210: How to Build a Luxury Brand That Attracts the Ultra Wealthy with Larry Walshe

Today, I’m sitting down with Larry Walshe, founder of Larry Walshe Studios, a global event design firm producing large-scale, luxury weddings and private events for ultra-high-net-worth families, celebrities, and royal households.

While Larry’s roots are in floristry, his work goes far beyond flowers. His studio designs fully customized experiences—shaping the creative vision, transforming spaces, and defining how guests experience an event—while bringing together specialized artisans from around the world to execute complex, high-stakes productions.

In this episode, Larry breaks down what it actually takes to build and protect a premium brand at the top end of the market, how he orchestrates massive productions with a small team, and why learning to say no early was essential to attracting the right clients and scaling without lowering the bar.

If you’re building a service business or premium brand and want a clearer sense of what it takes to operate at the highest level, this conversation offers a grounded look at how that kind of work actually gets done.

Mic Drop Moments

• “The most important tool is to say no way more than it is to say yes.” – Larry Walshe

• “It’s more important that you need to train yourself, than it is for you to bring in team members that maybe have experience already, that already have a framework of working and a reference point.” – Larry Walshe

• “The price of a rose is the price of a rose. What’s different is the subjectivity that comes into design.” – Larry Walshe

• “You need to start marketing to your ideal client type, not the client that you’re currently attracting.” – Larry Walshe

• “I now actively would refer to myself more as an art director than anything else, because I curate a team of wonderful human beings that come into a space for that one moment in time. And in that team, you’ll never have that exact same combination of talent ever again.” – Larry Walshe

• “There’s no right or wrong. It’s trying to get to the nub of what is essentially fundamentally important to your client as quickly as possible. The faster you get there, the more money you’re going to make.” – Larry Walshe

• “I don’t sell anything, I show options. And people buy on their own.” – Larry Walshe

• 00:00 Intro
• 00:55 Why Saying No Builds a Luxury Brand
• 03:28 Don’t Chase Revenue That Dilutes Your Brand
• 07:08 Consistency Is the Real Competitive Edge
• 08:20 Why High-End Clients Pay 10X More
• 13:07 Defining the Client You Actually Want
• 17:24 How to Shift Into a Higher-Paying Client Category
• 19:37 Inside Multimillion-Dollar Events
• 22:10 Running Global Operations With a Small Team
• 26:23 Becoming the Creative Director, Not the Doer
• 33:01 Managing Clients Who Want the Wrong Thing
• 35:03 The Sales Approach That Works at the Top End
• 40:02 When to Walk Away From Work
• 45:04 Handling Last-Second Client Demands
• 52:00 The Non-Negotiable’s of Elite Client Work
• 57:15 Larry’s Advice for Founders Moving Upmarket

Brad Weimert: Today’s guest built a boutique studio that punches way above its weight. Larry Walshe Studios creates these jaw-dropping installations for ultra-high net worth luxury brands, celebrity clients, you name it, London, Lake Como, New York, also some other ventures that have gone from there. Larry Walshe, welcome to the show.

Larry Walshe: Hey, nice to be here.

Brad Weimert: So, let’s dive in. Most entrepreneurs underprice things because they fear losing a client. How did you learn to confidently charge a premium for the service that you provide?

Larry Walshe: I think learning, for example, actually the most important tool is to say no way more than it is to say yes. Doing so very much positions your brand within the space that you’ve identified that you want to be. If you want to be in that luxury creative space, I think saying no maintains that air of exclusivity that ensures that as you do accept those projects and say yes, you are actually doing that for what is your ideal client type.

Brad Weimert: I love the idea of that. I also know that in practice, when you’re first starting, it’s very hard to say no to things.

Larry Walshe: But it’s interesting. I feel like, actually, 11 years ago when I started, I feel like I said no, actually, even more then than I do now. I feel like it’s somewhat defined that, in my space, the clients that come to me are already better suited to me now because my brand and my brand message is very well established in the industry that I work in. But at the beginning, it was actually one of those bigger challenges because the instantaneous thing that you want to do when anybody comes and says, “Hello, I’ve got a bag of money, and I’d really like to hand it over to you,” is to just say, “Yes, give me the money. Give it to me. Let’s go.”

But for example, it was the interesting thing to learn that actually, regardless of whatever value of money we might be talking about, I remember sitting and hearing people say, as I was starting to kind of work on projects that might be like £5,000, £10,000, £20,000 at a time. I remember people saying, “Oh, I want to do £1 million of flowers.” And I remember somebody also saying to me in the same breath, and it goes to the same thing, “You could be the busiest florist in the world, making no money.” And I was like, “Oh my God, that’s so true.” Like, “Fine, you want to spend a million, that’s great, but hold on. But what do you want for that million? Oh, you want two million worth of stuff for a million? Yeah, I’m out.”

And it’s the thing that we don’t necessarily ask. It’s a bit like, “Yes, I want it.” And you don’t ask the necessary questions to then come after that. And so, actually realizing that there is so much more power in saying no than there is to actually saying yes. And I think starting to carve that out and understand fundamentally from the very beginning of that, a bit like putting decent systems in place when you look at other parts of your organizational structure, is ensuring that actually you then start attracting the client that you’re marketing yourself towards.

Brad Weimert: I love that. I think that there’s a huge takeaway both for brand new entrepreneurs and people that are like well down their path but feel like they’re doing too many things. You said it was most important for you to say no early and downstream that resulted in you having alignment with what you were actually trying to deliver.

Larry Walshe: Absolutely. I mean, awful way of looking at it is also think about it like training a puppy. You put in all the legwork right at the beginning. Hopefully, that becomes a really, really valuable member of your family and somebody who’s delightful to be around. But at the very beginning, you’ve got to put those systems in place. You’ve got to do that training, and it might be you, yourself, and I. In fact, it’s more important that you need to train yourself, than it is for you to bring in team members that maybe have experience already, that already have a framework of working and a reference point.

