It was a funny story and we were reminded that we can all – Democrat and Republican – appreciate a funny story. We admired her pluck, her self-effacing humor and her ingenuity. We read about this small business owner’s lighthearted, entrepreneurial response and we chuckled. And then we heard about this strange presidential press conference at a landscaping company on State Road that sounded too much like the five-star hotel in town and … we laughed. Everyone was tired of the pandemic, worried about the election and generally stressed out over the future. The whole story is funny because it came at a very unfunny time. “You know, a lot of companies don’t do snow, don’t do irrigation, don’t do planning,” she reminded us in one interview. She appeared on TV and other media outlets because, like a shrewd small business owner, she wasn’t going to let a good PR opportunity get away. She converted her conference room into a fulfillment center, not for landscaping jobs, but to assemble and sell more than 35,000 T-shirts, sweaters and face masks which racked up more than $1.3m in sales to customers like Jake Tapper, Mike Myers and Emma Watson. So Siravo – like so many smart entrepreneurs navigating the changing dynamic of 2020 – pivoted. Or written about here in the Guardian.īut this company was. Or featured on The Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live. These are not businesses that would be talked about by Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and James Corden. Similar to Siravo, they usually employ fewer than 30 full-time people and are typically located on the State Roads of their home towns. They typically provide an un-sexy but necessary service … like landscaping. Most, like Siravo’s, are family-owned and -operated. But there are 30m small businesses in this country. The media likes to glamorize those tech-savvy, venture capital-backed entrepreneurs starting up the next big thing in Silicon Valley and Austin. It’s like a magic carpet ride.”įour Seasons Total Landscaping represents the very definition of the typical American small business. “We’re running with this and enjoying it. “We’re not making any political statements,” she told the Philadelphia Inquirer. She embraced the crowds and the people who – to this day – stop by for a quick picture of political history. She participated in the quickly organized “Fraud Street Run” which drew 2,100 participants and began from her parking lot. She sold tongue-in-cheek shirts that said “Make America Rake Again” and “Lawn and Order” and coined phrases like “in sod we trust” on other promotional items. She posted a politically astute Facebook message that any seasoned PR professional would be proud of. Siravo immediately spruced up her website. She also saw the dollar signs.ĭoing her best to stay out of politics she doubled down on the unprecedented exposure her small business received. It was a perfectly American lesson in business savvy. She and her team’s response to what happened wasn’t partisan. To him apparently.īut the real reason why this story was so funny is because of Marie Siravo, the owner of Four Seasons Total Landscaping. Was it? It was funny because the incident occurred in a city where Trump had recently warned “bad things happen”. It was funny because no one admitted this was a mistake. It was funny because it was absurd and surprising and curious. It was funny because of the imagery: Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani fighting for his boss’s political life surrounded by other small businesses typical to State Road – a sex shop and a crematorium – and of course with the Four Seasons Total Landscaping sign prominently behind him. No one could figure out if Trump even knew what was happening. No one knew if this was actually planned or just a mix-up with the Four Seasons hotel near Broad Street. The press conference – like so many others of this administration – was a confused, rambling affair. The announcement befuddled both supporters and opponents alike. That small business is Four Seasons Total Landscaping in, of all places, my home town of Philadelphia.įour Seasons Total Landscaping became a worldwide story when President Trump’s campaign announced a surprise press conference – on the day the election results for Pennsylvania and other states were released – in their parking lot on State Road in the north-east section of the city. But last year one small business did give us all a reason to laugh.
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