Key Idea #1: Take Time to Teach

HATTIE: Hi. I'm Hattie Bryant, and thanks for joining us. Your time is valuable, and we're glad to have you spend 30 minutes with us. You'll learn about how to start, run and grow a business from people who've already done it. We call the founders of businesses the new American heroes. These are men and women who create work and wealth. Heroes are brave and willing to give up the comfort of the known to venture into the unknown.

Lorraine gave up a job, the comfort of a paycheck because her boss was not interested in cultivating the human spirit. What she started off doing for herself, creating interesting work, she has over 20 years done for dozens of others. A new American hero, Lorraine Miller.

LORRAINE MILLER (Cactus & Tropicals): Our main goal is to create beauty in the world.

Hattie: We saw the mission of this company with our own eyes. We were surrounded, even on a cold January day in Salt Lake, where the garden center Cactus & Tropicals, is located. We saw what 45 people do day in and day out, and they don't seem to get tired. Their mission is to create beauty.

Unidentified Man #1: OK, thank you.

Unidentified Man #2: You're welcome. Thank you.

Unidentified Woman #1: You want to get them when they're in buds so that you'll have it for the longest amount of time.

LORRAINE: People have plants because they want to enhance their space.

Hattie: With this purpose for being in business, Lorraine Miller, the founder and owner of Cactus & Tropicals, has attracted creative people who love what they do.

LORRAINE: This is Claire Patterson.

Hattie: Hi.

CLAIRE PATTERSON (Cactus & Tropicals): How you doing?

LORRAINE: He's our buyer. This guy has to spend over $1 million a year on product. Semis are coming three times a week. He's gotta mix orchids with palms. He knew nothing about it, and he just does an incredible job.

Hattie: Well, wait a minute, Claire.

LORRAINE: Ask this guy a question.

Hattie: Well, how did you learn what you know today?

PATTERSON: I've gotta attribute the majority to Lorraine Miller. I think she's really -- she's really taught not only myself, but I think the majority of the people here a tremendous amount.

LORRAINE: Very good people, caring about what they do, who have a million ideas on their own. `Move over, Lorraine. We're gonna tell you how to do this.'

Hattie: Get out of the way.

LORRAINE: Yeah. And, in fact, our new customer service counter one of my employees designed.

Unidentified Man #3: We used to have probably about six foot of space. And really busy times, we were treading all over each other so we decided that we needed something where we could service the customers a lot better and...

HATTIE: So Lorraine never came to you and said, `Think of a way to take care of the customers better.' You just dreamed it up.

Man #3: Actually, right. I--we were sitting in the office one day and I kinda mentioned that we'd like to spend the money to do a big counter, and she just kinda gave me this blank stare. She didn't say `no,' but she just kinda gave me a blank stare.

HATTIE: She was bracing herself...

Man #3: Bracing...

HATTIE: ...to find out how much this was gonna cost.

Man #3: Right. So I knew it was a no--not a `no,' but possibility

sh--let her mull it over.

HATTIE: OK.

Man #3: And she did.

Key Idea #2: Have Fun

Unidentified Woman #2: I worked in another plant store, and I like this one better so I wanted to come work here.

HATTIE: How is this different?

Woman #2: It's different because Lorraine really cares about her employees.

HATTIE: Mm-hmm. And that...

Woman #2: The other place just was sort of--I don't know.

HATTIE: Sell plants.

Woman #2: It was haphazard--sell plants, water plants, and it wasn't fun.

LORRAINE: Fun is very fundamental here.

HATTIE: Fun is fundamental.

LORRAINE: Yes.

HATTIE: I like that. Fun is fundamental. Is that a slogan...

LORRAINE: No, it isn't.

HATTIE: ...or is this your inner--your inner thought? Fun is fundamental. If people aren't having fun, then they're not gonna come to work and do their best, right?

LORRAINE: Yeah. I mean, work should not be grueling. Work should be pleasant.

Unidentified Woman #3: It's nice to come to work and want to work with the people who you're with and enjoy what you're doing.

