0:19

Hello everybody, welcome back to the Flower Files.

0:22

Today we have a very, very, very special guest with us.

0:25

She's a behind the scenes person, helps us with questions, helps me with questions.

0:31

We have CJ Price here with us before and hopefully you've heard of her, but if not, she's an incredible human being who has so much knowledge about the.

0:41

Google is what we call it in our vocabulary now with SEO and website building, and today we're gonna kind of go off topic of flowers specifically and interview her and ask her questions about like all the things that she does.

0:56

So, mom and Amber, please start with your questions and we'll go from there!

1:02

First of all, I just want to say woohoo, I'm so excited that we have this time with her, because she is a very busy human who runs around crazy, crazy.

1:12

She just, she just, is always not only working, but she's got two incredible kids.

1:18

She's married, of course, has a husband, who's awesome too.

1:21

But she does so many things, helps so many people and for me personally, she definitely helps keep me together some days when I'm like, oh my God, everything is blowing up.

1:32

I'm not sure which end is up.

1:34

Can you please help me fix ZW13 and oh, a, b and C, yeah, so, cj, I think first we want to ask just who are you, how did you get started and what exactly is it that you do now?

1:52

Sure, well, first, thank you very much for inviting me on watching the behind the scenes of you guys.

2:00

Starting this has always been fun, so, and I've never been on a podcast, so first time for me doing this.

2:06

So trying to think how did I get started?

2:10

Well, you, I met Liza, how we start there, how I met Liza and how I became her helper person and all the things.

2:19

So I used to own a event and tent rental company with my husband called Price Rentals and Events, and one day Liza just walked in the showroom with a bouquet of flowers and I didn't realize how nervous you were, but I didn't think.

2:37

I was just like, yes, sounds great. And you said that you were going to do bouquets for our table.

2:43

We had like a showroom with table scapes and you wanted to do the flower arrangements and I was so giddy I was like yeah, heck, yes, let's.

2:51

And I remember you said you told me later how nervous you were, that you were afraid I would tell you no, and I was.

2:58

I say no. I was nervous when I first walked in your showroom because, like, you have this big, cool, awesome business.

3:05

You were doing all of these things with all of these awesome people.

3:09

You were like the rental person to talk to and I was like I'm going to talk to her and ask her if I can just take her flowers with snow and literally my chin was shaking.

3:19

I was like I can do this. I sat in the car and I was like I am an adult, I can do this.

3:25

We're both humans, we can do this and you are so welcoming and inviting and just it was yeah, it was serendipity, because after that I was like I like this human.

3:38

I need more of this human in my life.

3:42

Oh, I needed you to. I did no, I needed you to, and, and so I did that for six years with my husband and then COVID happened.

3:51

Covid happened everybody. And it was in that time, number one, that we realized what a weekend was amazing to have Saturdays off.

4:04

And you know, my husband was a wedding DJ before we even did event intent rental.

4:11

So we've always kind of been in that wedding space. And, you know, an opportunity came to us and a competitor offered to buy us and we saw this as kind of this moment you can't, you know you can't turn that down.

4:25

And I have, like Liza said, I have two kids.

4:29

Both of them are on the autism spectrum.

4:32

So you know, as they were getting older, I saw this as an opportunity that I could be there for them.

4:37

I really missed a lot of their childhood because when you own a business of that magnitude, you kind of the business owns you for a little bit.

4:46

I'm going to be honest.

4:47

And you know I wanted to kind of take their childhood back and so that's where I started and during all of that I was still doing web design.

4:57

I've always done web design and we can get into that later, like where that started.

5:01

But I realized this was a great transition for me because I still I was working with so many business owners anyways in in the event world and then turning it and then saying, hey, I can help you actually with your business on a digital marketing, marketing scale.

5:17

I think that was an easy transition for me.

5:19

But that's where I kind of started and getting to know Liza.

5:27

And she just built our beautiful brand new website.

5:29

It went live, I think, at the end of November. Yes or right at the beginning of December.

5:35

That's when it was yeah, it's amazing.

5:37

I've shown all kinds of people and they're like wow.

5:40

Well, and I think the thing is with CJ that she makes it so easy to just trust her.

5:45

It was so easy for me to understand what she was talking about, even though there's things, so many things, about the website world that I don't understand.

