the beautiful bunch: a conversation with Jane Marx

When Jane Marx was pregnant with her second child, her successful hospitality business, which employed refugee women, was forced to close during covid. Facing one of the most stressful times of her life, Jane had to pivot and (through a series of events) The Beautiful Bunch was born.

The Beautiful Bunch is a floral-delivery service bringing joy through flowers while creating jobs for women from refugee backgrounds experiencing barriers to employment.

Jane's story from hopelessness to success (all while nursing a newborn) is an incredibly inspiring reminder for us all to keep going, even when everyone tells us not to. You can listen to the conversation via our podcast or read it below.

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Louise:

Welcome to the Lunch Lady podcast. What a pleasure it is to have you here.

Jane: 

Thanks, Lou. It's lovely to be here.

Louise:

Now, I found your story on LinkedIn and immediately thought we must have a chat. I just love that you have started a beautiful business, but also you did it while you were pregnant. But before we get into that, can you tell me what you were doing before covid hit? 

Jane:

Before covid, I was running an event social enterprise. I worked with the same group of young women from refugee backgrounds. So women aged 18 to 24, from very different parts of the world, who were all experiencing significant challenges finding work in Australia. So, the business hosted private parties and big corporate events. Alongside that, we had a training program that was really focused on front-of-house hospitality training.

By 2020, after about three years of running that business, I was looking to scale up. I'd employed some fantastic staff, and we'd signed a lease for a 250-seat venue in Fitzroy with a studio at the back. We were taking on part management of the venue, and I was also four months pregnant with my second daughter, Claudette. So I really felt that 2020 was going to be our year. We had finally secured a beautiful space and we were pretty well funded by that stage–we had a little bit of state government funding. The program was working really well in January 2020. Then by March 20202, we went into lockdown.

Louise:

So, what happened next?

Jane:

I remember the day quite well, actually. It must have been a Tuesday that we went into that first lockdown, and looking back on it, I really felt the enormity of what was happening. I had the news running in the background, and I was looking at our accounts at all of the event deposits I was going to invoice. I basically had to delete all of those invoices–which were a really large sum of money. In my mind, I could feel the pressure building, but I could also feel my baby moving inside me. It was this really dark reminder of there being something bigger that me happening, even when I felt like I was experiencing a huge loss. 

So, I tried to stay calm, deleted the invoices, took a few deep breaths, and started emailing people. I called off all of the trainees who we were just about to start working with and look... I can appreciate that a lot of people lost a lot during this time, so I think it is good to keep it in perspective. But the young women I was calling…it wasn't just about them becoming retrenched. I was thinking about their options. I mean, this was the first time they would be working in the country, and because we were so busy, working with us was a big commitment for them and a huge opportunity. They were likely looking at our schedule and thinking about how financially independent they were about to become from working with us. So having to call them was really devastating. It was a difficult time.  

Louise:

Were you able to get out of the rental lease of the building? 

Jane:

That's a really good question and something people don't generally ask about, but it is actually the key to why I even started this new social enterprise. So, our landlord is a very progressive church. They are very welcoming and you know, huge advocates of the Trans community and just everything that you assume a church isn't about. They really extend the warmest kind of welcome to anyone who enters their space and their world.

So, the church pastor is also my landlord, and I spoke to him the day after the lockdown announcement, and he was very brief. We both had a lot of things going on, but he said: "I'm going to stick with you no matter what the future holds." And that meant not charging us any rent on the space whatsoever throughout Covid and the successive lockdowns.

They didn't know me very well, but they knew that I wanted to do something good for people with the space. They just stood by me and backed my vision right from the start.

I am not independently wealthy, and I don't have access to a great amount of capital. I could not have called on anyone during that time to ask for help to cover the lease. So it was only because of them that I was afforded the time to breathe, to think, and to come up with a creative solution to the problem.

Louise:

So when did you get the idea for The Beautiful Bunch?

Jane:

I had my daughter in July and spent six weeks with her in the house. No one was doing anything, so it wasn't actually the worst time to be housebound. During those six weeks, I was really focused on her. But if I look back on it, I suppose I was also starting to let the ideas ruminate in my mind about the next steps.

I was receiving flowers from my friends because they couldn't come and visit, so I remember looking at those beautiful flowers. And I was very grateful for them and I don't want it to seem otherwise, but I remember looking around my room at one point and thinking: I think the girls and I can do better than some of these arrangements. We had done a crash-course in floristry training arrangements with our trainees, so I was familiar with how they were made. 

I ask the trainees for feedback on the program, so I went and looked into that and saw that the floristry workshop had been the far and wide favourite of the trainees. They all wanted to do more floristry work. They didn't want to serve wine and they weren't that into the front-of-house serving—they did it and did an amazing job, but if I'm being honest, it wasn't best aligned with their interests.