Brad Weimert: Yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more. I also think that it’s challenging from… So, you are in this distinctly luxury, high-impact, exclusive space, and I think it’s very hard for people to bridge the gap mentally of delivering a product that is sort of beyond the caliber of where they live. And that can be true financially, it can be true of the space they live in. So, for example, when you look at people, building buildings in New York or London or pick a major city, the quality of the builds tend to be better, partly because the contractors that get hired are in an environment where luxury is around. Versus Austin, Texas, for example, the contractors that tend to build the buildings here don’t come from a background typically where they see this high-end luxury stuff.

When you launched the brand in the beginning, did you have a sense of where you wanted to take it and how high-end you wanted to be from the beginning? Or was this an evolution over the course of the 11 years?

Larry Walshe: Oh, I mean, I’ve always lived well and above my means, so really being able to see that vision wasn’t so much the issue. It was having the credit card to back it up. I would say very definitely, like, it’s so interesting. I get asked this a lot in very different forms, and my answer is actually always the same. I was good from day one, like I was in the right space. I knew who my customer was from day one. I knew who I wanted to attract, and I was attracting that customer from day one. Was I doing it at the values and the scope and the breadth of what I do now? No, absolutely not. Because I didn’t have a portfolio. I didn’t have the trust of that network. I didn’t have the trust of that customer.

But what I did was I created a quality product, a quality service delivery that instilled trust and confidence, and I remained consistent with what I was projecting in the same way that 11 years ago, I did it to the same way that I do it today, i.e., I might have been operating at a smaller scale, but the actual quality of the product that somebody was receiving was every bit as good then as it was today. I was no better of a designer than I am today. I might be a little bit more efficient or a little bit more well-versed or a bit more experienced, so I know some of the pitfalls, and I won’t fall into them again.

And we’ve all been on that journey where, with any founder-led business, you are learning as you go. But at the same time, actually, in terms of fundamentally what I’m providing in terms of the product and the service, no, I was good 11 years ago. I just didn’t have people that wanted to hand over bucketloads of money.

Brad Weimert: Right. So, to that end, you have, look, if you talk to basically any bride, with rare exception, they will agree that floral arrangements are mandatory at a wedding.

Larry Walshe: Totally.

Brad Weimert: What makes a client willing to pay 10 times more for a floral arrangement than another?

Larry Walshe: Well, I think the difference is, first of all, you’ve got two distinctions. One, you’re looking at what is the price of a particular item. And I do say this a lot when I speak to clients in my space, because actually globally, within a small margin of error, we all pretty much work to the same margin. The price of a rose is the price of a rose. What’s different is the subjectivity that comes into design. My version of large, and yours could be very, very different. And what I go to as like a baseline for my brand, what I want to see put out there into the universe, there is a threshold which I won’t drop below. And if I reach that, then that’s when I’m like, “I’m not for you.” If you want to go smaller than that, you need somebody else that’s willing to go there, because to me that just doesn’t reflect the values that I stand for.

And really, that’s what differentiates the price point that we sit at. It’s got nothing to do with, for example, me going, “Oh, actually, people know my name, therefore I cost more to hire.” No. I’m the same price as the next person. It’s just where I might encourage you or just inspire you to go, and the levels of depth that I will inspire you to go into, I will ask the question, for example, every term, “We’ve arrived at this venue, at this moment. Are we greeting you with something? No? Okay. Alright, well, let’s keep moving then. That’s a bit of a sad arrival, isn’t it? Alright, next. Next doorway, are we going to tell anybody, hi, we’ve arrived, or are we going to leave them to guess where we are? Guessing. Okay, cool. Next one.”

And then we’ll go through. But equally in terms of overall design, which is, I mean, I moved the brand into really more of like event design as a category than just flowers alone. In terms of so doing that, like let’s take a table, for example. We start looking at the linen that goes onto that. We’re looking at the obvious, the flowers in the middle of the table. We’re looking at the cutlery, the glassware, the crockery. We’re looking at the individual quality level of each of those pieces, and at every turn, you’re lifting a knife and a fork, and I’m like, “How’s that feel? Do you like the weight of that? Do you prefer something that’s a little heavier? Do you prefer something that’s a bit more substantial for your glass, or do you prefer a stemware that’s light as a feather?”

But in doing so and asking those questions, there’s no point where we just go, “Well, I’ll tell you what, we’ll just use that piece, and we’ll just pop it on there.” Every single choice is done painstakingly, so usually for the person that’s paying the bill, because at every single level, I’m giving you yet another opportunity to invest in something or to make a choice. But to the person who lives in a space where all of those choices are important, and they do matter in their day-to-day life, those are every bit as relevant when their celebration is merely an extension of their own personal brand value.

Brad Weimert: I love it. So, I have a bunch of questions around that specifically, but one of the reasons that I find that I’m curious about your particular business and the way that you execute it is because, and you just articulated it very well, which is that it’s not about the product, it’s about the experience, right? It’s about the client experience. And I started with floral arrangements, because that’s where you started, right? And that’s where some of your reputation is. But ultimately, you said, “Hey, I wanted to step out of the floral arrangement space and be somebody that’s delivering the event and the experience for people.” And that specific thing is true of basically every business on the planet, is how do you not deliver the product but deliver the experience to the end user.

When you’re doing that in the space that you’re in, how do you communicate this value and exclusivity without sounding arrogant? Or is that part of the proposition to make people feel like there’s some arrogance in the exclusivity?