HATTIE: OK. So is fun freedom?

Woman #2: Yes.

Man #3: It is.

Woman #3: Yeah.

Man #3: I worked for a big corporate--I worked in the corporate world for about 11 years, and it's--you're just a number. And you come here, they--each one of us has our own opinion.

HATTIE: And everybody voices it.

Man #3: And what happens--yeah. We do. We do.

HATTIE: And everybody--everybody disagrees, you know?

Man #3: Diplomatically, but we do voice it. But what I noticed here is she lets us --if we have a certain interest or a certain talent, we use it.

LORRAINE: Well, the first--there's a couple of lessons that came quickly to me. One is if I want freedom and I want to be creative and I want to grow, then I certainly want to create that atmosphere for other people. Number two is a point comes for any person in business that you can't do it by yourself. And so you're dependent on other people. And my main job now is to teach my people my philosophy or to have them share it with me you know, to find people who share it. And then once I have that group, then they take the bull by the horns. They go by themselves, and...

HATTIE: Why do you think so many small-business owners don't understand what you've just said, that it

LORRAINE: You know, lots of things, Hattie, but they all come from the same premise, which is that employers and employees are enemies. They're in a war and one has to outwit the other. And, you know, I mean, you see that evidenced in so many things that happen today. For example, there's a lot of conversation among business owners that the work ethic is poor. I believe that we create that.

People who come into our offices to service, And then we wonder why they don't want to come to work the next day. So I think we are creating the work ethic that we hate. But the other thing is we don't do anything to educate people about how small business succeeds, and we don't give ownership to people who work there in its success or credit to them. So I try to play that a little bit differently because I start from the premise that I can grow my business to a certain point, and then after that, I'm stuck because I can only juggle so many bottles at once.

Delete all of the pink copy for web play.

HATTIE: All right.

TRACEY HANSON (Cactus & Tropicals): I run the numbers

HATTIE: Tracey Hanson, the office manager, is one of the people Lorraine depended upon early.

Mr. HANSON: Well, when I first started here, there was four people, a parking lot for four. And we have 45 people and parking for 45, so it's grown quite a bit.

HATTIE: When you came here things were a certain way and now they're very different.

Mr. HANSON: Very different.

HATTIE: What are some of the differences?

Mr. HANSON: Well, at one time, we--me and Lorraine shared a phone. We had one computer for all of the work.

HATTIE: You had one telephone?

Mr. HANSON: One telephone that we shared between each other.

HATTIE: Now wait a minute. You came to work for Lorraine straight from a huge corporation.

Mr. HANSON: I did.

HATTIE: What was going on in your mind, your heart, your soul when you thought, `I gotta share a phone? I just came from a place that had thousands of phones'?

Mr. HANSON: Well, I thought it was a small company, and coming from a corporate world into a small business, you expect there to be more things than there are, I guess you know, more telephones and things like that, but...

HATTIE: Well, was it worth the change?

Mr. HANSON: It was, very much so.

HATTIE: So even though you went from zillions of phones and zillions of people and lots of opportunity, perhaps, you came to this little tiny business...

Mr. HANSON: My first thought was, `What am I doing?' No.

HATTIE: Right. Right.

Mr. HANSON: Right.

HATTIE: Which a lot of people--and the reason I'm asking these questions is that a lot of small-business owners that--find it difficult to recruit good people and to get somebody like you because someone like you may feel there's not enough stability here or this isn't gonna g--I'm not gonna go anywhere. Why should I go to this small business?' So you tell me, why should someone go to work in a small business?

Mr. HANSON: Well, in a small business, you have more interaction between all the employees. You get to know more information about what's going on in the company that's not held back from you. It's more open book than it is to sit at your desk, do your job and get paid. There's more involvement in what goes on and what is decided in the company.

HATTIE: OK. And it's more satisfaction or...

Mr. HANSON: It is. You feel like you've input into the company and you've made a difference.

HATTIE: Do you feel like you and Lorraine are more than just co-workers?

