We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Elizabeth DiJohn a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Elizabeth thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

You could say it was a “soul awakening” of sorts that helped plant the seed of a dream that just wouldn’t quit. I spent over a decade in corporate marketing, and when our third child was born in January 2020, I paused to stay home for the first time since becoming a mom. Assuming I would go back into the corporate world at some point, I stayed busy and connected through freelance projects, and found myself just as busy as I was before leaving my salaried position. The all-too-familiar machine was turned back on and I was living on auto-pilot. In 2021 my husband and I were witness to a car accident that included a fatality. From that point forward life presented me with a series of events that gave light to a very different path which blossomed into a dream that was clear as day.

During a very dark season of life, a simple walk with my children through a field of wildflowers opened my heart to the wild idea of opening a store in my hometown of Wheaton, IL. Born and raised in Wheaton, IL I watched the town accordion with change from infrastructure to commerce. While boasting a thriving restaurant scene, retail was lacking with just a few independent stores (at the time) available to the community. The idea of a modern-day mercantile felt aligned with filling a gap within the retail landscape and I started to sense the new path I was meant to be on.

Once I trusted this new path everything fell into place at warp speed. From building the business plan to securing the location, and sourcing the products, it simply flowed into place. We went from idea to open in less than 2 years.

Wildflower Mercantile has blossomed into a true expression of my dream to create a destination that holds space for those who visit and hopefully inspires the beauty, creativity, and spontaneity that lies within all of us. With an eclectic assortment of carefully curated goods. We intentionally fill our space with “Goods for the Soul”

Elizabeth , 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 enjoyed a successful tenure in corporate marketing for a major CPG company. This background afforded me the foundational knowledge to both build and run brands and work cross-functionally toward a financial goal. Now, as an entrepreneur living out a wild idea that happened to drop on my soul, I can say that it has been the commitment to my mental and emotional health that has allowed me to thoughtfully, purposefully, and with pure love bring Wildflower Mercantile into my hometown in a way that is absolutely genuine and hopefully thought-provoking. Looking back it’s clear that if I didn’t have the softer emotional skills to match the hard skills I acquired from my past, Wildflower simply wouldn’t be the same, if at all.

We recognize that consumers can purchase a tangible item without ever having to be in contact with another person. We are not in the business of competing with that, it’s why we are intentionally focused on our brick-and-mortar experience. We have purposefully created a space where our customers can immerse themselves in a book of poetry without disruption, share a conversation over a glass of wine, join a workshop, or get assistance with picking out the perfect gift for their friend or themselves. It’s about the little moments that snowball into the lasting experiences that we are in the business of helping to create.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Having indisputable data, facts and a concrete path forward was at the core of my corporate career. Early on when building my business plan for Wildflower Mercantile, I spent hours digging into all of the data I could get ahold of from public records, conducting foot-traffic studies, market audits, meeting with town officials, and running forecast scenarios, I did it all. While it was beneficial in building out the business plan, the moment I let go of the desire to have a concrete blueprint for opening day and beyond is when things really fell into place and the pace in which things were unfolding to bring us to opening day ramped up. The desire for concrete plans is nice. However, the art of letting go and trusting the process is a component of entrepreneurship that is undeniable for success.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Showing up authentically. It’s easy to be distracted by what others are doing and saying. It’s easy to get distracted by your own ego. However, when I stop and remind myself of why Wildflower Mercantile exists and remove the fear of “what if” it allows us to bring forward the best experience for our customers every time they walk through our door. With that, our customers leave with an experience that lasts within their hearts, and in turn, they share that feeling within their network.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.shop_wildflowermercantile.com
• Instagram: @shop_wildflowermercantile
• Facebook: Wildflower Mercantile

Image Credits

cinderandvin photography