Business Spotlight 

Kelly and Abbey Baker   Edible Blooms   Edible Blooms is the brainchild of sisters Kelly and Abbey Baker. The dynamic duo established the business in September 2005; starting with just one store in Brisbane, Edible Blooms is today located throughout Australia and New Zealand and is one of the most popular and fastest-growing gifting websites in Australia. In August they won the 2009 Telstra National MYOB Small Business of the Year.

Above: Kelly Baker

Edible Blooms offers a delicious alternative to traditional flowers and hampers with a gift range including floral-like bouquets made from decadent chocolates, fresh fruit, gourmet cookies.  Speciality hampers, Christmas hampers and even beers for the blokes ensure every occasion is extra special.  

"Our gift range started with just nine fruit bouquet designs - today we've increased our selection to over 120 designs, using a variety of decadent ingredients," Kelly said.

Kelly credits her upbringing with giving her and sister Abbey the confidence to start their own business, which now employs 15 staff across four states. 

"We grew up in an entrepreneurial family and I guess it was just a matter of time before we started our own venture.  Having strong support from a family and friend network has been essential to our success," Kelly said.

"I enjoy making my own decisions and working with the support of our wonderful team to continually raise the bar on quality and customer service that we deliver to our customers.  Our biggest thrill is seeing customers return again and again to Edible Blooms for a variety of gifting occasions - both corporate and personally."

Preparation is vital

Before embarking on their venture, Kelly worked hard to prepare herself for the challenges of running a small business.

"When Edible Blooms first started, we had no accounting expertise, no retail experience and the online ecommerce arena was developing at a speed," Kelly said. 

"One of the first things that I did before starting Edible Blooms was to purchase MYOB and complete a training course in Brisbane.  With a marketing and business development background, it was a steep learning curve!" she said.

"While I understood the basics, I quickly realised that Edible Blooms needed expert advisors to ensure our financial success.  Jodi Reck from Enterprise Growth came on board in our first year of business and continues to assists us with our book work as well as financial reporting and modelling. 

"Not only is Jodi an expert in her field, she genuinely cares about our success.  She has helped me to understand and use financial information to the best advantage of Edible Blooms." 

A keen awareness of business financials and expert advice on hand has allowed Kelly and Abbey to grow Edible Blooms while remaining debt-free.

"The biggest challenge running a fast growth business is managing cash well.  Positive cash flow is my key focus as we have grown our business debt free," Kelly said.

"We place great importance on continual investment in the future growth of our business so balancing cash requirements for operational as well as growth objectives is carefully monitored," she said.

The importance of team

Spend a moment talking to Kelly and it's immediately apparent how important the concept of team is to the success of the business.

"At Edible Blooms, we recognise that there is a big team behind every business success and we celebrate together," Kelly said. 

"When we were invited to the National Telstra Business Awards in August, we flew in each of our store managers to Sydney so that we could enjoy the experience together - after all, that's how we got there in the first place.   It was an amazing night for Edible Blooms!" she said.

Sisters in business

Not everyone is cut out to work in a family business, but Kelly and Abbey are lucky to enjoy a very strong working relationship.

"Abbey and I really love working together.  We know each other so well and are aware of one another's strengths, and weaknesses, and we play to this," Kelly said.   

"My personal favourite plus of working with my sister is when I take annual leave.  I can leave the business in trusted hands and know that it will continue to run smoothly in my absence," she said.

"Abbey and I have always been good friends. The success of our relationship is due to our different personalities and strengths."

Kelly has some sage advice for others contemplating going into business with a family member:

"Before embarking on any business partnership, family or otherwise, each individual must be prepared to contribute at least 75% of the overall business success. 

"From my experience and observations, if you're prepared to always give more than your 50% you will be successful.  It's human nature for people to add up their contributions and think they are doing more than their partner - it's all a case of personal perception and the cause of many business relationship breakdowns," she said.

Marketing Edible Blooms

Online business is a large component of the Edible Blooms business model, so it's little wonder that much of their marketing efforts are focused on the online environment.

"Other than strong word of mouth support from our customer base, our marketing investment is focussed on partnerships and online e-campaigns, such as Google Adwords," Kelly said.   

"We've worked hard to establish a large customer database for our e-news campaigns.  The 55,000 members of our Edible E-news receive fortnightly special offers and are the first to hear about new Edible Bloom designs.  They also receive free reminders about key dates (ie birthdays, anniversaries) from us via email," she said.

Edible Blooms is also actively exploring social media.

"We're investing significant resources in social marketing and learning daily about its potential!  The way that we communicate with one another is quickly changing and Edible Blooms aims to be at the forefront," Kelly said.  

"In November we're launching a free Facebook application allowing users to 'bloom' their friends pages for birthdays, Christmas and Valentine's Day.  To find out more, Become a Fan on Facebook and follow Miss Blooms on Twitter!"

Winners are grinners

In August 2009, Edible Blooms won the Telstra MYOB Small Business Award. The rewards have extended beyond a trophy on the night.

"Winning the award has been fantastic for our team and also great for generating profile for Edible Blooms in the media.  We've always been aware of our tight team focus internally.  We work together nationally to achieve company goals and winning the award has created even more internal energy to strive forward," Kelly said.

"Winning the National MYOB Small Business of the Year and Telstra Business of the Year SA award for our home state was an absolute dream less than four years after opening our first store. We are still celebrating!"

60 seconds with Kelly Baker, Edible Blooms

If you could have your time over...what's the one thing you'd do differently

Take a longer holiday before I started the business!  It's only been the past year that I have started taking regular annual leave.

What's the one thing you'd never change?

Going into business with my sister - it has allowed me to take holidays and relax while I am away!

Where do you see yourselves in 5, 10 years and beyond?

In my crystal ball ...  Edible Blooms will be a household name when people think of flowers, hampers and gift delivery in Australia, New Zealand and ...

For more information and yummy gift ideas (or to order a delicious Christmas hamper!) visit www.edibleblooms.com