Three days before Thanksgiving, Barb Hollowick's flower shop readies itself for the approaching holiday.
A group of employees works in the back room, where the daily flower delivery has arrived, piecing together an intricate purple and pink floral arrangement for a memorial service. Downstairs, another employee carefully assembles a series of Thanksgiving centerpieces in glass vases.
It's a busy time of year for the shop, which already is decorated in festive reds and silvers for the coming holiday season. Located in a 1920s-era building that once was a two-story home, B/A Florist has been an East Lansing institution since 1984.
The shop sits just north of the Red Cedar River in the city's East Village, at the corner of Grand River Avenue and Hagadorn Road. Hollowick employs 15 people, including herself, and prepares flower arrangements for nearly any occasion — weddings, funerals, birthdays, anniversaries and graduations.
The list goes on.
"I actually was going to have a plant store, and I had two little flower coolers," said Hollowick, who first opened the shop in Okemos in 1979. "It was the flowers out of the little tiny flower coolers that really took off. And that became the item that people wanted.
"It makes people smile, even during sad times."
Hollowick is just one of thousands of entrepreneurs who open their own businesses across the state. Offering everything from retail to services, these small establishments can add to the personality of a city and, if done correctly, can thrive to become a permanent part of the local economic scene.
Getting started
The federal government defines a small business as one with fewer than 500 employees. People interested in opening their own businesses often have their work cut out for them. It's not easy to get started and often requires support and capital the owner just does not have.
"The biggest problem a small business owner has when they start out is the feeling that they're all alone," said Michael Rogers, vice president of
communications for the Small Business Association of Michigan, which provides resources and information for small business owners.
Another obstacle is financing the project. Small business owners often underestimate how much money they will need to get off the ground.
"Sometimes you can have a really good idea and a good business plan, but you don't have enough money set aside to get you up and going," Rogers said. "You could flop even if it's a great idea."
But the risks don't deter potential business owners from setting up shop. In 2005, 57,000 new small businesses opened in Michigan, Rogers said. In all, there were more than 800,000, according to figures from the U.S. Small Business Administration.
For many of them, going into business for themselves is following a dream. For others, it's the hope that they will have better job security than in a large corporation, Rogers said.
"People have an urge to launch off on their own," he said. "They can rise and fall on their own merits, instead of being a helpless pawn of whatever a big corporation decides to do with hiring."
Longevity is difficult to come by, Rogers said, especially within the first year.
Having a solid business plan and sufficient capital before the first transaction is made will significantly help an owner's odds. But there are no guarantees.
Between a half and two-thirds of all new small businesses will go under during their first year. Past that, success is more promising.
"If you can get past your first year or two, chances are good that you can make a lifetime success of having a small business," Rogers said. "You have to do a lot of work before you ever open the doors."
Hollowick's father owned an auto parts business, which instilled in her the idea of entrepreneurship. But the early days of her flower shop weren't easy.
"We got excited if we sold anything," she said.
But over time, repeat customers and the nature of the industry — there always is a demand for flowers — helped transform the fledgling shop into one of the most recognized florists in town.
The quality of her product, Hollowick said, is another reason people continue to come back.
MSU students have only helped the business. Their purchases sometimes are small thank-you gifts, Hollowick said, but there are several former students who continue to place orders from other parts of the country and even the world. Now, the shop offers wedding and funeral consultations upstairs and tries to deliver orders the same day they are placed.
"It's just a neat environment," she said. "A lot of people think of a florist as a place for funeral flowers and wedding flowers, but we do so much more than that here.
"We're such a part in people's lives. You're part of important, wonderful times."
Making it work
Autumn is the busiest time of the year for Tim Herwaldt.
For some reason, more people seem to need their shoes repaired when the leaves begin to change. On a typical day during his shop's hectic season, Herwaldt estimates that he works on nearly 50 pairs of shoes.
It's all right with him. As the owner of John's Shoe Repair, 415 N. Clippert St. in Lansing, it's all just part of the job.
On Tuesday, Herwaldt grinds a half-inch of height off a pair of brown high heels by pressing them against a spinning machine. When he's finished with them, they will join a series of shoes — loafers, boots, men's dress shoes — that he intends to make look like new.
"There's a sense of accomplishment in taking something that's pretty well trashed and rendering it useful again," Herwaldt said. "I want to make it look good when it's done."
The shoe repair shop has been in the Lansing area since the mid-1950s, when it was owned by a German couple who immigrated to the United States after World War II, Herwaldt said.
He worked there for a few years after graduating from MSU in 1975, and the owners asked if he was interested in purchasing the business.
Herwaldt was no stranger to shoe repair.
His father had a repair shop in Flint, where he was raised, and paid his way through college by working at a now-defunct East Lansing shop.
He had just gotten married, and assuming control of the business seemed like a logical step.
"My dad had enough knowledge about how much hard work was involved that he wasn't terribly excited about the prospect, but he wasn't opposed to it, either," said Herwaldt, who took over in 1978. "His approach was cautious, I guess you could say.
"I think he understood that having worked for him for a couple of years and working my way through college, I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting myself into."
He said starting up was easier than most because he wasn't building from scratch — but it wasn't effortless, either.
"This business really depends on repeat customers — you really have to establish your clientele. That was an advantage of buying an existing business," Herwaldt said. "There have been some really tough economic times, but for the most part it's been pretty good."
He works hard, sometimes beginning his workday two hours before the shop opens at 8 a.m. to get an early start on the day's orders and sometimes staying past the 5:30 p.m. closing time to finish up.
Herwaldt employs two full-time workers and four MSU students who work part-time, including his three daughters. His son, an MSU graduate, also has worked at the shop.
His children and their educations have been a "compelling" reason that has kept Herwaldt running the store for so long. He said he enjoys the hands-on nature of the job and watching customers leave satisfied.
"There are advantages and there are disadvantages" to running his own business, Herwaldt said. "(But) if you're going to be successful here, you really have to produce what people want when they want it."
