The Closing of a Flower Shop
A flower shop decided to close its doors after being in business for two years. This mother/daughter team started out with high hopes. Here were some of their challenges, written by the daughter. She tells her story in her own words in the hope that other entrepreneurs won’t make similar mistakes. We hope it is helpful.
If I start at the beginning, I’d blame a lack of adequate research on the market, the competition and the area for at least part of our problems. I don’t think we fully understood the ramifications of having 3 florists within a mile of each other and what that meant to walk-in traffic, which the previous owner told us didn’t matter - it did. In hindsight, a location would have been better. I also think that had we done better research and understood the wedding’s and event’s market better, we could have done more leg work up front to secure some of that business. We went into it with the impression (from the previous owner) that it would just come. Later we learned that only happens through reputation, which the shop had lost.
I also had pre-conceived notions about the use of flowers for businesses based on having lived in NYC. I completely misjudged how different the culture is up here. So much more conservative. Less interest in showy demonstrations of success that happen in big markets. Also fewer large organizations- large leasing companies which own office buildings - made the potential market smaller.
I think we were challenged less with networking time than selling time. Networking events happen in the morning, evening and at lunch. It really is having the will to do it. I found doing one thing and getting as involved as I could had a greater benefit than doing many things with lesser involvement. But networking takes time. It is about building relationships, so you have to work at it over time. I think long run it would’ve paid off big, but we didn’t have the time.
Partnerships are a challenge regardless who your partner is. Relatives make it both easier and more difficult. Going in, my mom and I had agreed to split design and selling equally. Had that actually happened, it probably would’ve turned out better for us. Once we got started, she got scared. I have a high tolerance for risk and for trying new things and learning from my mistakes. I thought she was the same and she wasn’t. That proved fatal. She didn’t want to go out on sales calls, she didn’t want to go to networking events and she was afraid to design. She was more comfortable staying in the shop taking calls and waiting on the few customers we had. Unfortunately, that left us with one person to do what really was two jobs. If I was out selling and someone needed an arrangement, no one was there to do it. If I was in the shop waiting to do arrangements, no one was out generating new avenues of business. It might have still turned out bad, but this, I think hurt us more than anything. If I had known that would happen, I would not have gotten into it, I don’t think.
I also think it was much more physical than we expected and at my mom’s age, that was a challenge.
Better financing plans would have also been a good idea. I think, and I know my mother would disagree, that we did have enough money going in. The challenge was that I had no fall back, which meant I had to live off of our cash. That frequently left us short - both for the shop and me. Having planned this out longer term with an eye to having money in the bank to lean on would’ve made a big difference.
In the end I’m glad I did it, but know that getting out, especially with the direction the economy has taken, was the right thing to do.
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4. 
this is it. 
