$15 table centerpiece

[pfmflowermarket]

Have an organization inquiring about table centerpieces, claiming they are on a tight budget of $15 each. Of course they are looking for over the top ideas and the event is only a few weeks away, but has been mentioned in the media for several weeks now. They would be needing 30+ centerpieces. Red & White themed. She said how much she loves our shop and really is looking forward to working with us. She wants me to donate my time and go help them set up the room with branches in the doorways as well.

The lady we spoke with said she loves branches and textures and wants some height to the arrangements because the venue is a taller ceilinged ballroom. Again she said that $15 is their max budget. I think when she first walked in she was talking only $10 a table. She says how much of a great marketing opportunity it would be (meaning she wants us to just donate the flowers and write them off as advertising).

We've come up with a couple of simple ideas that we are going to mention to her, but was looking for some other ideas just incase these bomb. It'd be nice if we could get this organization to give us monthly orders, but don't want to just give our flowers and services away. So here's to hoping.

I'm assuming that she would be wanting us to just throw in delivery and setup for these centerpieces as well included in the $15 a centerpiece. The representative stated that she likes flowers such as oriental lilies, stock, hydrangea. She mentioned that they would be willing to rent any containers needed. She also mentioned in our brief 10min meeting that she would be looking for 12" mirrors and possibly some votive candles to fill in the table as each table will be 60" and seat 10 people. I'm wondering if the venue has the mirrors for her to use.

She stated that possibly a red flowering plant would be an option. She was attracted to silver things as well (we had a tall silver galvanized pail that she was interested in). She was just all over the place and spitting out ideas left and right. She hadn't even been to the venue yet to see the space.

I greatly appreciate any ideas, feedback, notes from experience that you can give me. Thank you FC'ers!

 

[bootcampguy]

I do about 5 - 6 events a year like this. I give them a big bang and in return they give us a gold or top level billing in all the programs, plus on stage mention and any type of literature that I want to placed on the table or put into their bags. I take their budget (which covers all my costs) and $15 would, then use it for marketing your store. I only do it if it's exclusive me, I'm not into group events. It will being you some business down the road. Just make sure your "raw" costs are stopped at $15 per. table.......

 

[BobbiR]

Must tell you that every time I do this (short of for an existing customer) I get NOTHING other than a mention and perhaps another "charity" looking for the same deal
Maybe I have been doing this too long--but I have found that if you do it for nothing--it is worth nothing to the recipient
Just my opinion

 

[ChristiBrown]

Always a touchy thing with people who want it for free, if I took every "opportunity" to advertise like this I would be broke. That being said I do do a few events like this, my favorite is to do 5' curly willow in tall pilsners with 3 suspended candles. You could do some red gel or marbles in the vases. Then everything is reusable except the candles (I use lots of curly willow in arrangements, I've got the pilsners already). If you really want to get fancy glue a few white dendrobian orchid florets onto the willow (use corsage glue, it peels right off). I require at least two tickets to the event, a flowers provided by Roses are Red in the program, at least one mention of the flowers provided by us in the sponsors thank you announcements, if they have a slide show a mention there as well. If they have grab bags I do $10 gift certificates to the store (with a 3-6 mo expiration date, can't combine with any other offer) for each one. I tell them that if it is for chairity I will do minimalistic design like this at cost for the exchange of the advertising so the willow works well for me 'cause then it is mostly just labor.

 

[retro]

I personally feel the customer has unreasonable expectations at that price and those specific flowers. If she provides the vases, I could only put 1 white lily stem, 2 white stock stems, and 3 red mini carn stems for that price. You could add branches sprayed red or ting ting. She will expect this all the time. What about balloons instead?

 

[anytimeflowers]

Is there any theme to the event other than branches and red? What is the event celebrating or what kind of organization? They must have their hand-outs printed already which leaves you with less exposure.

Like Rick, I only do a few of these, and always get mentioned as a gold sponsor, one of them gives me up to 6 tickets as well and that gives me the opportunity to schmooze.

Who are they willing to rent the containers from? Unless you already have them, DO NOT go out and buy them. If they're willing to rent from a party supply, make sure that's above the $15 per table. I most definitely WOULD NOT do a red flowering plant ~ nobody will be impressed with it and if you put that much time into it for $750, you want the "WOW" in it.

