Are you utilizing all ways of influencing flower sales directly... or is there more potential for your florist's shop?

More often than not, the only statistic we follow as a florist involves how much gross revenue we acquire from flowers sold in any given day, week, or month.

Traditionally, the business practices of the florist have been quite passive by nature of the cut flower retail industry.

After all, the most important thing for a florist is to secure a good location for his or her flower shop, have the knowhow for buying wholesale and selling retail... and then we basically wait for customers to walk in, tempted by the floral display in our window.

Don't get me wrong, there's definitely NOTHING WRONG with that... and don't accept anyone's claims to the contrary.

What you do with your business, how you run your flower retail shop... is TOTALLY your decision and no-one else has a say in it.

The goal of this article is merely to explore if there are any additional ways of influencing your income... and methods that would allow you to do so MORE DIRECTLY.

In terms of the cut flower retail industry, the term "active" simply means "being able to influence directly..." whereas "passive" denotes the traditional business strategy of INDIRECT ways of influencing the income.

Indirect means are such that while you can DO something, it does not allow you to influence the end buyer DIRECTLY.

Advertising is a good example of such indirect means of influencing your success.

You put in an ad in the local paper for Mother's Day, you invest in a good-sized ad in the local phone directory... things like that... and then people see those ads and some of them come to your establishment and become customers.

And that's all very good. However, it is possible to put in an ad and not get anything in return. Even at best of times, the return of your advertising investment can be touch and go.

Suffice to say that it's a learning curve and we lose quite a bit of money before learning which media are worth advertising in and when... and even then there can be nasty surprises.

Defining what active flower sales method can do for your florist business

We often HOPE that advertising is the key to success.

We imagine that there's some magical "saturation point" of advertising that, once reached, would guarantee a full shop of customers every day.

We believe that if we just had enough money to throw at the problem so we could advertise the way the multinational companies do, then the problem of securing continuous good sales (and continuously INCREASING income) would be solved.

Alas, it isn't so. I'm sorry but it's not true.

That's what the advertising agencies, the media selling ad space and the various businesses making money from the various forms of advertising would HAVE US BELIEVE.

Their motive for spreading the message of "hope through advertising" is understandable.

I used to be a creative leader at an ad agency... and I used to run my own ad agency too... so I know of what I speak here. I've been there, spread this rumour... and I've come to see that it isn't true.

The thing that is always ignored is the primary factor governing the success of advertising:

In advertising there are just too many VARIABLES at work for any realistic prediction of results to be possible.

There are SO many separate factors influencing the end result that it is extremely difficult (and often downright impossible) to predict what an ad will produce in terms of sales of cut flowers.

Sure, there are those few dates that are given... but the problem is that these are very few and it's really anybody's guess what works OUTSIDE those certain occasions... and IF indeed anything at all works.

This unprofitable guessing game makes advertising an act of gambling and thus creates a huge STOP for active expansion.

With only a few dates during the calendar year yielding guaranteed results from advertising... and with the rest of the year being a white spot on the map of "how to advertise successfully," it isn't exactly easy to increase sales in an active way, right?

That's what I mean with "passive sales."

It simply means that it's too indirect to give you a TOOL to INCREASE your sales whenever you want.

An ACTIVE sales method is one that DOES give you the "button to push" for increasing sales.

It offers a way to do something effective directly because the action is...

-directed for obtaining new customers DIRECTLY, and
-guaranteed to WORK and produce RESULTS

...always provided that it is used correctly and persistently, of course.

There's no magic wand for obtaining new customers and more sales... but there are ways that work directly and will seem magical after a few months!

An active sales method works much like the accelerator on your motor car.

When you press it down the engine's power is engaged and the power is directly applied to producing the result you want.

The action of stepping on the accelerator thrusts the car forward, at the speed and pace of acceleration of your choice.

Of course there are limits to how fast and far you can travel... but the important thing is that you are ABLE TO START THE ACTION. KEEP IT GOING... AND CONTROL ITS CONTINUANCE.

Now, imagine if there was a way for you to have that kind of an accelerator to run your flower sales?

What if you could START more sales at will... and CONTROL the continuance and direction of those new sales AT WILL?

Sure, in any such system there would be the same limitations as in our parallel of the car engine.

It takes a while to "build up the horsepower" into the "engine" of such flower sales method.

It might not go zero to sixty in under five seconds but start rolling at a very gentle pace... but it would be acceleration nevertheless.

And you might not travel at a blindingly fast speed during the first few miles (months)... or have perfect control of the activity and its controls in the beginning... but there would be movement to the direction of your choice from the onset.

You would be starting the sales AT WILL.

You would be CONTINUING and EXPANDING your sales of flowers AT WILL.

And you could START and STOP the sales whenever you wanted... and CONTINUE the sales equally well.

All of these selling actions and the expected results thereof would be under your power to start, continue or stop as you saw fit.

