The Business Side of Things
#bfrdpwy #aginternship #RightRisk
I returned to Jackson this week to help wrap peonies and deliver them for the final time this season. Besides the dry-stored peonies in the cooler, almost all the stored flowers have been used, which is good! My host and I stayed up late Monday night to wrap the bunches, focusing on a red-and-white theme for the 4th. We also made pre-arranged bouquets to sell at her pop-up shop, using chamomile, blue larkspur, and an assortment of foliage. I was in charge of placing foliage in each container, making the bouquet look fuller. She also let me arrange one of the bouquets. This was daunting because while I have made bouquets for my family and casually played around with floral design, I would consider myself an amateur. Per my host’s instructions, “Just play around with it”, the daunting task soon became enjoyable and I made a bouquet I was proud of.
In between dropping off peony deliveries, I had a lot of time in the car to talk to my host. One major takeaway from these conversations was paying other people to do the things they are good at that you are not. My host realized this when she first started her flower business and was struggling to make her own website. She spent a year researching, googling, and trying to figure it out, before she reached out to a woman in the area who had been following her farm’s progress on Instagram and makes websites. While it may cost money on the front end, investing in people to do high-quality work allows your operation to run smoothly later on, and saves you some blood, sweat, and tears in the process. She also suggested finding someone who is familiar with what you do, like the woman who had been following my host’s farm progress, because you want them to reflect who you are in the work they do for your business.
I also got to watch many interactions between my host and her friends she ran into while making deliveries. Most people she ran into didn’t know she had been running a peony farm for the past six years, which was a pleasant surprise to them that they knew the owner. My host told them about her farm share for peony bunches they could purchase for next year’s season. I thought about what I would do if I was talking to some local friends about my business. I probably would have just said what my business was about, leaving the product side out for fear of coming off too forward or offering it at a discounted price. However, the more I think about it, the more these reactions seem to say “My product is not worth the full price”. I don’t believe my future operation is worth the time and money of its customers, which kind of defeats the whole idea of a business. I’m also not taking advantage of a good opportunity to offer my work to people who would most likely be more than happy to support me. And at the end of the day, it is up to the consumer to make the decision, not me. This was a realization that showed me an area to grow in when I start a horticultural operation: pride and confidence in my work.
A question I have from this week is the importance of social media for flower farms and the floral industry. My Instagram feed is flooded with pictures of flowers and tips and tricks for gardening, which I have been using for education and inspiration. However, after talking to my host about how she markets her flower farm, most of her loyal customers are kept in the loop through email. Most of the people who follow on Instagram are most likely on there for the same reasons I am: education and inspiration. So if I start my own farm, should I even try to put effort into creating a social media platform, or keep it simple with email and word-of-mouth? This will be an interesting question to explore further.
This has been a short but busy week preceding the holiday weekend. Every week seems to give me more to consider as I start to plan for a future horticultural operation. The business and marketing tips I am learning are especially helpful. Identifying plants? Easy. Learning how to take care of a garden? Enjoyable. Establishing a successful business and customers who are invested in supporting your ideas? No clue where to start. So getting marketing and business advice from other women who have been successful in the field I am interested in is helpful.
Submitted by: Emzie Coop
Edits by: GrowinG Internship Team
