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Do you design? or just took over the business?
Having done this, took over the business then learned to design, I certainly would have done it differently back then.
 
My husband is a designer/artist, but not a floral designer. He has learned a LOT in the past month. We were lucky enough to keep one of the employees who has worked there for 8 years and knows the business and the customers. We also have a part time designer (who also used to work there) who helps us out a few days a week. The previous owner also likes to drop by and is always very helpful.

I understand what you're saying about learning to design first - I always thought I was pretty knowledgable about flowers and arrangements until I tried my first bubble bowl!

I'll take any advice you're willing to give! We love the business but are almost overwhelmed about everything that's involved! It's a learning experience for us - but it's great!
 
Welcome to Flowerchat!

I think a couple of the very most important things for new owners are things that aren't very obvious to new shop owners, at first.

Care and Handling of fresh flowers
There are some very specific things you need to do to help your cut flowers develop properly, and last in a consumer's home. You have to know when to toss a flower, and cut your loss, rather than send it out to a customer.
Floral preservative, Anti-transpirant, the different climates that some flowers need for storage, sanitizing of containers. There is much more, but these come to me right now. I would spend some time in the Product Care forums, and read all the information there, as well as find books on the subject, and ask your wholesaler for information. Hopefully your employee is well versed in this, and can help you as well.

Consistent pricing
Know your forumla for determning product retail values, and labor costs in arrangements. Make sure your $50 arr's or $100 arr's are consistent in the appearance of value. Coming from a position of someone who took over a store who had no clue of this, customers would tell me that they'd get super huge arr's for $50, or nothing at all. Some stopped coming because they didn't know which side the pendulum would swing on a certain day.

Nothing can kill a shop faster than flowers that don't last, and value that isn't consistent.

You've found a great resource here - good luck and welcome!
:)
tracy
 
My best suggestion is to visit here: http://www.ncflorist.org/
and see what educational programs are available.
The care and handling of flowers is extremely important as Tracy has said.
If your husband is a "recreator" of pictures, he's able to copy basics but it is important to learn the elements, principles, techniques, "the mechanics" of proper design.
We also took over on Oct 1st with the agreement the former owner would stay for 6 months for training........they left after 2 months, before Christmas stating they had no more to teach me. Maybe it was a good thing (gave me lots of questions and made me pursue the library's content of design in our small town). 30+ years later....still here, loving it, always learning more - there is nothing better than staying with the trends, learning new tips and tricks, all can be provided by "shows and seminars" available in your areas. Your State Association can be your best friend for marketing, networking, and educational assistance. Good Luck in your new venture.
 
Hi - thanks for all the suggestions! We joined the NC Florists Assoc. already. As for pricing, I made my husband a price-per-stem spreadsheet to make sure we always fill an order to full value. It's not an exact science, but we get lots of complements on our arrangements vs. other florists!

Our part time designer is very good at helping us care for the flowers. She changes the water out and cleans out the cooler too. And we've already learned how to make Birds of Paradise pop.

The old owner came in this week to help get the Thanksgiving orders out and helped us plan for the upcoming Christmas season.

Do you do anything for your good customers? We had a couple customers who placed huge wire out orders ($500 each). We're going to send each of them a poinsettia plant. Do you have any other suggestions on how to treat your best customers?

Thanks and Happy Thanksgiving!
 
MaryClarksFlorist said:
Do you do anything for your good customers? We had a couple customers who placed huge wire out orders ($500 each). We're going to send each of them a poinsettia plant. Do you have any other suggestions on how to treat your best customers?
Thanks and Happy Thanksgiving!
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Welcome to Flowerchat!

We have a few extra special customers who we offer special deals. We have one local priest who routinely orders christmas centerpieces for his volunteers. We have a special we design more or less with him in mind and he generally orders anywhere from 13 to 20 of these. Generally, we charge him 10% less than if we sold that item to other customers. His church purchases all their plants and flower accents through us and we extend that discount to those purchases.

We have another customer who routinely spends over $1000 redoing her Christmas decorations, she has an ailment makes it difficult for her to move well so as an added service, we help her decorate her home.

We hold an open house at Christmas time, we also extend a special one night discount to those special customers on all our holiday giftware to let them know we appreciate their business.

Audra
 
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