Larry Walshe: It’s interesting, isn’t it? It’s such a fine line. You are, first of all, really identifying what that client profile is that you’re looking to attract, and not every single business and person in my space is going for the same customer. And so, to deviate ever so slightly from the topic, before I come back to it, I think one of the most important things actually for us to acknowledge is being self-reflective as a business owner and asking yourself, “Who is your ideal client?” Now, that’s not only based on the revenue that they could potentially bring and the scale of projects and things. It’s the lifestyle that you want to leave as a founder. It’s the size of the team, the size of the risk, the size of the exposure that you want to have as a business.

It’s all of those things, and asking yourself, but realizing that there’s no one right or wrong answer. It’s just everything subjective. And the reason I say that is because there’s an assumption immediately that every single person who’s sitting starting something is going to the same goal, which is to go bigger, higher, more, more revenue. And that’s not always the case. It is for me. I wanted to do that. That was kind of something that drove me, but that’s not what drives somebody else. And I got a life lesson with that right at the very beginning, when I tried to give a job to somebody else because I was fully booked on that day. And I thought, “I’ll refer this over to a friend of mine,” and I briefed her, and she said, “Thank you. I don’t want it.”

I was like, “What do you mean you don’t want it? This would be the biggest job you’ve ever had. I’m literally handing it to you on a plate. All you have to do is say yes. I’ve just told you what to do.” And she was like, “No, thank you.” And I was like, I walked away. I didn’t understand. I was like bashing my head against the wall, going, “I don’t understand.” And it’s like you were saying in the beginning, you say yes to these things, and she just went, “But it doesn’t suit the lifestyle to which I want. I want to be able to do work that I can do with a couple of members of my team, no more, in the premises that I’ve already got, which is a small, restrictive size. I want to be able to deliver it, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I don’t want anything bigger than, say, £10,000 worth of work. That suits me.”

And learning that was a really, really fundamental part of me, actually, kind of going on my growth journey, to then suddenly having that appreciation for the fact that not everybody wants the same thing. So, now applying back to the original question, we’re looking at the different client profiles and going, “Who is that client that you’re attracting?” And if you’re in a space where you’re looking for, say, the top 1% the ultra-high net worth, then there is an air of exclusivity, of not necessarily living your entire life on social media that might be attractive to them, because discretion could be important. The way that you present yourself is how they’re going to interpret you’re going to work alongside them. It could be the way that you choose, the communication, the design style, for say, the process that you have in onboarding them and looking after them through the process.

My experience is that for my client type, if I tell them that it’s going to be done a particular time on a particular day, it absolutely better be done by that time on that day. Because to not do that is a surprise, and they don’t like surprises. They want to feel like I’m an extension of their household. And their household and the people that work in that state and in that family office, for example, are attuned to anticipating their every need. So, whatever that is, I’ve already thought about what they’re going to ask me next in that meeting. I already know that they’re possibly not going to like something, but they did ask for it, so I’ve brought it. Of course I have. I’ve got six other things in reserve so that I’m ready to go. Because they’re like, “Oh, yeah, I don’t like that.” She and I was like, “I thought you’d say that. So, here we go. Here’s an alternative.”

And I’ve constantly got that armory with me, ready to mobilize. And equally, for my particular client time, who is typically very, very time poor, I’m ready to mobilize when they say, “Oh, we need to talk about this. I need you to be in Paris tomorrow morning. Right. Fine.” So, I’ve structured my business in a way that I’m agile enough to be able to mobilize to that type of client and that type of request, because once you’ve identified who that person is, if you can find a way to satisfy that, you’ve got a marriage made in heaven.

Brad Weimert: I love that. Yeah, I think one of the things that is, I love the notion of time poor. I tend to say bandwidth constrained, but time poor is an interesting reframe of that. You answered this a couple of different ways. But what is one shift that founders need to make if they want to attract higher-caliber clients?

Larry Walshe: I think you need to start marketing to your ideal client type, not the client that you’re currently attracting. If you want to make a shift into a different market, you need to identify what that is. You need to implement that strategy. And you then also need to know that in the transition period between moving categories, you are going to lose people. So, the first thing that you’re going to see is a downturn, before you see that shifting. So, for me, that happens a lot with the conversations that I’ll see in my sector with, let’s say, people like photographers, videographers. They’ve worked at a particular price point, for example, and now they’re going into another category, where for the same service or slightly different service offering, they’re now charging maybe double or triple, where they were 5, 10 years ago.

To move that category is a different type of client. So, first of all, you’ve got to slough off the wrong client. You’ve got to clear the diary of the person you don’t want anymore, and you’ve got to start popping out your new fee. And the first thing you’re going to do is you’re going to start sending your new fee to your old client, and they’re going to be shocked, they’re going to fall off the floor, and they’re going to be like, “Thank you so much. I’ve gone in a different direction.” And you’re going to start seeing those nos, and you’re going to start then having imposter syndrome, or doubting yourself, or worrying that you’ve made the wrong choice, and you’ve got to be willing to ride that wave in order to then come the other side of it and see that as you’re now hopefully marketing to the correct client type, that takes time, but you will then start seeing that you’re attracting the correct client who will pay your price and pay your worth.

Brad Weimert: So, let’s back out a little bit and talk about, like, understand the dynamics of your business. First of all, when I think about the types of events that you can put on, the event business, independently, is a horrific pain in the ass. You’ve got this incredible time constraint that you have to deliver on for an event that is important to the person putting it on and the attendees at varying levels. But of all the events and the scale of importance, weddings are amongst the highest for people.

Larry Walshe: Oh, yeah. Therefore, the fact that that’s 85% of my business is like, why don’t I just make it more difficult for myself, honestly?

