The real source of business acumen

A few months back, a member of the Floral Business Activator had an episode of the FBA's Momentum podcast on in the background while they were clearing out the shed.

After they'd downed tools and headed back into the office, they did something most of us don't do when we consume business advice on the go. They opened their accounting software Xero and looked hard at the numbers. Looking afresh, those numbers told a story they hadn't seen before, and helped them make a decision they'd been struggling with. Whether to continue selling flowers to a local shop wholesale, or go all in on their own farm flower stand.

Their accounts showed them that the wholesale revenue was half their flower stand's overall revenue. But in October and November, it was double their retail sales. That was because all their flowers early in the season were being prioritised for wholesale sales until volumes increased. The wholesale revenue was regular and reliable, whereas the stand sales were more unpredictable yet more profitable. Across the whole season, though, the farm stand was the clear winner.

Thinking it through, they realised they felt a loyalty to the wholesale customer, who'd backed the business from the start - before the farm stall existed. But those divided loyalties were stressful, deep down they knew it was time to back their own business fully.

So they did. 

They told the wholesale customer they wouldn't be supplying again next season, and started planning to open the farm stall earlier.

Their accounting software could tell them that they'd be financially better off cutting wholesale. What it couldn't tell them was how important that customer had been, or what it cost them to walk away from someone who'd backed them first.

So what was it about that podcast that made the difference? 

The encouragement to use their own business acumen - the courage to look at the numbers with a keener eye, and pay attention to what came up once the picture was clearer.

What made the real difference was listening to someone who knows what it takes to run a flower business talk about trusting your instincts. Not relying entirely on what the experts say, but using their own business acumen to make the call that made sense for them.

Everyone's having the AI conversation right now - how it can tell you how to run your business better. 

No doubt, AI can help you organise your numbers, sharpen a plan, get a first draft of a newsletter down faster than you'd manage after a full day doing field work. What it can't do is know you, your land, your life, or what it's actually like to run your business growing and selling flowers. 

Only you know that.

Information and advice only takes you so far. What matters more is insight, and hard-won experience. Your own business acumen, built by making judgement calls like this one and living with what happens next.

If you came to flower farming from another career, this isn't a new muscle. You've built it before - in decisions that didn't come with a textbook answer, trusting your own read of a situation when the numbers only told half the story. This just asks you to trust it here too.

So what do you do if you lack the experience, or feel torn between options and struggling to decide? Who do you turn to then?

What looks perfectly logical to AI can feel wildly risky, or plain wrong, for you and your business. AI can help you move faster - pulling your own records together, testing a plan you've already made, saving you time on a half-formed email to your customers - but it can't make the call for you when the numbers point one way and your gut points another.

Getting input from someone who's faced something similar, or trusting your own judgement, will take you further, faster. 

It's what builds your business acumen over time.

Ask a question inside the FBA and you often won't get a straight answer. You'll get opinions and stories about how other people faced something similar - a request for information turns into something far more useful: insight, grounded in real-world experience.

The stronger your insight, the more you trust your own judgement. That's a muscle you build through use, not one you learn from a book or get from AI. 

Working things through with people who understand this business changes what's possible for yours.

The FBA is in the business of building acumen. We rarely hand you answers - we give you the conversations and examples to figure out what will work for you. That's what builds your confidence and self-belief on the calls you've never had to make before.

Instead of reaching for AI, FBA members reach for Slack to ask a question or answer someone else's, or turn up to a live session to talk it through. Listening to the recordings afterwards can be just as insightful and informative as being there live.

Being in the know in the FBA means sharing what you learn freely and generously, so we all get better at business together.

If that's the kind of real-world support in business you're after, the waitlist is open now. Doors open properly on Tuesday, 18 August.

Written by: Julie Treanor - Owner of The Pickery and co-creator of The Floral Business Activator, currently trusting her own read of the market over whatever ChatGPT thinks she should charge for tulips this season.

Follow Julie on Instagram @thepickery