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

Shannon, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

My journey into flowers was not planned, as I never imagined myself as a floral designer. I always loved fashion, and had an eye for design. I was recruited for my first job in a flower shop because of just that, the people around me knew I had an eye to create beautiful things so I gave it a go. I was incredibly lucky that my first job in flowers was for Pat Dahlson owner of Mayesh Wholesale one of the top Luxury flower wholesalers in the country maybe even the wold. I was able to train under is daughter Ali and a mayesh wholesale design star Marcy where I quickly learned the basics and incredible modern design from the very start. Fast forward 8 months and the pandemic hits. The wholesale flower business comes to a screeching hault because well no more weddings, parties or even daily flowers are needed. Pat had to make the hard choice to close down the flower shop and sell the building we were located in. I was bummed as I just found my rhythm and was loving bringing flowers back to Philipsburg Montana, where we had been without a shop for 6 years or so. I spent my following weeks figuring out what was next, what do WE ALL do now? We were approaching mothers day of 2020 and being a mother myself I knew that so many of us were home with our children day in and day out, either guiding our kids through online schooling or purley trying to keep them active, and engaged and safe, it was a very trying time emotionally and mentally. I decided well, I have the knowledge and skill set to bring flowers to our community during a time that mothers needed love, and acknowledgment, so I reached out to Pat, Mayesh was running a special 1 full box of flowers that also included shipping from LA so i jumped on and advertised contactless flower delivery! Mothers day was a huge success and a month later I registered and “opened” Sāj Floral out of the original location I had been hired to be a florist a year earlier. I worked alone, in a basement of a restaurant and sold flowers to a community that needed something beautiful to remind them that everything will be ok! May of 2021 I opened my store front where I am still today, selling beautiful flowers to brighten peoples day.

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.

I am a midwest girl who fell in love with the Mountains. I moved to Montana in 2002 from Minnesota for college at the University of Montana Missoula. I fell into flowers by accident I would say. My mother always had beautiful flower gardens, veggie gardens and I loved spending time with her tending to them and helping her choose the flowers for the following season garden scape. I dabbled in floral design here and there but was suggested for a position at a new flower shop in town. I was told I had a sense of design and great fashion sense, so I decided to give it a go and have loved the medium ever sense!
We are a local floral shop and lifestyle store that brings locally design arrangements to our community for joy, celebration, sympathy and more.
We are also offer wedding and event florals for couples across the state and further. We provide a more of a artistic and intentional design for our couples, really focusing on bringing their personalities and interests into the floral design. I really want the flowers to speak to the guests in a way that represents the couple, each event and wedding feels uniquely different while still representing our style. I believe that sets us apart in the industry.

Any advice for managing a team?

Over the years I have had the opportunity of managing people in different industries, but for the most part within the hospitality realm, which if you don’t know is usually high stress and full of people that are in between jobs and just need a job or climbing the hospitality ladder, so you are faced with the career focused group and the others that are just there because lets be honest its not always the hardest industry to land a job. Managing two different sets up people under stress full situations has taught me a lot through many ups and downs how to be a better owner/manager within my company.
My advice for any new business owner or somebody looking for some advice would be; to hire the a person that believes in the values of your company and wants to work for the company, from there finding their strengths and putting them into a position that brings them joy and you value to your business.
Being open and honest with my employees regarding all things has been huge and allowing them to be apart of the decision making process. I always say, I am not super human and I don’t have all of the answer’s to everything which empowers them to make decisions and suggestions for the business, I believe it gives them a sense of ownership which in my experience has been a positive as it brings them a sense of accomplishment.
I always make sure I listen to their opinions and thoughts and acknowledge them and provide my thoughts and feedback back in a constructive way.
An employee wants to feel heard and know they are valued in more ways than just compensation.
Feeling that they are apart of something they can help grown and expand is worth a lot to an employee and employer for overall happiness.

Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?

I began my business slowly out of the basement of a empty restaurant during the pandemic, with very little overhead. I made sure that my weekly spend for flowers was no more than 30% of what my total profit would be. I slowly built a small nest egg and when the opportunity came to rent a store front on main street I found 2 gals who wanted to be apart of the business in a co-op sort of way vs a business partner. This allowed me more capital to offer more products and general buildout of the store than had I opened on my own. I made sure to keep big expenses as low as possible such as payroll, merchandise and overall expenditures low for the first 6 months. The co-op opportunity allowed the business to grow faster than if I had been on my own with shared expenses such as rent, utilities and labor. Once the business got to a certain spot, about 10 months in I bought out the other co-op gals.
From there I kept investing back into the company and finally got to a point that I took out a line of credit and that has been huge.
I get asked alot the size of loan i took out to open the business, and i giggle, and say i had 1500 in my bank and have never taken a true loan. The line of credit, and cash is how we operate.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.shopsaj.co
• Instagram: sajfloralstudio
• Facebook: sajfloralstudio

Image Credits

Marigold wedding is Opal and ox. Orchid wedding is Danielle Mullens photography.
Pastel wedding is David Clumpner and the table scape is Tawnee Bree photography