Bloom Where You’re Planted

Adapting to New Business Trends in the Marketplace
Prior to the popularity of the automobile, blacksmiths made a sizeable part of their income from shoeing horses. After the horse and buggy era slowed, many would become auto mechanics, but a Charleston, South Carolinian blacksmith turned his talent for iron work in another direction. He began to create artistic wrought iron gates with adornments for wealthy homeowners.

And when imported flowers began flooding American shores in the 1990’s, a Salinas Valley Orchard, unable to compete with the low prices and faced with going out of business, decided to change the entire product line and specialize in potted orchid production. Today the company is the largest orchid supplier in the world.

Lesson: Change and adversity can provide inspiration.