5:54

But I.

5:57

We want to Google to like us. But there's so many things I have questions about and needed help with and CJ's confidence knowledge and just oh, you just do this, this and this where I'm like I don't even know what you just said.

6:12

But, yes, this is what we need to do. It took a lot of trust to turn that over and she gets it.

6:20

She helps us with absolutely anything that we have questions on, and it's not just one of us, there's a team of like five of us who go to her and say, hey, what about this?

6:32

And I don't know how to do that. And now we have more control over the website to.

6:36

It's not just plug and play. It's hey we want to do all of these things and you're like okay.

6:42

Yeah, and it's all in the stretch to. It's not just like a, like a willy nilly, like you said, like apps that you download, like on this website builder.

6:48

It's a, it's from nothing Like it's.

6:55

So I'll say one of the issues just with you guys and I think a lot of your listeners might also end up in this space is you had a working website.

7:04

You guys were getting sales from it, so it wasn't like you guys were starting from scratch.

7:08

It was scalability for you in the next step of your business.

7:12

I know a lot of small business owners they start with the do it yourself website and there's nothing wrong with that and it will get you to a starting point and what you'll notice is there's going to be a certain time we're like well, how do I make more sales, how do I make my website my lead sales person?

7:27

And that's kind of when I like to come in. I don't like building five page websites that are just like starter websites for people.

7:34

I want to help people get to that next level and I feel like that's where I need down is is those are my those are my people is like okay, you, you, you understand, like you've seen what a website can do, so now let's take it to the next level.

7:46

And when you have a custom website and the scalability of a custom website you know, especially for you guys, your ecommerce, you know that opens up a lot of doors.

7:56

Well and to be able to sit with you and share.

7:58

These are my ideas, these are my long term goals.

8:01

I want to build the infrastructure in place so that we can do that correctly, and you never look at me and go that's too much or that's overwhelming, or you're never get there.

8:11

You're like okay, we'll figure it out and we'll do these pieces and this makes sense, and how do we build that?

8:17

And you, you get it, you get it.

8:19

And I don't know how else to put it other than you get it Well.

8:24

I feel like most of the time too, we come to you with pieces and you're like, oh, this can go on this page or this is later down the road where we can build this piece, where I wouldn't have even thought of it in that way.

8:36

You have a process and then you have such a creative brain too, where it opens up this whole other option for page and history.

8:46

It's really cool to be like, okay, we have this, but what do we do with it?

8:50

And you're like, oh, this fits right here, right.

8:54

Well, that, you know, and I feel like a lot of it too, is like like going back to your infrastructure.

8:59

When, when we started talking about your new website, I knew you guys wanted to do this podcast as well, and then there was this whole conversation of does the podcast sit within WildlyNatives domain?

9:10

Do we do a different? I mean, there's a whole, there's so many ways to do it.

9:13

But we realized, you know, kind of interconnecting the brands on your domain, you know, from an SEO perspective, really will benefit you in the long run.

9:21

But you know, those are questions you have to think about when you start doing a redesign or a refresh, if you, if you want that scalability, or else you know you can piece them together down the road, but if you have that base infrastructure in place, it gets a lot easier.

9:36

So you're talking about building a website from something that's already existing.

9:41

Where do you even begin when you're taking something that already exists and trying to fill it?

9:47

up. So I was thinking, because I saw this question and I was thinking about this and honestly it goes back to you want to, like.

9:54

A lot of people go oh, you want to focus on your design and you want to, you know, make it pretty.

9:58

Yes, that is very important. But honestly, you really need to think about, like the purpose and the goal of the website first and then, like content begets design.

10:07

And I know a lot of people will come into the web design space and say no design, then content.

10:11

I just don't work that way. I feel like you know you need that high quality content, that goal, that purpose.

10:16

Like what you are selling, like why would someone come to your website to begin with?

10:20

And if you understand all of that, then building the actual site after knowing those answers, it gets a lot easier.

10:28

Okay.

10:29

All right, yeah, but that's how you that kind of ties back into what I was saying before like you start with the pieces and then you build it.

10:39

It's not like, oh, I want this, but we don't have the pieces to build it yet, right, right.

10:44

And one of the things I did not do this for you is actually, I think one of your questions that you had was you know, it's the hardest thing that I had to do for you guys, and it was.

