Below is my summary paper for my 2017 Field Period.
My 2017 Field Period at Petal Garden was incredible. I have known the owners of Petal Garden for around 7 years, as their son was my best friend in high school. I was never entirely sure what his parents did for a living, other than something to do with roses. This January, however, I learned a lot about what the company does, how they do it, and many more things in between! My supervisor is very knowledgeable (Cornell business grad himself) and I am very lucky to have been able to learn from him!
First, when I arrived at Petal Garden, it smelled heavily of roses (as it should!). When I met with my supervisor, Brian, and we discussed what I was going to do for the day (this is something we did every morning), he would often give me much freedom with how I did the things I was given to do. I really feel that with that sense of management I thrived. Sometimes, when given a task and watched like a hawk I am unable to be myself and struggle with a mental block. Brian did not care. He would give me a task and then that was it. He never got annoyed with my countless questions and was very impressed with what I was able to figure out on my own.
I learned many things. I learned all about running a business and using its website (the main way Petal Garden makes orders and fulfills them), and much about the company as a whole. Petal Garden specializes in freeze dried and silk rose petals. The petals are picked off real roses, by hand, and then put in a freeze-drying machine so they are preserved for years. The silk petals are imported from China and will last forever. These petals are used mainly for brides and their weddings, as well as romantic gestures and valentine’s day, and even arts and crafts! And there is totally a market for it. Business is booming and has shown no slowing. The margin, for example, on a pack of silk petals ($9.95 for 400 petals) is quite large because it only costs our company $1.50 or so. At first I thought this was incredible, but my supervisor showed me that online advertising eats into that margin by a few dollars, but they are still quite profitable. We sell mainly through our website, as well as Etsy.com which is an online arts and crafts store. We are beginning our integration into the mobile application called Pinterest as well.
My main job was setting up the eCommerce system we are going to switch to. The eCommerce platform we currently use is outdated and causes many problems. The new system, Shopify, is new, simpler, and more reliable. Thus, I spent a large part of the month toying with it and learning how to integrate it so we could start making money. Each product needed to be photographed (over 300 products!) and listed on the site with a description, pricing information, shipping information, and even inventory information which all took a lot of concentration. We have petals, candles, frames, organza bags, and many more items! I found through this that I absolutely love taking photos and will continue developing this hobby into a skill I can transfer to other Field Periods and work places! By the end of my Field Period, I had just finished the Shopify eCommerce platform/system and my supervisor is very excited to switch to it soon! I also had to work on an employee operations manual. This is a manual for employees that my supervisor made around 10 years ago, but he had many years of notes he wanted to add to it. He gave me this task and assumed it would take me much of my Field Period experience. On the morning of day 2, however, I handed him the finished copy and he was very surprised and impressed with it! That made me really happy because I enjoy working hard. Along with these tasks, I worked on analyzing some sales data, showing that the trend in some of our roses is a decreasing price which is great for our company because it costs us less for roses so we can make more money when we sell the petals! My supervisor did not expect this and was very happy that I did it for him. I loved working through excel and creating the graphs necessary to illustrated the sales data I used for the last 3-4 years! In my down time, I learned how to take the petals off of roses by hand and prepare them to be freeze-dried! I also spent a lot of time talking with my supervisor about what his job is and what he does. He purchases flowers, for example off of a decreasing auction website. Every second, the price of the roses decreases and one must buy them before someone else does. He has two computer screens and two separate auctions going on at the same time to make sure he gets the best prices on roses. I found this to be a very intelligent and well thought out idea. Overall, it was a very great learning experience.
Along with the many great things I learned, I also saw some things that I would do differently if it were my business. For example, one of the employees is constantly on her cell phone and not working. She also has no idea how to do her job and asks questions constantly (the questions have had the same answers for 7 years, according to my supervisor) which demonstrates, to me, a lack of willpower to work hard or show any care and thus I would have either spoke to the employee about her performance or ultimately terminated her. My supervisor, Brian, has not tried speaking to her to fix these issues. I told about my Human Resources experience at my past Field Period and what we would have done to fix the problem, and he seems to be coming around. I fear he does not like confrontation, but it needs to be addressed because time is money and that employee is wasting time. Other than that, all employees were very respectful and happy to have me be a part of their team for the month!
It is difficult to summarize my experience fully, but as stated before, it was an incredible experience and I am very glad I did it. I learned so much about small businesses and how they operate, as well as some things I would do differently (which I never thought I would!). This experience has definitely opened my eyes to the business world more fully and I cannot wait to become a part of it whether it be my own business or someone else’s! Petal Garden, Inc. is an amazing company with a very bright future ahead and I am honored to have been a part of it for my Field Period! I am thankful to have learned so much. I feel that I have changed in a way that is going to help me very much in the business world. Now I have two Field Periods in a business environment, albeit drastically different ones, so I am starting to get a feel for how they operate and ways to make them better. I learned that I love making things more efficient, whether it be making easier to find titles on our products on the website, all the way to a quicker way to take the petals off roses, I feel it is important to be as efficient as one can be to maximize output and make the most of one’s time and resources. This is something I will take with me everywhere. On my last day, I was offered a summer job with the company that I cannot wait to take up on!