We were lucky to catch up with Erin Webb recently and have shared our conversation below.

Erin, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love for you to start by sharing your thoughts about the pros and cons of family businesses.

I come from a family with a lot of different businesses and have experienced being part of multiple types of family businesses, some small some large. My great grandfather started a Nursery, this grew and my grandfather took over along with a business partner. My dad then worked for this company while running his own small farm. I worked at my dad’s farm and also worked at the larger Nursery (after it had changed ownership) while I was in high school. I still help at my dad’s farm once in a while and operate my own business and involve my young children where I can. My dad also has three siblings with farms and they all work alongside each other.

Although there are challenges with mixing family and business, I think it can be a wonderful thing. From the perspective of someone raised being involved in so many family businesses, I had the unique opportunity to learn helpful skills regarding plants and farming while also learning some of the business skills. I got to make memories working with my siblings, cousins and other family members. I saw first hand how my contribution to the workload impacted the over all business and instilled a good work ethic to go above and beyond.

I think if you are mixing family and business it is important to establish good communication, boundaries, and roles up front. Having the proper expectations on all fronts is very helpful. If you have these things, the benefits include learning new skills, having someone you can trust working with you and mentee or mentor relationship. You also learn how to work with people and work through things since these relationships are so important.

I think the pitfalls of family businesses can be poor communication which leads to poor expectations and frustrations. Families can tend to assume the other person holds the same understanding and goals without actually communicating these things until it’s too late. When this happens, there is a risk of broken relationship between family members.

I would love to have my children join my business someday. Currently, they are young and involved as much as they can be for their ages and interests. I hope to provide employment for them during their high school years and past that if they choose. I hope for them to be involved and gain similar skills to what I have from being involved in my dad’s business growing up.

Erin, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a farmer florist in West Olive Michigan. I grow specialty cut flowers used in floral arrangements. I sell my flowers and arrangements at the Holland Farmer’s market, make custom arrangements for delivery, and arrange for weddings and special events. For weddings and special events, I aim to use as much locally grown product as possible, either from what I can grow or working with other growers in the area.

I started Florista of West Olive in 2019 after my son was born in order to be with my children as much as possible while I work. I come from a family of Nursery men and famers so the switch to cut flowers was very natural to me. As my business and skills have grown, I have come to really enjoy the creative outlet of the design side as well.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

Because I was a new mom, my goal was not to go into debt or for my business be a financial burden on my family. I started my business with $500 and my goal by the end of my first season was to pay this back and hopefully have some to reinvest as well. I registered my business, opened a business bank account, bought wholesale dahlia tubers. and seed starting supplies. From there, I mostly reinvested whatever money I brought in so I could continue on a slower growth trajectory. I did pay our family back the $500 at the end of the first season plus some!

A couple things to note: my business does rely on having some land. I grown flowers on the land my husband and I live on so we didn’t purchase a separate property for this. If you were starting out, this might need to be a financial consideration. I also was gifted a camera for marketing by my sister which was very helpful for posting online.

For me, starting small financially was important and I was willing to grow slower to fit in with my lifestyle. I could have likely grown faster if I would have invested more up front, but this would have been a larger risk for my family.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

The best source of new clients has been word of mouth and having a consistent online presence.

Weddings specifically have grown by recommendations from previous clients. This has been amazing as I get recommended the best clients and have worked with amazing brides and grooms.

Making sure my website and social media are up to date is also very important for new clients. For me, this is like an active portfolio so my customers can see my work. I started a newsletter in the past year that is very helpful keeping those who don’t have social media connected and in the loop.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.floristawestolive.com
• Instagram: @floristawestolive
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/floristawestolive

Image Credits

Sydney Lyn photography