We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful John Varvarigos. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with John below.
John, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of the most important things we can do as business owners is ensure that our customers feel appreciated. What’s something you’ve done or seen a business owner do to help a customer feel valued?
As a florist and creative I consider myself very lucky that I get to make a living through my art. However, I don’t consider myself a professional artist, or even someone who sells flowers. I sell sentiments and feelings. Most of my clients are expressing their emotions to friends or loved ones through my creations. This makes my work super important, exceeding expectations is crucial. People are depending on me to adequately represent them through their gifts. Messing it up can have major consequences, not just for the obvious occasions like weddings but even for the smallest of reasons like saying thank you, congratulations, or I’m sorry. We strive for 100% satisfaction but like any business, there are always issues that arise where you have a disappointed customer. How you handle these instances can really set you apart from your competition and you have an opportunity to take a dissatisfied customer and turn them into a client for life if you do the right things. First, I am always sure to express empathy and make sure the customer feels like I am hearing what they have to say ad care about their situation. Even if the complaint feels petty, I really try to see the situation from their point of view, secondly, do what it takes to make it right. Figure out a solution that will make your client happy and execute that solution with special attention. Being customer-centric for a service-based business is absolutely essential, live it every day, weave it into the fabric of your culture. discourage negative water cooler banter amongst your employees and especially management or ownership, stick up for your clients, and help your staff see their point of view.
When you sincerely care for your clients it shows and they know it. Every interaction should leave your clients feeling appreciated and cared for.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am a third-generation florist but being a florist was not my first career choice. Growing up I always wanted to be a chef, I went to the Culinary Institute of America after high school and worked in fine dining for several years before becoming a florist. I was in between jobs and my parents asked me to come work for a busy mothers day holiday, despite growing up in a flower shop this was the first time I actually worked in one. Turns out I really loved it and caught on immediately. Within a year I was designing, making several styles of arrangements. It wasn’t until my 8th year that I can say I mastered the craft. Ten years in my parents retired I took over the day-to-day role as general manager of the shop. I was motivated, and in my new role as manager, I was able to shift the culture and practices at my shop in such a way that led to rapid growth. Now in my 20th year, the shop has tripled in revenue from the day I first became manager a decade prior.
I attribute a lot of my success to the way I treat my customers, my employees, and to the care I put into my products and services. I get asked if I regret going to culinary school and the answer is absolutely not. I think the restaurant business parallels the flower business almost perfectly and I was better prepared to be a successful operator than just being creative or even if I had gone to business school.
My hospitality background trained me to be hospitable, to put the customer first, and to treat them all like VIPS. It also taught me to never compromise on quality and to stand by my product. We have a seven-day guarantee on all of our bouquets. It taught me that although maintaining cost controls is important, it can be beneficial to spend a little more to make your product stand out. All of our bouquets include some kind of premium element, something to stand out and catch the client’s attention. Whether it be a peony, orchid, or ranunculus, you will always have a fancy flower to enjoy even in our entry-level bouquets, even if I don’t get the standard markup on those more expensive stems.
Embrace the last-minute clients. One of the things I learned early on is that people just aren’t good at calling early, they are going to place the order the same day they want it delivered. Instead of trying to change my clients’ behavior, we figured out how to make the impossible possible and have over 400 products available for fast delivery over a 1200 square mile area. Every single day we get people that forgot about a loved ones birthday that call our shop after getting turned down by several others that could not accomodate.
One reason we are able to accomplish this is that we have an amazing crew of dedicated and talented florists, support staff, and delivery professionals that share our culture of making things happen for our customers and exceeding expectations. <y employees enjoy above-market wages, access to health benefits, Paid time off, and a 4-day work week which is great for work-life balance. we suffered no shortage of people wanting to work here since we have a reputation as the best flower shop to work at.
Today our shop is over 6000 square feet with 25 employees, our current walk-in cooler is bigger than the original shop where I first began working for my parents. I’m very proud of the flower shop I’ve built and I’m still striving every day to build a better mousetrap while loving every minute of it.
Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.
Flower shops are actually just like factories, we buy raw materials and manufacture a finished product. When I first started we bought from local brick-and-mortar wholesalers and “bucket trucks” which are basically trucks with cut flowers that buy in bulk and make their rounds to shops in the area selling bunches of flowers. Buying that way is more expensive since you aren’t buying full cases, you also have little control over where the flowers are coming from and what kind of care they’ve received before coming to you. Now that we are a high-volume shop we have a ton of control over where our flowers come from, not only do we buy directly from the farms themselves, we pick and chose the right stage of growth we want flowers cut at, specific sizes, and colors. We can also monitor the transportation process from farm to vase and ensure our products’ cold chain is never broken. We employ electronic monitoring in random boxes coming from overseas that monitor temperature. If any of our shipments get to warm in transit the shipment is rejected. Getting rh raw materials straight from the farm also allows us to process the flowers the way we want them to be, using the correct vitamin and preservative solutions that other middlemen usually skip cutting costs.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
I started out in hospitality before finding my love for the flower business. I worked in fine dining as a chef, also serving and bartending. I was in the process of starting a catering company when I went to work for my parents in the flower shop. in 2007 I opened a tanning salon with a substantial personal investment, I thought it would be easy to just hire someone to run that business while keeping my flower job. I was wrong and learned an expensive lesson that business owners need to be on the ground, hands-on, and involved in the process. 
Contact Info:
- Website: www.wellingtonflorist.com
- Instagram: @wellingtonflorist
- Facebook: @wellingtonflorist
- Twitter: @wellyflorist
- Yelp: Wellington florist