Sunday at her shop. With younger customers in mind, Millers is currently promoting corsages and buttonholes for summer proms on its newsletter – but to yet more directly market to a younger audience, they use Facebook, Twitter and blogging, which Barbara delegates to son Joe, her younger members of staff, and Joe’s girlfriend Kirtsty Travis, who just happens to be studying for a BSc in Advanced Floral Design at Myerscough College. “I’m a great believer in giving


specific roles to the people who really enjoy doing it, because then they’ll do a great job” says Barbara. Hence, she has one florist,


Andrea, who’s responsible for presenting and gift-wrapping plants, Dawn who has a passion for Yankee Candles and has made that her department, and another, Caitlin, who’s great at telephone selling.


Looking Ahead Always with an eye on change and development, Barbara is currently having her website


“There’s a whole new generation that isn’t so familiar with OASIS® designs, and for whom we can present them as something a bit different from the hand-tied”


re-built, and thinking of a shop re-design. The website will feature more


picture galleries because she reckons that’s what the customer prefers to see. For her shop re-design – which


she tends to change every couple of years – she plans to bring in pieces of furniture and bold wallpaper to create the currently trendy “room set” type displays. She is also re-thinking her


central flower display area, which currently houses flower stems in glass vases. “It struck me that we hardly sell


any flowers by the stem any more so that’s probably not the best use of our retail space now” Instead she will display more


pick-up-and-go bouquets, which she sees as the way the trade is going. She aims always to have at least eight ready-prepared hand-tieds on display, and is considering offering more


designs in OASIS® , mainly


because this is the type of product the supermarkets cannot compete with. “For a florist they are relatively


quick and simple to do, and there can be a good profit margin in them - but there’s a whole new generation that probably isn’t so familiar with them, and for whom we can present them as something a bit different from the hand-tied”. It seems that this is a woman


whose head is always running some new idea or possibility for keeping the business fresh and exciting. She’s certainly running a


radically different business from the one she started with her mother Norma Miller back in the late 1970s – but if there’s one thing that hasn’t changed, it’s her drive, enthusiasm, and honest-to-goodness enjoyment of what she does.


F&wb Summer 2013 71


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