Back in the day when I had my interiorscape company, we had among our clients 7 Hotels (mostly 4 and 5 star), and a number of legal firms.  Visiting my contacts at these locations, I often noticed a large cut floral arrangement on registration or receptionist’s desk.  Hmmm.  I thought.  Why can’t we do that and make some bucks as well?  My Holiday gal had a long history of floral work, she even "did" weddings for her family and friends on the side.  Why can’t we do this?

There were two local floral product wholesalers in my area so Sarah and I visited them to get pricing and availibilty.  We learned that product was readily available and we found a used "cooler" at a reduced price.  We were ready!  I called on clients that already had floral and found that there was, indeed, an interest.  Usually they asked, "how much" and could they get the arrangements on Mondays for the legal firms and on Fridays for the Hotels.  No problem, said we.  We found that we needed two vases or containers for each arrangement.  One for the one in place and one for the replacement so we could round table them.  Still no problem.  We sold three to one firm and two to a hotel and we were off and running.

Sarah would go to the wholesalers and pick out the floral product, oasis, vases etc and bring them back to our cooler.  She would arrange them and our van would deliver,  The office sent a monthly bill.  Still, no problem.  Then we had a call.  The receptionist at Legal firm ABC was allergic to lillies, the hotel wanted only yellow and bronze florals.  The other hotel had special guests this week so they needed them on Weds.  Another hotel didn’t like that weeks arrangement.  Every month there were "consderations".  Then, we had a spate of large installs and the vans and delivery guys were out 40 miles away and the florals had to be delivered downtown by 10 AM.  Hmmm. 

What had started out as a way to get extra income became a way to increase costs and disrupt our usual routine.  Hmmmm.  At one point we hired a floral delivery service to make deliveries and that got rid of that problem but added to the cost.  Next, the cooler broke down.  More $$. 

Finally, we subcontracted with a real florist to make and deliver the arrangements, we sent the bill to the client tacking on a 25% upcharge and for a number of years this worked well.  Extra dollars, less stress. 

So what did I learn?  Cut Floral service?  Maybe yes, and maybe no.  You need a large number of clients willing to pay for this service and you need to set it up as a systematic program.  Set delivery days, set people, set arrangements and so on.  If you have lots of potential clients, I suggest you go for it.  If your hotels are in the Budgetel, Holiday Inn format, fuggedahboudit.  Best markets are the very large cities and tourist destination venues.  If you have this, you need to explore it.  Otherwise, think Holiday and maybe exterior containers.  Now go out there and get ‘em Tigers.