My first job was at McDonald’s when I was 15 years old. And I hated it.
I didn’t mind the cooking, but cleaning up other people’s garbage was just so disgusting. I quit after only a few months. I realized that my career path was not going to go anywhere near the food industry, so the following year I found work at a neighborhood greenhouse.
There, we grew and sold outdoor annuals as well as poinsettias for the holidays. We also carried fresh flowers and fertilizers — typical items that you would find in a garden center. I quickly discovered that leaning how to make things grow was much more pleasant than taking out the trash and sweeping French fries off the floor at a fast food restaurant all day long.
While I was working at the greenhouse I became friends with a woman who was preparing to open up her own florist shop with her husband. She eventually expanded the business and purchased an additional flower shop in Boston called Hoffman Florist. So, when I was about 21 I went to work for her at that location.
Flower power
I worked at that shop for about 12 years, and during that time I really learned how to run a business. I started off as a floral designer, and the day-to-day operations were handled by a manager who came with the business when it was purchased. But piece by piece, more of the responsibilities fell to me as he prepared for retirement. I eventually began handling customer service issues, overseeing the entire staff, and routing the delivery workers to their destinations. (Remember: There was no GPS in those days)
It was a high-volume store located near several hospitals and universities, and I often found myself dealing with one of the fundamental aspects of business ownership: ordering inventory. I was dealing with a perishable product. Not having enough is a lost opportunity; but you don’t want to order so much that you have to throw it away. It was a balancing act.
I think the most important lesson I learned was how to develop relationships and make customers realize that they’re important. I didn’t view them as just another phone call to handle. Each order someone gives you has meaning to them. They called you and trusted you to know what their tastes were, and those relationships go a long way.
There was a lot of marketing to be done on behalf of the flower shop as well. A lot of the business we received came from out of town, through companies such as FTD. So we did a lot of promotion to other businesses around the country and developed relationships with them. They would, in turn, send more business our way. What it all boiled down to was earning people’s trust.
At any given time I had four to five people working under me, and the operation of the store really fell to me. And while I worked there, the business really did grow. We became No. 1 in Boston.
A new opportunity
But after so many years, I was eventually ready for a change, and that’s when an opportunity in the pool industry presented itself.
My sister and now-brother-in-law worked at a pool store when they were in college. I owned a condominium that had a swimming pool, so I was one of their customers. Then, one day I was in a coffee shop and ran into the woman who owned that pool store. She was having some health issues and was ready to sell the business.
So, I just fell into it.
I didn’t know anything about the mechanics of a pool, but I did know plenty about running a business and how to make customers feel important.
I don’t know if I ever would have had the confidence to go out and purchase my own company if I hadn’t had the experience and mentors that I had at Hoffman. Now I’ve been in the pool industry for 31 years, and I learned so much of what I needed to know at that florist shop.
