IG Live: Tips for Career Changers
This month’s IG Live session is about making a career change to flower farming. My experience and some observations from our industry.
Take away notes: from the discussion:
I was practicing flower growing for a couple of seasons as a gardener in the summertime.
I started living a “dual” life. Sowing seeds and tending seedlings late at night. Running to check on them in the school’s tiny greenhouse during the day.
I was reading and watching videos and blogging and writing about what I was learning as much as I could to build content on my website. I Offered monthly giveaways to my newsletter readers and as an incentive to join my email list.
And then decided that if I didn’t give notice and make a change, I’d be wondering why I hadn’t the following year. For me– I knew I’d have that regret. And that chance of regret was my biggest motivator.
I left: $70k/year job with retirement benefits and housing. We kept my spouse’s health care plan until he also chose to be self-employed a few years ago.
Then we purchased health care independently and it is part of my business expenses now.
HEALTH INSURANCE COSTS:
Because we do not qualify for a reduced rate for health insurance (our combined income from my business and my husband’s own small business is too large for a reduction), we pay the full premium. And it’s a lot.
Our monthly cost is: $1960.24 (2 adults) + $980.12 (2 children) = $2,940.36
If I was a single adult, who did not qualify for a reduced rate, my plan would be closer to $1k per month.
Note: I did not have the burden of paying the full cost of our health insurance when I started my business. We were able to use Brad’s plan from our previous employer. Our rate reflects our current income. If we had applied for a health insurance plan in the marketplace when I was a new business owner with a much lower income, our rate would have been significantly lower.
I found the best resource for finding a health insurance plan at our local hospital. I called there and explained that I needed to find a plan for my family and that I needed some help to sort it out. The hospital put me in touch with a community outreach person who helped us evaluate the options available to us and their costs.
Because plans and their fees change from year to year, we will shop around again this winter and see if there is a better option available to us that includes our doctors of choice.
I made the switch fast.
I had to find a place to live and grow and a mortgage in about 3 months.
I did not have the opportunity to moonlight as a flower farmer.
Took $8k from my retirement plan to get started. On top of our new property mortgage: a home on 2.5 acres.
I signed up for farmers markets before my first season even started. I brought my “A” game every day to those markets, rain or shine. Flowers or not.
Said “yes” to pretty much every opportunity that came my way.
I took a few small events at the end of the season and booked events for the following year.
Reached out to every local event vendor I could find to tell them about my business.
I got to do flowers for a photoshoot that a new event planner was hosting. And then I leveraged those photos to sell more events the following season by using them on my website and social media accounts.
I focused on retail to get the most for the small operation I was managing.
IT TAKES TIME:
Observations: Your business NEEDS time. If you can’t invest your full time or PAY someone else to invest their full time in the exact ways you need that time spent, it can be very hard to get to the point where you feel comfortable stepping away financially from a past career.
An Observation from ‘Shark Tank’:
I’m a big fan of the show “shark tank” I love hearing from entrepreneurs and listening to pitches and the questions and concerns of potential investors. You will notice if you watch this show– that the investors almost always want to know if the small business owners are “all in”. If they are only part time, the sharks hesitate to invest.
I think this is the hardest point for many new growers. They are sort of tinkering and trying and fitting in work around the other things they’re doing and they’re expecting to somehow reach financial security for a brand new business while putting in part time effort.
There is nothing wrong with splitting your time between two things. But that struggle will be there. There are only so many hours in a day. It’s my experience that when I’m pulled in too many different directions - I don’t feel good about any one of the areas I’ve committed to.
And the motivation to make it work can be difficult to achieve when you’re propped up by a career that you’ve depended on.
For me— it’s taken full-time, pavement pounding, hustling hard work to make my business take off. And if you want to get to the point where you not only earn a living wage, but also benefits– that takes even more time and effort.