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Joanne Quinn
FOAM WEDDING FLOWERS
An interview with Joanne Quinn, owner of the award winning business Foam Wedding Flowers, an artificial florist. Joanne tells me about her rise to success, family life and not to cave in to impostor syndrome.
When looking for female entrepreneurs to interview for Herricane, my mum had encouraged me to get in touch with one of her old friends from high school, who has made a thriving and successful business in the floristry industry. Joanne's business Foam Wedding Flowers has sky rocketed; she is always advising, working and helping with clients so that they can pick their dream wedding bouquets. Joanne has won many awards such as:
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Best New Business County Brides Wedding Awards 2015
Best Florist County Brides Wedding Awards 2016
Finalist Best Florist 2017 County Brides Wedding Awards
Finalist Best Florist 2018 County Brides Wedding Awards.
Joanne hasn't always had it smooth sailing, however. In this interview, I spoke to her about her journey to where she is now, where it all began and her struggles along the way.
Jo had found a love for floristry from the age of just 12 years old, where she worked part time in a local florist. As she grew older, she gained many floristry qualifications in college, becoming a full time worker there. And now, after an important period of taking some time for herself to start her own family, Jo was back on the floristry scene bigger and better than ever, catering for her own clientele. Initially, she started working from home, creating beautiful bouquets for soon-to-be brides. However she found a niche in the floristry world when someone approached her for wedding flowers, claiming that she wanted to keep them forever instead of having fresh flowers that would soon wilt. Jo told me that, at the time she starting doing artificial flowers, there weren't many places that were doing it. She said the market was open for her to do this sort of thing and so she starting doing just artificial flowers, and the idea took off. Jo had influxes of orders for her flowers, and she was thriving.
Jo told me that "I wouldn't have had a business without the internet." Creating an online presence is huge when starting your own business, and despite Jo's main clientele now being local, she often gets national and international orders. "people come in and say, 'I found you on Facebook!'" Like many other independent business owners, especially working from home, Jo hugely depended on the internet to build her business. Now she has built up her credibility she has been able to open her own insta-worthy shop, putting her own stamp on the floristry market. However, the business side of things took a long time for her to grasp.
Jo spoke about how, when she first started out, she felt a sense of imposter syndrome when dealing with certain clients. "I never thought I could come across as confident" she told me, and said she would shy away at the thought of upping her prices in fear of not being good enough. Jo told me; "don't be a busy fool!" in business. She used to bend over backwards for customers, but now has realised that knowing your worth in the business industry is down to how much effort you put into your work, the skills and craft you have and the ability to say no in order for your business to run the way you want it to.
I asked Jo if she wanted to take the business any further, and her response was that she was happy with it, just as it is now. "It has the potential to grow and expand" and she said that if her daughter (who works with her now) were to take it on, she should definitely invest and expand it. "I could take it a lot further but... I don't want to! I'm happy running my shop, meeting all the brides and doing their wedding flowers." Each individual business owner knows what works for both themselves and their business.
One thing that stuck out most to me was the conversation we had about impostor syndrome. Jo agreed that she felt like an imposter partially because of the ways in which society encourages men to be more business-driven than women. Not only did Jo grow up in a society in which "the men went to work all day and most mums stayed at home, all through my life I've dealt with it [male dominance]", Jo touched on some personal struggles regarding her previous marriage. Male power and dominance affected her as a mother, a businessperson and as a woman. "But not anymore!" Jo laughed. She said she has always taught her daughters to "deal with no messing and do what you wanna do" because she has proven that you don't have to be an over-bearing, over-powering man to have a successful business! "It's important to have a voice and not thinking you can't say no."
Jo's past struggles enabled her to take back charge of her own life, encouraging not just her daughters but any female business owner to do the same. Jo promotes local business owners who are women, showcasing their products and leaflets in her shop so that they can compliment each other's businesses. She said she will help any girl who’s starting their own business, "because I will never forget who helped me when I first started out. And they were all women."
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