How to Become a Teleflorist
- 1). Experiment with your floral talents. Attend classes in design and art. Take floral design classes at your local community college. Inquire at major floral shops in your area. Asking them about their minimum requirements when hiring florists can help you determine the level of skill you need to exceed in opening your own shop. The more you know about flowers and designs, the more equipped you will be at making your shop a success.
- 2). Create a business plan for how you will conduct yourself as a teleflorist. It should state the funds that you will need to start the business, as well as the funds you'll need to operate on a weekly and monthly basis. A budget should be established. The plan should show how you can use the Internet to market your remote floral business. The overhead for a teleflorist business is going to be low to start. You need to have the flowers, packaging, shipping boxes and supplies, and accessories to help design your bouquets.
- 3). Establish a workplace. A teleflorist business can be run out of your own home, but you should try to set aside a room just for work. You'll need a work table for making your artistic creations and bouquets. You also want room to put together packages for shipping.
- 4). Obtain a catchy domain name and coinciding toll-free phone number. In fact, the two should match up as closely as possible. This is crucial, perhaps the most important step, when setting up an Internet flower shop. 1-800-Flowers has made a lot of money from its easily remembered phone number and website. It should include some kind of flower reference in the title and something unique to you and your designs. It should be something easily memorable, and it should be something that is hard to misspell.
- 5). Find a wholesale supplier for your teleflorist flower shop. This could be a local nursery, local farm or other supplier. You may even choose to seek certain flowers from local competitors when in a pinch, but you want to provide yourself definite avenues of supplying yourself with beautiful flowers at a minimum cost.
- 6). Stock up on floral decorations. You want a steady supply of bows, flower food, cellophane wrap, theme balloons, ribbons, baskets, and other things that you personally wish to use when arranging floral arrangements.
- 7). Establish an advertising plan. Offering a discount such as "Buy one bouquet, get the next holiday's bouquet half off" can be a winning deal. Not only will the customer genuinely save money on arrangements he was going to buy anyway, but you can be guaranteed that he'll choose your shop twice. You can also have a certain day of the week when you offer a special. Regardless of the actual deal, every time you get the name of your company out there, it's going to be heard by people who just may be looking for a great gift in a hurry, and the ease of dialing you will make all the difference in locking down that sale.
- 8). Decide on the shipping methods to use for your flowers. UPS or USPS both offer very quick delivery if your customers are willing to pay more for overnight shipping. This is the best method, to make sure your arrangements look fantastic. If you are going to offer your teleflorist business locally, you can pay messengers to simply deliver your bouquets around town.
- 9). Put yourself out there as a teleflorist. Start your business by offering sales. Once you prove yourself, you'll find yourself getting recommendations. Network with wedding and funeral businesses. Ask for an email or physical address of your customers to place them on a mailing list. If you don't want to irritate and alienate customers, ask one's permission before placing his name on a mailing list.
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