3 things to invest in as a Freelancer

Written By Kerry Davies
 
 

The list of things you need to do and have as a freelance florist can seem pretty endless sometimes. If you run your own floristry business or solely work as a freelancer, both take lots of time, admin and effort and sometimes it can seem like you don’t know which thing to put first.

Here at The Freelance Florist, we’ve had many discussions about what we think are the most important things to invest your time and money into. With a wealth of over 20 years experience between us as freelancers and business owners, we think we’ve come up with our top three to get you started, feel inspired and make moves towards the best career opportunities you can find!

  1. Your portfolio images

A picture paints a thousand words as they say, and we believe that there is nothing more important than having great images of your work. These images not only show what you are capable of skill-wise, but they can also display your style, your way of working and what sort of flowers you can work with. It can also be a great way to show that you work well as part of a team if you can show larger installation work and caption it with the other collaborators on that piece! So how do you go about getting all these images? Here are our top suggestions:

  • Create your own - You could invest some of your own time to capture your creations either in your studio or shop or even whilst on the job (as long as your employer doesn’t mind). You could set up your own mini shoot, buy flowers and collect vessels and props that resonate with your own floral style, and set aside some time to capture. You might also want to invest in a good camera, or a course to learn how to use the one you have and develop those skills too.

  • Book a professional - There are some incredible brand and creative business photographers out there these days, so if you have some budget to get some professional images shot then we would highly recommend you do! Working with a professional will give you the chance to discuss with them what you really want to create, from things you’ve seen that you love or even things you know are missing from your portfolio, and should also give you the opportunity to actually get some images of you being hands on and doing your thing! We really love it when our members have images of themselves working with flowers for their Profile photos, it gives a little glimpse of who they are and also it’s nice to employ someone you’ve seen at work! Don’t know who to commission as your professional photographer? You definitely need to do a little research and feel confident about who you go with, our main advice would be to find someone who you feel your style naturally fits with, and look into others they have worked with. There might be images you’ve come across that you really admire, look into who they have worked with and make enquiries from there. The main thing is you feel good about who you commission, and make the most of the opportunity you’re investing in. A good brand photographer will help you make sure you get what you need.

  • Get involved in a photoshoot - We’ve already sung the praises of working on photoshoots over on our ‘Photoshoots’ blog post, so head over there for all our main advice, but this is a fantastic way to get some more images into your portfolio. You might also be able to get the professional photographer who’s capturing the shoot to snap you setting up some of your florals, the more hands on shots the better.

  • Ask for images from past work - If you’ve worked a particularly wonderful even in the past, make sure you get some images from it, either from your employer or a professional event or wedding photographer who captured it. You will need to make sure that the employer is happy for you to use these images in your portfolio and you must always credit the photographer and designer, but if they’re happy for you to use the images then it also acts as a mini reference because the images themselves show you’ve worked with a certain florist on that particular project - a double win!

2. Your skills

We can all benefit from brushing up on our techniques and learning new skills and we don’t think any florist out there would say they knew everything there was to know about floral design. It’s really important you feel confident about your skills, especially with some of the basics and whilst styles, techniques and trends are rapidly changing, it's vital that you feel like you're on top of it all. So whether its perfecting your bouquet method or learning how to create without floral foam for the first time, here are our tips on how to get those skills into your portfolio:

  • Intern or shadow someone else - shadowing as an intern is a great way to learn, and lots of employers are more than happy to consider it for certain events. In saying this, it’s so important to remember that you must be honest with your employers when taking on new work. It’s definitely not a good idea to try and learn a new skill on a big, time pressured job, especially if you’ve told who you’re working for that you’ve got this! We promote honesty as the best policy, and you always want to turn up and fulfil expectations, but learning on the job can be an amazing way to perfect your skills. Reach out to those you admire and see if there’s a possibility of you working with them.

  • Courses and workshops - continuing with courses and workshops is a great idea for florists of all levels, and luckily there’s a great number of amazing florists offering courses, classes and workshops these days where you can learn anything from floral techniques to business skills and beyond. Lots of designers also offer 1-2-1 session so it’s a great idea to approach those your admire to see what they can offer you. They’ll either be happy to help or they’ll be able to point you in the right direction for someone who can.

  • Skill swap - This is a really fun option for established businesses and freelancers alike. The idea is that your florist friend shows you how to do something they’re amazing at and in return, you show them how to do something you’ve mastered! It can be a really fun day of playing and learning, so get the snacks in, pour the tea and have a play. And don’t forget to capture some images for one another!

  • Personal Professional Development time - Similar to above, this one is actually super important, and one many of us are probably guilty of never really prioritising. This one is all about carving out that time to really practise those things you feel most daunted by, and the tricky techniques you want to improve. Give yourself permission to just take a day or two to practice what you already know. You could look into some new techniques you’ve seen on the internet or in a book and give them a go yourself. You could task yourself with making the perfect version of something you usually struggle with a bit and try to overcome the aversion you have to it. A great way to learn is to just experiment and push yourself to try something new!

3. Your online presence

One of the first things a prospective employer will do is look at what you’re up to online, because whilst a portfolio and CV are vital to show where and how you work, in the fast paced world of social media and google, we have to be ready for people to find us outside of the specific things we send them. Check through this list and have a think about whether you’re hitting all these point:

  • Working links - One of the most frustrating things when looking over a CV, portfolio or profile is when you go to click through to their website, social media or online gallery and the link doesn’t work. This is such a quick and simple thing to check on and can make the difference between being booked and being passed over for someone else! Check your links people!!

  • Website refresh - If you do have a website it’s so important that it’s up to date with images, correct contact information and what services you offer. Something as simple as changing the © date on the footer to the correct year will just let people know that your page hasn’t sat stagnant since 2016! And if you’ve not got anything new or you’re hating what you have got, we would actually advise putting up a holding page with something simple like “Website currently under construction” or “Coming Soon” and some contact details, which is actually probably better than a website full of 5 year old work you’re no longer proud of.

  • Branding - It’s so important that if you have a brand, style or visual identity that you want to maintain within your work that that’s how you should show up online with everything you do. You need to make sure you’re only showing work you really want to do and communicating who you are with confidence. So have a think before you post that next image on Instagram - is this on brand? Is this the sort of work I want to be doing? And if you just don’t know what any of that really means to you then it might be a really good time to do some branding or style based work, you want to feel you are at a point where you are able to present a cohesive set of images of your work.

    There are loads of resources out there, both paid for and free to help you with these topics, some of our faves are:

So there you have our top tips of where we think you can invest your time and budget to really push your business or freelancing forwards in 2022! We’d love to know what you think so please let us know in the comments or drop us an email on: hello@thefreelanceflorist.co.uk


 
Kerry Davies
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