One of the biggest things that separates the floral industry from many other industries is the lack of serious education, for both our floral personnel and our consumers.

As floral professionals we have all heard consumers say, “I could never get my flowers to look like that,” while they watch a designer at work. As a designer I don’t want everyone to be able to design like me, aka job security. But just think — if we could teach the consumer how to work with our beautiful product and feel more comfortable touching and experimenting with it, wouldn’t they be willing to purchase more of it? Wouldn’t they have it in their homes more often?

I have done many floral demonstrations for the public where I teach basic floral design and I am always amazed at the reaction to some of the simplest designs. I have heard people say things like, “Wow, even I can do that.”

Robert DeBellis leads a design class for supermarket employees.We all wish that we could provide more training and education for our floral department managers and clerks. We say it is not in the budget, or we don’t have the time to organize it, etc. but do you realize how significant it is to increase sales and profits? Designers love to create, they love to see new exciting things they can try themselves, plus they need to be inspired and challenged all the time to be happy. What does that mean to you? A happy designer means more cash in the register.

Work with operations to make plans for these educational moments — it could be as large as a regional meeting of your stores, or as small as a training session at a centrally located store. Reach out to your vendor partners to provide training product and/or a certified professional designer to teach these sessions.

I have done countless training classes for stores and not only is it rewarding to see the inspired looks on all of those floral-loving faces, but the buyers report a big spike in departmental sales in the weeks following these sessions. The designers leave recharged and ready to make some changes in their departments and they are excited to experiment with and create the floral designs they were taught.

If you want a happy, profitable and well-run floral department, you have to keep the fire of creativity lit. And if we want to create confident and loyal floral customers who shop in our stores regularly, then we must invest in education for both our designers and our customers. Education is not optional; it is a vital component of our industry’s success. As Irish poet William Butler Yeats so wisely stated, “Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.”

Robert DeBellis is the lead designer at World Class Flowers in Egg Harbor City, NJ. He can be contacted at [email protected].