Brad Weimert: Well, that’s actually a good question anyway. Let’s start there. Why weddings instead of any other types of events that you could do? Because these are the ones where…

Larry Walshe: Because I’m utterly sadistic, honestly. I get to a point where the thing is, I’m constantly seeking further thrills and further validation. So, the fact is, I become quite good at what I do, and then I need a bigger challenge. So, I started doing bigger productions, or I started taking them to a different country, and I started adding in variables, like no water source, or how can you do this in the middle of a desert with zero infrastructure? Because it was more challenging to me, and that made it more exciting.

Brad Weimert: Well, let’s talk about that.

Larry Walshe: I think that’s my therapist. But yeah, definitely, we’re definitely trying to unpack that in the last few years.

Brad Weimert: Well, so how does this work? Give me the basis of the operation, like, how many staff do you have directly? And then how many vendors are needed for an event? And we can kind of narrow this into, like, a big event you’re doing, and you can give the size of or scope of the event, like attendees, budget, et cetera. But how do the players work? Because when I think about delivering just the floral component, just saying, “Hey, fresh flowers at a wedding at scale,” like I would assume there’s not one person that’s like, “Oh, sure, I’ll just bring the roses over.” Like, you have to source that and figure out how to do it, and at a different place in the world. So, how many people do you have? How many vendors do you need? How much time do you need for a given wedding? How does it come together?

Larry Walshe: And I think actually, it’s one of the interesting things, because it’s the thing that nobody necessarily thinks along that food chain, and just thinks how many people are impacted by something like this. And when I came into events, I had no clue. This wasn’t like my plan. I fell into working in events. I ended up working for somebody who ran a catering company, and something I was exposed to an industry I didn’t even know existed, to then realize just how many hundreds of people are affected by these investments that come into these particular regions of specific parts of the world, more frequently than others, South of France, Italy, very popular destinations right now. The economies that they’re driving it’s vast, but often unconsidered or unthought about.

For us, our business, we have a very lean core management team of 14 of us globally. So, we work out of four locations, South of France, Italy, London, and New York. But even within that, there’s only 14 of us. Beyond that, we use external artisans, contractors, craftsmen, so florists, carpenters, drapers, scenic painters, anything, you name it. And we pull those in, and we design a team for a very specific client project based upon that scope of work. I’d say our average team size for an entry-level wedding is probably 60 to 80 people, but certainly, it’s very commonplace for us to have over 150 working on any one of slightly more creative occasions. And that can be anything from usually about five or six days ahead of the wedding itself, prior to it actually going in, sometimes for longer, if it allows.

But as you’ve quite rightly identified, most of what I do has to go in at the last minute. So, as much as we can have been designing and talking about this for 18 months or 12 months, like ultimately, in a way, it doesn’t matter. The fundamentals come down to the last 48 hours.

Brad Weimert: So, okay, you’re going to have to define entry wedding for people, because 60 people to 80 people to implement to set the scene for a wedding is going to sound like a lot to people. So, what’s the entry point for a wedding? And how many attendees might be at that wedding?

Larry Walshe: So, I’d say entry kind of price point for like projects that we would work on would be a million in terms of, like, a wedding investment overall. And then from there, you would split that out into the various venues, like venue itself, catering, decor. More creatively, I would say you’re looking at kind of 5 million and upwards. And then you’re looking at slightly larger, more intensive builds, because the larger proportion of that, at least a good kind of 20% to 30% of that is probably at that space looking to be apportioned towards decor itself.

Brad Weimert: Okay. So, in relative to team, you mentioned 14 core spread out across the four locations in the world, then you organize a team within these locations. Of those people that you’re organizing, how many of those are people that you work with consistently? And how many are you hunting for a new person for that given experience?

Larry Walshe: Oh, almost never would I hunt for something, like I don’t go into a space for the clientele that I work for. That’s a risk that I just wouldn’t take. I’ve cultivated my little black book over the last 11 years, but to a point where I have the most obscure available options to me, and it’s something that actually I chose to really develop and lean into in, I’d say, the last three or four years, where I’ve really celebrated, actually, the individuality of the artisans that we work with. I now actively would refer to myself more as an art director than anything else, because I curate a team of wonderful human beings that come into a space for that one moment in time. And in that team, you’ll never have that exact same combination of talent ever again.

So, it makes it unique by virtue. But for example, I’ve got everyone from an amazing ceramicist in South Italy to the wonderful fringe lady who does tassels and things that you would attach to cushions and scatter pillows in Bologna, Italy. And then I’ve got somebody who makes candles in the North of France. And so, like, literally, my little Rolodex is the most random thing you’ll ever get. But you want a butterfly catcher in Vienna, I’ve got one. It’s really one of those where you’re kind of like there’s nobody too obscure. You have no idea what that request tomorrow is going to be that comes across your desk. So, you find talent, you hold on to that, and you nurture it.

Brad Weimert: So, you mentioned that you look at yourself more as an art director than an artist today. How did you move from being a hands-on creative person to leading a business that can deliver a creative vision that you no longer have full control over, because you’re leaning on the team to do it as well?

Larry Walshe: Well, I think the thing is, I used to believe that no one could do certain tasks as well as I could, but as the business grows, I realized that scaling requires trust. So, today, some members of my team execute things way better than I ever did, and that’s exactly how it should be. I now sit there and overview and strategize more than I actually do any one particular thing. I look at what that wedding needs to be, and I actually, I mean, I approach it like you would more imagine a corporate project. I develop a strategy for your wedding. I work out how we’re going to story-tell that experience, and narrate to your guests the things that are important to you as a couple, as individuals.

And in doing so, that’s how I can start to bring the right partners to the table, and each person then sits in their own lane and is given the trust that is required for them to operate to the best of their ability.

