We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kate Keith. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kate below.

Hi Kate, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

In the florist world, the industry standard is to hop over to the local wholesaler and grab what’s available. It doesn’t matter if these blooms are grown locally, dyed with color chemicals or organically grown. Florists may even use the phrase “we use what’s in season” but that doesn’t necessarily mean what is in season to your local region.

At Kate’s Flower Farm, we use what we grow. We spend the depths of the winter (and even the Fall season before) planning in advance what blooms we will be growing. Seeds, bulbs, corms, bare roots are all purchased in advance to have proper planting for optimum production (did you know Snapdragons should actually be planted in Fall and covered in SE Michigan for 4′ + long stems?) We take pride in being able to properly plan for a productive season.

What’s the difference in operating this way? We are able to provide a better looking and longer lasting product. Flowers can only be harvested at certain times of the day for proper usage. Cut at the wrong time can cause the flower to wilt and be unusable. We also only cut the flowers during their proper stage. Flowers cut too soon in their life cycle won’t bloom properly and those cut too late will fall apart within the day. Kate’s Flower Farm holds to the believe that FRESH flowers are the BEST flowers.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Kate and I own and operate Kate’s Flower Farm. We are a micro flower farm growing local flowers for daily deliveries in Farmington Hills, Michigan. The idea for growing and selling flowers came from a need for creativity, a connection to nature, and the ability to operate at home with my family.

Someone close to me asked what I envisioned my future looking like. As I took the time to really think through what I dreamed of- not what I thought was realistic- Kate’s Flower Farm started to form. My dream included a little house in the country with chickens, my kids playing outside, and me tending to the garden for fresh flowers and vegetables. At the time, my life looked nothing like this. I was working full-time as a social worker in Detroit with my kids in full-time care. We didn’t have much time to spend outside (what with laundry, cleaning, cooking, errands) and the tiniest garden in our small suburban yard.

As I started to voice these hopes to my husband, he wholly encouraged me to work my way towards this beautiful future together. I read every book I could purchase or borrow from the library on growing flowers. I watched every online video, took educational courses and even got accepted for a partial scholarship to Floret Farm’s amazing online workshop (you may know her from her documentaries on Discovery+). We even took a leap, sold our house, and moved to a bigger property in order to get chickens and create that magical field of flowers!

Kate’s Flower Farm has become the dream I wasn’t sure was possible. While we have bigger dreams still, I have been so proud to make the progress towards becoming a productive local flower farm in my community. I’ve been able to sell our freshly laid chicken eggs, freshly harvested flowers to countless clients, and take time to enjoy the work my family and have put in to creating this beautiful life together.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

As a budding business owner, for a time (too long in fact), I assumed my clients would mostly find me on social media. I focused my effort in photos, captions, trying new reels, etc through these platforms. I wasn’t until I decided to get an online shop up and functional that I realized the floral clients I wanted were actually coming from a completely different source- Google.

See, I thought my social media platform’s purpose was to convince people who liked buying flowers as a personal treat for themselves to buy MY locally grown flowers. I was only setting up the online shop as a way to become more streamlined for when I had jars of flowers available.

It dawned on me that I didn’t need to CONVINCE people to buy flowers- there were already people actively looking to purchase flowers (birthdays, anniversaries, get well, etc).

That’s when I began to focus on optimizing my website for SEO, backlinks, and more. The majority of my clients were not coming from social media, they were typing into Google “Florist near me” or “Flowers near me”. This was a game changer for me!

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Being consistent has been key. Whether it is in answering phone calls, showing up on social media, sending out monthly emails, responding to client inquiries, or maintaining quality and pricing, consistency has been the deciding factor.

I have received plenty of word-of-mouth referrals that have resulted in more orders from our farm to know that my clients want to have a flower farm and florist they can rely on.

Most people can’t put into words the feeling they want to receive from their floral arrangements or for the flowers they want at their event. It’s my job to help invoke the feelings that remain unsaid and create something magical. Doing this order after order creates the consistency that is reliable and trustworthy.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.katesflowerfarm.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kates.flower.farm
• Other: Pinterest
  www.pinterest.com/katesflowerfarm

Image Credits

Juniper Woods Photography (for the photo with myself and two children only)