We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Amber Holmes and Lisa Smith. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Amber Holmes below.

Amber and Lisa, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

At our prior jobs, we worked together planning Destination Weddings, and were always seeing what astronomical amounts brides were paying for flowers. There just seemed to be no feasible options for them! We decided to team up on this endeavor and started FauxReal Flowers in 2020. We have a local shoppe where clients can come in, choose their exact flowers, which we will customize and deliver to their event. Since they are rentals, they come in at about half the cost of fresh flowers. They are recycled weekly, so eco friendly ,cutting out so much waste, and you know exactly what you are getting! We are franchising so that this idea can spread quickly, as we get inquiries from all over looking for this option! We’re currently in Raleigh & Wilmington, NC, Tampa and Brandon FL, with more coming soon!

Amber and Lisa, 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?

Lisa planned weddings for over a decade – she actually planned Amber’s wedding, that’s how they met! They worked in this industry together, and then decided to start FauxReal Flowers together! We have a large inventory of high quality, real tough, faux flowers. Our flowers are better than what you may find online or shopping locally, we have spent the time and money on really nice flowers that make all the difference! People are shocked all the time when we tell them that they are faux flowers! We offer ceremony décor, table décor, handhelds, and can create basically any vision for any event. Fresh flowers come at high costs, and can’t promise what inventory they may have – we can show you exactly what you’re getting and our prices are affordable. Other rental companies don’t let you customize, or may ship you the flowers, still leaving a lot on your plate! We deliver and set up, so we can handle larger flower installs, and you’ll get the exact vision you want! We pride ourselves on making dream flowers come to life.

Can you talk to us about your experience with selling businesses?

We are franchising! We’ve sold 3 locations so far, and are still growing and learning in this endeavor. Since we’re maintaining the company and the brand itself, there’s a lot of work that goes into these relationships, building the brand and helping our stores be successful. It is hard to teach someone what may seem easy to you, but is new to them! Re-creating your ideas and actions to make them trainable, takes time and effort. We are excited to keep growing this brand!

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Pivoting from our old careers to this new entrepreneurial venture! It’s hard to know when to jump, and take the leap of faith on your new business! We both got to a point where we were burnt out doing too many things at once, and had to pivot! Leaving our old jobs, and pouring ourselves into FauxReal. Although it was a risk, we had faith and passion that it would pay off, and it has! And now we’re encouraging our franchise owners to do the same in their life and careers, to make this successful so that we can all have the work life balance we want, while also having a successful busines and career. We’re so glad that we pivoted, work doesn’t feel like work when it’s on your own time, you enjoy it, and you still get to enjoy your family and life events as you go!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://fauxrealflowers.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fauxreal_flowers/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FauxRealFlowersNC
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fauxreal-flowers/

Image Credits
Photographer Branding Shoot: StudioAray