Tricks of flower sellers. Love Secrets: How Victorians Sent Encrypted Messages Using Flower Bouquets A Story from a Flower Seller

Flowers are a traditional gift for special occasions. They not only create the mood, but help prolong the feeling of celebration, because it is so nice to see bouquets of flowers in arranged vases and remember for what occasion they were given.

Even a single rose from a loved one can brighten up a gray everyday day, reminding you of feelings with a bright scarlet spot. However, when buying bouquets for March 8, you should remember some tricks of flower shop sellers, which help them sell withered flowers along with regular ones.

Little tricks

Some flower shops carry out so-called “zero-waste production”; when making bouquets, not only fresh flowers are used, but also various waste - petals, broken stems, wilted buds. Sellers have learned to “revive” even the deadest flowers, and the quality of those that cannot be revived can be hidden with the help of paint, glitter and other decorative elements.

Special craftsmen can even reassemble the rose from the petals by wrapping the base with tape and attaching the stem with wire. If you decorate such a rose with a decorative net and tie it with a beautiful ribbon, then no one will notice the catch, and flowers with decoration are noticeably more expensive.

A bouquet of roses may contain flowers with broken stems, fastened with a match or wire; when the roses themselves wither, they are wrapped in newspaper and placed in a container of water, so the flower takes on a fresh look and can be sold to an unlucky buyer. If the flower is completely wilted, another trick is to color it with a phytocolor, as well as sprinkle the darkened edges with glitter.

What to do?

In any case, when choosing flowers, pay attention to the condition of the flower, its stem should be elastic and green, the edges of the petals should be fresh. Try not to buy ready-made bouquets; ask the seller to collect and arrange the bouquet in front of you.

If, in response to your request to choose flowers from a vase yourself, the seller does not answer you very politely, this is a signal to leave this store or flower tent and look for a bouquet elsewhere.

Visit stores whose products you are sure are of the quality; do not buy flowers with unnaturally bright or unusual colors, they may be artificial. And most importantly, always listen to yourself. If your inner instinct tells you that the flowers are overly decorated or the seller’s kindness seems unnecessary to you, immediately go to another store, otherwise the flowers you bought will last for a few hours at most, and then they will quickly begin to fade, and the holiday will be ruined.

The Victorian era is usually associated with a Puritan time when the behavior of ladies and gentlemen was strictly regulated. Open expression of one's feelings and sympathies was regarded as a sign of bad taste and caused a storm of indignation and condemnation from society. But the Victorians found a way to express their feelings and intentions. They did this through flowers. Then just one correct bouquet could convey the volcano of passions boiling in the soul of a lover in love.

During the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901), flowers were used to decorate everything, from clothing to horse-drawn carriages. At the same time, the language of flowers (floriography) also gained popularity. Knowing the meaning of a flower was regarded as a sign of good upbringing. Even the aroma of a particular plant emanating from the envelope could tell about a person’s intentions.

In almost every home one could find a manual on floriography. Typically, these books were colorfully illustrated and clearly explained the meaning of plants. Many people have used Charlotte de la Tour's dictionary, The Language of Flowers, written at the beginning of the 19th century, but the most popular is Miss Coroutes's book, Floral Traditions: The History, Poetry and Symbolism of Flowers. The most important thing for those communicating was to use the same manual in order to correctly understand each other.

A favorite pastime of the Victorians was deciphering messages encrypted in Tussie-Mussie. This was a funny name for small bouquets in lace napkins, tied with a satin ribbon. Sometimes solving messages turned into a fun time for the ladies in the salons.

To express his adoration, the man would send a bouquet of dwarf sunflowers. Bells meant kindness, peonies - shyness, rosemary - memories, tulips - passion.

Some plants carried a negative meaning, for example, aloe meant bitterness, pomegranate meant vanity, and rhododendrons meant danger. If a man did something wrong and wanted to apologize, he had to send a sprig of lilac or blackberry as a sign of repentance.

Myrtle symbolized luck and love in marriage. In 1858, Princess Victoria, daughter of Queen Victoria, included a sprig of myrtle in her wedding bouquet, taken from a bush owned by her mother-in-law. This is how the tradition of using this plant for weddings arose. In 2011, Kate Middleton also had myrtle in her wedding bouquet.

The colors of the plants also had their meaning. For example, red roses meant passionate love, pink roses expressed more tender feelings. White roses meant sincerity of thoughts, and yellow flowers could be presented as a sign of friendship.

