Should You Become a Florist?

If you’re an aspiring floral designer and you’re not sure whether you should actually take the leap of launching your own business, we recommend you do a little self-reflection before making an investment of your time and money. Getting started, here are 5 key questions any aspiring designer should consider before they start the official process:

1. What purposes are you selling flowers for? This is something many amateurs fail to consider, but something that will become very important in planning your daily workflow. A floral designer who freelances private parties and weddings has a very different routine than a floral designer who works in every day bouquet making or office decoration. You need to decide which niche you’re most comfortable with and market yourself as such.
2. Who are your customers going to be? Considering the business aspect of opening a company, you’ll need to have a general idea of the customer base you hope to reach. If you want to do every day design for example, will you reach out to family and friends? Or do you want to think bigger than that? The size you want your company to be is also something worth considering in juxtaposition with this.
3. How are you going to find your customers? Are you familiar with advertising? If you’re a NYIAD student, this is a process we’ll walk you through extensively before you graduate. If you aren’t, do you have a business background? Should you consider taking a marketing course somewhere?
4. How are your customers going to find you? If you’re not familiar with website creation and search engine optimization, it’s worth learning a little bit about before you try to launch a successful business. Again, if you study with NYIAD, these are all things we’ll help you put together before you get started. If not, it’s worth taking a course or two on marketing or SEO. If you try to launch a business with a sloppy, unprofessional website and poorly managed social media, you aren’t likely to build the brand reputation you want.
5. What is your competition like? It’s always worth checking out other florists in the neighborhood. This doesn’t always have to be solely for the sake of competitiveness, in fact it can often lend itself to collaboration. Say you’re a designer who specializes in weddings and events and you befriend another local designer who does day-to-day only. This relationship can easily benefit both of you as you share clients depending on their specific needs.

Want to learn more? The New York Institute of Art and Design offers an online floral design course that can teach you how to become a floral designer. Request your free course catalog today!