Florist Careers – Ahh…so many GREAT choices….
In the floral industry there are many different florist careers available. In most cases, floral career seekers are interested in working in a retail florist shop – either as a owner, manager, or employee. However there are several other florist careers as well.
There are florists that specialized in boutique or upscale services to their clients. They tend to work with and provide floral design services to affluent customers and have a very loyal clientele base. They typically rely upon word-of-mouth advertising and marketing. The benefits of this florist career is that overhead tends to be much less than most other florist careers, and they receive premium payments for their services. The downside to this florist career choice is that the loss of any one client can be a big hit to the bottom line, and they aren’t equipped to handle larger customer needs.
Another exciting option is to become a Wedding Florist and focus solely on providing wedding floral services to clients. This choice requires you to become a floral consultant to bride and groom. You will need to meet with your clients typically several times to select the final floral designs. One benefit of this choice is that typically you can collect 50% of yours fees upfront, and receive final payment before delivering the flowers on the wedding day. As a well established wedding florist, your income can be quite lucrative compared to other types of florists. On the flip side, this choice can be quite stressful at times – especially with very demanding brides that are difficult to please, and also because you will be working under tight timeframes and deadlines.
Funeral florists specialize in providing floral arrangements for funerals. This florist choice can be a good choice for some because funeral work is typically easier than other types of work because the designs are typically the same and driven by a floral design recipe. This makes it easier to purchase flowers and supplies and much easier to plan and budget for. This choice can also be very lucrative if you provide service in more populated areas, are conveniently located next to a funeral home and have good relationships with existing funeral homes. The downside to funeral florists is that you typically have to work most everyday of the week as funerals occur on everyday of the week. Additionally, as a funeral florist there isn’t much creativity involved and the designs are more recipe driven versus ad-hoc and creative.
Lastly, another of the florist careers is the traditional Retail Florist. The retail florist is typically an establishment that accepts orders from customers from walk-ins, over the telephone, from other florists, the internet and floral wire service companies. The retail florist has the most variety of types of customers and orders to fill. They typically provide floral design services for every situation – birth of baby, birthday, secretary, corporate, wedding, funerals, hospitalizations, valentines day, mother’s day, etc. A retail florist probably gets the most experience because of the varied work orders that come in. A very busy retail florist shops can be quite profitable, however it does come with more than average stresses including customer service issues, flower buying estimation, flower waste, employee turnover, quality control, long work hours, and overhead issues.
Choosing any of the florist careers is quite rewarding. The bottom line is that you will be providing a service to help make people feel happier, or provide beauty to an environment where the flowers will be placed. Each florist choice comes with it’s own positives and negatives. The right one for you will depend upon your specific area of interest – do you want to specialize, or be a generalist? Each choice comes with it’s own positives and negatives so consider the options carefully to meet your desires and your personality style.
September 11th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Thanks for summarizing the florist options and pointing out the pluses and minuses. Good stuff. I appreciate your posts very much.