10:52

I don't want to say it was a mistake on my part, but because Liza and I go so way back, I do have like a process where I send like a branding questionnaire and there's all these goals and questions about SEO, and I was like I don't know, liza, it's fine, I don't need it.

11:07

But now, like you know, and like during the process, I kept going back to like you know, parts of that questionnaire and I was like you know, lesson learned from this experience with you guys, which has it's fun, and I would never say you know that you know.

11:20

But I would say if I could do that one thing over again, it was I would definitely send you that probably 20 page questionnaire, because then I think a lot of your oh my God moments or like oh, I want to add this we would have like, maybe known a little sooner.

11:36

And then I think you know, but because you're at that infrastructure, it wasn't that hard for me to put it in, but I think you guys would have been able to have that brainstorming session earlier.

11:46

Yeah, exactly, Well, there's so many little details, there's so many little things that you see because you see it through a different vision little things like our gallery spring, summer, fall, winter right, we're thrilled to have a gallery that's functional, that's interactive, that is linked all over the place.

12:06

But you saw it and we're like, okay, we need to add the descriptions of each of those seasons.

12:14

And we all were like, oh, wow, we didn't think of that, Right, because you know you want to think because I always come from it as your website should be your best salesperson.

12:23

So if someone comes there, they see that it's a fall gallery.

12:25

But if you guys are selling these, you know, let's say I love when you always use the word aesthetic like this, like your wedding aesthetic then you should probably have your website broken down in that way.

12:36

If that's the way that you're selling to your bride when they go through your CRM, then you want them to be able to see that on your website.

12:43

So for me it was almost good. Like I don't understand the flower industry, I do understand the wedding industry.

12:49

So I think that helps me understand like you're selling you know your services to you know for the season and you're always going to have certain themes that are going on.

12:57

But if you actually show that in a gallery format and actually become more specific on it, I think then your ideal client sees that and it becomes so much easier for them to you know to convert the sale.

13:09

What's your favorite part of doing a website?

13:15

Honestly, I feel like it's learning because, like I always do small, I focus a lot on service based businesses, but it's not the same one A lot of like web design.

13:24

When each John say I only do wedding planners and I like to think that I want to just help, like small service based businesses, that's my goal.

13:31

I want to show you that being online is a really powerful tool and I always like to learn more about what they do and like what you guys do, like you know, I really didn't know everything that you guys offer until we started talking about the website and you know, kind of learning that and then teaching you how you can utilize that to benefit yourself with SEO and the Google.

13:54

So I like teaching in that, like I know you come from a teacher background, liza, and I did not do that, but I feel like I like that connection of showing someone like here you are, this is where we're going to be and this is how I'm going to take you there, and all because your website is going to do it for you.

14:09

I don't know. I just I like that journey. I learned a ton from you.

14:12

So just because I was, I taught ag.

14:14

I can teach you how to plant things If you can teach me SEO things.

14:20

Right, no, I do, I like that.

14:22

Yeah, I mean, that's that's, that's your profession, that's that's that's what you do.

14:30

Yeah, so I know that you've built our website.

14:34

I don't know what other kinds of brands and companies and businesses that you've built for, but, like, what kind of things do you take into consideration for places like us or, say, a clothing business or what have you?

14:50

What do you consider for each of those things?

14:53

first, so you always want to think about your target audience first.

14:57

So you guys were my largest e-commerce website that I've built so far, but I've done a lot of other larger websites, like I did Main Street, chester Towns website.

15:05

I've done a website for cater, a website for wedding planners, so it just kind of goes back to for their target audience, what are they looking for?

15:16

Because your website really needs to solve their problem.

15:19

For them, people are going to Google and say, like caterers near me or florists near me, yes, I guess I'm through the door and they get to your website.

15:29

But once they get there, if you don't solve the problem that they have, then why would they stay on your website?

15:36

So it's basically how I started trying to figure out what is the problem.

15:40

How can we solve them on the website so that we can convert them and do that call to action?

15:45

So, for you guys, it's go to the shop or inquire for a wedding.

15:49

You have multiple call to actions on your site, depending on your target audience on that page.

15:55

I think I've learned more about marketing and the inner wovenness of marketing and the connections and the places to learn more about marketing than I've ever had in any class that I've taken.

