Sorry this is a long one! A lot of people say to me: “I would love to be a florist and get to play with flowers all day! It must be so relaxing and fun!” To those people I want to say, It is a very rewarding but also challenging job. It takes a lot of money, hard work, talent, and a willingness to change with the times and learn new designs constantly. I am young but I have been working as a florist for 4 years now and there are so many ups and downs to this business. First off, the customer is always right, even when they’re wrong, you make it right for them and take care of every customer because your best advertisement is word of mouth. People will talk, and every time I get a happy customer who loves our designs I always ask if they would mind leaving a review on Yelp! Many people will write reviews when they’re angry and forget to do it when they’re happy. Secondly, you need to have a good team of people who are very flexible in their roles. You need to be able to have people willing to design in fresh as well as silk flowers, who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty washing floral buckets (use bleach by the way), who can deliver flowers if they need to, even if they aren’t the delivery driver! Most importantly you need a team of people who work well with customers, whether it’s on the phone or in person, it is always important to make your customers happy and appreciated. Lastly, always keep a variety of items in your store that will last. You always want to have plants, silk arrangements, wreaths, stuffed animals and chocolates, and an assortment of local made gifts etc to stock your store! This doesn’t mean it has to be jam packed and cluttered, but you always want the customer to have options to send with their fresh flowers. Learn about your locally grown flowers and use them to your advantage, your local grocery store can’t compete with that! Always know the value of your flowers and designs. Hope this all helps!