In that era, the demand for flowers was so great that there were flower stalls on literally every corner. Among the poor, selling flowers was considered a good way to earn money.

In 1851, explorer Henry Mayhew described the flower business of the time in his book London Labor and the London Poor: “Sunday is the best day to sell flowers. According to the calculations of one experienced person, on Sundays on the streets of London four hundred children sold flowers. Girls' ages range from 6 to 20 years, and boys are no more than 10 years old. As a rule, they run after clients, urging them to buy flowers.”

A customer appears at the door of a flower shop with an unusual request: he asks to package and tie with a bow... chicken legs. “I want to make my friends laugh - I just work in a butcher shop. The richer I am, the happier I am!” - states the visitor.

Florist Victoria cannot be surprised by anything.

“As you say, we’ll do everything! You know, one time a guy asked us to tie a bow on a kitten. It was very touching!”

Chicken under a bow. Photo: AiF / Alina Menkova

But most often people buy flowers from Victoria. The small store is cool all year round - no warmer than 15 degrees - this climate is ideal for storing them. The florist has to adapt: ​​dress warmly, constantly drink hot tea. Victoria Pyanykh was a housewife all her life, then she decided to become an artist, and now she has found her calling in floristry. She spends her days arranging and selling bouquets, most often to men who need a nice apology.

Morning of the florist

“Perhaps there will be a free hour today, towards the evening, when there will be fewer customers, and I will draw a local cat - a guest of the store, she often comes to see us. I even brought paints with me,” says Victoria, opening the doors of the store.

Victoria rushes to her flower shop at 9 am. Photo: AiF / Alina Menkova

Victoria puts her keys on the table and begins her work day by caring for the flowers. He opens the chamber with roses, trims their stems - holds the scissors slightly at an angle so that there is an oblique cut, then changes the water in the jars. He says that even the time of cutting flowers is very important for the florist. It is better to cut the stems in the evening, because plants accumulate reserves of nutrients during the day, which help them prolong their life.

Victoria is trimming chrysanthemums; the petals of one of them have faded a little. If a flower fades, then this is a reversible process. A withered flower can be fresh again after proper care.

“But every flower has its own “withering point”, when it can no longer be revived,” Victoria collects fallen leaves from the floor and throws them into the trash can. She recalls how she got into the flower business:

“At 36 years old, I suddenly felt the need to draw. But this is not surprising. My dad is an artist and my uncle. Then I entered an evening art school. I studied and drew, it was a hobby. My husband provided for me. But at 39, just when I graduated from high school, we unexpectedly separated. I don’t want to talk about it,” Victoria hangs up her coat and turns on the radio.

It was necessary to adapt to the new life. Victoria understood that she couldn’t feed herself with painting alone. Income from paintings may come only after much work, or it may not come at all. I decided to look for a creative job in order to combine my passion for drawing and earning money. I realized that I wanted to be a florist, that this was “hers.” Victoria completed the course, worked at a flower stall for a year, became acquainted with this cuisine, and then got ready and decided to open her own store.

Together with my sister

This is a family business. Victoria works together with her younger sister Elizabeth. Parents often help with delivering flowers to the store. It’s difficult to run a store on your own—it’s a fast-moving, energy-intensive business. Everyone had their place in this matter. Lisa monitors fashion trends in the flower industry, manages the accounting department, and delivers goods, while Victoria creates compositions, cares for flowers, and takes calls with orders. Parents replace flower girls when they no longer have any strength left. After all, there are no days off here. The most profitable days are romantic holidays: March 8, February 14. Birthdays, anniversaries and “apologies” from men to their beloved women are the most stable source of income.

Victoria shows the latest in the flower industry. Bouquets wrapped in stiff paper with images of old newspaper pages; huge armfuls of roses, tied with a scarlet ribbon, and boxes of different shapes with flowers inside. Such unusual bouquets can last for several days - the flowers are attached to a sponge.

Flowers hidden in a box. Photo: AiF / Alina Menkova

“Translations have recently arrived: we translate the inscription onto a rose petal, and it turns out to be a declaration of love. What’s interesting is that men often cannot admit their guilt and ask women for forgiveness out loud, so these “translations,” believe me, will come in handy. So are soft bears and cards with the words “sorry,” which are in great demand,” explains the florist.

The latest innovation is “translations” onto flower petals. Photo: AiF / Alina Menkova

Victoria reaches for the air conditioner remote control, then for the kettle. She says she started to freeze:

“The usual temperature here is 15 degrees. It’s nice for flowers, cold for people, so I dress warmly all year round and drink hot tea so as not to catch a cold.”

