Meet Becky McNeese | Retail Innovator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Becky McNeese and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Becky, what role has risk played in your life or career?
In my mind, risk is the coin tossed in the air. It hangs momentarily in the air before hitting a surface below and spinning to land either heads up or down. Applied to life, it is a decision, made in a moment or mulled over long hours, weeks, or even months and years. It has the possibility to change a life. But without taking the risk, tossing the coin, we are chancing missing out on what could be. We never have the possibility to live a life that is not mundane if we miss the risk. I mean, come on, the worst thing that can happen is failure. I think failure is just a learning opportunity. A chance to pivot and try again knowing more than you did before.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
The GreeneHouse is a boutique garden center and retail home and gift store. We are probably unlike any other garden center that you have visited. I grew up here in Greeneville, Tennessee. For as long as I have memories of those days, I remember telling my family that the particular building where my business is now located was “my building”. It’s like I always knew that I was supposed to be here in this space. The property was home to a local florist and family greenhouse business. The property became available for purchase in 2017. We acquired the property and began our first season of growing Spring bedding plants in early 2018. Many years ago, I owned a couple of other businesses.  The first was a boutique gift and home goods shop, and the second was a cute little art studio where I taught adults and children how to paint. As I began that first season of growing plants here at The GreeneHouse, I really wasn’t considering adding gifts or home goods to my product line.  The clients who came to shop with me, began asking for products similar to what they had grown to love at my previous businesses.  And so the business has sort of evolved to where we are today.  I love curating the products that grace our shelves, and I also love creating products of my own that are only found here. I want my customers to not only walk into my store and feel a sense of peace and contentment, but I want to help them create spaces at their homes and businesses where the stresses of life seem to fall away. Life is not always easy nor does life always turn out as we had hoped but there is goodness in the journey if you are willing to take the risks. There have been a lot of stepping stones along the way for me and a lot of hurdles to manuever around and over. Knowing that customers stop by my business on their lunch break or on their way home just to feel the calm and peacefulness that they feel here in our space makes it all worthwhile.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Our town is very small and charming. If a friend was visiting, we would definitely head up the street to The Whiskey and Sage House for some vintage shopping. We would visit Depot Street to check out The Antique Market and Brolin and Bailey. Then we would grab lunch at The Tannery for the best soups and sandwiches. We could spend the afternoon hiking to Margueritte Falls or enjoying the mountain terrain at Paint Creek. Later we would head downtown to Rock City Tap and Lounge for a beer or cider. These businesses are all owned by women and I am proud to be a business owner alongside them.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Growing up in an entrepreneurial family has definitely shaped my life. My parents and my paternal grandparents were entrepreneurs. So basically, the talk around every dinner table or family gathering revolved around their businesses. I saw first-hand the grit that is required in an entrepreneurial family. When I was maybe 5 or 6 years old, my Grandaddy would load all 5 of us grandchildren into his car for a special treat. He would give us each $1 and would take us to one of the only mom & pop owned convenience stores in town that still sold “penny” candy. The idea was that we were learning the power of one dollar and how to best use that dollar in purchasing. We had to spend the entire dollar and we couldn’t let our cousins know exactly what we purchased. Once our purchases were made and our candy was bagged up in little brown paper sacks, we rushed back to the grandparents’ house. We each took a turn counting out what we purchased, how much each piece had cost us, and why we purchased those particular items. As we grew older, the lessons on money management grew as well. We moved on from penny candy to small steno notebooks and a monthly stipend of $20. Similar rules to the game applied only we weren’t spending the money together. We had to keep an accounting of where each dollar went in the steno book. We were encouraged to be benevolent with a portion of the money as well as using it for purchasing things we either wanted or needed. Near the end of the month, we gathered at Grandaddy’s house and went over the books to see how we each had fared. A bit of time went by, and as we grew older we began gathering on Sunday afternoons to study the stock market page in the newspaper. We tracked stocks and began to understand what it all meant. As the youngest in the family, I was maybe 10 years old when each of us were given a small sum of money to invest in the market. After careful consideration, we chose a company in which we wanted to invest. We tracked dividends, stock splits, profits and losses. Some of us sold out too soon, some of us held on too long and some of us lost it all. Those lessons with Grandaddy as well as all of the afternoons spent alongside my parents in their retail store shaped me into who I am today.

Website: https://www.shopthegreenehouse.com

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