Meet Emily, 23, from Wiltshire, and find out more about life as the owner of a flower shop called Persephone Violet. Part of our Bitesize world of work series.
Emily:
I'm Emily, I'm 23 years old, and I'm a florist.
So I started off in this shop when I was 10 with a school project, and fell in love with flowers. From then, I worked every school holiday helping the girls tidy in exchange for learning a new skill. I then got a job here that was paid that I used to do every Saturday. And then when I was 18, I started my own wedding and event company.
Suddenly, this shop closed down. It was run by the same people that I'd worked for for many years previously. So I approached them and asked if I could run the shop instead. Two weeks later, we opened the shop as Persephone Violet, my business.
We deal with flowers for birthdays, anniversaries, for a new baby, all occasions, really. Today, we had a customer come in to talk to me about flowers for a sympathy. As a florist, it's my job to ensure they're suitable for every occasion.
So at school, I always really loved Biology and that's something that really helped me understand the process of growing flowers and how to keep them alive for longer.
I also really enjoyed languages, which has helped me in my career. All flowers have Latin names like carthamus tinctorious zanzibar. So at college, we had to do ident tests. These basically made sure that, as florists, we can identify and spell all the names correctly in their Latin form.
There are many skills I've developed over the last 14 years of my life – how to manage a team of four florists, how to do bookkeeping and payroll.
You don't stop learning, which is why I have returned to college to do my Level 5 master's diploma in Floristry. I've been lucky enough to showcase my designs at the Chelsea Flower Show, and been awarded one bronze and two silver medals in the Young Florist of the Year category.
Hopefully, one day, I will go back and get a gold but, for now, I'm really happy in what I'm doing and I really love my little shop.
I really love my little shop.
- Emily learnt the skills of flower arranging and how to run a business as an employee in the shop - which she now owns.Latin helps her every day because this is the language used to name the different types of flowers
- Emily studied a Diploma in Floristry and has recently won awards at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show – one of the world's biggest and most competitive flower shows.
What to expect if you want to be a business owner
The salary and working hours when you own a business can vary enormously but what's most important is that you work hard and love what you do.
Working for yourself looks different for each person and each business, but in general it means you:
- run your own business and are responsible for its success
- can decide how, when and where you do your work
- charge an agreed, fixed price for your work
- sell goods or services to make a profit
- can hire people at your own expense to help you or to do the work for you.
You can be both employed and self-employed at the same time. You can work for your employer during the day, for example, and run your own business in the evenings and at weekends. It’s important to contact HMRC for advice if you’re not sure if you’re self-employed.
You can get help with setting up or developing your business, through the government’s business support services, for example, for advice about tax or about how to find funding to start your business.
This information is a guide (source: GOV.UK).
For careers advice in all parts of the UK visit: National Careers Service (England), nidirect (Northern Ireland), My World of Work (Scotland) and Careers Wales (Wales).
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