16:08

Like there's so many little things that are like real world, hit the pavement, reality working with you compared to read the book.

16:20

Understand. This is what we're going to do.

16:23

This is an impact I think we like.

16:25

Oh so, and I mean, and even in the last month that we've been, I guess, back to work, because it's been after the holidays and everything you know we this is the winner there were the one winner where we've gotten our most orders with flowers.

16:42

Really Okay, great yeah, like it's hard to hear that.

16:46

Well, nicole and I keep looking at each other and we're like we're going to have to order flowers because usually, like in the wintertime, we get like a couple here and there and you know it's it's winter.

16:55

Like we're far from like, we get it, but now it's like three or four, like a week, and it could be from birthday to hope you have a great day, to sympathies, to dog stuff, like it's it's everything.

17:09

Like we had four for yesterday.

17:12

We had four yesterday we had 50, 75, 30 and 40.

17:15

I'm glad it's not just like a like 30, 30, 30, 30, 30 all the time.

17:19

Like I feel like. I have a good like flow of everything but, but it's pretty.

17:23

Yeah, it's not consistent.

17:27

Yeah, and I think one of the fun parts is going to happen because we're in the beginning of, you know, I didn't see the analytics of your previous site as much.

17:35

So now that you are going to have this history of your order history and you can look at your Google analytics and I know lies, we've gone through it a little bit but soon you can understand the path, exploration of your users and then we can start tweaking the site even more.

17:50

Because I really think, like one of my things is, yeah, I can build a website and I can give it to you, but if it just becomes static and you never change anything and never update anything or ever just check it out or just look at your you know your insights, then you're really never going to like help your ideal user navigate through your site.

18:08

You know I could say something some way and I could think that it works.

18:11

And then we look at you know, a month in, but like, hey, all these people, we were trying to get them to go here, but they're always going here first.

18:17

Like, you know, let's, let's change the path so that the call to action ends up here instead, cause that's where we're going to get them Right, because you want a website to be inviting, friendly and easy.

18:27

People want to click, click, click, click, click and be done. I mean, that's the society that we live in today.

18:31

Yeah, they just want to like, be.

18:34

Yeah, I was going to say my goal is to make your users stay on the website forever, just like how Instagram.

18:41

Like, instagram does not want you to leave that platform, you know.

18:44

So if you you do things where like message me, instagram is going to ask like, push that content because you're not asking them to leave Instagram.

18:51

So same thing with your website. We don't want them to go anywhere else, so we just want to keep beating them information so they stay.

18:57

Well, it's almost like YouTube too. Like they like forget what what I was reading before I guess it was like a marketing video that I had looked at but they don't get paid until they hit a certain mark of a video and until you have a certain amount of your audience that's actually watching and sticking through the whole thing.

19:17

So it's not like you post a 45 minute video and you make money off of it.

19:19

It's like how many, how much of your audience?

19:23

If you have like 50 people and only 25 of them are listening the whole way through?

19:28

Like you're not getting your money's worth of 50 worth of people.

19:31

You're only getting your money's worth of 25 people.

19:33

So, like it's interesting to see how, like almost all over, every platform is interconnected, like they just want you to stay on their website and that's your goal.

19:46

That's going to be your goal. You know you guys want them to say that.

19:49

You guys, at the end, we want them to. You know, add to cart or you know, inquire for a wedding or join your email list.

19:57

We want them to come back.

19:59

And we did have my. I don't correct me if I'm wrong, but we had a ton of inquiries for weddings last week like a lot.

20:09

A lot.

20:11

Oh, it was yeah, it was great.

20:14

Christmas.

20:17

I know people get engaged and all of that, but it was like Nicole was like his website broken.

20:21

Oh, it's just working.

20:25

That's great. That's so great to hear it, because that's what I want you know, I want you know, and now that, now because of scalability, you know, then we, you know.

20:32

I think last week you and I talked about all the time too is like, now that your website has scaled, you know, now you guys are going to be hopefully ready for all those extra inquiries that you're getting and those extra orders and everything, because you kind of made your plan, you made your marketing plan, but you've also made your business plan, knowing that if I expand this to do this and I'm getting a wider audience, I'm ready to take those orders 100%, yeah, 100%, and it's almost backwards.

