Poll For Teleflora Users

[Peter1]

Re: Peter...you're getting a little more...

Originally posted by Mikey the Flower Guy
I MAY be time to also start looking at REQUIRING Professional Florists to be licensed with a code of ethics and apprenticing!!
To make this a TRULY professional field, we gotta start acting it,and the days of just ANY "Jenna" coming along and setting up shop, are numbered,along wire services,and order commision thieves!!
We've turned away EVERY 1800flwrs order this holiday, EVERY Sears order this holiday, EVERY non florist generated order..and if YOU do the same, soon, they're zippo, UNLESS we get this commission structure changed..and REAL QUICK!
Thank you PETER, for staying on top...it'll help build YOUR dream business...BlossomsNetwork!!
Mike [/B]

I agree Mike, Ontario requires other professions to be licensed, and we should push to see it in the rest of Canada, I understand a number of States in the US have something like this. If you want to be a Barber in Ontario you have to be licensed etc, and when putting together the legislation you make sure you Grandfather it so you don't punish long time Florists who are doing what's right.

 

[URememberd]

Here in Louisiana we are licensed by the state. We see it as a way for the state to make more money ($100 per test, and $35 per year to renew w/ $25 late fee), but it keeps the state from being overrun by florists and new shops. Every shop has to have a licensed florist 32 hrs per week, or close. You have to have sufficient inventory in stock at all times, $75 wholesale each in flowers & plants. You cannot have a dead plant or flower in your shop. We get quarterly inspections. The test is difficult, only 5 of 125 people passed it the quarter I took it. The test is given 4 times a year and is 1/2 written knowledge, and 1/2 design skills, along with plant identification. So many people fail the test that I heard they are trying to get a class action suit against the state to stop it. I'm glad we have it. We are one of 3 states that have it, and I believe the only one that requires it in order to have your shop open. Every year we close for a week in January and a week in June because I go on vacation and I am the licensed florist, the shop cant stay open while I am gone, or competitors who have nothing else to do but worry about my business would turn us in and get my license suspended for 90 days. Thats it for the good, the bad, and the ugly in our area.