From Go with the Flow to Grow: How Main Street Collective Helped Grow Love.Co to Flourish

It was a light bulb moment for Joanna Puza, the lifelong photographer turned flower farmer and owner of Grow Love.Co. While attending a conference for photographers, attendees were asked to stand up and share about themselves. One by one they would stand and talk about how they were passionate about photography, but all the while, Joanna’s listening and thinking, “I’m passionate about gardening…not photography.”

Her clients had been requesting pretty, outdoor backgrounds more and more, so she realized she could combine her love for gardening with her photography business by creating gardens in which she could photograph families. Clients loved it so much, they even suggested she should start selling her flowers, so she learned about flower farming and eventually discovered a love specifically for growing tulips in the winter. 

She started Grow Love. Co and in her first year, she grew 10,000 tulips in her greenhouse and doubled that in her second year. A beautiful business was born, but Joanna was challenged by her “go with the flow” attitude she had in her photography business and did not want to carry into Grow Love. Co. She felt she was sometimes too flexible with her clients and in turn, her business. It was treated more like a hobby than a business.

So, three years into Grow Love.Co and needing guidance and structure, Joanna decided to invest in herself and her business by joining Main Street Collective where she received both 1:1 and group coaching.

When Joanna first started, she says she didn’t know if she was “legit enough” or “deserving” of Jodie’s services. 

But, Joanna says, “Jodie helped me to own my business and this thing I’m passionate about.” Jodie provided her guidance for her business and life to navigate things as serious as obtaining a business loan or as small as finding the time to get groceries for her family. 

Today, now that her six month program with Jodie is complete, Joanna says,“I wanted structure, to feel more legit, and to believe that I was deserving of having a successful business. Jodie made me feel like I owned this thing and I was slaying it.”

Working with Jodie, Joanna doubled her business in year four and grew 74,000 tulips! They worked together to build systems, scalability, vision, yet keep Joanna’s known freedom and flexibility over what is an extremely demanding short season.

Top outcomes have been organization, structure, systems, confidence and moving from believing this is a hobby to an “I am a business owner” mindset. This work has allowed Joanna to elevate her decision making, support solutions, delegate and honor the income and impact her product and services offer, while creating ideas to develop her brand presentation, mission statement and ideal client growth.

With her winter tulip season behind her, and back in full swing of her photography business, Joanna plans to take the lessons she learned from Jodie for Grow Love. Co and apply them to how she runs her photography business.

She reflects, “Having Jodie has helped me see the longevity of this business, see a future, set goals and grow it not to just be a hobby. She is phenomenal at what she does. In every way, shape and form, her support was important to me. She was a force of nature, in a friendly yet assertive way to hold me accountable and help me stay the course.”