Episode 68: Learning Your Craft Before Selling Your Craft with Susan Bonn

Susan Bonn is an admin for our online group, teaching all of us with her wealth of knowledge about paper flowers. Learn more about how she teaches, calculates prices, and keeps customers happy.

If you’re part of our Paper Talk Facebook group, you’ve heard of Susan Bonn. She runs the monthly Makers Meetings where we join together with paper florists from around the globe to chat, share our projects, and elevate each other's paper flower artistry. 

 Susan also facilitates our group’s monthly paper flower challenge. You can take a look at the banner on the Facebook page and see last month’s incredible creations from our members. It’s a stunning and creative lineup! If you can’t tell, we love our group and would love for you to join us.

We’ve loved working with Susan for the past couple of years. Besides her stellar work as our Facebook admin, she is an incredible paper florist and teacher. In our latest episode of Paper Talk, we chatted with Susan about how she started her paper flower journey, her experience becoming a teacher, and some of the strategies she’s employed to keep her paper flower customers happy.

One of the things we discussed was how Susan prices her products. As she said, “Pricing, as we all know, is the most difficult part of what we do.” We agree! That’s why our Paper X Talk on November 14 will continue our lecture series on pricing. You still have time to buy your ticket so you don’t miss out on hearing about the factors we use to determine our own prices. In the meantime, here’s Susan’s advice: “If I would have one recommendation to most people who want to sell their flowers, is learn your craft first.”

Here’s what you’ll learn when you tune in to the podcast: 

• What it takes to be a paper flower teacher.

• How Susan connects with students in a natural way through virtual classes.

• Why it’s important for students and customers to feel like you’re connected to them and not just selling them something.

• How Susan calculates her prices for paper flowers.

• How to under-promise and over-deliver to keep customers very happy.

If you haven’t joined our Facebook group, click to become a member, and don’t miss our Makers Meeting on the last Saturday of every month. And listen now to hear all about Susan’s paper flower journey and how she’s built up a successful paper flower business.

What began as a creative outlet following a 40-year career as a financial professional, Susan Bonn began crafting paper blooms inspired by Mother Nature in 2016. The joy of turning paper into a 3-dimensional flower can be seen in each bloom with stunning and realistic attention to detail.

Susan has been featured on the liagriffith.com artist interview series, CarteFini.com as a featured artist, and has won numerous awards for her designs. Susan Bonn Designs was chosen to be the provider of the awards ceremonies bouquets for the US Figure Skating Championships —the equivalent of the Olympic Trials — in 2018, just prior to the Olympic Games in South Korea.

Follow Susan on Instagram @susanbonndesigns, YouTube, and her website.