Flower Shop Staff Handbook

Author: Anne / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
Features:
1. Welcome Customers with a Blooming Heart
First, let's look at a story. A well-known flower shop was preparing to hire a flower sales girl at a high salary. After the recruitment ad was posted, girls came to apply one after another. Finally, after several rounds of tough interviews, the boss left three very beautiful girls and asked each to manage the flower shop for one week, with a decision to be made after three weeks. Among these three girls, one had experience working in a flower shop, responsible for flower arrangements and sales; another was a recent graduate from a floral design school, with solid professional knowledge; and the third was an unemployed young woman, who was not considered a good candidate. The girls heard that the boss wanted to decide whether to hire them based on their performance over the week, and they secretly rejoiced. After all, arranging and selling flowers was second nature to her, and she handled it effortlessly. So, whenever a customer walked in, she kept introducing the symbolic meanings of various flowers and the etiquette of giving flowers. Almost every time a customer came into the shop, she managed to sell them a bouquet or a basket of flowers. By the end of the week, her business performance was quite good. The girl who graduated from the floral design school fully utilized the knowledge she had learned from books, carefully considering everything from flower arrangement techniques to costs. She even thought of connecting some broken branches with toothpicks and placing them among fresh flowers to reduce costs. Her knowledge and cleverness brought her good profits from the flower business over the week. The unemployed young woman was indeed not very good at managing the flower shop: she always hesitated to throw away some wilted flowers and instead pruned them and gave them free to passing elementary school students. Among the flowers, her smile was like a blooming flower. Her mood was as beautiful as a flower. Every customer who bought flowers from her received a sweet blessing from her: "Sending flowers to others leaves fragrance for oneself." These words sounded like something she said to herself, to the flower shop, and to the person buying the flowers. Although she worked hard and cherished her one-week management opportunity, her performance was still far behind the other two girls. Everyone assumed that one of the first two girls would definitely be hired, but the result was unexpected—the boss actually hired the unemployed girl. People were puzzled. Why would the boss give up the girl who could make money for him and choose the unemployed one instead? The boss said, "Making money with flowers is limited, and floral design can be learned gradually. But a blooming heart cannot be learned—it reflects a person's temperament, character, and cultivation. This is what an excellent flower shop employee should possess. Flower shops sell flowers, but they also sell a blooming heart like flowers." P65-66