Harry Copeland often regrets failing to follow the career advice of his father, a funeral director. "He said to work in something where you get holidays and weekends off," says Copeland. "He warned me and my two brothers. One became a lawyer, the other is an accountant, and I'm a florist. I'm the one who blew it."
A lanky 54-year-old whose business attire is jeans, a T-shirt, and Reeboks, Copeland spends his days, especially holidays, toiling from one end of his 7,000-square-foot Orlando store to the other. He struggles on the shipping dock with 70-pound potted plants that are popular in the lobbies and offices of banks and accounting firms, among other places. And he warily molds plastic stem holders by dipping them in a pot of near-boiling water that has singed his fingers many times. On a recent day, he sports a bandage wrapped around one finger. "That's just a knife nick. You can't avoid those," he says.
And the aroma of a flower shop isn't always pleasant. Copeland says he had to spray Lysol all over himself during one sweaty Valentine's Day shift that stretched to nearly 48 hours. "You don't want the customers sniffing you instead of the product," he grins.
Still, the money is good, and his independence priceless. Even during the recent recession, he cleared a consistent profit "in the low six figures" annually. That's after meeting a payroll of 42, hiring enough temporary delivery drivers to double that number on Valentine's Day, and eating the cost of a 10 percent disposal rate on flowers and plants that arrive damaged or wilting. "You're going to dump one out of 10 flowers that come in here," explains Copeland. "That's a cost you have to figure on."
And that cost is often beyond the control of his suppliers, most of whom are growers in South America. Their flowers and plants have to clear a fairly brutal U.S. Customs inspection in Miami. Some of the merchandise is destroyed by drug-sniffing dogs. Or it may get bashed by metal rods used to probe the shipments for contraband. Although Copeland's profit margins are 30 percent when things run smoothly, he points out that "a couple of bad shipments can shoot a whole week."
Haggling with customers, in the form of up-selling, has become more essential during the recession. "The typical $45 bouquet order is now $35," Copeland notes. "People have just cut back." So he instructs sales staffers to show customers how much nicer a bouquet an additional $10 will buy. Male customers are especially vulnerable to this tactic. "You can make a lot of the men feel guilty," he grins. "But the women usually stick to their budgets."
New florists who are drawn to beauty and artistry come and go, Copeland says. "They quickly learn that flowers are like any business where you buy and sell deals in units, price points, and service. You may not have enough time or energy to let the creative juices flow."
For one thing, Copeland's delivery charge in sprawling and heavily suburban Orlando is $5 per order. When operations go smoothly, that pays for gasoline and a good portion of the driver's hourly wage; but if so much as one stem breaks when a driver stops too fast or makes a sharp turn, Copeland often has to send out a replacement bouquet. "People get very emotional," he says. "They'll cut your head off over a broken stem. And now you're talking two deliveries for the price of one."
As for creativity, many customers aren't that interested in their florist's originality. About one-third of Copeland's clients give specific instructions on floral arrangements, leaving him little latitude. Others focus on the container. "They'll look at the arrangements we have ready in the display cooler and say, 'I like that one but I want a different pot.' " Copeland is prepared for such individualists: He stocks about 200 different styles of baskets, vases, and other containers. In fact, he offers a greater variety of containers than he does flowers.
The floral business was less frenetic in 1972, when Copeland started in the trade by working as a bouquet-design apprentice at Walt Disney World for $1.75 an hour. He opened his Harry's Famous Flowers 10 years later and has more than quadrupled its size since then. Because the shop is located on a busy highway near Orlando International Airport, he sometimes hires off-duty police to direct traffic so drivers can quickly enter and exit the parking lot.
Copeland is embracing change. Already holding a 1974 bachelor's degree in business from Orlando's University of Central Florida, he recently enrolled in an MBA program offered on Saturdays by the University of Miami. "I'm the oldest guy in the class with all these kids in banking and insurance," he says. Fellow MBA students who work in office settings occasionally volunteer to come by and analyze his operations in return for instruction in floral arranging. "They like making something with their hands and telling the wife how creative they are."
Copeland's spouse, Debbie, also works at the shop. But the couple's two daughters keep their distance. "One's a doctor and one's a flight attendant," he says, musing on their aversion to the florist trade. "They say, 'You were never around at Easter for an egg hunt.' "
