"Resilience is key."
Meet Dr. Melissa Crum, a Doctor of Oriental Medicine with over two decades of experience in the field of alternative health treatments.
She combines the use of Traditional Chinese Medicine with flower remedies, homeopathy, reiki, and other natural remedies to provide her patients with a holistic approach to wellness.
Dr. Crum’s passion for her work led her to create her own company, The Flower Remedy, where she oversees the sourcing and manufacturing of her highly effective healing remedies.
When she’s not working, Dr. Crum enjoys exploring the world and climbing mountains. She is committed to sharing her knowledge and helping others feel young again.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Melissa Crum: I’m Melissa Crum. My background is in Traditional Chinese Medicine, which includes Chinese herbs, diet therapy, and acupuncture. I have additional training in Classical Homeopathy as well as Bach Flower Essences.
I have 23 years of clinical experience and conceived of The Flower Remedy when I noticed how much the flower essences and homeopathy were helping my patients. In Chinese Medicine, we believe that most illnesses are caused by diet and emotional imbalances. While diet is fairly easy to change with a little education, emotional imbalances are a little more challenging.
I started The Flower Remedy in 2021. I spent almost two years working with a consultant on Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) and continue to work towards a GMP Certification. My company manufactures products that contain flower essences.
I have created some unique products for emotional balance that have flower essences as well as classical homeopathy. I also have some skincare products and am always conceiving of my next product. I am based in Denver, Colorado.
In the past year, what is the greatest business achievement you’d like to celebrate with your team? Please share the details of that success.
Melissa Crum: My biggest achievement was getting my products to launch. I had so much time and energy tied up in creating the groundwork for manufacturing, testing the products, establishing protocols, and manuals that when it finally came time to launch, I was ecstatic.
Leading up to my launch, I worked very hard with a consultant on setting up guidelines that ensured consumer safety as well as product quality. This included long-term testing as well as conceiving and writing strict protocols.
I have learned so much and am so grateful to my consultant for all that he has taught me and continues to teach me. It was very hard to find someone who understood my industry and was willing to work with a small startup company.
Now that we had the records and quality assurance, we were able to launch the products in December 2022. If I had known all that was involved from the beginning, I am not sure I would have chosen to manufacture my own products, but I am truly glad I chose this road and was blissfully unaware of the long process that needed to be followed to do this correctly.
What advice do you wish you received when you started your business journey and what do you intend on improving in the next quarter?
Melissa Crum: I wish that I knew that it would have been so much more helpful to build my tribe on social media before launching my product.
I could have done that before launching my product and I think my sales would have gone a lot faster. I have a lot of help from a marketing team and my husband, so my sales are really on the upswing.
Next quarter, I plan to improve my efficiency with regard to producing the products. There are so many tips, tricks, and pieces of equipment to make life easier. Some of it is just trial and error and some of it is costly, so you have to see how sales are going before making huge investments in your equipment.
Online business keeps on surging higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for the year to come and how are you capitalizing on the tidal wave?
Melissa Crum: Currently, my business is completely based on internet sales. I plan to continue to build my social media and online presence.
I am committed to increasing my content and connecting with online audiences to not only sell products, but to educate people on how to better take care of themselves physically and emotionally.
I have a great marketing company that stays on top of trends and keeps me relevant in the digital world.
Christopher Hitchens, an American journalist, is quoted as saying that “everyone has a book in them” Have you written a book? If so, please share with us details about it. If you haven’t, what book would you like to write and how would you like it to benefit the readers?
Melissa Crum: The book I would like to write is a book of healing remedies. My daughter, Cali, has said she wants to co-write the book with me. She is a talented writer and I can’t think of anyone that I would want to work with more on this project.
The book would benefit anyone who wants to learn more about how to take care of themselves and is interested in natural medicine. I think the majority of my audience would be women.
2020, 2021, 2022 threw a lot of curve balls into businesses on a global scale. Based on the experience gleaned in the past years, how can businesses thrive in 2023? What lessons have you learned and what advice would you share?
Melissa Crum: I think the only way businesses can thrive in 2023 is to be flexible and always have 2 or 3 backup plans. As with every business, I have experienced supply chain issues.
With my business, it’s not really easy to just change an ingredient in a formula, but it does require foresight to keep raw materials on hand and track global trends so I’m not caught off guard when I can’t get certain ingredients.
I have learned to not panic and that I can always be flexible and innovative. Resiliency is key.
What does “success” in the year to come mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision.
Melissa Crum: Success in 2023 and always is moving forward and continuing to improve. Personally, it means to always be improving myself mentally, physically, and spiritually.
It also means developing and nurturing relationships with my family, friends, and colleagues. I like to have something to work towards on a physical level.
This year, I will be taking a week-long backpacking trip with a group of women. I love having that on my radar because it motivates me to train physically. I am always looking for mental and spiritual tools to improve my well-being.
Business success to me means an increase in sales, scaling, and staffing. Success also entails a positive environment at work. I want people to want to come to work.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Melissa Crum for taking the time to do this interview and share her knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Melissa Crum or her company, you can do it through her – Facebook
Disclaimer: The ValiantCEO Community welcomes voices from many spheres on our open platform. We publish pieces as written by outside contributors with a wide range of opinions, which don’t necessarily reflect our own. Community stories are not commissioned by our editorial team and must meet our guidelines prior to being published.