20:56

I want to be here. What are the steps I need to take to be here and what happens if I have an issue or a question along the way?

21:04

How do we adjust and adapt? So, just kind of playing with all of that stuff is is huge, huge, huge.

21:12

In case you needed a live review, there it is.

21:18

I should ask you for one, Liza.

21:23

We can absolutely do that.

21:24

Okay, so. So the other day I have to ask the other day the whole team sat down, we all went through the website like all different sections.

21:34

Five people.

21:36

Yes.

21:37

Are we?

21:37

talking about the Google doc. Yes, we all wrote on a Google doc.

21:41

How insane was that and how like cause.

21:44

It was like one person would find one thing and type it in and the next person would be on a different section and type something else.

21:51

And I emailed you separately.

21:53

Yes, yes, okay.

21:55

So for me, like one of the you know it is I, as, as I've gotten older I realized I probably like I'm not diagnosed, but I probably have ADHD.

22:06

So for me that Google doc was so fun, you know, it kept me, I was on task, but I was on different tasks within like the main task.

22:17

So like I was like on it.

22:18

And I feel like I got through that within like an hour.

22:21

Yeah, you did. You know, like those edits you needed, and I was just like I was like three pages of edits.

22:27

Oh yeah, you're right.

22:27

Yeah, but I was ready.

22:29

I was ready to go.

22:29

I was like let's do this. So I and you know half of me was like if this wasn't better, I would have been faster, but I feel like it kept me I don't know engage.

22:38

I don't know. I mean, but I'm so used to working with you guys Like I wasn't surprised when I saw that.

22:45

You know and.

22:46

I knew who is who, you know who was right.

22:49

Oh, you probably knew the different voices. It was so funny and I was like I was like we're going to write it down and then we'll reorganize it.

22:54

No cool, it was like I'll reorganize it, and then at one point she's like I'm not reorganizing, no, it was perfect Because, honestly, that's that's like one of the hardest things for any web designer I'm in so many like.

23:09

I feel like the one thing, like for your audience too, is just finding people that are kind of doing the same thing that you're doing helps.

23:16

You kind of just feel like you're not going crazy and it's not just you guys but, like you know, content.

23:21

Getting content and then getting the feedback from the content is like this, like constant.

23:27

Not I don't want to say struggle, but it's one of those like it's like the arch nemesis of like the web design, like community, is just trying to be like you know, how do you get your clients to respond?

23:37

How do you get your clients to have provide feedback faster?

23:40

How do you so? Like I will say for you guys, like that was just like a slam dunk yes, I have all the feedback I need all in one place.

23:47

Let's do this, so that's great.

23:51

I was like she's going to kill me.

23:54

And that's the hardest thing too, because I feel like some people when you hot, when you outsource something right In your business and I don't know how.

24:01

It is scary. It is scary because then you're giving it to someone else and then that person is then sending it back to you and then you know if you're a kind person at all.

24:08

You don't want to be like. I hate it.

24:10

Or you know you don't want to be like.

24:12

I would like it. You know you kind of feel bad because they're not you and they're not going to be you without the feedback and because I do a lot of, you know, besides web design, I also do a lot of content marketing and digital marketing, like social media strategy for people.

24:25

If I don't know like more like if I don't get that feedback back from you, then I can't be better and make it better for you.

24:33

So like I need that even if like it, you know.

24:36

So once I get like getting it from five people once yes, I will take that over never getting anything, or getting like crickets every once in a while.

24:43

And then there's like really soft email response, like, yeah, I love it, you know, I would just change this one thing.

24:48

I'm like, but what else? Like what? Like tell me, like what you think is, the more I understand where you're coming from, then it gets a lot easier, you know, to make those changes.

24:58

It's like the our story page. I was like listen, I've written the type.

25:01

I'm sending you the pictures. Please make it pretty.

25:04

I don't know what to do with it. I don't know how to organize it.

25:08

I don't. I don't know what to do. I need you just to do it Like please, just fix it.

25:13

Honestly, those are my favorite kind of clients, to like Nina, the director of Main Street, chester Town.

25:20

So when we launched their website, then we they do the Dickens Festival, which is a really big festival here in Chester Town, and she was so burnt out at that point she was just like just make it pretty.