Victoria's paintings. Photo: AiF / Alina Menkova

“It’s not a good idea to draw a war!”

The flower shop is decorated with Victoria's paintings. They are often bought - houses are being built in the area, families are moving into new apartments, renovations are being done, and they are being purchased for interior decoration. There are still lifes, drawings of animals and, of course, flowers.

“I draw cats, crows, and ducks... it’s not like drawing a war!”

Victoria admits that she began to draw because she was experiencing strong emotions. He says that at 20 you can also draw, but at 40 you are better able to convey your feelings.

“Creative professions require life experience, you understand,” Victoria opens the chamber with roses, trims the stems, changes the water, then waters the flowers in pots - they are very demanding to care for.

The phone rings and Victoria takes the first order. On the call Victoria has the cheeky voice of Garik Sukachev, although unobtrusive melodic music of the 90s is playing in the store.

“People like it – it’s so retro. But I listen to jazz and blues and love rock,” Victoria turns the radio down a little and starts placing the order.

Victoria takes the first order by phone. Photo: AiF / Alina Menkova

“We ordered roses again. They are always in fashion with us. Especially red ones,” Victoria takes out 5 gorgeous burgundy roses from the refrigerator, picks up scissors and carefully cuts off the withered leaves.

“He’s probably saving on lunches.”

While Victoria is preparing the bouquet, she tells who chooses which flowers. She is sure that some customers can guess which flowers they will choose. Dressed women in heels with good perfume and with their husbands on their arm will definitely take large expensive bouquets - it is clear that they are going to anniversaries and weddings. Young mothers always take small bouquets for some holidays at school or in kindergarten.

“For some reason, young fathers also take bells, freesia—elegant, delicate bouquets,” says Victoria. “Maybe they associate flowers with children.” Young girls love something small, cute, “cute” in their slang. And it doesn’t matter what flower or what color it is. The only exception: yellow. In our country they don’t like it, apparently, it is associated with yellow tulips - the messengers of Natasha Koroleva’s separation. Although this is the color of gold, wealth. Older ladies prefer pompous roses or long-standing chrysanthemums. Often women buy their own flowers. And they are not shy about it.”

When Victoria sees that a man has doubts about choosing a flower, she asks how much he is counting on.

“Then it’s easier to choose a bouquet. We have one thrifty customer who always asks for three roses for the price of two. He is a fifth grader, buying three roses for his classmate, so touching! He’s probably saving on lunches.”

Victoria's favorite roses. Photo: AiF / Alina Menkova

Victoria doesn’t understand why men so rarely give her flowers.

“One buyer takes bouquets for his sister, wife, and mother for the holidays and always buys them for us too. It's nice. But you won’t believe it, as soon as the men I meet find out where I work, they no longer give me flowers. Why - because if I’m here, it means that, on the contrary, I love flowers! Here are my favorite roses,” Victoria shows me light orange Dutch roses with a scarlet edging. “I was so sorry when one guy bought my favorite flowers - he asked a girl for her hand in marriage.” So, he bought about a hundred roses, fresh, just cut, and asked them to sprinkle them thickly with glitter! He just killed them with it."

A flower for every day lived without a wife

A customer appears at the door. She looks at the bouquets for a long time and carefully and stops at a basket with a bouquet of lilies.

“They say that the lily is the flower of love and happiness,” the girl smiles and hands Victoria 600 rubles.

The buyer chooses a bouquet of lilies and alstroemerias. Photo: AiF / Alina Menkova

The skin on Victoria’s hands is a little dry and she doesn’t have a manicure.

“It’s difficult to work with gloves—you can’t feel the colors. And so you often hold your hands in cold water, work with tools, chemicals - all this is reflected in your hands.”

Half the working day is over. Victoria took a few more orders and put the kettle back on.

“Of course, it happens, and I bring food with me, sometimes I buy it at the supermarket - it’s nearby. Once every 12 hours of work you need to eat a full meal. If you eat only sandwiches, you won't get gastritis for long. Now I don’t feel like eating anything at all. They treated me to a cake today—will you?”

Victoria pours tea into cups, cuts a cake and remembers with a smile what men think about flowers.

