Smelling like a rose

Opening the doors a mingled rush of flowers and scented candles greets the senses, an aroma that can invoke a warm cozy feeling no matter the weather outside and quite possibly a greeting that is imbedded within the very essence of the business and walls.

Knick knacks, candles and seasonal gifts lead the way to the narrow counter where Teresa Grant, owner since 1994, awaits to take a flowery order or help a customer pick the perfect gift, a service originally offered by two ladies by the same name - Laura.

Since 1942 Sidney Floral and Gift Shop has catered to people in the area with bouquet after bouquet of flowers brightening lives and making smiles; a service Grant takes delight in being part.

Teresa has found a real home within the building’s rich flowery history and even boasts about still possessing a key piece of equipment from the early days.

“We have the original cooler out here,” she waved in the direction of the cooler in the gift shop area, “which I have rebuilt completely. It’s withstood time. Bill Folkerts took care of that (the cooler) forever. He would come in and spend two minutes working on it and it was fine. So he kept it running for many, many years.”

However, it wasn’t the wealth of history that made Grant want to buy well-established business nor was it the type of work, there were other reasons.

“I was working and was tired of being gone so much, traveling for my job, and I wanted to be home. I had little kids. So I thought, let’s do this. I had worked at Cabela’s for a long time, worked at the newspaper for a long time, worked at Presolite, and needed a change.”

A decision she has not regretted since, thanks to the interaction of her customer baseand the ability within her profession to spread happiness from person to person.

“For the most part it has been wonderful. I have met a lot of wonderful people,” Grant said. “It’s amazing to take flowers to someone in the nursing home, or a little lady who hasn’t seen anyone for two days and the joy on their face is very rewarding. Sidney really has a lot to offer.”

Even though she loves her job and more times over she is able to aid in smiles, there are times when even this florist finds her work heartbreaking or incredibly sad.

She said some of the most heartbreaking times in her job have been “funerals of someone who has lost a child. We have had so many. We have had little kids that have died of cancer, children who have died in car accidents.”

It isn’t just funerals for a child that tugs at Grant’s heartstrings; she said funerals in general are hard so she is especially aware of how she handles her grieving clientele helping guide them through the tough process of picking out arrangements.

Grant has two talents she hangs on to allowing her the ability to help people through tough times as well as good times.

One is because she believes, “Flowers are a way to bring life back into sad things; they really do.”

The other is her ability to help her clientele through assessing their personality and mood, a talent that took her years to hone.

She said this ability was from years of seminars she attended while working in sales for both the Sidney newspaper and Prestolite.

“When you walk into a client’s office or business you have got to read them fast. You have to know how they are, their mood, you have to know immediately. You have to know how far you can push them in getting advertising sales and what you can say to them. You have got to know your customer,” she said.

This prior work experience has given her a very solid foundation where she works upon now in aiding her customer base, no matter the reason they walk into her shop.

Grant’s job these days is a bit easier than ones in her past because for her, “Flowers are happy, flowers are the Earth’s way of smiling.You can look at flowers and see how happy they are. They just make you feel good.”

She delights in every aspect of the colorful, live, scented stalks and blooms, admitting a piece of her goes into all her work.

“Your heart and soul goes into it. You think about the person giving it, you think of the person receiving it. Sometimes you’re going to yourself this isn’t going to help, but usually it is goodness, happiness and a lot of love that goes into it.”

The ability to put a smile upon a person’s day, no matter her customer’s day, is something Grant wouldn’t trade for the world because she knows “flowers brighten a day.”

Florist is not the only title Grant holds. “I’m not just a flower shop. I am a certified interior decorator and we have a full gift shop.” That’s something she said allows for her to be a multi-useful to her customers.

Teresa said she is able to go into a home and help just about anyone figure out how to best utilize the space and leave the home with everyone happier than when she entered.

It is her love of customer care, on every level, that makes Grant exceptionally serious about her services and profession, to the extent of warning people against the so called floral services offered through the internet.

“Be it ProFlowers, 1800 Flowers, any of those places, you are not talking to a floral shop, you are talking to an order taker who does not know the difference between a Daisy, a Rose, a Carnation a Lisianthus. Their job is to take your order.

She said after the order is taken the middleman then contacts a flower shop and places the order.

The problem from that point on, according to Grant, is despite the order placed, the idea the customer has within their head of what the arrangement is to look like and the actuality of the delivered flowers often are two different things.

Grant said many times over the company placing the orders on a person’s behalf tell the floral shops to “do the best they can.”

“You are thinking you are getting this arrangement, and the person in the middle says do whatever, so you are getting something completely different,” Grant said.

The other aspect of this poor business practice Grant said is, “That person in the middle is charging you a huge fee. Be it $9.95, $19.95 I have talked to people where it has been as high as $49.95, so this person has ordered an arrangement thinking he has paid a $100 thinking he is going to get a big beautiful arrangement, well that middle person has kept 30, 40, 50 percent of that money.

When it gets to the flower shop that will actually do your flowers they have been given only $50,” something she said does not equal a big arrangement, but does make the middleman hand over fist profit.

Overall Grant said her experience as a business owner has, “taught me patience, it has taught me that there are people out there that no matter what you do, no matter what you give them they are not going to be happy and there are people out there that are very kind and very gracious.”

And at the end of the day, no matter who or what Grant comes up against she knows she has tended to her customers the best she can.

She is carefully taking care when residents of Sidney are in need of flowers whether it be just the right arrangement for a funeral or wedding and even at times to bail a husband out of trouble.