Louise:

Of course.

Jane:

I knew that if I was going to pivot our business, it had to be pandemic-proof because I did not want to go through this again. Now, I'm skipping over a lot of details for the sake of being brief, but it was a really hard time. For a lot of people. And I wanted to create a business that could last for as long as the pandemic and more. Even if the pandemic lasted five years.

Online floristry and flower sales in Victoria had grown by over 500% since the start of the pandemic. Once I read that and then I started thinking about what resources we had and what interests the girls had, I started thinking deeply about what our pivot would look like. And I was only able to do that because of the support from our landlord and through giving birth to Claudette.

Louise:

Wow, so when you told your trainees, what was their reaction?

Jane:

Well, it's not good business advice and I don't think anyone should do this, but I'd saved up a little bit of money for my planned maternity leave but I obviously wasn't going to use it because I wasn't going to have much maternity leave. So, I paid three young women to work with me to start The Beautiful Bunch. None of us had floristry experience but we learned together as we built the business. And they were elated because they'd found employment–which was particularly difficult for young women from refugee backgrounds during that time. But of course, it came with warnings. I had to tell them, "I don't know how many hours I can offer you. This isn't going to be the well-structured program you thought you were going to join with us, but you need to help me build something new here."

And it was really exciting–they bought great energy into building and helped create what has become quite a successful business–but it was also crazy. We had nothing. We didn't even have a workbench, just a trestle table, because I had no money, and what I did have, I paid them. I'd load up my 4WD with flowers from the markets and come in half-acting like I know what I'm doing, but also asking them for help. We watched YouTube flower-arranging videos and I kept Googling things. It was very scrappy but also very fun. We quickly became very busy, and they were an instrumental part of that growth.

Louise:

So how did people catch on and hear about The Beautiful Bunch?

Jane:

We did marketing pretty well from the start because we'd learnt how to in the previous business. We took beautiful photos, and I took the time to write pretty strong and engaging copy. So in terms of branding, I think it really resonated with people. I'm pretty sure that for every one person that found out about us, they told at least 5-10 people. So word-of-mouth played a role. And we got some good press which I worked hard for. Any stories about us eventuated because I wrote to them about five times. It wasn't organic. From the outside, it looked like everyone was interested in what we were doing. But I would be sitting at my computer at night–totally exhausted–scheduling emails to be sent out at a normal time.

Louise: 

This is such an incredible pivot! Is this reflective of who you are as a person? Are you the sort of person who has been able to find solutions your whole life, or did this surprise you?

Jane:

No, Lou. This is not a surprise to me. I feel like I've been working up to all of the little moments of this business my whole life. Was I meant to do this? Absolutely.

It was really through giving birth to my daughter and finding a strength that I did not know was possible. Everyone looked at me like I'd gone absolutely mad when I told them I was starting a business with a newborn. I had to be like: maybe I am, but I just don't need to hear it at the moment, thank you. 

But any kind of fear or doubt I had went when I walked out of the hospital with her. I remember leaving feeling like a goddess–like any kind of struggles I would have in business, or any kind of challenges I'd encounter would be nothing compared to what it took to bring her into this world. 

So I just rode really hard for a good two years and I felt invincible even though it was a really dark time for so many people. And I want to acknowledge that loss people experienced during that time, but for me, it was the best thing to have happened. I was forced to look inward for the first time in my life and forced to stop for the first time and I had support through my landlord. I could see my future. But that doesn't mean I haven't really struggled with many things–particularly lack of sleep. I was starting my days at 2:30 am, so that's been really difficult. But I've never felt like I wasn't walking in the right direction.

Louise:

Tell me about the three girls you started out with in the beginning. Who are they?

Jane:

They were with us for about a year, and I really miss them so much now that they've gone. We're still in touch though, and they've gone on to do some fantastic things. I'm trying to get them back for Mother's Day this year because it will be a big one, and we need help.

But yeah, I'm a pretty good read on people – I think that's my little superpower. I'm a very good judge of character, but I also think I got lucky with the three people I chose to work with. They all came from different backgrounds and experiences but had innate resilience and resourcefulness. Here's an example.

Originally we didn't have money for a courier, so I would deliver some flowers, and the girls would too. But I have two children which makes it tricky because you don't want to rock up at people's houses with children because there's a level of professionalism I need to adhere to. But you also can't just leave babies in a parked car. Eventually we got enough money to have a courier, but that was super stressful too. You have like 50 arrangements going to 50 different places, and you only have a 10-minute buffer to have everything ready for the courier. They basically rock up and set a timer, and if you exceed the 10-minute time limit, they charge you a fee and leave. And we were never on time. 

Louise:

Ah, that's so frustrating.

