October 12, 1918 



H E T I C U L T TJ R E 



365 



member if we had gone by the recom- 

 mendation or judgment of other F. T. 

 I), members. If you would only know 

 what co-operation and concerted efforts 

 in our line of business by all retailers 

 in one town can do, you would never 

 talk of a "competitor" again; there 

 would not be such a thing, but only 

 friends in the same line of business. 

 In a great many towns, florists do not 

 even know each other, for if they did 

 they would find out soon enough that 

 none of them are as black as the other 

 one thought he was. 



Other F. T. D. members say "we 

 will not have anything to do with 

 Greek florists." Ladies and gentlemen. 

 we have in this country no English. 

 German or Greek florists; the time has 

 come where we only have American 

 florists and Canadian florists, and what 

 are they all out for if not for the sole 

 purpose of increasing the sale of flow 

 ers or to get the public to "Say it 

 with Flowers." A good deal of criti- 

 cism comes into our office on account 

 of slow remittances. No one but your- 

 self is to blame. The credit system 

 in the florist business was about the 

 poorest piece of guesswork that ever 

 existed and only through steady and 

 everlasting education can this ever be 

 remedied. The greatest help of late 

 has been the tightening of credits in 

 all business branches and the average 

 florist, today, is waking to the fact 

 that he was a great big fool. There 

 are still some to whom you send an 

 order and in about six months you 

 may get a bill and then perhaps find 

 they have made a delivery for you. 

 They will tell every traveling man that 

 so and so owes them a bill, but why 

 they do not send a bill immediately 

 after delivery is made, is absolutely 

 beyond my understanding. Some go 

 even so far as sending their customers 

 a bill only once a year because they 

 are afraid that they will lose a cus- 

 tomer if they send a bill promptly. 



Does this kind of florist ever figure 

 that if he had all the money that is 

 owed by his customers loaned out on 

 6 per cent, or on Liberty Bonds he 

 would have money enough to attend a 

 good F. T. D. meeting and have money 

 left and experienced gained? 



The Amount of Business Increase 



Gained Through Membership in 



the F. T. D. 



Th"e greatest surprise in regard to 

 this question has been revealed to me. 

 Out of our entire membership there are 

 not more than twenty-five who can 

 actually tell what amount of out-of- 

 town business they are doing annually. 

 It is small wonder to me now that 

 our organization is not more fully ap- 

 preciated. Those few whose answers 

 were in figures, I can safely state are 

 the florists whom you hear mentioned 

 as being successful in all different de- 

 partments of their business. Some day 

 our members will get down to actual 

 figures and we will be able to tell what 

 has been accomplished. In most cases 

 they have roughly guessed at it. I 

 will relate a few specific figures. Here 

 is one amount of business for the last 

 twelve months: 



913 orders received amounting to 

 $3,909.03, averaging each order $4.25. 

 773 orders sent out amounting to 

 $4,829.27, averaging each order $6.23. 



This means a total volume of new 



business of $8,738.30 for one year. Six 

 or seven years ago I doubt whether 

 this party had more than ?500 or $600 

 worth of this kind of business The 

 party in question pays $20 annaal dues 

 and naturally he is in a large city. 



Do not think that where there are 

 a good many F. T. D, members in one 

 town that any one gets the lion's 

 share, but if he does get it, it is for 

 the simple reason that he sends out a 

 great many orders on the reciprocity 

 act. Study how you can manage to 

 send out more orders than anyone else 

 in your town and your figures will 

 climb upwards from year to year. 

 There are some of our members' Ag- 

 ures that run away over the $10,000 

 mark and even in some of the smaller 

 towns they have big figures to show. 



One man said in one of the trade 

 papers, that the amount of F. T. D. 

 exchange orders was about two mil 

 lion dollars per year. I think that it 

 is even more than that, but anyhow 

 he started something. A lot of our 

 members wrote to the F. T. V>. office 

 and stated that they did not get their 

 share. I had l)ut one answer for all 

 and that was: — How much and how 

 many orders have you sent out? Re- 

 member in the F. T. D. you first must 

 learn to put your share of work in 

 l)efore you can expect to get results. 



Our Finances of the F. T. D. are in 

 fine shape when you remeraiier that 

 seven years ago our income annually 

 was $20.5. and we were then about 

 $385 to the bad for the year. Wo have 

 today in our guarantee fund nearly 

 $9,000 invested safely by our treasurer 

 in Liberty Bonds and other sectirities. 

