“Good,” Gail said. “We had a few customers come in. Carson sold an older couple a great bouquet for their anniversary, and I took down information about an office building that wants to get a quote from you for weekly maintenance on indoor plants.”
“Indoor plants?” I took the note from Gail. “I’ve never offered that service before.”
“That’s what I told him, but Mr. Holland said he was hoping you would consider it.”
I chuckled. “Ramsey?”
Gail nodded.
I rolled my eyes. “He’s asked a few times.” I was quiet for a minute and eyed the two new employees. “What would you two think about something like that?”
They exchanged a look. Gail spoke first.
“Potted plants would be best, since they won’t die and require replacement frequently. Since the season is almost over, you can take up some of the plants that haven’t sold yet and make money on them. Depending on the location, you would be able to mix colors and scents, or limit everything to one scheme if a customer wanted to do that.”
“And,” Carson continued, “you could offer bigger plantings for places that have an outdoor space or a foyer or lobby where people will be to brighten up a place.”
“You sound like you have something in mind,” I said.
Carson nodded. “We went to MacKellar Theater this weekend. The lobby is great, but there’s a lot of chaos at times. They have those black retractable things to create lines, but they get knocked over and people duck under them. If you anchored the ends of the line with tall planters, you could make things more streamlined.”
I thought back to the last time I was there, with Reegan so it had been a while, and remembered the same chaos. “That’s a good idea, but Xavier didn’t come in and ask for that. We can’t really go to a business and demand they pay us money to solve problems they don’t see as problems.”
“But if they want the help…” Gail trailed off like she knew something I didn’t.
“Sure, but we don’t know if they do.”
“Actually, my mom is friends with Genevieve. She works there. She’s the business manager or something. She said she wished we offered something like that. She’s tried to come up with options, but nothing has worked because it isn’t her expertise.”
“What has she tried?” I asked, curious to hear about this new opportunity.
“I don’t really know, but we could talk to her and find out,” Gail suggested.
I sighed, letting out a laugh. “Okay, then this becomes part of your duties.” I pointed at both of them. “Figure out what Genevieve wants, talk to Ramsey, and let the word out that we’re offering this as a new service.”
They smiled at each other, then turned to walk away.
“Wait,” I called before they got far. “We need to come up with a pricing structure. If this is going to take your time, we need to figure out how much time and make sure you’re paid for it by the project. Then we need to account for the cost of plants and what would likely be replacement costs. I would work something up based on the sizes of the containers we would use.”
“You want us to do that?” Carson asked.
I smiled. “I do. I will help, absolutely, but you two seem really excited about this. You can sit at the table where I do consultations and start to come up with ideas for a little while. You’re here another hour?”
“Yes, sir,” Gail said.
“I don’t expect a full proposal today, but I don’t want you working on something like this off-hours when you aren’t getting paid. This is something that will add money to the business, so it needs to be supported by the business.”
“Thank you, sir,” Carson said.
“You both make me feel old.” The door jingled with the arrival of a customer. “If it gets busy, I’ll let you know, but otherwise, start coming up with plans. We’ll try to get this started in the next few weeks, if you both think that’ll work.”
“Yes, sir,” they said together.
I chuckled and shook my head, waving them to the back while I greeted the new customer.
Carson and Gail’s proposal was good. Damn good. They thought of things I hadn’t in just an hour. I told them both to keep track of any hours they worked on it when they weren’t at Blossom & Grow, but encouraged them not to work off-hours. They needed to enjoy life, too.
But me? Blossom & Grow was my life at the moment, so I spent a few hours after I closed considering all the things I would need to do to make this venture successful.