Jane:

Yes, but the girls got really good at making small talk to distract the couriers while I would furiously be wrapping everything. And one day, we had this really great courier. We were running late and said the usual: we're down a person and still learning on the job. And the courier was like, "It's fine, I'll go to North Melbourne and pick up some other things and come back." And the four of us looked at each other and were like: oh my God, he's so lovely, I can't believe it.

The courier came back, took everything, we were then standing there like, wow–I can't believe we got that all done. And one of the girls ran out of the studio waving her arms, chasing him down, screaming. I had no idea what she was doing. But she was basically standing in the middle of the street, pitching to him to be our personal courier. 

So, I had a very small but passionate team of women who wanted this to succeed. I'll finish this answer by saying that they intuitively understood what needed to be done so that other young women from refugee backgrounds could also have this opportunity.

Louise:

Amazing. And where did that purpose come from–to work with refugee women?

Jane:

When I was studying, I wanted to do some kind of volunteer work. I had done English Literature and I love language and reading. So I decided to do a short course in teaching English to new migrant women. It was a brilliant course. I learned a lot. I think it was six months part-time, and I was still at university.

When I completed that, the settlement service agency that was running it sent me to a lot of the high-rises in Collingwood to work with women for whom leaving the house was difficult. They were quite scared due to a lot of different challenges they'd had in their lives, and suffered from a sense of overwhelm, I guess. They couldn't attend classes outside of the home. So, I would sit with them for a couple of hours a week, and they would cook some beautiful food, and we would sit and eat together. Sometimes they would ask me to read them things, and it was quite beautiful. And after doing that for a few years, there was common theme that kept coming up. And that was that they were worried about their children. 

Some of them were in their sixties and trying to learn English. They're really grappling with the many different things you must think of when you migrate or seek refuge in a new country. And a lot of these things cause real anxiety. Like the barriers their children would face to do well at school and secure employment. And so I started thinking: what could I do to provide opportunities when there weren't any?

Louise:

What have you learned about yourself through this experience? What have these incredible women at The Beautiful Bunch taught you?

Jane:

A lot. I mean, that's a huge question, but resilience is one of the answers. I definitely feel more powerful as I age. And every single one of the young women I've worked with are really resilient. I feel like that is probably the single biggest source of inspiration for me in terms of thinking about what we do and who we work with. 

I mean, they're making $150 floral arrangements in Fitzroy North. We've had some women who were evacuated out of Afghanistan not long ago. Then,  they're standing in our studio listening to me tell them how to handle roses. I mean–what a journey. She's just standing there tall, proud and strong. And I feel like I've learnt a lot from those young women. 

We live in an age where a lot of people have opinions, especially about what young women should be doing with their time. And I've learned that it's just crucial to block out the noise and follow your true purpose or path in life. Because even really well-meaning people have told me not to do something at various points in my career. Like this business, for example. And I think it's essential to be able to block that out when necessary. Sometimes, so many people offer you advice that you don't know where to start. So, I had to put my fingers in my ears because a lot of these people came up with very good arguments as to why I shouldn't have started my business.

Louise:

Yeah, that's true. I read that you did some fundraising and The Beautiful Bunch were going to do larger floral arrangements for events. Is that right?

Jane:

Yeah, definitely. So, I won't go into it too much. But a bit of an anomaly is that we are one of the only social enterprises that have almost 80% of our revenue coming from trade. Most social enterprises have a trade component, but The Beautiful Bunch is very high. We don't need grants for the core work. It doesn't sit well with me to need to be funded externally, but you know, it's very hard to do. Running a small business is hard. Let alone one that has the added expense of training people who are not at the point of being quite ready for work.

So, yeah. We've managed to raise quite a bit of money so we can expand into event florals. Currently, we're just Monday to Friday as a retail florist. We do a couple of events, but mostly we're sending out vase arrangements. We don't do much work on site. So I've been raising funds for growth, and I'm thinking of hiring a senior florist who specialises in events.

The fundraising will help us with initial costs while we scale up. But we will hopefully have an ongoing sustainable revenue stream that will allow us to offer more opportunities to more young women. Because at the moment, we can only take on 12 a year, and we are the only people doing this kind of work. There is no equivalent layer or other social enterprises doing things in this space. But what we do has so much potential for these women. It's not customer-facing. You don't need to have fantastic english or work nights. You don't need to serve alcohol or non-halal food. And you don't need a huge amount of confidence either. 

Louise:

Amazing, Jane. We're so grateful you could chat with me on the Lunch Lady podcast. Thanks so much.

Jane:

It's been my pleasure. Thank you.

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Live in Melbourne and want to order from The Beautiful Bunch? Check out their website here.

For more inspiring stories like The Beautiful Bunch, take a listen to other episodes of the Lunch Lady podcast.