Today’s guest post comes from Linda in St. Paul (West Side).

Working Valentine’s Day at a florist shop is one of those things that sounds more appealing in theory than it is in actual fact; like, I suppose, making pronto pups at the State Fair, or working the assembly line in the chocolate factory (just ask Lucy and Ethel about that one).

But into every working life a little novelty must fall from time to time, and this year mine was in the lanky form of a sock monkey.

In the days leading up to the Big Day, it’s call after call for basically the same thing:

dozen red roses with babies’ breath – card:love, John;
dozen red roses with babies’ breath – card: love, Tom.

So I was delighted to get a call from a father ordering flowers for his daughter at her dorm.

“Got any stuffed animals?” he asked.

The shop has a shelf of stuffed toys, mostly teddy bears and puppy dogs, with a few unusual things thrown in. In recent months there had been three monkeys on the shelf – two sock monkeys and a rather wild-looking simian with blue fur, possibly a distant cousin of Cookie Monster. I had been dying to sell one of those monkeys since before Christmas, without success. Probably just my overactive imagination, but I thought the monkeys’ expressions grew a little more downcast with each day that passed and left them still languishing on the shelf. So I jumped on my chance.

The customer, having let himself be talked into spending $20 on the monkey, didn’t have a lot of budget left to spend on the flowers, so I suggested one of the cheapest options the shop offers: a bud vase with two gerber daisies.

You understand, I don’t arrange flowers professionally, myself. The shop has two tiers of designers. The elite group, the artistes, work in the back room so they can spend less time dealing with customers and concentrate on executing their artistic vision. The others work at the counter ringing up purchases and managing smaller orders, like flowers in bud vases. They have smaller paychecks, but creative souls.

Pat was the designer in whose capable hands I put the sock monkey and the accompanying order. In minutes, the brilliant orange gerbers, greens and ribbon adorned a red bubble vase, with Mr. Sock Monkey on board – IMHO, the single most charming thing that left the shop that day.

The other worker bees at the counter gathered around Pat to admire it, so she fetched the other two monkeys off the toy shelf and made two similar arrangements to put in the display cooler in the store, just to shake things up a little. It made me smile to see the monkeys gazing placidly out the cooler window from their perches among all those oh-so-predictable roses. Perhaps there were other smiles, too.

By closing time, all the monkeys had sold.

What’s the best sales idea you’ve had?