Whether you are a new or more experienced flower grower, the Flower Farming Business Masterclass has been developed to give you the planning tools you need to develop your enterprise in a way that aligns with your own values and sets your business on a foundation that allows you to grow in a sustainable way. The main objective of the course is to help the small-scale grower improve the productivity and profitability of their business.
The course covers a range of topics required for the development of a sustainable business model, with learning grouped into three modules; Business Planning, Production Planning, and Profitability and Pricing.
Module 1 - Business Planning
In Module 1, we focus on the systems and processes required for effective business planning. From analysing our values and understanding how to use this to develop brand affinity, to setting specific goals and targets for ourselves and looking at the steps we take through the marketing process - we’ll cover all of the aspects of formulating a plan of action that fits with your life and ideals. We’ll also look at practical tasks such as cash-flow forecasting and setting financial targets with ready-made templates for you to download and use as a guide for your own business planning.
Module 2 - Production Planning
Module 2 concentrates on the practicalities of small-scale flower production for agroecological growers. We look at what sustainability actually means for growers whilst investigating strategies for managing your production efficiently; understanding the importance of variety selection for your sales market; calculating quantities for production and record keeping; and look at practical cultivation techniques to improve quality, production rates and profitability.
Module 3 - Profitability and Pricing
In the third and final module of the course we examine the complexities of calculating our small farm production costs and look at strategies for profitable pricing. I’ll teach you how to run a Crop Enterprise Budget which is a key tool we all need to use in order to take the guesswork out of pricing! Understanding how to calculate potential yield, knowing the factors that affect crop profitability and using record keeping tools to effectively analyse and evaluate your production are all skills the small-scale grower requires in order to generate an income from their enterprise.
If we truly want to create livelihoods in a thriving, growing industry, getting to grips with the figures is the key to ensuring financial sustainability for our flower-growing businesses.
The course is taught in person by Cel, and takes place over three sessions via Zoom. Working through the course modules in small groups allows for lots of questions which is one of the benefits of face-to-face teaching over remote learning. Every session is recorded and each course participant receives a copy of their class recording to watch back at their leisure.
Each module comes with a digital course book, and a set of templates which are available to download; these can be used as a guide for setting up systems for analysis for your own business. Once the course is completed each participant also receives an invitation to join our Facebook Group where the information sharing continues!
