My Last Lecture

Life is a learning process and choosing to be a lifelong learner is very important if we want to lead a happy, productive life.  Anything we want to learn in life and what we take away from it is up to us, as individuals.  The power to choose and using our agency is the greatest gift God has given to us.  We can choose to be faithful, we can choose to be successful, and we can choose to be leaders in our chosen fields.  It’s all up to us.  While life can be difficult, and it will be at times, we have learned that when we apply the principles we have learned in this class, we can overcome our challenges and weaknesses to become better people. 

I learned many great things from the lectures and articles in this class.  I would like to share four points that I feel sum up this class for me and have given me the inspiration to work to make my life more successful. 

1 – Positivity:  One of the most important lessons to learn in life is to always have a positive attitude.  When we think positively, the world is at our feet, even in our minds.  When we feel we can accomplish anything, it puts into motion the motivation and drive necessary to become the person God meant for us to be.  Feeling positive and acting positive allows us to lead a proactive life.  When we work to act and not just react, we are at the helm of our own ship on the sea of this earthly life.  We are ultimately in control of who we are and what we are to become. 

2- Priorities:  Continually check back in with who you are, whether that is through prayer, reevaluating goals, or conversing with a trusted mentor.  Keeping our priorities in the right place, especially by putting the Lord and our families first, will help keep us from failing in the areas that truly matter most.  Spend time with yourself, allow time to reflect on goals and aspirations, and always be true to personal inspiration and feelings in the directions you are to go.

3 – Perspective:  Always keep an eternal perspective – keep an eye on the big picture.  When we do this, and focus on not only building our own lives but on building lives for others, true happiness will be achieved.  When we build time in our lives on a daily basis to serve someone else, our perspective of who we are changes.  Using our resources to help others will also help us grow in ways we never thought possible. 

4 – Persevere with Patience: Things will not always be easy, there may be and will likely be failures and disasters in life.  As wise friend once told me that we were put here on this earth to make mistakes.  I am learning not to be so hard on myself, that making mistakes is part of learning to better ourselves, not only in our personal lives, but in our professional lives.  Being perfect is not achievable in this life, so don’t worry about doing it all right all of the time.  We are here to just keep practicing and someday, hopefully, we get it right. 

I appreciate the opportunity to be a lifelong learner, to constantly grow and progress and to be a better business owner.  I am grateful for this class and the inspiring, amazing messages I learned. 

Week 12

This week, I was focused on doing a lot of catch up.  I am between floral jobs, the semester is coming to an end, and I had a lot of work to catch up on.  While reading at a steady pace would have been much more beneficial to my thought process and would have allowed me time to digest what I was reading and given me time to apply it to my life, I learned this week that there can also be times of intensive learning and that also has it's place.  It has allowed me to look at the "bigger picture", to glean facts and information that really stood out to me.  By looking at things with a broad lens, so to speak, I felt that certain things really stood out to me.

One thing that really stood out to me with this week's work on the Randy Haykin exercise was his choosing of mentors and business partners.  Fifteen years is a long time to know someone and definitely gives one the opportunity to really know what strengths and weaknesses they will be faced with.  It made me reflect on some of the mentors I have had in my life.  I have a couple of very dear friends who are great mentors to me.  They are a little bit older and wiser than me and I appreciate their wisdom and opinions about many things.  It also made me think of a woman who was a mentor to me, and I lament that I was not able to spend more time with her when she was around.  Mary Jane Russell owned a floral design shop in my town for many, many years.  I got to know her when my children were very young, so it was about 20-22 years ago.  My husband, knowing my love of flowers, gave me a gift of receiving monthly flowers from her.  She had her shop attached to her home, complete with greenhouse and work room.  Going over there was heavenly.  Because I had small children, I was not always able to spend a lot of time with her, and she was busy.  I learned over time that she was an icon in the floral design world, she was in her late sixties to early seventies when I met her.  She was featured in Martha Stewart's Wedding Book and was legendary at the market in New York City for her 4:30 a.m. arrivals, everyone knew Mary Jane.  To me, just being around her for a little while was an education.  I wish I was able to learn more from her, to be able to intern for her, when she was still alive, as she passed away about 10 years ago after retiring to North Carolina.  A few years ago, I met a woman who liked my work, we really got along and she recommended me to do flowers for her friend's wedding, which was one of my first.  Ironically, she turned out to be Mary Jane's daughter in law.  We shared some sweet memories of her together, it was one of those tender mercies and a reminder to me how mentors can live on in our memories and live through our work.  The most important take away for me was a reminder to focus on opportunities to mentor others.  One of the most valuable parts of education and experience is the opportunity to share what we have learned with others.

