BALLOON BRAIN
It's not just balloons, it's business
Balloon Brain helps you grow your creative business through blogs, live Zoom sessions, and practical resources.
Choose Your Balloon Business Path
Start where you are and grow at your own pace
Hobbyist / Side Hustler
Learn the basics of pricing and materials so you can confidently earn extra income from your balloon creations.
Beginner - “Start Smart”
Build a solid pricing system that covers your time, materials, overhead, and profit as you launch your business.
Intermediate - “Grow Wise”
Refine your pricing and strategy using real overhead, profit rates, and rental calculations to strengthen your business foundation.
Advanced - “Strategy Suite”
Master advanced marketing, pricing, forecasting, and design tools to scale your balloon business with confidence.
Free Actionable Tips For Each Category
Sales
Marketing
Money (Finance)
Systems (Operations)
Customer Service
Information Technology (IT)
Research and Development (R&D)
Legal and Compliance
Interview
Ask questions to fully understand the results the customer is looking for.
Think about the 5 questions - who, what, where, when and why.
- When - are you available to deliver on the date they need?
- Where - are they in your service area?
- Who - understanding who it’s for helps you design something appropriate for them. A garden theme for a child’s party will look different from a garden theme for a memorial service for an adult
- What - most people ask for a balloon arch. But is an arch best for what they want? Are there other options that are a better fit?
- Why - understanding why will guide you in the options to offer them.
Listen
Customers may not know what they really need or even want. By asking questions and listening carefully you will learn what they really want.
Listen for effect, results, emotion, purpose.
- How much are your arches? $450 plus delivery
- What if the room it’s going into is a convention center?
- What if it’s going into a daycare center (latex restrictions?)
- What if it’s going outside?
- What if they need it up for a week?
- What if they want a WOW entrance for a forest theme? Is a garland or arch the best solution?
Repeat
Ask more questions and listen until you are confident you understand what the results are they want
Solution
Walk them through a couple of options and talk about price in broad terms
- I can create an arch for the entrance of the ballroom at XYZ conference center, but thinking about your forest theme, what if we built some balloon trees outside the door instead?
- Playing off your centerpieces of small evergreen trees, we can build sets of 3 or 5 balloon trees to place around the room at key points like near the buffet and on the stage.
- We can carry the forest theme from the entrance into the room and to focal points in the room for $2000 to $3000. How does that sound to you? Would you like to hear more options?
Who is your ideal customer
Having a specific audience for your marketing helps you fine tune your marketing message
Where do they show up
If you are trying to reach soccer moms, marketing on LinkedIn doesn’t make sense
If you’re trying to reach corporate event planners, marketing at the daycare centers doesn’t make sense
How to get their attention
If you’re targeting brides for weddings, having a display at bridal shops makes sense
If you’re targeting soccer moms, partnering with a sports store makes sense
If you’re targeting gender reveals and birthday parties, partnering with a bakery or party store (that doesn’t provide balloon decor) makes sense
What “problems” do they have that you have answers to
If one-upping their friends is the goal, then offer embellishments to their inspo pictures
If wanting decorations that enforces a sales goal or theme for a company is the goal, then design around the goal or theme.
- Ask to see the artwork for the event. Play off their designs and colors. The decor will match their artwork
- This is why you learn techniques and not recipes. With techniques you can build ANYTHING
Always have a strong call to action (CTA). That is - tell them what the next step is
Call 206-555-1212 now for a free consultation
Click here to book a free 15 minute appointment to go over your vision
Fill out this form and upload your pictures for a no hassle quote
The key here is making it really clear to the customer what the next step is to do business with you.
Pricing
Know your material costs
- Write down on the bag or use garage sale stickers and put the unit cost on it. If you buy a bag of 100 balloons for $13.99, each balloon is $13.99/100 or 14 cents. Always take what you paid for it and divide by the number of units.
- If you buy a bunch of silk roses for $10. Count the flowers and divide the cost by the number of flowers. $10/7 is $1.43 per flower.
- If you buy a spool of ribbon for $8, and the spool has 3 yards, the cost is $8/3 or $2.637 per yard. Or $8/12 (3 yards is 12 feet) is 67 cents per foot.
- If you use helium, to get cost per cubic foot it’s $ of the tank/ total cubic feet in the tank. Then you need to know how much helium you’re putting into a balloon. Click here for a free helium chart.