25:31

And for me I was like like, yes, this is great.

25:36

It's great when you have those clients I connect.

25:39

But it's also great Like you know, once you, once you know their vision, what they want, then it just the working relationship is so much easier.

25:47

Well, and I feel like it goes back to what we said earlier we trust you and you have that personality of like you know.

25:56

Hey, I'm going to be honest, this looks stupid. You should try this.

26:00

I've totally lost all professional communication and emails with you.

26:03

I just there's no more.

26:05

Hey, it's do it, can you?

26:10

Thanks. No, it's so much better that way too, because you know, I think, once you become comfortable with the people that you're outsourcing things to because it is hard, I mean, you know, like you know, we got like because we already know each other but to find a way to like, you know, how do you give them your, your baby, and be like, okay, like this is my business, can you make it better?

26:30

Yeah, you know you want, as I think that's like the peril of any small business owner in the beginning.

26:35

You know I had the same thing at price rentals because Nicole worked for me.

26:39

How long it took for me to hire someone.

26:42

Like that was. You know it's so hard, like you know, just trusting someone else with your stuff, and then, once you get past that and you get used to it gets so much easier.

26:51

Yeah, well, and I we definitely look at you as a partner.

26:54

You know it's. It's not a, it's not a business relationship anymore.

26:58

You know how many times have we text 300 text messages back and forth late on a Friday night because everybody else is asleep except for us, and that's those are the people you need.

27:10

You need to find the people that are on your time zone.

27:13

You know.

27:14

I love that. I know I can text you on the evening and you would likely awake.

27:18

You need to find if you're a night owl, you need to find your night owl people.

27:22

Sometimes. If you're an early morning person, find your early morning people, you know but it does help because you know when you're a small business owner, and I know you work like this.

27:30

You know you don't ever stop thinking about your business at any point.

27:34

You never start thinking about your marketing. You always want to learn more and just having someone to bounce off your ideas.

27:40

You know, that's what I'm here for, for you, no, and I'm so grateful for that because you know I never want to drive everybody else crazy, but I can be like all right, cj, this is what I'm thinking, but I need you to help me, like, can you just help me process and like go through the thought, like I'm gonna get to this end?

27:59

Here's the pieces I'm thinking, but I'm afraid I'm missing something.

28:03

What am I missing?

28:04

Help me, please, and I'm gonna get there too.

28:07

And by the way let's have dinner and drink. Yes, yes, let's go get Mexican.

28:10

Amen.

28:13

Yeah, so Amen, amen, amen.

28:15

So you brought up Price Rentals.

28:17

Yes, you've transitioned from one thing to the next.

28:21

I mean, I personally first met you when I worked at JBK.

28:25

Yes, that was like my first calling, yeah.

28:30

How do you transition? I mean, you mentioned that you've always done web design.

28:34

How did you transition supporting couples planning their weddings to supporting businesses building their business?

28:42

Okay, wait a minute, wait a minute. I'm gonna totally put her on the spot and be like CJ.

28:46

you need to actually talk about how you got started with all of the website stuff, because Okay, so I am slightly a nerd and so I actually looked up this fact because I was wondering, like when I started.

29:03

So basically my family moved from New Hampshire to New Jersey and I think I was like 12 or 13, and it was during the summer and I don't know, normal kids, I guess, go outside or something, but I decided I wanted to buy a website and learn how to build.

29:17

You know, hand-cooked websites, that's what I decided to do with my summer and you know that was back.

29:23

That was before WordPress was a thing, so WordPress started in 2003.

29:27

So now I'm gonna be showing my age.

29:32

It's okay, nobody can see, and so I was learning how to like just hand-cook by HTML.

29:38

You know, like hand-cook pages.

29:40

That's how I started and I just really you know that's when blogs first started and you know AOL dial up that's what was happening.

29:47

I remember sitting just waiting for the internet to connect and I was so excited to like I had this cute little website just like for myself and I would just like do little updates.

29:55

You know, like 13, 14 year old girl, like before MySpace, and that's where I started.

30:02

And then, in 2003, wordpress started and basically you know your website is built on WordPress and WordPress is an open source platform.

30:09

So imagine, like all these people, like WordPress opens up and now suddenly you have an easier way to build a website that helps your content management system.

