The wind chill today is dropping below freezing even as the sun shines bright. Winter is starting to rub us all raw, I’m sure. But it’s a great time to huddle up to the desk (space heater underneath and hot mug of tea on top, of course), and plan for how to grow your business in the coming year. Here at Love ‘n Fresh, there’s a lot in the simmer pot, including ideas for expanding our master class options for professionals. Teaching these courses has decidedly been one of my most rewarding undertakings to date. The actual days spent teaching and connecting with the students in all the classes was energetic, fun, and gratifying. But it’s honestly been the journey since the classes, watching these talented ladies build their businesses, that has truly — and deeply — inspired me!

One star pupil from our The Business of Local Flowers class is Rachel Gordon. I had the pleasure of first meeting Rachel at our Seasonal Bouquet Project LIVE workshops at the farm back in October 2013. I felt an immediate connection. She was sweet and smart and ambitious. But also, and please forgive me, Rachel, a little lost. Not in a bad way. But in the way that many young women who have an entrepreneurial dream are. She knew she loved flowers. She knew she was committed to the locally-grown movement. She knew she wanted to build a business that would build community. But she just wasn’t quite sure where to begin. Hanging out your own shingle is, after all, a daunting and multilayered undertaking. Our time together at that SBP workshop was short, but we stayed in touch and I encouraged her to attend our Business Master Class the next spring.
Rachel came to the business class full of ideas, but still spinning her wheels a bit. I remember giving her a ride to dinner the first night and chatting about what had influenced her to dive into flowers and also what made her nervous about the industry. By the end of our second day of the master class, it was clear that Rachel had a concrete action plan forming for the first time. She had tons of great questions and did an awesome job not only quizzing Ellen and I as instructors but also polling the whole class for their thoughts and getting some very valuable feedback that way. This time when we hugged goodbye, I knew she was going to spread her wings and go for it!

Watching her launch Taproot Flowers in Brooklyn this summer and seeing how she has quickly found her own unique voice in a very overflowing marketplace has been so exciting! She just tackled her first Valentine’s Day with huge success thanks to her clever social media “Tulip Love” story-boarding! And she’s got several weddings booked for the 2015 season. I’d encourage you to follow her over on Instagram for heartwarming images added to your daily feed. I absolutely love her clever messages in her guerrilla marketing tactics. She’s proving that having a unique voice that is truly your own is what makes a business stand apart, even in a floral frenzied place like Brooklyn.
So enough from me. Let’s meet Rachel and hear more from her directly!

1. Tell us a little bit about your business, business model and clientele.
Thanks so much for having me, Jennie! Taproot is a floral design business based in Brooklyn, NY. We do weddings and events, daily deliveries, and teach classes. What makes us unique is that we are fully committed to using 100% locally grown flowers — every single flower we sell was grown within 200 miles of our workshop. There are so many amazing flower farmers in our region. They’ve been so welcoming and supportive. It’s so exciting to work with them, and the incredibly beautiful flowers they grow.
Our clients are incredible people. What’s amazing to me is that we already have a solid part of our first wedding season in place…we booked wedding clients (complete strangers!) before we even had a proper website up. They’ve repeatedly told me how excited they are to have access to locally grown flowers for their weddings — and I am beyond grateful for their willingness to trust a new business, and all of their support for what has at times seemed like a crazy idea (to me, anyway!).
2. What got you into flowers in the first place?
I was raised by people who love flowers, gardening, & farming. My grandparents had a pretty spectacular vegetable garden and a tiny greenhouse full of flowers in their yard. My grandmother (whose name was Iris!) always seemed to have orchids in every room of her home. My uncle is a farmer in Florida. My mother always makes a yearly trip to a nursery every summer to pick up flowers for her backyard.
That all being said — I never, ever thought about being a florist as a career. It’s totally something I just fell into. I’m still surprised by it.

3. You attended our Business of Local Flowers Master Class at Love ‘n Fresh Flowers this past spring. When you signed up, what were you looking to gain by coming to our farm?
Clarity. I knew that I wanted to open a business that was committed to using local flowers, but I was on the fence about actually DOING it. The very act of signing up was a kind of tipping point — I showed up to the class and said: “I’m doing this.” I’m pretty sure it was the first time I said it out loud. Being surrounded by all of these other people who were pursuing similar projects was so inspiring, and I just felt like: Ok. I’m in. Let’s do it.
4. What did you find most helpful about your time in the class? Where there any surprises?
So many things! Hearing other people’s stories, getting feedback on my ideas, learning about what others’ businesses were like when they were first starting out — all things that were invaluable. I’m a big believer in taking as many classes as I can. You never know what you might learn or who you’ll meet; I often walk away from classes with the tiniest kernel of new knowledge or a new connection that later proves to be so helpful.

5. Can you give us a specific example of something you learned and then implemented into your own business once you went home?
I learned to talk to everybody. Just everybody. You never know who you might be talking to. I walked into a local business not long after the class, noticed that their flowers looked they came from our neighborhood farmers market, and asked where they were getting their flowers. And they said — I kid you not — “Oh! They’re from the farmers market. We’d love to work with a florist, but we can’t find one around here that will provide us with locally grown flowers. We feel really strongly about that.” I nearly fell over. I hadn’t mentioned that I was a florist, let alone Taproot’s mission. BOOM. There you go. Taproot’s first client!
6. How has your business changed over the past several months since the class?
Taproot was just an idea when I took the class — now it’s a real business! AH! This blows my mind. It took (what felt like) a really, really long for me to get it up and running, so I am just SO excited that it’s finally open.
7. Have you stayed in touch with any other students from the class?
Yes! Mostly through social media. It’s been so lovely to see how their businesses have grown!

8. Time for the “big question”! Where do you see your business going from here? A healthy business is always evolving. What’s that process look like for yours?
I just want to see it grow! We’ve only really been “open” for a few months! It’s really important to me that Taproot become a solid part of the local community, and I can’t wait until spring, when more of our growers will have flowers available. I can’t wait to see what our first full year in business brings!