In the age of social media, how can floral entrepreneurs effectively monetize their time?
[Hua11.com Original] "Time is money, efficiency is life." This phrase is well-known and its meaning is clear. But why are we discussing it in the "Hua11.com Flower Shop Startup Series"?
Let's first look at the daily routine of "Xiaoming":
Every morning, Xiaoming checks his phone for the time and scrolls through last night's Moments. After getting up and washing, he reviews news, headlines, and financial apps on his phone during his commute. At work, he relaxes with short-video apps during breaks. After work, he plays games on his phone during his commute home. At night, he consumes content from various self-media apps and paid courses, trying to absorb as much "practical" knowledge as possible. Another busy day passes quickly.
This routine repeats daily - information apps dominate our personal time.
"Fragmented time" is a term that has become common with the rise of the mobile Internet. With so much information available, various apps fill every small gap in our daily lives, making these moments "fun" and seemingly "practical."
The content on these apps is often very short, taking only seconds to read. Articles longer than 5 minutes have low completion rates.
These bite-sized contents are like game levels, easy to complete, making you want to keep going, addicted and unable to stop. The smarter algorithms and recommendation systems of these apps keep pushing content that matches your interests, making you want to read and comment continuously. "It's addictive" and "I can't stop scrolling."
So, what's the issue?
When starting a flower shop or studio, essentially, you are starting a business. To succeed, you should focus on these three points:
1. Determine your direction based on your interests and strengths through deep thinking and detailed logical deduction;
(Refer to:
2. Persevere;
3. Continuously optimize.
The true state of an entrepreneur should be to devote oneself wholeheartedly to the business. Most of your energy and time should be focused on the established direction of the business, insisting on continuous efforts to gain more customers, establish competitive barriers, and improve overall competitiveness. This is especially important in the early stages of starting your own business.
Therefore, you should focus on "yourself" instead of "others."
All the apps that occupy your time are "others' " affairs, which do not benefit your flower shop entrepreneurship at all. You may think you have "learned" a lot, but in fact, you might be harming your own business. Because you are used to fragmented and passive acceptance of knowledge and can't think independently and deeply about your own business, you will always follow behind others. In this state, you can't "create" your own "business."
In my case, in the early stages of establishing Hua11.com, I realized that these contents would consume a lot of my time and constantly affect my thinking direction, preventing me from delving deeply. So, I uninstalled all information apps very early, and I also turned off the small red dot indicating new updates in Moments. In my browser bookmarks, I only kept a limited number of approved data sources and practical tool websites.
It can be said that except for making phone calls and occasional instant messaging, the mobile phone is basically not needed.
What takes their place?
It's non-electronic stationery such as pens, pencils, paper notebooks, and white paper. Working with these traditional stationery, I can continuously focus on the design of the business model combined with floral art, marketing plans, etc., without being affected by various other information.
Up to now, I think the "isolated" period when I first started Hua11.com was the most efficient period of my time usage. Later, as the number of team members increased and things became more complex, the efficiency decreased instead.
So, if you take the floral art business seriously, I hope you can make some changes and not waste too much time on these apps. This kind of change will only be beneficial, not harmful.
OK, if you don't waste time on swiping apps, then what about reading practical guides? For example, materials teaching people how to open a flower shop?
First of all, it must be admitted that this is useful, but you have to find the right materials first.
For example, the book "How to Run a Flower Shop and Floral Studio" by Hua11.com. All the articles are written around the theme of running a flower shop and studio. Since we are currently involved in operating multiple physical flower shops, and the founder has also founded an Internet company, we can combine the two, and all the content is practical. These contents are deep enough and the operation guidelines are specific enough (motivational articles have no practical effect. We won't consider writing this type of topic). So, it can be said to be a very valuable practical work. (You can refer to: [The Profile of the Founder of Hua11.com Brand])
However, if what you are reading happens to be the following type of article (extracted from a paragraph in a highly praised answer on a certain platform, discussing whether the combination of a flower shop and a coffee shop is feasible):
"So, the combination of a flower shop and a coffee shop is a good choice. And if you look at it from a higher perspective, in fact, the essence is to create a better offline store atmosphere with elements that are attractive enough to users under the premise of considering costs, and it is a correct choice to seek more communication effects and business profits."
If you have read our article: [Hua11.com · Flower Shop Business Models Analysis Series 1] Will combining a flower shop with coffee/cake/desserts/afternoon tea be a successful joint venture?, you will know that in addition to detailed analysis, we also highlight investment risks and provide several examples. The purpose is to tell you that this kind of cross-border entrepreneurship must be approached with caution and has a low success rate.
But if you happen to believe in such highly praised articles and put them into action, then it is equivalent to using your own money to test the ideas of others. Although everyone has the right to express their own ideas, if these so-called ideas are imagined, insiders can easily see that they have not been verified through practice, while outsiders are easily blinded by high praise.
There is a saying in the Internet industry: "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." It means that others know you through the computer screen or mobile phone screen and have no idea whether you are a person or a dog.
To extend this, is the article you are reading written by a truly experienced person? Or is it written by an editor who cobbles together content to complete the reading volume task set by the company? Or is it written by an office worker who wants to gain more followers after work and imagines unique viewpoints? Or is it written by a student who listens to rumors to increase social experience?
You have no idea.
In fact, on the Internet, there are all kinds of "patchwork articles + clickbait titles" and "rewritten articles + clickbait titles." Moreover, people who are accustomed to doing this will also exchange experiences with each other.
Can you understand?
Therefore, we must be extremely careful about this situation. What you worship may be someone whose level is lower than yours in real life. They are just better at writing and cobbling together than you.
Precisely because the Internet is filled with a large amount of such ambiguous information, our cost of information identification has increased significantly. In this regard, we should maintain a clear ability for independent thinking.
Well, having said so much above, the purpose is to pull you back to reality from the explosion of virtual information. Do what you really need to do: Run your flower shop and studio well and truly turn your time into money.
How?
If you are just starting a business, then I suggest that the time you spend reading practical guides content every day be limited to 10 minutes. For the rest of the time, just do one thing: Focus on operation and vigorously execute the direction and plan you set before.
Copyright Statement:
This article is an original creation by Hua11.com and is included in the “How to Run a Flower Shop and Floral Studio” Ebook. The content of this article may be periodically updated and is initially published on the Hua11.com official website blog. You can find the article at this link: https://hua11.com/blog/4677.html.
Reproduction of this article is permitted, provided that it is reprinted in full and all copyright information is retained. Any form of plagiarism, whether partial or complete, is strictly prohibited. Legal action will be taken against violators.
The work titled “How to Run a Flower Shop and Floral Studio” is copyrighted by Hua11.com. Additionally, the “Practical Floral Training” model and the concept of “Light Decoration” are original creations by Hua11.com. The trademark “花艺意” is registered and protected by relevant national laws.