Know how much time the job takes
- Count all the time you have into making, loading, unloading, setting up, and taking down the decorations
- If you’re not sure if you should count the time, ask yourself - self, if I hired someone to help me do this job, would I have to pay them to ______? If the answer is yes, then you count it.
- Figure out an hourly rate for your time. Link to priceyourwork
- Remember - you only get paid for the time you work on a job. You don’t get paid to take orders, to order materials, to pay the business bills. You don’t get paid to do your marketing or attend networking or business events or conventions. You only get paid when you actually do a job.
- Working for yourself you don’t get paid for time off (no PTO), and you don’t have someone else paying your medical insurance. Also (this was a big one for me in the USA), my employer paid half my social security and Medicare taxes. When I worked for myself, I had to pay it all (15%). That means for every $100 dollars you profit you pay $15 just for SS taxes. Income tax is on top of that.
- The cheatsheet for pricing is to add materials/supplies and labor together and triple it. The extra money goes to pay business bills and to set aside to grow your business.
Cashflow
Pay attention to the amount of money you make each month. It will go up and down. We called it the “feast or famine” cycle. When you’re making a lot of money, set aside the extra into the “famine” fund for the months when you don’t make enough to pay the bills or yourself.
Know when your big bills come due like business insurance or taxes if you don’t pay them monthly. Having a separate account for business bills (expenses) will help you not have to pay on credit cards or be stuck with late fees.
Don’t look at your sales as income. Income is the money left over after you pay for the materials and bills in your business.
A business is run on gross margin - that is, the money left over after paying for inventory and labor.
Create systems for everything you do, and write it down
It will become an employee handbook if you hire people someday
If you forget how to do something you can look in your operations manual and see how to do it again
It helps you to not forget important steps (easy to do when you’re juggling 5 jobs at once)
Sales System
Always do the same thing when a call/message/order comes in.
Daily systems:
Creating routines builds good habits and keeps you organized and not wasting time
Inventory/materials system
Storing materials the same way each time (not thrown in a closet or in the corner)
Keeping track of what you have and how much you paid for it
Job systems
Checklists so nothing is forgotten
Plan B supplies
Extras for last minute upgrades (and prices to go with it)
Take before and after pictures for portfolio
Take pictures at different angles, and some with people in it for scale
Check list of what to pack up
How you talk to your customers, handle their changes, complaints, and communications can make or break your business. Think about all the times you had decent customer service, then that one time it wasn’t - you wanted to tell everyone how awful the service was. Your customers aren’t any different.
- Smile when you answer the phone, it will carry in your voice.
- Always be kind, even when the customer is irate, wrong and demanding. Listen carefully, past the emotions, and ask questions to get to the actual issue.
- If they are unhappy with something you did or how the job turned out, instead of offering a refund or discount next time, ask them how they want it handled. “Our goal is to always meet or exceed customer expectations, and it’s clear we failed that this time. What would it take to earn your trust again?” If their demand is higher than what you’re willing to do, give a counter offer, but don’t argue. No one wants that 1 star Google review.
- Ghosting is awful. Steps to reduce ghosting:
- With all communications, either ask them what the next step is (they may be ready to pay), or tell them what the next step is and when it’s due (please review the order/invoice/contract, sign and pay by 6/1/2025 to guarantee availability for your event)
- If they don’t get back to you, follow up within a day or two. If they don’t respond after two times, a third email with “We haven’t heard from you and assume you are going in a different direction. We are releasing the hold on your date.” If they really want to to work with you, they will get back to you quickly. If not, just move on, it happens, don’t take it personally.
- Have a policy for changes, especially last minute ones. My policy was any changes made within 2 weeks of the event incurred a change fee of 10% (or whatever % you want to set). If they say they decided they don’t like what you sent them and they want to see more ideas, simply say “I’m happy to provide more ideas. The first two are complimentary. After that there is a $xxx fee.”
Know the difference between objection and complaint, and how to handle them.
There is a lot that falls under IT, but for a sole proprietor/micro business, these are some of the bigger things you need to be aware of:
Cybersecurity
Customer info: Even as a small solo business, you must protect your customer’s information. It can be as simple as always running payments through a 3rd party processor and keeping their information password protected. Treat their personal info as you would want yours treated.
Website: If you have your website hosted with a 3rd party, take the time to understand what their best practices are to keep bad guys from hacking into their systems and hijacking your website. It happens more often than you may realize. Ask how often do they back up your website and how long does it reasonably take to get it back up if it or the hosting company has been hacked. Smart companies have a Plan B for everything. Including downed websites.