The branches are the thing to go with first. Do they already have the branches that are going in the doorway? You want to use the same ones in the designs to bring the look through. My very first thought was to use a silver bucket or other silver container, center the branches for height and then do 6 fully open royal majesty roses at the base with maybe red hypericum in between.

 

[pfmflowermarket]

The organization is our 1 local hospital. The event is GO RED FOR WOMEN. The event is taking place Feb 3rd...only 11 days from Valentine's Day. She just stopped in yesterday afternoon and dropped this all on us in 10min and said "see what you can come up with, I'll want to see examples to see if it's the right proportion and keep in mind the price should reflect the wonderful marketing opportunity here but we're on a strict budget of no more than $15 per table" We are a small shop and have a very small walk in cooler so storage could be interesting. No particular flower shown on their website, just red and white colors.

Even though she didn't come out and say it, she had this "I don't like carnations" about her. Hence the picking out flowers like lilies, stock, hydrangea, gerbera daisy, etc.

Thank you all for the wonderful ideas. I'm really liking the curly willow w/orchids attached. I really don't want to purchase vases either, but we don't have 30+ of anything, so was thinking we might have to mix n' match possibly some smaller arrangements and then some bigger looking arrangements for the other tables. The girls and I here at the shop have been thinking up ideas in between our daily tasks and just spitting them out to brainstorm. We critique each idea and decide if it's worth researching further. We today thought of some sort of small balloon bouquet with a weight at the bottom. It would give her height for the ballroom and be the right colors, but not speak of our floral talent. If I purchase some small party helium tanks through Sam's club or Walmart we could fill the balloons up on site right? We've never worked with this venue before either, so might approach them to see what they have for vases or policies.

I'm wondering if she has approached any other florist in town and got shot down or wasn't happy (there are 3 more florists locally within 1-2miles of here and a couple that are ~15miles away). Just the way she walked through the door with the attitude that we are the coolest thing since sliced bread tipped me off right there that she was looking for something for nothing. I want to give her options, but not for her to take them to another florist or try to DIY. I don't want to spend too much time on it either or get my hopes up.

My last resort would be to do something for cost. Just as all of you, we are here to make a profit. I have a feeling that BobbiR is right that this company or companies they work with would want the same thing for their function for no money as well.

I should just call her tomorrow and say we have a few options if she wants to stop back in to discuss them now that she should have seen the venue and have gotten a better idea of what they want to do with the space.

 

[Clarabella]

There is a lot of info to digest in this thread, but here are a couple thoughts I have.

First, I agree with bootcampguy 100%. You have to view this as a marketing opportunity and recoup only your raw materials. If you try to make a profit you will only frusterate yourself. The KEY to doing this is making sure you have recognition for your work. I would require that every centerpiece have a sign at the bottom to the effect "Centerpieces sponsored and provided by Plattsburgh Flower Market" (in addition to the other recognition noted). You will be providing them a $60+ centerpiece for $15 plus the cost of delivery and setup. Your labor and expertise is a donation, and needs to be recognized as such. Also realize that you WILL get something in return, but you will likely never be able to quantify it. When customers see your work at the event, your name will stick. The name recognition will bring you new customers. The unfortunate part is most customers do not tell you why they came in your store and ordered from you....they just do it.

As for the containers, I agree with Linda and would not buy them. I would simply tell them what you can do for them, which is mix and match. I would also offer the option of them providing matching containers if they so wish. At that point, the decision is completely on them, and they can't say you didn't deliver. They made the decision. I live by the rule "never tell a customer you can't do something. Only tell them what you can do and give them the choice"

As for flowers, have you ever ordered thru Flowerbuyer auction? You can get some great prices on large quantities of items. I would check out the orchids, lillies etc. I know you probably would not normally be able to use 80 stems of lillies or orchids, or 200 of one particular rose, but for this event you would use a large quantity and will pay half (or less) or what you pay from your wholesaler. If you plan it out, you could probably make some pretty large pieces for $15 in raw materials. Just quickly looking at that time frame, you could (shipping included) get lillies for just over $1/stem, Black magic long stems for about .85/ stem, hypericum for .40/stem etc. Long story short you could get alot in there for $15 bucks. You would have some leftover stems, but should be able to use them up in your shop pretty easily. I would at least look into it and see what you can do.

Good luck, and have fun with it. The great thing about these events is that the people in attendance are generally the people you WANT to market to. They usually have alot of disposable income, and have an appreciation for the finer things in life. I would definately attend the event and network if possible.

