20 



The Florists^ Review 



October 27, 1921 



electric nigii, the bottom of whidi call 

 be seen in the picture, extends upward 

 along the corner of the building for 

 sixty feet. It is so placed that its mes- 

 sage van be plainly read on High street, 

 the principal business thoroughfare. 

 The building is painted a light buff 

 color, with the windows trimmed in 

 light green. Window boxes with ferns 

 adorn the windows of the three upjjcr 

 floors. 



The main room of the store is twenty- 

 four feet wide and seventy feet long, 

 and has been provided with all new fix- 

 tures. The display refrigerator is one 

 of the latest products of the McCray 

 Refrigerator Vo., which also furnished 

 the storage boxes and refrigerators in 

 the cellar. The front part of the cellar 

 is devoted to the workroom, where the 

 flowers are sorted, graded and made up 

 into designs, and orders are filled. The 

 ship])ing and stock rooms are in the rear 

 of the underground room. On the sec- 

 ond floor of the building are the seed 

 storage and seed packing rooms and the 

 offices of the company. 



One of the great advantages of this 

 new home of the Wilson Seed & Floral 

 Co. is its location on a corner formed 

 by the intersection of an alley with East 

 Town street. By virtue of this location, 

 there are two side entrances to the store, 



one leading to the packing room and 

 the other to the shipping room in the 

 cellar. A rear entrance is also con- 

 venient in that it makes possible the 

 moving of stock either in or out of the 

 establishment without taking it 

 tlirough the main part of the store. 



Another feature of the store is its 

 seed and bulb department, which is in 

 charge of Frank J. Steffan, who was 

 formerly with the Livingston Seed Co. 

 for ten years as the manager of its Co- 

 lumbus store. This department also em- 

 braces a large line of art jiottery vases, 

 flower and bulb bowls, and novel flower 

 containers. In the spring a comprehen- 

 sive lint" of shrubs, rose bushes and 

 other plants is carried in stock. The 

 store is the exclusive agency for the A. 

 I. Root Co., with a full stock of bee- 

 keepers' supplies, which, it has been 

 found, is a highly profitable side line. 



Nine persons are employed in the 

 store of the Wilson Seed & Floral Co. A 

 Buick and a Ford delivery truck are 

 kept busy constantly. The company has 

 found that its move to a side street has 

 greatly increased its trade and its 

 profits through the use of the enlarged 

 facilities, sui)plemented by judicious ad- 

 vertising, the appropriation for which 

 can be augmented from the amount for- 

 merly paid in high rent. 



PROFITS IN HOME PLANTING. 



Retail Florist's Opportunity. 



The possibility of increasing profits 

 by adding a landscape gardening de- 

 partment to an already established re- 

 tail flower business is one not realize(J 

 to the extent it should be. These two 

 l)ranches can be made to dovetail per- 

 fectly, and when one of them is languid, 

 the other can be pushed. Thus the 

 yearly return is kept at a higher level 

 and more steady activity is maintained 

 throughout the year. One branch 

 aids the other in developing business. 

 An established retail trade makes it 

 easy to start the landscape department, 

 for' it is possible to offer suggestions 

 which will create a desire in customers' 

 minds for landscape and home decorat- 

 ing work. 



A method of accomplishing this com- 

 bining of departments, of creating a co- 

 operating business from which jirofit- 

 able results are being obtained, may be 

 observed in operation at the establish- 

 ment of the George Wittbold Co., 745 

 Buckingham place, Chicago. 



The Wittbold Co. was started with a 

 single house by George Wittbold in 

 18.j7 and is being perpetuated by the 

 younger blood. The business has grown 

 to such an extent that it now comprises 

 four general divisions: namely, the 

 wholesale, the retail, the renting and 

 the landscape departments. The retail 

 establishment, situated in the heart of 

 Chicago's choice north side residential 

 district, where the value of the homes 

 runs from $1.1,000 to $150,000 and even 

 more, and where the residents are able 

 and willing to make considerable ex- 

 penditure in beautifying their grounds, 

 affords an example of what can be done 



in the way of coordinating the retail 

 cut flower department with a landscape 

 gardening department to increase 

 jirofits. 



Getting Customers. 