Brad Weimert: So, you mentioned that you don’t want to put a new person in place because what’s at risk is too high, and the clientele you don’t want to run that risk, but you had to find these people at some point. So, when you’re hiring and when you’re building this Rolodex of bizarre skills, et cetera, and you know that they’re going to put their creative stamp on it, and obviously this is going to be both. But do you hire for their creative talent? Or do you look at the other things that are going to make them a good team member when you’re putting the event together?

Larry Walshe: Well, I think in terms of if I were finding like a new particular artisan, for example, and kind of saying, “Oh, I’ve just found this ceramicist,” firstly, they might be new to me, but I’m of course, able to look at their body of work. I’m able to look at what might be in front of me, their portfolio, their physical products, and I’m able to evaluate and see that. If I’m working in a space that affords me a lead time of, let’s say, six, nine months ahead of a celebration, I’m going to use that opportunity to handhold and nurture that relationship. Yes, you’ve always got a first where you’re going into it, but I’m mitigating that risk because I’ve got time. I’ve got time for them to, let’s say, hand-paint me on their 200 plates, send them to my studio, and I could have them two months earlier than when I need them.

In that process, I know if they stuck to the deadline that they agreed to. Did they do everything that they said? How many questions were asked? I learn all of those things so that if I then moved on to something that was slightly more demanding or time poor, for example, would I call that person back again in that setting? No. Only call that person when you’ve got loads of time, because they’re going to take double whatever they tell you. Not a problem. But it’s like you make notes. You’re kind of like, “Okay, this is the personality that I’m dealing with in that sector.” And again, you’re matchmaking. So, when you’re pulling that team of people together, you’re not pulling it simply based on talent alone, but you’re based on talent, reliability, price point, style, attitude, and you’re ultimately playing matchmaker to the client on a grand scale.

As weddings, I mean, I used to start working on 11 years ago were weddings. Now, it’s like you’re creating small villages for people to celebrate in. It’s true. You’re like building like little tent cities, and suddenly you’ve got all of these rooms, and you’ve got these things, and you’re spending more than you would on a house, and you’re building a house, and then it gets ripped down 48 hours later. So, in terms of doing so, you’re really kind of trying to bring and nurture that talent together, so that you put it into a space, and you set each person individually up for success in a way that they’re able to creatively deliver to the very best of their ability.

Brad Weimert: One of the things that I love about business in general is that it’s full of these little microcosms of life’s lessons and you get to go through tons of them. So, entrepreneurs get to go full cycle through these emotional life cycles over and over and over. And so, the ones that pay attention tend to learn lessons and become more self-aware and more reflective and grow much faster because they’re compressing timeframes. And that is certainly true with live events. You’ve got these heightened emotional experiences and then they’re over and you move on.

Larry Walshe: Totally.

Brad Weimert: Just out of curiosity, do you have any, at the end of an event, I would imagine you have like positive feelings of how it went or negative, how do you feel emotionally when you have to rip it all down after you’ve just spent all this time building?

Larry Walshe: Oh, I don’t. So, I can’t be at that bit. No, I truly can’t. I truly can’t because I will start grabbing things and trying to save them. And when you get into a space where you’re not even dealing with like heart, I said this to somebody actually earlier this afternoon. It’s really funny. Somebody came in and interviewed with me, and she said, “What do you do with the flowers at the end?” And I was like, “Oh, you know what? When people first start, they start experiencing flowers for the first time, you see a bud fall off one, and you do what you would do at home. You save it, you snip it, you pop into a little buzz, you put it on the window sill.” I was like, “Wait until 600 fall off. And then you soon learn to get over it.” But you can’t be in that space. I find it too emotionally draining to be in that space because it’s like hurting my children. I’ve just spent too much time investing in this for months before and the days leading up to this wedding to then see a rip down. I have to finish what I’m doing. I leave it once the client has seen everything. They’re thrilled. I depart, and at the end of the night, I have an entirely separate team of people that go in there and do what is necessary. And I never see.

Brad Weimert: That’s hilarious. Okay, so it’s one thing to attract the high caliber clients. It’s a whole ‘nother to deal with them. And I think that there’s a reputation for a reason that artists are pain in the ass to deal with and celebrities are a pain in the ass to deal with, and for probably different reasons, maybe some overlapping.

Larry Walshe: And I do both.

Brad Weimert: Exactly. It’s like your entire business is dealing with these archetypes. So, Henry Ford famously said, “If I asked them what they wanted, they would’ve set a faster horse.” How do you approach celebrities who emphatically tell you something that you know is going to be a disaster?

Larry Walshe: I start every single conversation and every brief, essentially with a metaphorical and a physical blank piece of paper. The first thing that I do in any client onboarding situation is I sit and I listen, and we have a conversation. I just want to hear what’s important to you because what I’m trying to do in that moment is I’m learning very, very quickly to read between the lines. I’m playing psychologist way more than I am playing salesman. What I want to do is I want to understand the client’s psychology behind. What it is that you stand for? What’s important to you? What kind of guest experience you want to provide to your guests?

And as I start to glean these pieces of information, they start to answer themselves. I could sit there, and the client’s like, I literally don’t care whether my guests have a nice time. As long as I look good, that’s all that’s important to me. Perfect. That tells me a lot of information beyond the obvious. Because I’m so long in the tooth, that tells me a lot of things that I’m about to ask on their journey from arriving to getting where they’re going to be. I might as well not ask those questions. because if there’s not a photo shoot waiting to happen at any point in that pathway, they don’t care. And that’s okay. Again, there’s no right or wrong. It’s trying to get to the nub of what is essentially fundamentally important to your client as quickly as possible. The faster you get there, the more money you’re going to make.

Brad Weimert: Yeah, I love that. Ironically, you said, I’m trying to play psychologist, not salesperson. The best salespeople understand that your job isn’t to handle objections or sell, it’s to deliver the outcome that the person wants.

