Ellen Frost, owner of Local Color Flowers in Baltimore, joins host Jennie Love for a lively chat about how to "sell local". As a florist working exclusively with locally grown stems for the past 17 years, Ellen has valuable insights into how to find the right customers and get their buy-in.

In this episode, the conversation is focused on selling local to event clients, namely weddings and corporate. Come back again soon to listen to the next episode coming out, which will be about how to sell local to retail customers.

Ellen and Jennie both teach online courses that may be valuable to your floral business. Here is a link to Ellen's course and here is a link to Jennie's courses.

Ellen also has a YouTube channel and a valuable weekly education email.

This podcast is brought to you by the Philadelphia Floral Guild, where we're building community around sustainable local flowers. If you're a florist in the Philadelphia area, we'd love to have you shop with us! Click here to learn how.

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Not a Philadelphia area florist? Look for flower farms near you on the Rooted Farmers website or through localflowers.org.

Why use local stems? In addition to give your shop or studio a unique value proposition that will galvanize and inspire your customer base, local stems mean:

• Less Shrink: Without the stress of a long ride in the global supply chain, our stems are superior in quality with much less breakage and far better hydration.
• Less Labor: Our growers do all the work of a studio assistant, stripping stems and making fresh cuts on stems that go directly into water and never leave a water source. This means you do not have to process anything!
• Less Trash: There are no boxes, packing paper, bubble wrap, box straps, plastic sleeves, and all the other usual trash that comes with a flower delivery from the traditional wholesaler.

• Less Carbon Burned: Imported flowers in the US typically travel 2,500 or more miles in refrigerated planes, trucks and boats to reach you.