 

[Allie444]

I am wondering why they didn't ask the florist who has their house account? I don't deal with picky customers who aren't willing to pay full price. Ever.
I would be careful of doing to much for no profit. When I was first in business I did free or at cost events for everyone in town and like BoobiR all I got in return was requests for more freebees.

 

[Kristine]

try flowerbuyer. you can get white hydrangea for very reasonable prices- they give bang for the buck.
tall vase, tall curly willow, couple hydrangea - big show. or the dendro idea.

do half the tables with tall vases, the other half with shorter vases with the same treatment. breaks up the site line, less on site assemble - you could do the short vases at the store, then assemble the tall at the venue.

also

are you friendly with the other florists in town? Could you borrow some containers from them?
and you could *fish* about the program or just come out and ask them if they have an history with this lady/event

Inquiring minds and all.

I always hate this type of request. Who else is donating to the event? It's always the florists......

 

[artistry in bloom]

I agree with Allie and BobbiR. If you are expecting to gain business from this I wouldn't count on it. If you want to do it for charity that is another thing. When I first started I was constantly approached to donate my time and flowers for one event after the other.They always said the advertising potential was great but it seemed the only people that noticed were more people looking for something for nothing. I now limit my "donations" to two a year knowing not to expect anything in return.For everyone else I suggest their organization can register and for every dollar their members spend on purchases with me I will set aside 5% to be used for their next event that they want a donation for. Surprisingly although some thought it was a great idea nobody has taken me up on that offer.Also the amount of requests for donations has dropped off considerably.

Dianne

 

[CHR]

Agree with Allie & Dianne.... don't expect much in the way of direct business from these types of events UNLESS one of the chairmen or a few board members are customers.

Coming to your shop only a few weeks before the event sort of says they couldn't get what they wanted for $15 elsewhere. DO add up the cost of sourcing product, designing, delivery, set-up up and tear-down and my guess is your $15 might only cover those expenses - and not even cover vases or product.

Their budget is ridiculous. You can bet the facility, caterer, entertainment, etc... are getting respectable payments. This budget allows for LESS THAN $2 PER GUEST for decor.

 

[pfmflowermarket]

Well the lady stopped back in on Thursday after I called her office to let her know that we had some ideas that we wanted to share and would have some more on Saturday. She came in with a 10" clear cylinder vase stating that the venue had about 24 of them but would need an additional 11 and would we be able to get the 11. This is not a type of vase that we traditionally use, so I was hesitant. We have had 7 or 8 donated to us over the last year so as always I'm this close, but will have to buy a box to make up the difference. Well she came in with the vase and stated that she knew she was early but wanted to fill us in on the vases and that the venue has the mirrors and the candles. She stated that the tables were 72" inches in diameter and not the previously discussed 60" so she would definitely need something tall. She didn't bring up again the decorating the doorways with willow so don't know if the venue said no or she just forgot to bring it up again. We showed her one of our avante garde ideas in the same cylinder and she "loved it, but could you take the rose and carnation and the hypericum out, but add in some curly willow." She still has curly willow in her mind. That only leaves a stock and myrtle in the arrangement we were showing her. Well we got on the phone with our wholesaler and came up with the idea of Red Anturium in a vase with curly willow, a few lily grass, and some red tin,g and a little oregonia for support and variegation. The only possible problem is that the ting dyes the water a light red almost pinkish color, but still works (almost looks like we had purposely dyed the water). The delivery guy didn't see the tag on the anthurium box that said TROPICAL and placed it in our walk in cooler so they got shocked by the cold so we grabbed the 2 of the better looking blossoms. It's got height (3-4' curly willow), color (red ting and red anthurium) and it makes a little profit for us. We would let her use the vases and have to return them to us. The only place we would be not making is on delivery and labor as these would have to be set up on site, because she hasn't brought any of that up and am assuming she doesn't want to pay it. I think I should get some sort of deposit or guarantee that she is going to have us provide the flowers before I go and purchase these vases right? She is due to stop back in today to see the Anthurium vase today. I hope she says she loves it because I don't want to invest any more time or money in product samples for her to just take the ideas elsewhere. I've done everything at about a 2X markup and am letting her use the vases for the event.