30:18

So like basically all your pages and everything like they created a way for you to have those comments and your posts and your pages Like everything's all kind of been what Before that.

30:26

You know that they had there were other things similar to WordPress.

30:29

Obviously it's not like there wasn't, but you know, once WordPress started and then I realized you know, we're, I built on Divi, so your website is a Divi website and Divi didn't even come to fruition until 2013.

30:41

So I've been, you know, building on Divi for 10 years and there's been so many transitions from them.

30:47

But so, in long story short, I was a little girl who was a really big nerd and I just really wanted to learn that I had good websites, and so I always did it.

30:56

Like, even when I was in college, I was in a sorority, I did the sororities website, you know, and so I did.

31:01

And then when I met my husband my husband's family owns JVK, which is a local hardware store in town my first job I built their website and I was their you know advertising manager back then.

31:14

And you know, and that's how we started. We transitioned from Praise Reynolds from there is.

31:18

I had an equipment rental background and then we did small tents, small parties and one night my husband he was DJing at the time under a tent and he said what if we put up the tents?

31:31

Like what if I didn't DJ anymore? And we put up the tents and I was like yes, let's do that.

31:36

So yeah, so we started. And then my favorite part of the website transition with that is, you know, we had a competitor in town.

31:43

We had a couple of competitors like on the Eastern Shore, and you know, for me I was like I know all this website knowledge.

31:48

No one knows who. Praise Reynolds is online and everyone you know the Eastern Shore, especially where we are, is one of those top eating wedding destinations on the East Coast.

31:57

So I have all these people who are searching for Eastern Shore wedding, but I'm not gonna come up.

32:02

So I need to figure out now.

32:04

Like, I understand how to build a website, but I didn't understand how to market a website until then and within six months I was able to get Praise Reynolds from like nothing to number one under Eastern Shore wedding tent rentals.

32:15

You know how do you do that when you don't get any backlinks, you know what I mean.

32:19

Like I went hardcore and when I realized I had so much fun doing it and I realized the benefit of putting that work in and realizing what SEO can do for you.

32:30

So all my wedding vendor friends, you know like I'm gonna do some call-ups, like Jamie from catering by Jamie I.

32:36

You know, I just like I blurted out to him like he would come in, I'd be like, oh my God, I have to help you with your website because this is like this is what you need to do.

32:45

Like this is gonna get you those people. Like we are in this hub for weddings.

32:48

Like you have to get online and get that website started.

32:52

Like do you were missing out so much? Like you're not doing SEO right so long story short, that is how I did have always done websites and then, when we sole price rentals, I realized I could still do this and I can show other people who were in my shoes how to do this much faster.

33:10

So yeah, so that's it Okay.

33:13

So now you can answer Amber's like how do you do?

33:18

that. So transitioning from from from helping brides, you know like plan their wedding day, or wedding planners, and then helping small business centers, it's really similar.

33:27

I mean, you're still supporting a journey, you know, like a wedding, you're just supporting a more short term goal.

33:33

But with business owners, you know, they still have goals and they have purposes that they want to achieve on their website.

33:39

And it's just. I don't. I've always been like a people person, so just try to get that information out of them.

33:45

And it's you know, instead of me designing a tent layout, I'm designing a website.

33:50

I feel like it's very similar. I don't know.

33:54

I mean seeing those tent builders like they're not easy to work with, like they're probably just as difficult, if not as a website builder.

34:03

Right, you know, it's a CAD program, a website builder same.

34:06

Yeah.

34:09

Is there anyone or anything in particular that you pull inspiration from when you're building a website?

34:16

So I first I this one was hard for me to think about because I don't feel like I go to other web designers.

34:23

I don't know if I'm inspired by other web designers, but I think I am inspired by things and I feel like we are really fortunate to live in an area that has so much rich architecture and art and just history.

34:36

So I feel like whenever we get to go around where we live, it's very easy to be inspired by things.

34:43

And, you know, I even think it's small things, like just going to your favorite clothing website.

34:48

You know, sometimes I go there for inspiration, like I'll just go visit and just see, like okay, this is how they're doing.

34:53

I might not be building a clothing website at all, but I'm just like how did they take?

34:58

You know, they're just like the what I.

