Persistence as well as trial-and-error in operation can be very important in starting a successful business. Just ask Bill Chapman, founder of Hidden Cove Choose & Cut Christmas Trees, located in Marion, NC. Hidden Cove specializes in live Frazier fir trees as well as wreaths, but the business wasn’t always that way.
Originally starting in the late 1970′s, it took many years to emerge as a successful business. Hidden Cove began by growing Norway Spruce trees, but they were sticky and it turned out that nobody wanted them. After deciding to grow Frazier firs instead, more hardships fell in the way for Bill. Frazier firs don’t just grow anywhere, and he had to find specific areas on his land where they could grow after the first thousand trees died. Persistence was the key, and when Frazier firs finally started growing in 1993, the business began to thrive and has been doing well since, currently producing between four thousand and five thousand trees.
He describes his reasoning to start a tree-farming business as simply “to make money.” He continues, “I had the land and it was available, and it wasn’t making any money.” All he needed was trees and time, as well as a little word of mouth, which he says is his best marketing tool. While Hidden Cove has received a lot of business from being in the NC Farm Fresh directory, the most important and reliable way of getting business is “one person being satisfied with a tree and telling others.”
NC Farm Fresh Directory – Hidden Cove Choose & Cut Christmas Trees
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