Larry Walshe: So, so interesting. I remember somebody taught me this 11 years ago, and literally, I use it every single day and I’ve never forgotten it. The best piece of advice anyone ever, ever gave me, I don’t sell anything, I show options. And people buy on their own.

Brad Weimert: Yeah, I love that.

Larry Walshe: And it was a particular brand that stands by that as an ethos. And I remember hearing it and I was like, game changer, because I don’t come across as a salesperson and I don’t sell anything. I hear what you’ve got in mind. I show you a response. I inspire you hopefully and get you excited in that process because I’ve listened to you and I’ve translated that onto a physical piece of paper, and as you say, I’ve delivered the solution. That’s all I need to do. After that point, the price is irrelevant. You’ve already bought into it. You’re going to buy it.

Brad Weimert: I agree, and I think that the distinction between, let’s say a high-end brand selling clothing doing that and somebody delivering an experience is that you have a consultative opportunity, right? So, you have an opportunity, as you said, to be the psychologist and figure out not only what they want, but how you can deliver what they need to get that feeling, right? I love the blank page and I love the listening and trying to read between the lines because from a sales perspective, that’s what allows you to decide what options to show them.

Larry Walshe: Absolutely. But it is also interesting. It’s interesting looking at the generational differences that we’re seeing now as we’re moving from one particular client type of a particular age bracket, now moving into this new generation that, for example, are coming through and getting married because what’s important and the values that one hold aren’t important to the other. So, as much as everything, for example, is cyclical, we are specifically seeing at the moment that now, ceremonies are actually becoming way more important than they were a decade ago. A decade ago, what I would hear is, okay, we’ve got this place, we’ve got this budget. We need to make some cost savings. Well, the ceremony is only 25, 30 minutes long. So, let’s slash that and make it a bit of an apology, and let’s just spend all the money and dinner because that’s where we’re going to spend the most time.

Now, it’s, well, no, this is the entire reason we’ve got all of these people together in the first place. This is the memory. And actually, grandma has to be there. No, no, no, no, no. If she can’t get to it, we’re not doing it, because to the new generation, it’s those relationships and the experiences and the shared memories that you are creating with, for example, those family members that in several years’ time won’t be with you again. That group of people, in that moment, you’ll never have those 200 people altogether in the same room celebrating for you ever again. It’s the situations that allow you to create those. It’s the feeling and the memories that that evoke and that’s what they’re investing in.

Brad Weimert: Is it for the memories or is it for the gram?

Larry Walshe: I actually think it’s moving beyond the gram now. It has been about the gram. It absolutely has been. The last five, six years has very much been. You write the word photographic opportunity down next to a design. You sell it. If they’re like, oh, goody, I can take a picture in front of it, they’re like, I’ll buy it. Now, it’s not about that. That’s a byproduct, but people are now using less social media. They are actually, it’s a bit like we know that– not that it’s anything to do with my design department, but it’s things like this latest generation, they’re drinking less. The value proposition has changed. So, now, it’s more important that we’re creating experiences for people and it’s about how we’re making not only them feel, but they’re mindful of how their guests are being made to feel. They care about the guest experience. They actually want those people to be there. Not I have to have them there because my mom told me I do. They actually want them there. So, they want them to feel welcomed. So, they actually care what they sit on. Is it comfortable? Is it nice? Is the food tasty? Before, I think I spent half a decade with people barely eating because they spent all their money on flowers. They didn’t really care if they ate just as long as something was there to soak up the alcohol. Now, they actually care. So, the caterers must be thrilled because they’re back in business with them.

Brad Weimert: I love it. Well, so to that end– first of all, that’s great. Thankfully, we’re seeing a trend of people caring about humanity and not just capturing a picture for the gram. Also, undeniably, part of what helps you as a company expand and build reputation and build identity are the pictures and the shareability of it and getting it pushed out online. How do you think about fulfilling your creative expression and/or delivering for the client versus what you know is going to get traction for the business in other areas?

Larry Walshe: I think consistency is everything. So, therefore, I stand by the value that if I wouldn’t be comfortable, for example, popping that onto the gram out into the public arena for people to see and essentially judge and rape me on, I won’t make it. And I had a conversation about this actually last night. I had a late night consultation with somebody in the States who wanted to slash their design budget. They’d been working with somebody and their wedding is in three weeks’ time, so it’s mid-December this year. And they’ve had a really bad experience with a different designer. They didn’t like where they were going with this. And they turned around and said, look, we’ve come up with a new idea. It’s this. I was like, this is not my sensibility at all. This isn’t what my brand, like, this isn’t what I’m good at creating or what I would feel comfortable putting out there. They were, that’s fine. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t need to be seen by anybody else, does it? Just pop it out there. And I was like, no, absolutely not, because my reputation is everything I’ve got.

And the consistency of me saying no, like we just spoke about at the beginning of the process, the reason I said no in the first place is because it wasn’t the right piece of work for me. And being consistent over 11 years and turning all of those things down is what’s made me desirable. Because people know if they come to me, regardless of let’s say the overall size or the investment that they make, every single piece is going to be as good as the next. This is where I don’t defer on quality. What I defer on is maybe the number of extravagant moments that you have in that celebration. Somebody that’s more maybe like myself might have one extravagant moment, could be at the end of a ceremony. It’s like there’s your ta-da!

Some other client might want to have one at every available turn, in which case there might be a couple of hundred during said celebration. Well, that’s lovely, and as a business, I enjoy it, but I won’t dilute a product ever. And so, when I had that conversation with them and they were like, listen, just do it, just make it, it doesn’t matter if anybody sees it, I was like, no, I won’t do that.