Victoria sometimes treats herself to cake at work. Photo: AiF / Alina Menkova

“Different men come to us. Often guilty, as I already said. One day, a regular customer said confidently, while buying another bouquet: “Give a woman flowers - and everything will be done. That’s it!” Another even admitted that he would no longer give his girlfriend flowers, because she did not react to them at all.

And recently a sailor came to visit us; he had just returned from the autonomy and bought his wife 183 roses - for each day of his absence. Another man constantly bought hydrangeas for his wife. The first time he came to us, I said: “To choose a bouquet for her, we need to know what kind of wife you have - is she a modest woman or a vamp?” And he: “Now I’ll show you!” He took off his jacket and sweater and showed us his wife’s tattoo on his arm. So we found out what she looked like and chose pink delicate hydrangeas for her,” Victoria laughs and puts the cups in the sink.

Victoria begins to finish the bouquet. Bright yellow chrysanthemums were added to the scarlet roses. She puts on the finishing touches - tying a scarlet ribbon and spraying the greenery with varnish.

“This is for beauty, to give it a marketable appearance. See how the leaves immediately sparkled!” - explains the florist.

Victoria finished the bouquet. Photo: AiF / Alina Menkova

“In general, chrysanthemums are an autumn flower. Each flower has its own time of year, sales time. People buy roses in winter, and these flowers themselves love the cold. They last longer in winter. In spring they buy tulips, lilies of the valley, and snowdrops. When the flower beds begin to bloom, people suddenly stop buying tulips. In summer, they mainly take gladioli, bluebells, wildflowers, and large-headed chamomile.”

Victoria gets back to work.

“I won’t have time to draw today, and our cat is not visible today. I'll leave the paint on. Maybe he’ll come tomorrow!”

I have a friend who works in a mobile phone store. He often tells stories that happen at his work. some of them are so funny and expose all our human stupidity that you are simply amazed. I will publish stories as they are replenished, as well as as I remember.

Story 1: Back there.
It's a day off, there are a lot of people in the salon. The client who bought the payment card is confused. He apparently had never dealt with them before, so he decided to contact one of the sales consultants. But, as luck would have it, they are all busy: there are a lot of people. But our persistent client still turns to one of the sales girls, despite the fact that she is showing her cell phone to another client. “Tell me, how to activate the card?” - he scratches the back of his head. “It’s all written there at the back,” the busy girl says, trying to hide her irritation. "Ahh. Okay!" - the client rejoices and leaves the salon. It would seem that everything is fine - and the seller served two clients at once, and both clients are happy. But after about 15 minutes our unfortunate client appears with the ill-fated payment card in his hands, all in bewilderment and turns again to our girl - the seller: “You know, I looked and looked and looked, but there was no information about how to top up the account through the card.” saw". The sales girl sighs: “Where did you look? I told you: it’s all written there at the back.” The client is indignant: “At the back of your salon there is only a bare colored wall, there is nothing there! Why are you fooling me! My wife and I looked together, but we didn’t see anything!”
There was laughter for exactly 10 minutes, if not more. Of course, they explained to the client that “back there” is the reverse side of the payment card. The sales girl simply expressed herself incomprehensibly, but the poor client took everything literally. These are the types of people.

Story 2. Intimate conversation
Evening. There are no clients: one, two - and the number is gone. A conversation between the cashier and the salesperson about phones, and the word “phone” is not mentioned in the conversation. Cashier: “Which do you like better: big or small?” Seller: “They’re big for me - if you feel them in your hand, you really feel them, you’re more confident.” Cashier: “And for me - small ones: they are so neat, pretty, nice to look at and hold.” Busy in such a fascinating conversation, neither the cashier nor the salesman notice the man smiling shyly near the display window, which is located very close...

Story 3. Naive intern
Trainees are a particularly diligent category of store employees. But sometimes their selflessness borders on ridiculous naivety.
Mid-day, lunch break. Actually, a break is for other people, those who ran into a cell phone store to top up their account balance. The queue, as usual, is huge. And then a woman comes in with two huge bags. The intern, without wasting any time, flies up to her with the question: “How can I help you?” The woman is not at a loss and hands him two of her bags. “Please hold me, my dear. Now I’ll top up my phone account and take the bags back.” And our poor intern held on to these brick-filled bags until the visitor stood in a long line at the cash register and topped up her balance. He probably felt stupid. After all, his duties do not include such a service. Our intern must have been modest.