Mr. HANSON: Oh, yes. She's my friend, definitely, a lifetime friend.

HATTIE: If you needed her, she'd be there.

Mr. HANSON: She would, and I'd be there for her.

Key Idea #3: Get Out of the Way

Key Idea #4: Take Control of Your Life

Key Idea #5: Leverage Your Cash

LORRAINE: After I had been there three years and I was kind of--I was moving along, I was struggling, I wasn't gonna make it rich, the school board took the property that I was leasing through eminent domain, and I was devastated. I thought that was the end of--of my business career and didn't know what to do. But it was one of those things in business, if you--turning a catastrophe into an opportunity. I took the $10,000 that they gave me for breaking my leasehold and bought my first piece of property and borrowed $15,000 from my parents, used that for the down payment and then used $10,000 to build my first greenhouse. I wanted a greenhouse. Three years of having my plant shop and visiting real greenhouses to buy from, that dream...

HATTIE: That--that was the driving force, that you wanted your own greenhouse. You wanted to grow your own plants or you wanted to have a place for the clients to be happy.

LORRAINE: I wanted to be in a greenhouse, but I'll--everything--they're magic. I mean, you're sitting with me in my greenhouse right now. Doesn't it feel wonderful? Doesn't it feel tropical? I mean, we're in Salt Lake City, it's 30 degrees outside, it's snowing, and I feel like I'm in Hawaii. So it's a wonderful place to work. It just feels great. And then if you do have plants for a long period of time, they love it, too, and they do great. And as my accountant told me, rather than lowering the price of something that sits on the shelf, it's grown a foot so you can raise the price. I have always asked everybody I knew for advice. In fact, I used to say that my customers are my board of directors, because I have always listened very carefully to what they told me they wanted.

HATTIE: When did you add a gift shop?

LORRAINE: Well, the idea of enhancing plants with bringing the garden into the home or your home into the garden just seemed like a natural evolution or a flow. What goes with plants? So we started out with the concept of buying things for the garden--wind chimes and birdhouses and--and things that seem very directly related. But again, listening to our customers and yielding to what they wanted, we now sell more picture frames and candles than anything.

HATTIE: You're kidding? So people come for a plant, then they come out over there and buy a picture frame or a candle.

LORRAINE: Right. Well, of course, a natural item for us--and it's really bread and butter--is pottery, all kinds of pottery--concrete, aluminum and ceramic, terra cotta, this is...

HATTIE: Tin--this tin?

LORRAINE: ...and this is tin.

HATTIE: So what percentage of the total sales comes from the gift shop?

LORRAINE: About 15 percent.

Key Idea #6: Advocate for Your Industry

HATTIE: Lorraine was named Small Business Person of the Year from the state of Utah in 1994, then went on to receive the national award from the president. She is the only Utah businessperson to win and only the third woman to win in the 31-year history of the Small Business Administration-sponsored awards program.

LORRAINE: I have to tell you, Hattie, I don't remember a thing about it.

HATTIE: You were in a fog.

LORRAINE: I was totally scared and paralyzed and had no idea that he was gonna call my name. What can I tell ya? I'll never forget his handshake, I'll never forget the thrill.

HATTIE: You found that recognition helped you achieve a big goal.

LORRAINE: Well, a consequence of winning that award was --our governor has monthly meetings with people in the community; it's just a handful of people every once in a while-- so I was invited to one of these meetings. And to make a long story short, he asked, `Lorraine, what's wrong (with the business environemnt) for you?' And I said, `For me, you cannot get a degree in horticulture. And my industry is traditionally a minimum-wage agriculture industry. So you can't make more than $5.25 an hour, you can't get a degree in it and, basically, you can't have any esteem and you're treated very poorly. It's a bad deal.'

HATTIE: Right.

LORRAINE: And I want people to work--who work in this industry to feel a lot of pride in what they do because there is so much to know, Hattie. It's just incredible. I mean, you know this is an ivy, but if it gets aphids, thrips, spider mite, mealybug, viruses, fungus--I mean, on and on and on, there is so much to know.