Brad Weimert: I love that. Yeah, internally, when I think this, to reiterate the point, one of the reasons that I like digging into the process that you have and the creative process and the luxury element of it is because it pertains to so many other businesses and how they create their experiences in delivering an experience or delivering a product, whether it’s physical or it’s service-based or it’s digital, all have some of the same through-lines. And internally, our framework for executing new experiences, softwares, et cetera, is V1 is not a sh*tty version of the final product. It is the scaled back version that is equal in quality, but just is delivering a smaller portion than the full.

Larry Walshe: Exactly, exactly. Like, in layman’s terms, I always say, it’s I prefer to do one thing well than do five things badly. You are just scaling up what the capabilities are, what the deliverables are going to be, but the actual execution and the quality level and the output should always be to the standard that you’ve designed your business to be and that should be to the client that you are looking to attract. So, if you are here to do mass market work, for example, don’t spend days, weeks, months doing original design work because that’s not going to be what you’ve accounted for in terms of your margin. That’s not the way your business should or would be set up. If you are there to do mass market work, you are there to put a particular product out at a particular standard because it’s got a particular price level attached to it that allows lots of people to buy it. But if you are sitting in a luxury space, it’s not about, you’re not saying no to be snotty and you are not providing bad service to look exclusive. Far from it, what you’re doing is you are preserving the time that you have available to invest in somebody into the correct person.

Brad Weimert: Well, so speaking of the correct person and working with high-end clientele, once you’re in the event, so I understand the expectation setting on the front end. Once you’re into an event, emotions are high, stakes are high. How do you manage expectations in the middle of it when you get an off-the-wall request, the bride or the groom or the family says, why isn’t this this way or we want this adjustment? How do you manage expectations in those moments when you have these surprises that happen?

Larry Walshe: I mean, a surprise in the instance that somebody were to turn around and say to me, why isn’t this this way, just wouldn’t happen. Because the way that we work is we work very heavy in the front end to be incredibly granular and incredibly specific about what we do, so that everyone’s expectations are managed before we get to delivery. There shouldn’t be, I didn’t think it was going to be that big. I didn’t know it was going to be that color, because I will ensure that every box is ticked before we’ve got there. Every design has a drawing. Every drawing has a signature next to it saying that they approve it. Everything has been discussed in that moment.

Where we get the variables, especially when you’re working with a fresh product like flowers, is that you can do all of that work. You could do everything right. And for example, a flower could literally just say, it’s too hot for me. I’m out of here. And it’ll flop over and die. What do you do? And so, in doing that, you have to become very attuned at being agile and being able to switch into the mode of problem solving and working in a very operational way, which is usually the complete opposite to that kind of creative side of the brain. You have to be able to slip into logistics operation and delivery in order to be able to very quickly pivot, make an adjustment, and be ready to make change so that before your client even sees it, you’ve rectified that problem.

Because then even if something then weren’t exactly as you had imagined it were going to be, you’ve already kind of saying, if I ever came to you, the first thing I’m going to say is, “Hey, Brad, we’ve got an issue. This is the issue, but I’ve got three alternatives for you. We could do this, we could do this, we could do this.” Already, I’ve pacified you as a client because you’re not going to scream at me and tell me that I need to go fix the situation. I’ve already told you what I’ve done to fix the situation. I’ve come up with what those solutions are going to be in that moment. I’ve already anticipated your need. You are now going to pick one of those things. And in doing so, I’ve managed to up-manage to you so that ultimately, that experience for all of my team is a lot smoother.

Brad Weimert: Yeah, I love that. I talk about this quite a bit, but we have an internal protocol that we refer to as 1-3-1, which is, if you have a problem, entire staff, you better come to me with three possible solutions and then tell me which one you think we should go with.

Larry Walshe: Oh, I’m pinching that. I love that. Wait until I send out on a memo at the end of today. My staff are going to be thrilled. I’m going to be like, any comment, send it to Brad.

Brad Weimert: Well, here’s the thing, just like the high-end client that you’re working with, they don’t want to hear the problem. They want a solution. And I don’t want people in our company, I don’t hire people that are incapable of providing solutions, right? They’re here because they have the mental capacity and the internal value set to provide solutions and give me feedback. And very often, they have great ideas, right? And they’re going to come up with things that I wouldn’t. So, I really want that group think. And I think that’s a very similar parallel to you hiring creatives for their ability to be creative and put their stamp on the project, right? If you told everybody exactly what to do, you have a very different proposition than a collaboration of artwork that delivers this environment in the end.

Larry Walshe: Right. But the thing that you identified earlier, that’s so, so too true. You have traditional creatives who are expert at what they do, but quite often, for example. There’s a lot of instances, they can’t be allowed to be in front of that client because that client is going to annoy the heck out of them. Those people are artists. Now, I don’t protest to be an artist because if I do, would never get anywhere. The difference is I’m like, these people are brilliant at what they do, but are they a salesperson? No. Are they somebody who knows how to manage their own logistics? So, the thing that is always very hard to quantify that I spend my entire life doing with my team, I found the artists over there.

First of all, I spend my entire life safeguarding them from the client. So, when the client’s being irrational and calling me at 10 PM at night and screaming at me and telling me that we need to change the color of the thing 48 hours before the wedding, I’m like, no, no. And I’m disseminating that information down to them to make sure that I’m like, the client just had a really interesting idea. How do we feel about this? When they’re like, we don’t feel good about it, I’m like, I didn’t think so. And you are working out what information to give to which parts of that team, to which artisans to make sure that they are in a space where mentally, physically, like they’re set up for success. They’re allowed the time that they need to work in a space. I create a production schedule that gives people the time they need to do their job well. I don’t say, how long do you need to build this structure? And they say, six hours. And I go, great. You’ve got three. I say, how long do you need to make it? And then I go back and I fight to get them the six hours that they need Because what I know is if I do that, my product will shine brighter than somebody else’s.