Week 10

Entrepreneurial Journey – Week 10

This week, as I have a small lull in my work, I worked on focusing on changes I need to make in my business and on ways to improve myself.  My first discovery was the suggestion from a fellow designer on using flower frogs in my work.  This may sound like a silly thing, but it was a life changer for me.  I have always used tape or floral foam, and I collect antique flower frogs because I like their vintage look.  However, she gave me a wholesale resource for them, sharing that it changed her business when she started using them.  I ordered some and felt transformed in my work.  It changed the way I design, allowed me to use less materials, and saved me a lot of time and grief.  Over the long term, using them will become profitable.

I also have given a lot of thought about my billing, which is my weakest area.  Keeping spreadsheets and finances are not my strong suit.  However, I know that feeling comfortable with the bottom line is essential to building and growing my business, so I have decided that I must use QuickBooks and implement their use into my weekly practice.  Also, picking up my profit margin and charging more for my work (mostly by being selective in who I take on as clients) will help me earn more money and enjoy the work because I am getting paid what I am worth. 

Lastly, the third facet is marketing.  My business has mostly thrived by word of mouth.  I have great relationships with the vendors and venues, I need to help them remember me.  I needed to change my business name and am moving forward with that in the next few weeks, along with creating new business cards, branding my look and building a website.  After these items are in place, I plan to go out to the local venues where I have done previous weddings and take small flower arrangements with a business card to remind them who I am. 

Week 9

Entrepreneurial Journal – Week 9

This week was another Stake wedding, although this one was a little more pleasurable.  The family is from California and seems to be a little more realistic about cost and were very easy going.  There weren’t any business mistakes or errors in this wedding, other than over ordering on a couple of the varieties of flowers.  The way I was able to remedy this is that I used the flowers that were leftover at my weekly country club installation. 

The only bad thing that happened with this wedding was a mishap from the caterer.  She had a new employee that set up the tables and didn’t lock the legs on three of them.  Worse than losing all of my newly purchased gold mercury glass was the safety issue. When the tables collapsed, glass shattered everywhere and there were children around.  Thankfully nobody got hurt, but it was a little bit scary.  The caterer was very apologetic, but I had the breakage issue I had to deal with.  In the past, I may have let this go and not worried about it, but it was a $150 loss for my business, and that is talking wholesale/replacement cost, not retail.  I spoke to my client and told them that someone would have to take responsibility for it.  Fortunately, the caterer was very honest and forthright and offered to pay to replace the broken glass.  Interestingly enough, she also wanted to be able to pass my name along to other clients of hers.  We were able to develop a nice relationship over working together and we both look forward to working together in the future.  The lesson I learned is that it is OK to be professional and kind and still make expectations known without sacrificing a relationship.  

Week 8

Entrepreneurial Journal – Week 8

For these next two weeks, I worked on weddings revolving around friends/youth in my Stake that I have known for many years.  This is one area of my business that needs more reflection, work and resolution.  I hear about this difficulty often from business people who are members of the church and the expectation that things should be done either on a service basis or for deep discounts.  These people are friends of mine, I am happy to do flowers for them and I am honored to be asked to do their weddings; however, sometimes I wonder if the reason I am asked is because a discount is expected.  In the past, I have handled it by prefacing that my discount is part of my wedding gift to them.  Sometimes I have come with an extra gift, sometimes I have not.  It all depends on situation.  The main thing that needs changing is my attitude and choosing how to handle these business situations and decisions.  I don’t have a bad attitude, but I sometimes feel like people really don’t understand how much flowers cost and assume I will give steep discounts.  The decision really is to decide whether or not I take on these weddings in the future and decide whether or not it is worth my time. 

All in all, this wedding turned out very beautiful, and the family was very happy.  I was happy to create something beautiful to make a special day even more magical, it is fulfilling on many other levels, just not on my wallet. 

Week 7

Entrepreneurial Journal – Week 7

I had a meeting this week with a client to discuss their October wedding.  It will be my largest wedding this year.  I have done a wedding for another daughter in the past, so we know each other well.  One of my goals with this wedding was to make sure I price out fairly (the first time around was when I was new in the business and I undercharged them so much due to unexpected expenses, I felt like I hardly made anything – lesson learned).  I also wanted to be sure I had a clear idea going into our meeting about what materials were being used and how that would translate into cost so that I could make sure I am charging enough for what I am doing.  This is our third meeting, and we are close to making final decisions.  At our next meeting, I will make a mock up table so that they can see exactly what we are doing.  I brought several samples and we played with different options.  We discussed the extensive use of silver and mercury glass, as well as the white and green flowers we will be using.  It was a very productive meeting and they were very happy.

One thing I have learned is one of my strengths is my ability to assure people that what they are doing is the best option for their budget and I am able to help them feel comfortable and happy about their event.  That is an important part of my business model, I always want my clients to feel comfortable and to trust me.  I do that by communicating clearly my intentions, as well as asking them a lot of questions so that I know we are on the same page.  One thing I could improve upon is to make sure I have faster turnaround with my statements after events are over.  That will help my cash flow.