 

[Allie444]

Sounds like a great arrangement for the price. Lot's of bang for your buck. We make things like this all the time and we always make them in the store. Just so much less headache than trying to find workspace at a venue near a water source...... So what we do is make them and then just take wire and gather up the curly willow and I would even confine the anthuriums at the base of the stem. Then we just remove the wires on site and do a little fluff. This job would be delivered by one of our installers only with no designer even on site if it was a busy day.

 

[Flowermomma]

I have had good luck with sealing the ting so it doesn't leak dye. but it means dipping it in varnish and letting it dry... just as high up as the water will go.

wonder if the florist tape for corsages would seal it enough to keep it from leaking dye?

 

[shannonlovesflowers]

Sorry to hijack- But I think it still is a relavent question to the thread....

HOW do you tell/word it when you tell somebody basicly- "I only will do this event if you buy all your flowers from me?" Or something to that effect without sounding like a jerk? I play it out in my mind and I come off like a jerk and that's the last thing I want to do- but I know darn good and well this will come up. We already have somebody asking for donations and the dam* doors aren't even open yet!!
But I do also have people wanting other stuff too and the doors aren't open yet- so that's good.

Anyway- any advice on how to say that would help me. I'm working very hard on my communication skills. It's been my experience that people don't buy flowers from jerks.

 

[Kristine]

Sorry to hijack- But I think it still is a relavent question to the thread....

HOW do you tell/word it when you tell somebody basicly- "I only will do this event if you buy all your flowers from me?" Or something to that effect without sounding like a jerk? I play it out in my mind and I come off like a jerk and that's the last thing I want to do- but I know darn good and well this will come up. We already have somebody asking for donations and the dam* doors aren't even open yet!!
But I do also have people wanting other stuff too and the doors aren't open yet- so that's good.

Anyway- any advice on how to say that would help me. I'm working very hard on my communication skills. It's been my experience that people don't buy flowers from jerks.

wow that's bold! you haven't even made $1 and they want a donation?? What do you know about the people requesting - did they do biz with FBML, were they a good customer so you have a track record on what kind of $$ they will spend (hopefully) in the future. IF they've never bought before, how can you be so sure they will be a customer later?

I'm with Cathy and everyone else on this thread cause been there done that and paid the bill of experience.

Me.... I would donate perhaps my labor and have them pay (retail) for the product - or product with a lesser markup than full retail.

Unless they are MIMI and Stu's besties, then my answer changes

 

[Flowermomma]

someone here posted their "request for donation letter and form" it was great.. I made up a sim thing using their template.

my letter reads

We are proud to serve and support the community in which we do buisness. All Flowers and Charm Flower Shop has an enthusiastic but limted budged for chatitable contributions. Please fill out this form so we can prioritize and expedite our donations.

Donation Guidelines:

We donate to non-profit New Hamburg and area based organizations.
We donate our products-flowers and plants or a gift certicate

We can consider only donation request that are submitted on this form.

Donation request are filled on a first-come first-served bases. Because of the vlume of request and our limted budget, we recommend you apply at leat 2 months in advance to be considered.

Preferenece is given to:

Organizations which have purchased with us in the past year.

Organizations which support causes that are near and dear to us.



then there is form to fill out...one of the questions on it is "if the organization is not a customer, what promted you to request a donation from this compay.


I handed out 2 of these in nov and one was offended and didn't return it. the other i donated to... I wasn't ask for any donations in dec.


Hubby and I sat down in the first week of Jan and laid out the ones we know will be asking and allowed for one new one... that will be all that we will donate to.
With 5 schools and the groups we support that is all we will be done.

I have a really hard time saying NO but it is getting easier.

 

[Kristine]

someone here posted their "request for donation letter and form" it was great.. I made up a sim thing using their template.

Organizations which have purchased with us in the past year.

Organizations which support causes that are near and dear to us.
then there is form to fill out...one of the questions on it is "if the organization is not a customer, what promoted you to request a donation from this company.

Hubby and I sat down in the first week of Jan and laid out the ones we know will be asking and allowed for one new one... that will be all that we will donate to.
With 5 schools and the groups we support that is all we will be done.

I have a really hard time saying NO but it is getting easier.

