5 Things You Need to Open a Florist Business
If you want to spend your days surrounded by vibrant colours and sweet, heady fragrances instead of merely typing away at a computer in an office cubicle, then working in a florist shop may be the job that you seek. You've surely passed by such shops many times — there's always someone buying a bunch of flowers to celebrate a birthday, woo a loved one, or express appreciation for another individual.
In your opinion, working with flowers could be one of the most rewarding jobs out there, but like any occupation, it requires a number of important skills and qualifications in order for the endeavour to be successful. If you're dead set on opening your own florist business or even simply starting out on this path by working at someone else's florist shop, then you need to keep this five essential characteristics in mind.
You will need:
1. An eye for putting colours and textures together. While you may enjoy being surrounded all the time by flowers of every shape and colour, you must also have an innate creativity that will inspire you to put together lovely arrangements. You can hone this creativity by learning about making flower arrangements from skilled individuals or classes. This will help you understand which flowers can work well together in a bouquet and what foliage will complement the flowers well.
2. A way with people. A florist shop is essentially a retail shop that caters to customers, so you have to be able to comfortably engage the people who visit the shop in conversation to help them with their orders or figure out the kind of arrangement that would suit their specific needs best. Customer service is always important; your clients will always remember if a staff member was courteous, helpful, quick to provide service, and even thoughtful enough to remember them when they return to the shop.
3. A head for the business side of things. As previously mentioned, a florist shop is a retail business, so you'll have to learn about the best ways to operate it. You should be able to find the best possible suppliers of the flowers and plants you need, train the staff, manage the books, see to the maintenance of the business premises, come up with a clever marketing strategy, draw more customers in, and the like.
4. A willingness to put in hard work. If you plan to open your own florist business someday, then it would help greatly if you pick up your industry education firsthand by putting on the different shoes in the shop, so to speak. Make floral arrangements, run the cash register, take client orders, clean the store, handle deliveries, study ad campaigns of established florists, run to the markets and wholesalers to secure your supply, and even do research on developing new floral species.
5. A passion for bringing joy and empathy to people's lives. It's no secret that people step inside a florist shop when there's a happy occasion to celebrate — birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, housewarmings, baby showers, engagements, Valentine's Day, and other holidays and even non-events when people just want to make a loving or appreciative gesture. At the same time, people also come to buy flowers to cheer up someone who has been sick in the hospital, or to offer condolences to someone who is mourning. People give each other flowers because of the meanings they hold and the messages they can deliver to someone else, and you have to love working in such an environment of helping others find just the right flowers to say what they mean to say, without words.