That wouldn't be too shabby a thing to have, eh?

But let's take it further...

Mastering your flower sales in terms of continuance and viability

Let's go a bit crazy here.

Let's not just think it would be possible to have an accelerator for speeding up your sales directly, but let's add another dimension to your flower sales here... something your competitors could never imagine.

What if you could sell CONTINUOUS deliveries to each of these new customers so that every single one of them becomes a PERMANENT ORDER of say 7-15 deliveries of your best flower arrangements a year... and EVERY year for as long as you like?

What if they weren't the "normal" buyers who walk in, buy a bouquet, walk out... and come back maybe once or twice a year if at all...

...but instead each new customer could be controlled to give you 3-6 times MORE yearly orders and commit to them in advance for this year... and the contract would continue automatically year after year?

Suddenly there's a different vision of future here as we enter a wholly new level of possibilities in increasing the sales of cut flowers.

We're talking about extremely high degree of sales mastery and control here, something in which every single new customer would increase the viability of your flower sales 10-50 times more than the average regular walk-in buyer.

And yet it's not difficult or expensive to achieve this. It doesn't require any specific skills or personnel.

All you need is to have the exact ROUTE of it, the "how to do it" and the simple tools to use to "press the go-button" to achieve this state of sales.

Success to implement this type of sales system would take your flower retail sales onto a whole new zone of success.

Viability is basically the concept of securing FUTURE sales.

In this scenario, you could have several years worth of sales already contracted for here and now (well, a few months after starting the system, of course) and your future success would be guaranteed no matter WHAT happens to the walk-in sales.

Just imagine it...

You could acquire new customers actively and directly.

Each of them would place an order for all the important dates — birthday, anniversary, Valentine's, Mother's Day — and seasonal flower deliveries — Easter, Spring, Christmas, and so on — and even add a few surprise bouquets... for the whole calendar year.

So one sale becomes perhaps TEN deliveries.

And then each of these customers will automatically CONTINUE on this annual service... say five years or more.

So each sale could perhaps become FIVE times TEN deliveries... or even MORE...

Next, imagine that the method of obtaining these customers is a proven way of achieving the results so that you only need to "press the accelerator" and you'll have new customers.

And can you imagine that despite the amazing results of this system, it costs but a FRACTION of what a single ad probably costs in your local newspaper?

In fact, you'll probably run this system for a full YEAR with less than a single ad of any reasonably sized advert would cost you in the local rag.

And every customer you add to your clientele will want the BEST quality of flower arrangements and will pay for your creative artistry in creating those bouquets as well, so your PROFIT is bound to soar clearly above that of walk-in buyers.

Every new customer means several deliveries... and the likeliest option is that you're actually contracting dozens of delivery orders for several years to come.

Do the math.

It certainly gives some food for thought...

Gaining the ability to influence the sales of cut flowers directly

The florist's ability to influence flower sales and acquisition of new clients depends on possessing a business plan that's NOT SHARED by all the local competitors.

While there's little you can do about gaining a competitive edge (of any specific degree) within the walk-in buyer market, there's definitely something that can be done about the overall income and sales of your flower shop.

For one, the demand for cut flowers is just an indication of how active the local florists are in marketing their products and services. The lower the demand the more passive the marketing.

For the other, there are NEW markets right in your area, niches that have gone totally unnoticed by your competitors... specialized target groups with serious buying power and whose demand for florist SERVICE has gone completely unfulfilled.

This target group and this niche market is the businessmen.

These are buyers who can afford the best and for whom you can provide a valuable service in delivering the bouquets they need to show their devotion to their significant others.

There's a very successful business plan for a florist to increase his or her sales continually and quite dramatically.

This business plan works with amazing accuracy and certainty, increasing your sales continually and "filling in" orders for flower deliveries for YEARS TO COME.

And these will be orders with a far higher profit margin than ever thought possible by any florist in the cut flower retail industry.

We've documented this system in detail — along with all the ready-to-use tools and instructions of use — in our Florist's Flower Power Business Expansion Guide (Flower Power Guide for short).

Have a look.

I guarantee you'll be impressed at what this system could do for your florist's income and profits.

It is quite something.

CLICK HERE to read the presentation of the Florist's Flower Power Guide and see how you could obtain a real-life accelerator to boost your flower sales directly and actively!

I think that when you compare active flower sales and traditional florists' passive sales methods, you'll see how much you could influence your own future for the better.

With all you've done and as hard as you've worked, putting all of your heart into your florist's business... isn't it time you had a break?

I hope you'll make use of this unique opportunity to realise your true potential!

Best wishes,

HDK Consultants Ltd 32 Manning Close Richmond Square East Grinstead RH19 2DR West Sussex United Kingdom (England) Tel. 01342-328 116 Int: +44-1342-328-116 CONTACT FORM

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