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

Alright, Raquel thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

It’s hard to categorize being a florist as a mission-driven company especially when others don’t see it that way or might see it as just simply making floral arrangements. But the reason why caricia is so incredibly meaningful to me is because of the purpose and passion it has given and how I’ve seen firsthand the true value flowers bring into our everyday lives. Not only do they play a large role in the well-being of our ecosystem but they give us the privilege of utilizing them for what I consider floral arrangements to be genuine art pieces, flowers to me are a true gift from nature which is something I’ve learned throughout this whole process and ultimately it’s what I hope others can learn through us as well.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

It all started on a trip to Miami I took with my dad and I was amazed at how many retail stores had so many amazing floral arrangements in them and the uniqueness each of them brought to the space they were in. As I started to research and discover all these cool florist from all around the world I realized that me and my partner lowery really wanted to bring the uniqueness of these arrangements with a twist of our own back home in Chattanooga and the rest is history! Caricia does all kinds of events from small intimate dinners, and small elopement bouquets to huge weddings. (Basically literally anything with a floral need)

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I think one of the most intimidating parts of starting a business is creating a platform for it, just because especially now all businesses rely on their social media for marketing, sales, etc. What helped us was first, obviously sharing our page with all of our friends and family which I’m not sure why but its always the toughest part, I don’t like sharing my business ventures with the people closest to me, probably because I’m scared or failure (lol) but at the end of the day you can never let that stop you from perusing your passion. Once I had that out of the way lowery and I went to a couple of local open houses some wedding venues hosted and we handed out our cards to so many people in the industry. Messaging other local vendors and collaborating with them on projects has also helped us, and in between all of that theirs a lot of word by mouth but you have to put yourself out there!

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

What I think has helped build our reputation within our market is staying close to our values and keeping good relationships with those that are in our community (that don’t necessarily have in the same industry as you) I think the more you stay genuine the more people will naturally support you and even new people will find you. Also staying genuine in the long run is just the way it should always be if you want to maintain a good relationship with not only businesses but those who surround you. It is not only a basic human moral but it helps build and maintain your reputation

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/cariciafloral_?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
• Other: [email protected] https://www.tiktok.com/@cariciafloral_?_t=8ghvINszVvy&_r=1