are either going to book me or they’re not, and HoneyBook makes it easier for people to say yes.

People are either going to book me or they’re not, and HoneyBook makes it easier for people to say yes.

The results

• 75% of clients booked immediately
• $100,000+ booked through Smart Files

After incorporating HoneyBook fully into her business processes, Allison was able to instantly speed up booking. Now, a majority of her clients book immediately, and she’s streamlined her clientflow by simplifying communications and eliminating unnecessary back-end processes like switching between tools. 

With the stronger presentation of her brand and the ability to communicate more value, she’s been able to raise prices appropriately. As more and more clients resonate with the Floret & Foliate brand and experience, she’s able to grow and scale.

What’s next

HoneyBook offers endless customization so they can be shaped to fit a business’s unique needs. In the near term, Allison hopes to add more to her booking process with a Build Your Own Wedding template. Using interactive elements that allow clients to choose custom services, combined with an online contract, she’ll be able to make it even easier to book new clients. 

Allison also recently implemented HoneyBook Automations with her files to make sure she’s answering inquiries immediately. By setting them up to send after a specific trigger (such as a contact form submission), she can move leads into her pipeline without even lifting a finger.

Ready to grow your business with HoneyBook?

Try HoneyBook to book more clients more easily and with less legwork. By creating more efficient processes, you’ll have less on your plate and more time to focus on your business’s next steps. Like Allison, you can reach new heights by putting your efforts toward strategy and growth. 

With HoneyBook, you’ll put your best foot forward in every client interaction. Easily customized to your unique brand, you can create a polished client journey without any previous design experience. Get started today by selecting from the template gallery and customizing it with your brand elements.