Running a business day to day, it’s not easy to keep an eye on the big picture. And, in this age of global commerce and electronic communications, it can be challenging to build and maintain the person-to-person relationships that sustain a healthy business—especially a healthy flower business.
by Bruce Wright
For clues and inspiration on how to meet those challenges, you could do worse than take a look at the 60-year-career of Harrison “Red” Kennicott III, AAF—chairman of Illinois-based Kennicott Brothers Company, which has grown under his watch to one of the largest floral distributors in the country, serving ten states with 17 locations.
According to Red, “Personal relationships are what this business is all about. It starts with the customer and their relationship with his or her salesperson. Anything we can do to help build customers through our connections with them—that’s what we see as our main focus.”
To hear Red tell it, wholesale florists are ideally positioned to make connections: “Being in the distribution arm, we’re in the middle between the production and the retail florist. Our reason for existing is to serve both ends.”