35:00

You know the white space or how their headings were for their hooks, or you know how did they have their, their search format?

35:07

You know anything that? So I don't know. I feel like it's everything and nothing.

35:12

I don't know, I just feel inspired a lot.

35:14

Like I just go, oh like I go to a restaurant and like I love that, like that font on that menu was perfect.

35:19

I'm going to, like I take a picture and then I try to find that font, so I don't know everything.

35:25

Absolutely Everything inspires you.

35:27

Yes everything and you know, I feel like I should have like a more QC answer for that, Like kids, you know.

35:35

I don't know Restaurant menus, that's what it is.

35:40

Yeah, all right.

35:42

Well, I'm going to close this with some very standard flower questions.

35:46

Okay, you built our website. You put in the quiz that pops up as soon as you go on the website what flower season are you?

35:57

You know, this is, I think of, probably summer.

35:59

Yeah, yeah.

36:00

Yeah.

36:02

Yeah. That's when we got married. So I would say summer, summer, I feel feel summer.

36:06

We have a pool. It's the whole reason we bought this house, yeah.

36:09

I'm a summer person, got it, and what flower specifically would you pick?

36:13

So I thought about this really hard.

36:15

I love you know, I you know part of the the.

36:20

I just I, I love gardening, so I was like I think I would be a hosta.

36:26

Sadly, yeah, Okay, that's different.

36:30

I really thought about it, you know, because like they're really for me at least, like so I our old house was all shade, so they worked really well and I just loved them so much.

36:39

But then I moved all of my plant babies to our new house and and they, they are resilient, they came back and they just, I don't know, they're just so patient and so just I don't know strong and and they kind of just work wherever and they bloom sometimes.

36:54

You know, I don't know.

36:56

That's that's it.

36:58

I think, you're, I should come up with a person that's picked something green versus an actual flower.

37:06

Well, because I was thinking you know I could do, I could go the way like a daffodil because it was winter, and they come up through the spring and you know new and I was like, but that's not really me.

37:14

I don't like yellow. I don't like yellow.

37:17

I don't like yellow.

37:18

And I thought about it. You know, like being a mom, especially and you know I don't want to say autism mom, but you know, being a mom of two kids you got you got to be like, really, you got to have a hard shell and you got to be resilient, and I feel like hustas are really hard to kill.

37:31

I don't know, you know. So that's it, that's that's me.

37:35

I'm a husta Really hard to kill.

37:40

You know what I mean. You got to just be strong and I feel like they just they keep growing at a steady pace and they're just always there.

37:45

You know, they're always there for you.

37:47

You should put that at the end of your email signature.

37:50

I feel like like, if I were anything, I'd be a husta Really hard to kill.

37:55

They are, though, like.

37:55

I feel like you know especially okay, like when I was still doing price rentals, I never had time.

38:01

I love garden. I never had time to garden.

38:03

So, like I don't know, I would just like you're always here for me.

38:06

I would just you know, I always look at them like you were here for me.

38:09

Guys, like I'm going to take you with me.

38:13

I love it. All right, CJ, it has been a pleasure.

38:16

I hope that we can have you on again soon. That's why she's actually hurt from smiling, oh, good Well hopefully I didn't ramble too much.

38:23

I was really worried I would ramble a lot. So not at all and thank you so much for inviting me and I wish you guys the best, and I cannot wait to see this thing take off on the ground and I will probably text you, like you know, tomorrow Absolutely.

38:36

I am always here for you guys.

38:40

We love you, thank you, thank you.

38:43

All right, guys, you can find us anywhere you find your podcast Apple Podcasts, spotify.

38:47

We have a Patreon page Audible.

38:49

Yeah, we're on.

38:51

Audible now and on Google Podcasts.

38:53

It's not very pretty but it is a thing, google Podcasts.

38:56

It popped up and I was like oh, that's a thing.

39:00

I was like I looked at Nicole and I was like Google has podcasts.

39:03

She was like Google has everything Google has everything.

39:07

Yes, we love the Google. We also have a website.

39:11

You can find us at wobblynatedfloweroffarmcom.

39:13

Thank you, cj. You can find us on Facebook, instagram, the Tiki Taki at Wobbly Native Flower Farm or the Flower Files, and we will talk to you again next week, very soon.

39:29

Have a fantastic week.