Story 4. Celebrity
In the cellular communication salon we are describing, there is a girl sales assistant who looks like Angelina Jolie. Almost every working day she bathes in compliments from young people and, of course, is very pleased with it. Perhaps her resemblance to the beautiful actress somehow affects the size of sales, but that’s not what our story is about. One fine day, a middle-aged woman client entered the communication salon. After wandering around the shop windows, then topping up her account balance, and then seeing our “Angelina Jolie,” she exclaimed: “Girl, you look so much like my favorite artist, I don’t really remember what her name is!” Our “Jolie” replies with deliberate embarrassment: “Thank you,” and then the woman remembers the name of her favorite artist: “Ah, I remembered who you look like! Elena Sparrow!” Our "Angelina's" colleagues laughed for a long time. And she herself probably had no time for laughter. What a shame! From princes to rags!

Story 5. Our women cannot be deceived
A couple enters a communications salon. The girl looks alarmed, the guy looks somehow either lost or confused. The girl immediately turns to the senior manager: “Could you help us?” and, without waiting for an answer, he talks about his problem: “Well, I can’t get through to my boyfriend, but he claims that his phone is always with him and the battery is full and that he hasn’t turned it off.” The seller, having rummaged through the young man’s phone, returns it with the words: “Everything is fine” and to the question “what happened?”, he replies: “It’s just that your number was listed in the young man’s phone in the list of prohibited subscribers. Probably, it was by accident.” it worked out." “Probably,” the girl sighs, happy that the problem has been resolved, and, grabbing the poor young man by the arm, leaves the salon. What a poor guy! It feels like he can’t get away from this girl! I'll probably have to get married.

Many consider the flower business to be incredibly profitable and not particularly difficult: invest a penny, earn 100 rubles, fluttering like a butterfly from flower to flower and giving people beauty. To open, you really need a relatively small amount - from 300,000 to 1 million rubles, depending on the region and the format of the planned business. But then the myths begin.

In fact, the flower business is in most cases (if you do not take into account chain retail) a microbusiness combined with self-employment. The statistics are inexorable: 95% of flower shops that opened three months ago, before March 8, now no longer exist.

Why is this business not as simple as it seems? Flower growers are very conservative, the market is difficult to respond to technological progress and therefore is now in its infancy stage of development. These are the main problems that hinder business development and do not have the best effect on the quality of goods and services.

If you don't cheat, you won't sell

In this market, no one trusts anyone. There are no specific quality standards, expiration dates or other firm guidelines by which one can understand the freshness of the product (by the way, this is not only a Russian problem, the same thing happens in the European market). For 90% of florists, the purchasing process is an incomparable stress that occurs at least two or three times a week. Therefore, purchasing becomes the meaning of life for store owners - everyone around is trying to deceive, you need to constantly keep your finger on the pulse. In fact, you need to relax and understand that it is better to focus on sales, and not on the meticulous selection of colors.

A long time ago, after opening the first flower shop in Balashikha near Moscow, I went shopping in person: in a small yellow car twice a week to Vykhino. There was a wholesale flower market there at the beginning of the 2000s. I came to my supplier, chose flowers, they were loaded into the car, and I took them to my store. This procedure took the whole day, but even when choosing flowers personally, I periodically brought goods of not the best quality. As soon as the opportunity arose, I began to place orders, which were delivered to my store assembled. This way I saved two full days a week, which I could spend behind the counter.

A destructive habit

The favorite principle of florists is that you need to bring flowers in reserve, put them in the refrigerator and store them. That is, the business initially focuses not on sales with delivery as needed, but on storing goods that have a limited shelf life. The foundation for this was laid back in the 90s, when flowers were delivered a maximum of twice a week - if you didn’t immediately buy with a reserve, then you could sit with an empty store until the next delivery. This happened because flowers arriving from abroad were cleared through customs at only a few customs posts by authorized companies. Suppliers imported goods in huge quantities, which they then sold within a couple of weeks, and between these huge deliveries there was simply nowhere to get flowers.

The demand was great, the competition was small, it was justified. Now the competition is huge, there are many companies that have deliveries every day, but the fear of being left without flowers still forces us to store perishable goods in refrigerated display cases. The question arises: why keep such a product if you can shift all the risks to wholesalers? The answer is simple and strange: it is a long-term habit that harms its owner.

Noodles on ears

Three or four years ago, an active campaign began to popularize Russian-made flowers among flower salons. Several large Russian greenhouse complexes took up this task and began to grow flowers using “Dutch” technology, using imported planting material, equipment and cheap Russian labor. The construction of a greenhouse complex is an expensive undertaking; investments amount to millions of dollars. They invested money, but there was no rush demand. Then, in the wake of import substitution, an advertising campaign was carried out, which boiled down to one thing: Russian flowers are fresher, because they do not need to be brought from Holland. But reality turned out to be very far from this thesis.

