Today we’d like to introduce you to Julie Farrow.
Julie, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
When I was a senior in high school of high hopes to be a famous actress or interior designer, I had an associate ask me to decorate their office in Long Beach with interior plants since that was what I was going to be studying. The client at the time was E.F. Hutton and if you remember you listen when E.F. Hutton speaks, so I researched interior plants and sent them some design ideas and my proposal and literally this started my 36 year career as one of the most prestigious interiorscapers in today’s market in Southern California. Their neighbors loved what I did and so on and so on. So back in 1981, just graduating high school, I began my career by taking every course in horticulture, business at local colleges and finishing my certificate program in Interior Design. (and working two other jobs) I began my journey.
Fast forward to today as it has become a family business of my husband, Mark running operations and our daughter heading up marketing and sales I concentrate on Sales and Marketing. We now have our corporate headquarters in Irvine and another satellite office in Palm Desert. What do we do? We create beautiful, inviting environments for Fortune 500 companies, high end homes through professionally designed interiorscaping which consists of: living plants and containers, living walls, replica plants, moss and replica walls & patioscaping and our ongoing weekly, guaranteed maintenance services. We have had the pleasure to work with some of the finest designers and architects in the area completing their work with our greenery designs. It has been proved by NASA studies that plants improve air quality and people’s productivity which is so fun to be able to bring to our clients. The end result is so very satisfying., to see people’s faces after we have completed an installation. We have won many awards in our industry for our creative designs. I know it sounds corny but plantscaping is the biggest bang for its buck. We have wonderful clients from Thousand Oaks all the way to San Diego and inland. We service all of Southern California and have many very well-known clients in the Los Angeles area., such as Herbalife International, The Pump Lounge, Watson Land Company, Pacific Western Banks, Long Beach Memorial Hospital and many private homes “The Design Comes Alive When the Plants Arrive.”
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I don’t believe anything comes easy. Throw in a lot of hard work, perseverance, learning from your mistakes, creating and maintaining a great team along your side & maybe a little luck. We have never allowed ourselves to fail as that’s not in our vocabulary. But what we have is never given up and keep our promises, both to our clients and our team members. For instance, in 2008 when the real estate market crashed here and we went through a terrible recession. Mark and I didn’t take a salary for over 6 months and we re-arranged everything, tightened our belts but didn’t lay anyone off, as we knew our employees and their family members depended on us for their income. As many companies cut services, we just increased our customer service and we muddled through by offering more and better services. Mind you 30% of our clients were in the mortgage business industry. It hit us hard.
The other struggle is finding key people to join our team, retaining them, training them properly and setting them up for success. Then letting people go if they don’t work out in a timely fashion. In hindsight, people are the hardest in any business, but you learn as you go.
Keeping up with the ever-changing technology world and hiring the key people to help guide you in this. I think knowing our strengths and then surrounding ourselves around others that can help us all achieve our goals is the key.
Please tell us about Plantscapers.
We design, install & maintain interior plantscaping for corporate and residential clients all over Southern California. We specialize in high end, creative designs that actually complement a space. For example, if working on a very contemporary lobby we might specify cement square decorative containers with very stream lined looking plants with straight leaves that have a very clean overall look. Our motto is less Is more. Specify and design large, specimen specialty plants rather than a lot of small plants. WE have created some fabulous living walls and moss walls that are pieces of art literally. This has transformed the spaces for our clients.
Most proud of is the growth of our team members. I get the most joy when I see their 401K statements of their growth in their future, or when we celebrate their anniversary’s. Tenure is a huge profit for us. Our philosophy, treat people well and they will treat you well. We go over and beyond for both our team members and clients. Also, proud that we follow our word. We do what we day, and say what we do, or strive very hard to.
What sets us apart is we are always studying new ways of staying current and keeping up with the design trends. Always staying fresh and ahead of the game. As many of our new designs come from Europe.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Good question:
Slow to hire, quick to fire!
Concentrate on what I do well and hire the rest!
Work more on my business, rather than in my business so much.
Set up a complete Organizational Chart for today and future-re-analyze yearly.
Create specific Job Duties for each job created before hiring and stick to it!
Look at financials each and every month-end of day this is what matters.
Take more risks
Follow my gut more.
Hire a consultant earlier in business.
Invest earlier
Pricing:
- Min. monthly maintenance fee for homes $175/Corporate $150.00
- Min. Install Starting at $2000.00
Contact Info:
- Address: Plantscapers, Inc.
17281 Eastman
Irvine, CA 92614 - Website: www.plantscapers.com
- Phone: 800-Plant-13 or 949-486-1495
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/plantscapers/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/plantscapers/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/plantscapersoc
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/plantscapers-irvine-3
Image Credit:
David Blank – photo of Ficus Lyrata in cement pot.
Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