I edited your post for length

we too have this form.

but

I also decided to pick 5 charities/events near and dear to my family and that is where we are focusing most of our donations this year. These are the events/donations we will promote. One is our Vases for a Cause - you bring in your clean glass vases and we will donate 50cents/vase to the public library. This one is a main focus this year.
And we have this posted in the store (nicely )

We will also reserve some gift certificates and product donations to 3 or 4 events we have donated to for many years

We also allocate floor space at the store and sell items [we do not sell in our store] for local organizations. IE: calendars for the local youth organization and school logo clothing for our local schools booster clubs etc.


That's it. We have gotten the craziest request this past year. Pig Roasts, golf outings and other events that aren't even remotely called a fund raisers or for charitable organizations, just big parties. I am so done with that all.

 

[pfmflowermarket]

Thanks guys for all your input. I too have on my list of things to accomplish in 2012- get a donation form on the website! so it will have to be approved at least a month or two in advance, not this same week stuff and we want to know what we are going to get out of it. The person who posted it is very wise. Thank you!

Shannon - no you weren't hijjacking. We're all here to discuss and help each other out. I love all your posts! Such a motivated individual, very creative. I have a hard time trying to phrase things as well and not sound like a jerk. Either that or you become a "yes, ma'am or yes, sir" type of person and they walk all over you. I almost took a public speaking course in college and regret it now. Maybe it would have helped.

Back to my Go Red For Women event. So I set up the 2 anthurium in a 10" cylinder vase that we placed a #40 red ribbon strip around about 1/3-1/2 way up the vase just to make a band of red. We found some glittery red hearts from dollar tree and walmart in the craft department that we have added 2 to the front of each vase. I had 1 3-4' tall fresh curly willow coming out of the vase, 6 tall red glittery ting, 2 lily grass for some movement, and 1/2 stem of oregonia broken into 2 pieces. We were going to let her use the vases for the event and then want them back because of cost.

Well we were excited/nervous to show it to her today. I didn't think she was going to show up. She walks in the door with a bag of decor about an hour before we are to close. She dropped off a couple of the vases she had so we won't have to buy as much. I show her the vase with the anthurium and you can tell she doesn't 100% love it. The anthurium are more of a burgandy than a red color and the water was red from the ting. Well she starts grabbing flowers out of my vase and playing with them to come up with a different look. No asking, just grabbing and brainstorming how about this. She starts asking "well how much is this...how much is this". She finally(I think) really likes 2 curly willow, 2 anthurium, and 1/2 stem oregonia(to bring in a little green and provide support for anthurium). Really simple and loose she calls it. In her bag of tricks she brought in to us was all this stuff from Michaels, possibly dollartree. All these heart-Valentine's Day looking things. She was wondering if we could use any of that, but all agreed it looked too cheesy Valentine's Day looking. She had heart garlands, ribbons, heart wall hangings she went crazy buying stuff to decorate this venue. She then brought up the willow above the doorways. She said there are 2 sets of double doorways she wants decorated with willow. She wants like a swag made out of like 1-1/2 buches bound together with a bow made out of red mesh ribbon in the center. She is going to possibly add some of these hearts hanging off from it and decor to it that she bought apparently at Michaels craft store. So she goes ok add on 5 bunches of curly willow for that. She said something about 2 floor vases she wants filled with willow as well. So thats 2 swags above doorways, a couple of bunches of the red mesh ribbon for bows and for extra that she said she will use elsewhere, and 2 bunches of willow for floor vases(she has already), and the 35 vases. I told her we can bind the willow together, but will not hang it for her. She says we'll touch bases next week, but sounds like everything is a go. I told her that these new centerpieces will be $18 each, not $15 because she is adding more curly willow to them. She said ok. I told her the price for a bunch of curly willow and she wasn't 100% ok with that price. She thought that the supplier should give her a better price because of the volume. I need now a total of like 12 bunches of curly willow. I told her that we will have to assemble these vases on site because of the height of the curly willow. She didn't like the sound of that too much. She said well you should be able to get into the venue after 12 and people will start coming in at 2, but will be getting screened for heart stuff in another room but shouldn't be entering the ballroom until 5. So I said so we have 2hrs. She said "yeah, ideally". So she was excited but you could tell the wheels were still turning in her head. She just doesn't want to hand things over to people, she wants to have a say in everything. She left and then came back 5 minutes later and asked to purchase the demo. She's going to put it together at home and show co-workers or something. She took a pic of it with her cell phone while she was here. I hope she doesn't come up with some way of making it herself or going elsewhere with our idea. So that's where we are. I'll keep you updated. Thanks everyone!