The main thing that distinguishes Russian flowers is that they lose their presentation in the store after two days. Dutch or Ecuadorian flowers are absolutely fine to last more than a week. And this at almost the same prices.

False illusions

“Floristry is a high art” is the favorite mantra of flower shop sellers. The seller is awesome, but the florist sounds proud, fashionable, and modern. But if you hire a representative of the creative profession, then problems begin: with recruitment, training, and star diseases. Florists value creativity above the art of communicating with customers who come not to an art gallery, but to a store. This has a bad effect on sales.

Standard situation: a buyer comes to a flower shop and says from the door that he needs a beautiful bouquet, but he only has 600 rubles - what can you offer? If nothing, he will go somewhere else. And you have to make a simple but beautiful bouquet for exactly 600, or better yet, 550 rubles. The florist will not help with this difficult task, since he is an artist and does not pay much attention to the budget in his creations. What's the point of creations that no one can buy?

Flowers are not a prime commodity

Many aspiring entrepreneurs have this motivation: flower shops are on every corner, which means this is exactly what you need to do, because flowers are taken as gifts all year round. If you look around carefully, there are still a huge number of pharmacies around (after all, people get sick all the time), hairdressers (after all, hair and nails need to be cut and put in order) and sex shops (after all, people need to entertain themselves). All these types of businesses are opened primarily on the basis of minimal investments and the false premise that these are goods of prime demand. In fact, people buy aloe and drip the juice of its leaves into their noses, cut each other’s hair at home or go to their friends’ houses, have fun in front of the TV, and buy flowers four to five times a year - on September 1, February 14, on March 8th and birthdays/funerals. Not everyone has lovers whom they often spoil with flowers, and not everyone goes to birthday parties with bouquets.

A huge number of flower shops, salons, tents and grandmothers with flowers speaks only of one thing - ultra-high competition. For every ten open stores, eight or nine close, but if you are not in this business, then you don’t pay attention to the fact that the sign on the same store has changed ten times in a calendar year.

You can't make a million on flowers

By all accounts, the flower business has a fantastic return rate of 300–400% or more. But for some reason, no one thinks about the sky-high rental rates and the fact that people who work in your store for 12 hours per shift during the season want to feed their families, go on vacation and simply receive compensation for physically difficult work, hence the salaries they must have decent ones.

And then there are write-offs: partly due to the supplier’s deception, partly due to a lack of qualifications of workers, partly due to the short shelf life of the goods, and most importantly, due to the fact that the Russian buyer does not have the habit of picking up flowers once a week to the store to please yourself or your loved ones with a small sign of attention. These write-offs range from 10% to 50%, and for a new salon, a write-off of 20–30% is a very good result.

So it turns out that expenses often exceed income. And if all is well, then the maximum profitability is 30%. That is, from a good point, the owner will have an income equal to two or three salaries of the seller, no more.

Indifferent flower growers

Another myth: flowers are a stable income that does not require the active participation of the owner. In fact, flowers are a seasonal business. There are absolutely bad months: December-January, June-July, September. In the best case, the income from March 8 is enough to cover the failures of the remaining months. So there is little stability in any business, but in the flower business there is none at all.

As for the owner’s participation, many people argue like this: I’m not a florist, what can I do. This is the biggest misconception for all small businesses, and flowers are no exception. If you're not in business, you don't have a business.

As a wholesaler, we see the state of our clients’ business based on purchase volumes. If the volume increases, then everything is good, if it decreases, then everything is bad. The most striking example of the correct approach to business is one of our clients, let’s call her Marina Vladimirovna. She is over 60, has been working with flowers for 15 years, and is now the owner of a small shop in a city with a population of less than 100,000 people. The store has two salespeople. There are several flower stalls near her store. Marina Vladimirovna spends five days a week in her store from morning to evening, communicating with customers, monitoring the condition of the display case. Despite her age, she has successfully mastered the Internet and uses it for shopping twice a week. She doesn’t run around to different suppliers and doesn’t personally buy goods. Marina Vladimirovna is engaged in sales, that is, what every businessman should do instead of hoping that the business will grow in a certain area on its own.

Cover photo: Cris Toala Olivares/Reuters