And really, the biggest thing that I’ve been taught, that I’ve really tried to embrace and I remind myself on the daily, is everybody just needs to stick in their own lane. If we stick in our own lanes, if each person that knows how to do something is respected for what they know how to do and is given the space in which to do that and we don’t try and overstep in doing that, you get the best result.

Brad Weimert: I love that. I love the idea of protecting the artist and protecting their space to allow them to do what they’re great at.

Larry Walshe: But it’s true. I mean, managing a client is a skill in itself. Please don’t get me wrong. Like, I mean, I’ve spent my entire career working on it. But it’s funny that I’m kind of like when people will say, what did you do? And I’m like, what I do is I protect all of these people from you, because that way, I get to have a happy team and you get the best result possible because some of those people couldn’t handle the questions that you’re asking or the way that you’re choosing to disseminate that information.

Brad Weimert: So, what is one unspoken rule of working with a celebrity or royal client to deliver that outcome?

Larry Walshe: Ooh, that’s a very good question. I think do what you say you are going to do when you say you are going to do it, how you say you are going to do it. Nobody wants surprises. Nobody wants to be disappointed. Nobody wants to be shocked. Nobody wants a curve ball like that. Life is going to be what life is going to be anyway. You can plan for absolutely everything, for example, and Mother Nature will decide that your alfresco wedding is going to be really rather soggy. There is nothing that money or planning can do in that situation if you’ve decided no rain cover and we’re doing this wedding, it’s like, well, somebody had a different idea that you’re already going to have to pivot in that moment.

But if in that process of designing with your client, if you’ve been collaborative, if you have been reactive, if you have done everything that you say you’re going to do when you said you’re going to do it, and ultimately, that’s fed through to the delivery that comes on the day, if and when those curve ball happens, which they absolutely will, because in whatever part of your business it is, there’s always things that arise that you don’t expect. A bit like playing the 1-3-1 rule, you are going to be well received and that’s how you are then going to navigate stormy waters.

Brad Weimert: Okay. So, we’ve talked a lot about the client experience and the value in looking at the outcome and what you’re trying to deliver. You talked about how important it is to set expectations clearly throughout the process. One of the things that I’ve heard is how you try to look for wow moments in areas where you can overdeliver through it to create a truly unique experience for people. What are some of your go-to things, whether it’s a structure, a framework, or just concepts in order to find those areas that you can deliver a truly unique wow moment, big or small?

Larry Walshe: I think as I walk through that, for example, that venue, that space with somebody, in terms of talking about the guest experience, I take the client with me. I walk it, I physically make them stand in the space and realize, for example, how big this palace that they’ve chosen is. Because then when they see the associated number for dressing that area, they’re not going to come after me because they already know. But I walk it with them and I will stand there and kind of, how does this make you feel? How about we do this, which feels very big? Should we make it more intimate? And it’s those moments that I choose. But I think design-wise, I like to work in a way where I design with the environment that I’m in, in mind. I’m always the biggest advocate of use what’s around you, regardless of the budget that you’re designing to.

If you, for example, are in a field, don’t becoming palace chic. Don’t be kind of deciding that you want to go Louis XVI’s Rococo because, first of all, we’re going to have to build a miniature palace. And if that’s what you want to do, that’s fine, but you probably don’t. So, if we’re in that space, if we’re in the countryside looking at this view, let’s use that. Let’s use the colors that I can see in the view beyond. Let’s use the textures that are in the gardens already. Bring the outside indoors. Let’s make it look like Mother Nature would’ve done this too if you’d asked her to. Because in doing that, you’re building on the tapestry of what’s already there.

Now, you are just enhancing the space that you are in. Sometimes that means you can design in a much more cost-effective way, but equally, it means you can pick those moments of wow and they just feel like an extension of the place you are already in. They feel natural and it feels right. And I think what ultimately that creates, actually, it’s the very big difference between when you walk into anything and you can see that somebody’s tried very hard, maybe to look flashy. I’m sure we’ve all been to those weddings. You walk in, everything’s vomited everywhere.

The thing about that is if you are doing something with no reason or intention behind it, other than to show off, that’s all that it portrays. If you show off but do it with taste and style, i.e., you look at the space that you’re in and you’re thinking right, well, how about I make it look like this plant just grew everywhere, but it’s already over there in the corner. You’ve just made it a hundred times bigger. All you’ve done is kind of do what Mother Nature could have done and you’ve just taken it a step further. Then people walk in and they’re like, it’s so impressive, and yet it’s so good.

Brad Weimert: I love it. Larry, I love digging into the creative side of this and thinking through how it interacts with all the other business models out there. What advice do you have for brand-new entrepreneurs starting out?

Larry Walshe: Identify right at the very beginning, who is your ideal customer? What are your brand values? What is that work-life balance that you want? And what are your goals? What are the things that you want to achieve? Use it as a manifestation so that you’re sitting there. I’m a big advocate for manifesting what it is that you want for putting out there into the universe the things that you’re working towards, but then use that and stay laser focused on it. Imagine that you’re a horse. Imagine that you’ve got blinkers on. Once you’ve decided what those things are, do not deviate. It might be really tempting to say yes to something because I don’t know, it’s December and you’ve got no other work coming in, and you’d really quite like, I’d know 100,000 pounds to drop in the building. If it’s not the right 100,000 pounds, if it’s not going to take your business forward in the way that you’ve just identified as a strategy, say no, because I promise, when you turn down 100, you’ll get 200.

Brad Weimert: Awesome. Larry Walshe, thank you so much for carving out time. It’s been great talking.

Larry Walshe: Such a pleasure.