In the News

Mom&Me In the News

Creations by Mom and Me Inc.

A Mother and Daughter Team Following Their Passion to Success
By Anja Sonnenberg ~ Canadian Florist Magazine April, 2005

Owning a flower shop wasn't what Patti Custaloe envisioned she would be doing in the future, but after finishing high school, she did just that. Creations By Mom & Me, located in Guisachan Village in Kelowna, British Columbia, was the result of an eight-week floral design course, which Custaloe and her mother Edithe Ross decided to take at a local college.

"We started this shop from scratch," Custaloe says. "My mom was a legal bookkeeper, and for the first time in my life she wasn' working, so I dragged her off to school with me." After finishing the course, the duo decided to go into business together and never looked back. "We started out of my mom's old farmhouse, and two years later, we opened in Guisachan Village."

After 14 years, Creations By Mom & Me has continued to offer customers excellent service and shopping at the 12,000-sq.-ft. shop.[note: actually 1,200 sq. ft.!] The front entrance of the store is located in the centre of a huge arched window, which creates the perfect place for outdoor floral displays to entice customers to explore.

"Our landlord is very good about letting us put product outside by the front entrance," Custaloe says. "Weather permitting, we can put everything out there for people to see."

Going into business with a partner is always a gamble, but when that partner is your mother, there are more important things at stake than the success of the business.

"It's a perfect puzzle," Custaloe says describing her relationship with her Mom. "We're joined at the hip - we commute to work together, we go grocery shopping together, but it's still a real professional relationship. We have so much fun. I don't know how anyone can run a business with just one person, and not just because of the workload. I think its key to a business to have someone to bounce ideas off of."

As a business grows, job descriptions and designated tasks change. Being able to relinquish control is vital to the success of any the business.

"When we first started out, it was just mom and I. I did all the designing and marketing and mom handled all the customer service stuff," says Custaloe. Creations By Mom & Me now employees 18 people, 8 of whom are designers. Custaloe believes in teaching her employees all aspects of the business. She encourages her designers to become involved in the daily tasks of running the business - answering the phones, customer service, and even going on deliveries. By dealing with customers on a regular basis, Custaloe feels that her designers can get a better sense of the customer's style, which improves their overall designs.

"I hardly do any designing anymore, except for wedding bouquets," Custaloe says. "We do a huge amount of weddings - over 200 a year. We bend over backwards for our clients, and our brides are blown away." Creations By Mom & Me have a strict policy when it comes to weddings and customer satisfaction. "All our brides see their bouquet the day before the wedding." Custaloe admits that this is often time consuming and sometimes inconvenient, but it's the best policy they've adopted. "There are no questions or hesitations on Saturday morning - everyone knows what they're getting. For the times the bride has come in and the flowers weren't right, we've had the opportunity to make it right."

Weddings are a huge source of marketing and advertising for Creations By Mom & Me.

"Where else are you going to be able to capture the attention of hundreds of people looking at your flowers? Although weddings are not the biggest money makers because they're so time consuming, I think they are the best form of marketing ourselves because it showcases us to all these people, and they tell everyone."

Another unique method of advertising Custaloe and her mom have used to promote their shop involved driving around Kelowna.

"We go out in January with cinnamon hearts wrapped in tulle with a little tag saying &'Don't forget your sweetie on Valentine's Day, which we hand out to businesses. We've also planted individual pansies in Dixie cups and given them out in March to remind people about Easter and Mother's Day."

After spending 14 years in the floral industry, Custaloe feels there is a passion that you have to have to make it in this business.

"I don't know if it was my calling, but I know there are a lot of cliches about florists and the industry itself," Custaloe says. "The ones that are being successful are able to creatively multitask. There are a lot of things going on in our industry with big box stores - you need to find your niche." Custaloe believes customers prefer to say they got their flowers from a florist, as opposed to box and grocery stores, and florists should use this to their advantage.

As for competition, Custaloe says the florists in Kelowna are a friendly group.

"We're friends with every florist - nothing is a secret around here. Any florist that does something wrong, ruins it for the industry. We're very much a team player with anyone in the industry and it bothers me that there are a lot of florists out there who assume I am the competition. It's the chocolate shops and the jewelry stores and other businesses that are your real competition."

"We're a very big, reputable, posh business, but we're still small town hearted. I think that's the key to our success - to recognize that different people are looking for different things." Custaloe says. "It's a serious business, but we have a lot of fun. One thing we've always said is that when we stop having fun, it's time to get out of the industry."

ŠCopyright 2005 - Canadian Florist Magazine