 We have bought $1,000 In Liberty 

 Bonds from Kansas City, the home of 

 our treasurer, Mr. Rock. We have 

 purchased $500 in Washington, th? 

 home of our president, Mr. Gude, and 

 we will this year buy $500 worth of 

 the Fourth Liberty Loan in Detroit 

 the home of your secretary and $500 

 will be bought in Cleveland the home 

 of our hosts. 



To show you the progress our little 

 organization has made let me tell you 

 that in the month of Septemer the 

 secretary's office forwarded to the 

 treasurer the neat little sum of $3,- 

 879.50; pretty good for one month. This 

 is the largest sum ever sent to the 

 treasurer at one time. Our guarantee 

 fund is intact and amounts todav to 

 $9,000. 



You perhaps wish to know^ what 

 we are doing with all the money we 

 get hold of. We blow it all in as fast 

 as we get it with the exception of our 

 income, towards the guarantee fund. 

 All other incomes are spent for your 

 benefit to the best of our ability. We 

 have shown you results and liave it 

 from your own figures returned in the 

 questionnaires. If all your investments 

 will bring you as good results as your 

 little annual dues in the F. T. n. bring 

 you, you can safely congratulalo vour- 

 self. All officers of the F. T. D. have 

 done all their work for you.- benefit 

 and have done it voluntarily for the 

 past eight years. They had to stand 

 some abuse and criticism, but they 

 have fought your fight and feel that 

 at last they are getting a little ap- 

 preciation. 



The F. T. D. Clearing House. 



The F. T. D. clearing house has had 



a very busy season for tlio past twelve 

 months, but has not had any serious 

 trouble, because usuallv one letter 

 from The F. T. D. clearing house 

 brings results with both members or 

 non-members: 90 per cent, of bills 

 sent into the clearing house are paid. 

 In most cases it is negligence or. as it 

 happens a little financial trouble on 

 account of present conditions, but one 

 remarkable feature is we hardly ever 

 get a bill through the clearir.T house 

 or have to collect from our Canadian 

 members and I do hope they will en- 

 lighten all American retail florists on 

 this subject. 



Hundreds of bills have gone through 

 the clearing house and our records 

 are open only to our members as 

 every discretion must be used to fore- 

 stall legal trouble. Many retail flor- 

 ists and even some of our members 

 have been taught to follow the straight 

 and narrow path and the golden rule 

 of paying bills promptly, and today 

 many of them do not have their credit 

 questioned for one minute. It is a 

 great deal better policy to cure stich 

 evil than to kill and destrov a man's 

 business. Let us rather help a brother 

 member, providing he is of the kind 

 who deserves help, than to give him 

 another kick if he has been a little 

 more unfortunate than we have. In 

 nine out of ten cases we will be re- 

 warded and make a very good member 

 for our organization out of him. 



One of the questions that was left 

 out of the questionnaire was to be — 

 Do you believe that this clearing house 

 system can be made to be of greatest 

 value to our membership? I personal- 

 ly would say. yes: for the reason 

 that it is a step in the right direction 

 to make cleaner and better business 

 relations. It will also have the great- 

 est and best effect on all retailers who 

 are not F. T. D. members and will help 

 to win some of them to join and work 

 with us. 



The correspondence in our F. T. D. 

 files in regards to collections will 

 speak volumes. No one has the slight- 

 est idea what an immense pressure 

 we can put behind our organization, 

 and I can safely state that the time 

 will come when all good retailers must 

 be F. T. D. members, not alone for the 

 sake of sending and receiving orders, 

 but for the sake of establishing a 

 credit with all F. T. D. members, and 

 for our own protection. I can see the 

 time coming when we will only fill 

 orders for F. T. D. members. 



THOUGHTS AS YOU GO ALONG 

 DAILY. 



President Wilson is doing his best 

 to make the world safe for Democracy. 

 Let the F. T. D. make all retail florists 

 safe for our profession. 



At the Peace Conference table they 

 will adopt our slogan, "Say it with 

 Flowers," with the slight change of 

 "Say it with a Club trimmed with 

 Flowers." 



F. T. D. is like a religion. If you do 

 not work sincerely and believe in it 

 heartily you will get no more benefit 

 from it than some of you who belong 

 to a church but do not attend; work 

 and co-operate with your church. 



When I first thought of sending out 



