Business Model Highlight: Community Partnerships and Pop-Ups
In this Team Flower Business Model Highlight, we're featuring Springvine Orlando, a wedding florist service that has a love of reaching out to their community by including more everyday flowers. Springvine Orlando can be found online at www.springvinedesign.com or on social media @springvine.orl.
Who do you serve?
We initially have been serving the Orlando area as wedding florists, but saw a problem that there wasn't much opportunity in our smaller town (Hamlin, Horizon West, Florida) where people could have beautiful and cheerful bouquets. We set out to find a way to join in on a client base that would be our perfect market, plus bring foot traffic in to allow us to branch out into everyday arrangements. We wanted to know our town and support other small businesses in it.
What mark do you hope to leave on your community?
For however long our interaction is with each customer, we are lifting their spirits and bringing joy to their days—especially those few not-so-good days. When they leave us, we want them to feel that they are a little more seen and loved for the rest of their week.
How do you connect with and support your local community?
We began reaching out to our community by contacting a boutique fitness franchise (Barre Classes, specifically) that was set to open in our tiny little town to see if they would be interested in having flowers for their opening day.
The owner responded with flying colors and said they'd done something similar at another location, so we tossed the ideas around of a stem bar and/or a bouquet pickup.
We decided, for many different setbacks (late opening, being pushed back twice…yikes! and just not understanding on our end how much foot traffic to equip us for), to move forward with a half stem bar and a smaller set of bouquets for a smaller price.
Opening day was so much fun, and we got to learn so much about what the community (especially that particular client base) was interested in. Going forward, we get to refine that skill and are graciously welcomed back to do another pop-up.
If you could snap your fingers and any ONE task would be complete, what would that task be? Genuinely, if I could eliminate ONE task, it would probably be cleaning eucalyptus—especially baby blue. The way my hands get really sappy after cleaning those stems makes me cringe. Haha!
Which products set your flower shop apart from others in your area?
In our area, we are very fortunate that the town is primarily new and, therefore, not a lot of other florists are nearby. We have chosen cheerful color choices and floral variety, which has made us well-known in our community. As a designer, something important to me was having the opportunity to play with more color as we reach out to our community. Getting to pick out a variety of flowers that 'spark joy' for us every pop-up (like those happy cosmos or light blue delphinium) helps us sell something we genuinely are excited about. Our community seems to enjoy it too!
How do you support and encourage other small businesses around your community?
We are passionate about coming alongside new small businesses by using what our business does to bring joy to people's day.
It is such a joy to partner both businesses' strengths: They are sharing their clients (guaranteed foot traffic), and we are bringing something to make their studio stand out—which, in turn, brings more foot traffic for them (for example the Barre Class being the only one in town with a "Bouquet Barre").
It's important that the owner and I had a shared dream of bringing people together and lifting their spirits, and having fun! Finding small businesses with similar visions but different methods can create a beautiful strength and camaraderie in a community that hopefully blossoms into something even more beautiful in the future.