There are two imniedi;ite classes of 

 people, with further divisions, to whom 

 the florist with such a coordinated busi- 

 ness can make his ajipeal. There are 

 the people wlio are habitual flower buy- 

 ers, who can l)e induced, by calling 

 their attention to ]andsca]>e gardening 

 service, to extend their purchases if it 

 can be proved to tlfem that they will be 

 making a real investment by doing so. 

 There are also the occasional buyer and 

 the man who never buys, who must be 

 attracted by skillful and appropriate ad- 

 vertising into becoming regular custom- 

 ers. The autumn is an excellent time to 

 .accomplish this i)urpose, and, by playing 

 on the possible artistic tendencies of 

 the prospective purchasers, to create a 

 desire in their minds for greater beauty 

 and increased attractiveness about their 

 homes; to show them what a difference 

 a few trees, shrubs and plants will make 

 in the appearance rif their grounds. Ad- 

 vertisements to this end have been 

 lately run in Chicago dailies by the 

 .above-named firm. These advertise- 

 ments make special mention of the ease 

 and convenience of ordering bv tele- 

 phone. A call will bring a salesman. 



When a jirospective customer is 

 found, the name and address are given 

 to a salesm.-in, who calls on him and de- 

 termines what he has in mind. After 

 the salesman returns from the first call, 

 he is required to make out a report, the 

 form of which is made especially for 

 the jiurpose, stating the lengtli of time 

 spent with the prospect, tlie progress 

 made, whetlier the prospect was inter- 



ested in immediate or future work and 

 any other remarks that he may think 

 of vaJue to the firm. If the salesman is 

 successful in interesting the prospect, 

 he immediately makes an appointment 

 for a second call and on this trip takes 

 with him a sketch of the prospect's 

 grounds drawn up in accord with the 

 customer's taste and colored so as to 

 give the customer a better idea of how 

 the plot will look when the work is 

 completed. This sketch is a great_ aid 

 to the salesman, because with it he is 

 able to impress the patron and to ex- 

 plain more clearly the details of the 

 plan agreed u] on. If he is not success- 

 ful he will state in his report the atti- 

 tude of the prospect, what the difficulty 

 was and what the future possibilities 

 are. This report is placed on file for 

 reference. 



Carrying Out the Contract. 



When the deal is closed, a contract is 

 drawn up, and signed by the customer. 

 Tliere are four copies of the contract 

 made; one goes to the customer, one to 

 the foreman on the job, one to the 

 superintendent, who may be supervising 

 fifteen or twenty jobs at one time, in 

 order that he may be correctly informed 

 at all times concerning each job, and the 

 last one is used to fill the order at the 

 nursery and by the bookkeeper to make 

 his entries. This scheme ehnhnates the 

 possibility of error in filling the order 

 and in delivering it, as the driver's re- 

 port is also made from this fourth copy. 

 The contract is specific in its terms. It 

 gives the address at which the work is 

 to be done, an itemized statement of the 

 nursery stock and material, such as sod, 

 soil and fertilizer, the rate to be 

 charged for the foreman per hour, for 

 labor per hour, the approximate date 

 that work will commence, the amount of 

 debris that is to be carted away when 

 the work is completed, together with 

 a statement that no verbal agreements 

 will be taken into consideration regard- 

 ing any part of the contract. The con- 

 tract also states that the time consumed 

 going to and coming from the job will 

 l)e charged for. 



Customers are kept satisfied by the 

 firm's guaranteeing all work. To guar- 

 iintee all work means, experience shows, 

 a replacement of twenty-five per cent 

 of the plants. The original price, how- 

 ever, is made twenty-five per cent 

 higher, to offset the cost of the stock 

 necessary to make such replacements. 

 Salesmen are given to understand that 

 no misrepresentation will be tolerated. 

 No attempt to dispose of more stock 

 than is actually required for the job is 

 jicrmitted, the constant aim being to 

 beautify and to maintain the highest 

 quality of work rather than to sell 

 stock. 



Accurate Accounting. 



Time and money are saved by a de- 

 tailed accounting system. It is so 

 adapted to the business that an accu- 

 rate determination can be made at a 

 glance of what a job will cost, what 

 Jirofits will accrue, and, if necessary, 

 what reductions can be made. On the 

 co[iy of the contract given to the book- 

 keeper appears an itemized statement 

 of the plants and other material used 

 in the work, together with the price of 

 each single article and the rate per hour 

 of the labor employed. In this way the 

 foreman is held to a strict compliance 

 with the terms of tlie contract and can- 

 not slip in a few extra plants here and 