Key Idea #7: Jump On A Trend

Unidentified Woman #4: Well, this is what we do, horticultural technicians. We come in here once a week and take care of these plants.

HATTIE: Ten years ago, Lorraine saw the trend begin for indoor landscaping. Now 30 percent of her $2.3 million in sales comes from indoor installation and maintenance.

Woman #4: You know, you want to make sure that people are happy and that they understand what you're doing and that you care about what you're doing, you care about your plants.

HATTIE: We met one of her customers at the Shriner's Hospital. This is Wesley Brady.

Mr. WESLEY BRADY (Shriner's Hospital): To hire somebody to be dedicated to take care of your plants, it's really not as economical as hiring it done for you, because they take care of the dead ones and they replace them automatically for you. If some are overgrown, they trim all the trees. We have trees upstairs that are quite nice. They water them regularly, and it's just something you don't--one less thing to worry about in the scheme of things.

Key Idea #8: Open the Books

LORRAINE: We have a bonus program here. And what I have told them is that for this year...we started learning how to do--read income and teaching all of--everyone here how to read financials.

HATTIE: Right.

LORRAINE: I think you all have a copy of that. And it looks like our overall increase in the nursery sales last year were 15 percent. They know what our net income was year before last. We're just closing out our year right now. We're--we're two minutes away from it. My promise to them was the staff will split 40 percent of the increase of net income from last year to this. And when we all set our goals together, we said, `We're gonna split $16,000.' Well, they beat their sales goals and their cost-of-goods goals so well that they are splitting $40,000.

HATTIE: Wow!

LORRAINE: And every quarter they get a check based on how we're doing for that quarter, and we're about to have a party in a couple of weeks, pass out the last bonus check for last year. We've set our goals--or we're almost done setting our goals for this year and we'll see what that increase will be again.

Unidentified Woman #5: And it's scary to think that we might be able to do the same increase just because we had such a huge jump last year.

LORRAINE: Well, what types of things are we gonna do this year that we didn't do last year that would make a difference? They know very clearly that if we throw this idea in the garbage or if we sell it, it goes right to the bottom line. And so now we're more motivated to take care of it.

HATTIE: OK. So what you're saying is information is power.

LORRAINE: Yes.

HATTIE: By you putting information in the hands of everyone the business has thrived.

LORRAINE: Right. They control it.

HATTIE: So advice you would give a small-business owner is don't play close to the vest.

LORRAINE: Well, everybody's afraid to let their employees see their bottom line. And I think maybe it's because we're doing something we shouldn't be doing. I'm thrilled to let them see it because they own it, they've created it. And you know the neat part about it, Hattie? Is that they know how hard I've worked to build it up to this point and sometimes it's them that's saying, `Take more, Lorraine.'

`Why don't you go get a new car? You don't'--you know? You know, they want it for me, too. I think there is so much mutual respect and trust going on here that, you know, while I want it to be better--their lives to be better for them, they want that same wish for me, too. So...

HATTIE: Mm-hmm. Pretty wonderful.

LORRAINE: ...I'm pretty happy.

HATTIE: Lorraine is glad she quit her job in 1975. She's proud to own a business where people come first.

LORRAINE: What owning your own business does is it gives you an opportunity to self-actualize. It gives you an opportunity to be whoever you are. When you work for a big corporation and you're putting the papers in the slots that they tell you, nothing in your creative spirit, nothing in your soul, nothing in your own desire to grow can happen there, you know? But when you get into a small business that is greedy to hear your ideas, you know then you have an opportunity to say, `This is something about me that is in my heart and I didn't even know it was there,' I've been working, pushing this paper into this slot for so long.

This is a place where everybody can self-actualize. Most of the ideas and things that we do here come from the staff. And maybe my input is to say, `Those are such great ideas I have nothing to say.' But everybody here has an opportunity to be the very best they can be. They can be free and they can be creative and there is no limit to it.

HATTIE: Remember, "boss" is a four-letter word.

The Closing of the Show