Seminar Helps Florists Weed Through Thorny Business Issues

There's more to running a floral shop than just knowing your cornflowers from your coneflowers. In addition to the creative work of floral design, there are a myriad of business concerns to consider, ranging from marketing and bookkeeping to insurance and personnel issues. A floral business development seminar at CCBC Dundalk in January was just the place for shop owners - or those who aspire to be - to cultivate ideas and reap advice on how to put more "green" in their pockets.

Sponsored by the Retail Floristry program at CCBC Dundalk, the two-day seminar featured presentations on how to form a business plan, how to best utilize the services of a wholesale florist, issues to consider when deciding on insurance coverage, resources for help in starting a business, shop management and the value of membership in professional associations.

Paul Goodman of Floral Finance Business Services in Tulsa, Okla. was the keynote speaker for the event and discussed "the business side of the business." Goodman spoke in detail about topics such as profitability, controlling costs, increasing productivity, staffing and payroll, and organizational structure.

With 28 years experience in the floral industry, Goodman is the author of The Profit Minded Florist, a widely recognized financial manual for the retail florist. He also wrote the original version of Rosebud (now Eagle Technologies), the number-one-selling floral software in the industry, now owned and distributed by Teleflora. Goodman publishes Floral Finance, the industry's only publication dedicated to the financial side of running a flower shop.