Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Anne Latham. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Anne thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?
I had quit my full time floral job for another company in summer of 2020 with my last paycheck to my name and a lot of fear. I hit the ground running, shamelessly promoting my work on Instagram, engaging my community with floral pop ups (at a time when everyone was chasing serotonin and making a stronger effort to shop locally), and spending my old 9-5 hours playing and photographing for my portfolio.
I also very rarely was giving out discounts or cutting my pricing to attract clients. I had years of experience under my belt and a strong growing portfolio, which led clients to trust that I was capable of the task AND felt I was worth the investment. A lot of people believe that you won’t make a good living as a floral designer, but it’s not true at all. If you’re pricing correctly and know your product, you turn a profit very quickly and can continue to reinvest that time/resource back into your portfolio.
As a first time business owner, I made plenty of mistakes and experienced a lot of “what not to do” situations. The key to overcoming your inevitable shortcomings is treating it with compassion and humility, and learn from the patterns for next time. Give yourself grace – very rarely are our mistakes hurting our businesses in the long term.
In March of this year (2023), I was with the fear of my business going under during a slow booking season. I met with Lys Lytle of Flowering Minds Education for a 1:1 zoom call and explained to her my situation and concern for the future. She noted that my portfolio needed to be stronger to match my mark up, and suggested a styled shoot with local vendors. I followed this advice, creating a very lush and thoughtful, floral forward design with an incredible team. After publishing this editorial on our website, the inquiries were coming in hot. I had booked several weddings at this same venue, had clients referencing these images for their own weddings, and had suddenly booked the rest of 2023 and most of 2024 by October.
The lesson I learned here was to lean into who I am as an artist and invest in my practice more. When you’re putting out quality work that feels exciting to YOU, people really latch onto that and want to be a part of it. I have to attribute trusting and investing in myself as the key to my professional successes.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Anne Latham, and I’m the owner of a dual city floral atelier, Three Swords Floral Company.
I have been flowering since 2015 and have been lucky enough to flower in San Francisco, Portland, Taos, and all over Chicagoland. Before I worked in flowers, I graduated from School of the Art Institute of Chicago where I practiced printmaking and fiber studies. I also worked as an artist assistant to Mariano Chavez (agent gallery) and in the hospitality industry, all of which informs my personable and artistic approach to designing weddings and events.
Like most florists, I fell into the medium while working towards other goals, but the flowers became the main priority soon enough. My first flower gig was doing bud arrangements at the restaurant I used to bartend, moving onto managing various floral shops in San Francisco and Chicago. After a few years of learning what to do (and let’s face it – what not to do) from some of the industry’s leading florists, I decided to open my first flagship in Chicago during fall of 2018, and my second in Portland OR beginning spring of 2024.
I use floristry as an expressive medium and believe in nature’s incredible ability to soothe the mind and the heart. When I’m not flowering, you can find me playing with my pets, cooking intricate dinners at home with my fiance, sewing clothes in the studio, watching too much junk tv, or throwing pots in my ceramic studio!
I currently divide my time between Portland, OR and Chicago, IL, with the occasional destination wedding peppered in here and there.
3 Things People Love About Working With Me:
I work best under pressure and can diffuse high stress situations with grace and humility.
I’m compassionate and understanding. I believe in meeting clients halfway and want to address their needs with clear communication and an unmatched professionalism.
I understand that there is a lot of trust involved with booking your wedding vendors and treat this relationship with the serious care it deserves. Because of this, I only hire on experts in floral for your wedding who share similar values and design style.
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
I used to be under the belief that to be a good manager, you had to be firm and tough (almost to a fault). I’ve actually found this method to be entirely unhelpful and creates a wedge between you and the people working for you.
I manage my freelancers by lifting them up and offering clear, supportive communication. If I want work done a specific way, I make sure to spend time showing them what I need, but also give them room and encouragement to be creative. No one wants to work on a wedding where every single element has a strict recipe, it’s a call for boring work and bored employees. I like to make sure my freelance floral designers have room to do what I hired them to do: be creative, efficient, and work quickly.
What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?
Instagram! I literally owe every single inquiry to the gram.
Instead of writing your business name where your name is supposed to be in your bio, put a description or keyword of what you do – I.e. “Chicago Florist” or “Destination Wedding Photographer”. People are going to write in simple searches to start seeing who is available.
Follow other creatives in your industry, respond to their stories, comment on their posts – they’re likely to also follow you back and pass along your name to clients or other colleagues!
Contact Info:
- Website: Threeswordsfloralco.com
- Instagram: @threeswordsfloralco
Image Credits
Photos of green floral at beginning are Mark Trela Photography