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Florists' Review November 21021 Issue

Florists' Review Media Group has served the global floral in study for over 124 years.

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12 November | 2021 I understand you started your career in education. I taught high school for six years. I taught the AP Spanish language courses. I loved the teaching. e lesson planning process in teaching was, for me, the creative part of it— fi nding the perfect video, magazine article or regalia, like something that tightened so perfectly to the grammatical thing or the vocab that I was teaching. Teaching feeds my soul, so when I left, it was diffi cult, but I really wanted to own my own business. I just had this itch that I had to scratch, and fl owers were the natural fi t at the time. My husband was really supportive and gave me two years of fi nancial support while I tutored on the side. What did your store focus on at fi rst? I created a gift boutique, so I opened a business with 50 percent retail gifts. I was selling an aesthetic with jewelry, scarves and pottery. I was importing merchandise from France. I went on a buying trip to Argentina to source handbags and items like that. It was also 50 percent fl owers, and I told myself that whichever one starts to pull is the one I would investment more money and time into. en it started going 60/40 fl owers, then 70/30 and, ultimately, the fl owers really took off , and that's how I landed in the fl ower business. In the fl oral world, I have been able to fl ex my creative muscles and fi nd my own voice in how I like to design, but I always missed teaching. It was so nice when I was fi nally able to come into a moment where I could start hosting workshops. How did COVID aff ect your business? When COVID hit, I had a ton of wedding business that all went away. I had put all my eggs in the wedding basket and hired a ton of people. My payroll was out of control, and I had a lot of commercial vehicles, so I downsized my workforce to help survive the economic downturn. en I started doing workshops for free, and people loved it. I next started doing Zoom classes, as I had the time. Now we hold 12 November | 2021 Florist Spotlight

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