Mobile devices: Be smart and know what Best Practices are for your phone. Talking to your service provider and keeping up with updates is important.
Apps
It’s easy to download a new shiny app that promises to make your job as an entrepreneur easier. But beware - not all apps are what they seem. The more apps you download, the more places you have your email/phone/passwords, the more likely it is that you’ll get your information stolen. Be smart.
Passwords
You’ve heard how Ring cameras were hacked because of compromised or shared passwords? Here’s how it happens:
Your username is your email - me@mycompany.com, your password is LoveMyDog123!.
You used that password at a large retailer that got hacked, and were told to change your password, so you go to that website that got hacked and change your password. BUT - that’s not enough.
The bad guys write an app and take your username and password (and the millions others they got) and try it at every bank, every social media website, every credit card website, every shopping website, every government website (filing for unemployment benefits as you?), and security websites like Ring.
If you use the same username and password everywhere, the bad guys now have access to everything. It’s only a matter of time before they try the bank you use, or your Amazon account.
This is why a unique password is so important.
Download the free guide to examples of how to create unique passwords you can remember yourself.
Infrastructure
It includes making sure the internet and your computers/printers are all working and talking to each other. One thing I did was sign up for a business internet connection. Sure, I paid a little more for it, but when there was any problem with it, I would call the business line and get service a lot quicker. If you’re in business, register everywhere as a business to get the better customer service. We don’t think about it until it’s not working. Be sure to register all your electronics under your business.
Creating new designs - any time you have a unique, signature design, you can charge more since you’re the only one making it. Setting aside time every week or every month to just play and create will keep you sharp and ahead of your competition.
Inspo pictures - when a client calls and says they are having a theme party and send you an inspo picture, challenge yourself to not copy the picture exactly, but to change it up to better fit their theme and show them. There are apps for mocking up designs, and learning them will increase your perceived value to your clients. Remember - you’re a designer, a stylist, and artist. All creative things. So don’t plagiarize, synthesize! Take what they give you and make it better.
Learning techniques, not recipes. By learning techniques, you will be able to make anything with balloons.
Be a legally registered business. There is a lot of help for small business, just ask.
Understand the laws in your area. Many cities in the USA consider balloons outside as temporary signage. Some places have outlawed balloons outside, other places require permitting. Don’t assume the customer knows - you’re the balloon company, take it upon yourself to know what is legal and what isn’t.
Many places have outlawed balloon releases. You can ask someone at the city or county of where the balloon release has been requested if they are allowed.
Don’t steal another balloon company's images and use them for your own marketing purposes. That is copyright infringement, and you can be sued if caught.
Don’t recreate trademarked or copyrighted designs like Disney or Marvel Characters without permission of the design owner. If you’re not sure, look it up on the internet. It’s a simple as “is Winnie the Pooh public domain”. Even a corporate logo recreated in any way (think Chanel or Prada) for a bougie party is illegal, unless you have their permission.
Master the Business Side of Creativity
You don’t need an MBA to run a thriving creative business. We break it down into 9 simple areas you can explore at your own pace starting with where you need the most help right now.
Sales
Marketing
Finance
Customer Service
Operations
IT (coming soon)
R&D
Legal (coming soon)
HR (Coming Soon)
Join Rachel Live
Balloon Brain members gather live Zoom calls where Rachel answers your questions, shares behind-the-scenes insights, and helps troubleshoot common business struggles. Join her and learn about cashflow, pricing, how to work with difficult customers, systems to become more efficient, and more.
Upcoming
Tuesday, Aug 26, 2025 7:00 PM
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing eli
Join us for the September Expert
Tuesday, Aug 26, 2025 7:00 PM
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing eli
Join us for the September Expert
Tuesday, Aug 26, 2025 7:00 PM
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing eli
Join us for the September Expert
Good, Better, Best Pricing Strategy
Free live training on Zoom
Stop losing clients after you send the quote.
Learn how to present three clear options so clients compare your designs instead of shopping competitors.
Every 2nd Monday at 6:00 PM Pacific · 1 hour · Free
Pricing for the Hobbyist
Free live training on Zoom
Turn your balloon hobby into something that actually pays. Join our live monthly training where we walk through exactly how to price balloon work so you cover materials, pay yourself fairly, and stop guessing.
Every 3rd Monday of the Month at 6:00 PM Pacific · 1 hour · Free
Price Pushback
Free live lab on Zoom
Learn how to respond when a client pushes back on your price, without discounting or getting flustered.
In this short, interactive lab, we work through real examples and talk through calm, confident ways to respond when someone says your price is too high.
Every 1st Monday of the Month at 5:00 PM Pacific · 30 minutes · Free
Get the Support You Want—Every Month
Running a creative business can feel lonely, confusing, and overwhelming. You don’t have to figure it out alone. Balloon Brain’s membership gives you ongoing support, clear education, and a creative community, all led by Rachel Porter.
Your Membership Includes:
Monthly Live Zoom Calls
Balloon Brain is built around key focus areas that help creatives run stronger, smarter businesses. Click below to learn more about each one.
Library of Replays & Resources
Access past calls, worksheets, templates, and exclusive guides.
Priority Q&A Access
Get your questions answered faster—with care, clarity, and no fluff.
Bonus Tools & Templates
From pricing calculators to system checklists—done-for-you tools you can use today.
Members-Only Discounts
Get first access and special pricing for future classes and products.
Good, Better, Best Pricing Strategy
Free live training on Zoom
Stop losing clients after you send the quote.
Learn how to present three clear options so clients compare your designs instead of shopping competitors.
Every 2nd Monday at 6:00 PM Pacific · 1 hour · Free
Pricing for the Hobbyist
Free live training on Zoom
Turn your balloon hobby into something that actually pays. Join our live monthly training where we walk through exactly how to price balloon work so you cover materials, pay yourself fairly, and stop guessing.
Every 3rd Monday of the Month at 6:00 PM Pacific · 1 hour · Free
Job Cost Tool Access $5/month
Get access to the exact tool used to calculate job costs, pricing, and materials, so you can stop guessing and start charging correctly.
-
Unlimited job cost calculations
-
Inventory tracking support
-
Export PDFs and pick lists
-
Voice input for faster workflow
"Free with membership"
Membership Levels:
Monthly Membership
$50/month (USD)
Flexible Month-to-Month Access No Contract. Stay as long as you’d like and cancel anytime.Get full access to all tools, resources, and community support for the cost of one nice dinner out. Perfect if you want to try it out before committing long-term.
Annual Membership
$500/year (USD)
Save $100 + Get Exclusive Bonuses
No monthly billing. One payment gives you 12 months of full access.Enjoy everything included in the monthly plan, plus exclusive annual-member bonuses. Just one extra client or project could more than pay for your investment.
Full-Service Retainer
$1,500/month (USD)
Get Weekly Strategy + Done-For-You Support
No long-term contract. One monthly payment gives you full-service support. Includes weekly 1:1 strategy sessions, email/newsletter outreach, graphic design, website support, and blog writing/posting. Everything you need to stay consistent and growing — without the overwhelm.
About
RACHEL
I’m Rachel, founder of Balloon Brain, created to support solopreneurs and small business owners who feel overwhelmed by the business side of things. While many entrepreneurs begin with a passion for their product or service, my passion has always been business itself.
I started young, working in corporate inventory systems, solving process inefficiencies, and boosting accuracy, before launching my own balloon decorating company in 1994 after a sudden layoff. I taught myself everything from pricing strategy to early SEO, and over 28 years, built and rebuilt a thriving business in each city I relocated to.
Now, through Balloon Brain, I share the lessons I learned the hard way, from marketing experiments and financial management to branding and customer insights. My goal is to help others skip the years of trial and error by offering practical tools, honest guidance, and real-world strategies. If you love what you do but feel stuck trying to make it work as a business, you’re exactly who I created this for.
Let’s Talk Strategy - On the House
Feeling stuck? Not sure what step to take next in your business?
Hop on a free 15-minute call where Rachel will help you:
- Pinpoint your biggest roadblock
- Get clarity on your next move
- Find the right Balloon Brain tools for where you are now
This isn’t a sales call—it’s a safe space where you can ask questions and get a plan for next steps
Create.
Connect.
Collaborate.
Let’s bridge your creative vision with strategic precision, fostering connections that transform bold ideas into impactful realities starting with a simple conversation.
Complete the Form to Connect
Not sure what to charge?
Rachel’s custom-built pricing tool helps you break down your material costs, time, and profit goals, so you can charge with confidence and clarity.