Name: Out of the Office: Stopping to smell the roses with 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc. CEO Chris McCann
Uploaded: 2020-02-13
Duration: 4 min 23 s
Description: Just in time for Valentine’s Day.

[ MUSIC ] So Chris, tell me where does your affection, passion, interest in flowers stem from? Well Phil, I kind of think of myself as an accidental florist. When my brother bought his first flower shop, I was 15 years old. So I kinda have grown to love it. It's been really fun to watch how the business has evolved over the years from one store on the Upper East Side of Manhattan to a telephonic commerce company to an e commerce to a mobile commerce company to what we are today >>. Going back to that time, tell us what were your favorite and least favorite parts of working in that flower shop. While working in my brother's flower shop, some of the favorite times I had was making deliveries, and especially being here in Manhattan. I grew up in Queens, but they got me to parts of the city I would never have gotten to otherwise and get to know a little bit. Some of my least favorite parts was the hours. When we worked the holidays, we'd be there for two or three days straight, working around the clock, maybe grabbing a nap in the back room, and you could But it's rough. It's a rough, tough business. [ MUSIC ] What's your favorite flower and tell us why? My favorite is probably the anemone. And it's I love it because of its vibrancy, the colors they have, and its simplicity. It's just a small to viewless stem stands single no wheel pedals on the stem of bikes up by the flowers, and then his vibrancy of color and it just kinda stands there like here I am. Tell us what is a secret to make your flowers last longer. When you get your flowers you want to give them a fresh cut. You cut them on an angle with either a sharp knife or a clippers and then keeping the water clean. So, everybody knows that roses are synonymous with Valentine's Day but what are some of the other flowers people should consider tulips are very popular Gerber daisies which for us is the flower of the year. Daisies, orchids are very popular, but if you wanna say I love you, nothing does it more like a red rose. In the 30 plus years you've been at the company, are there any particularly memorable or stand- out orders that you got? The thing I'm most proud of is my career. Is when we were asked to decorate Yankee Stadium with flowers after 911 for the prayer for America, and we put out words so many people from our company volunteer their time and services suppliers volunteered and donated product. flowers from around multiple states came in and to watch everybody work round the clock. And then go and decorate the stadium like we did covering the pitcher's mound and flowers look like an American flag and all around the basis something to be really proud of. [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] Chris, we're about to put together this bouquet but first, tell me what flowers we're dealing with already. So I feel so already starting off with our cushion palms in here. Snapdragons, these beautiful purple snapdragons, we have some of the fili flower, the limonium, the wax flower. We have the carnations in here. It's really ready to go with the focal flowers, beautiful gerbera daisies, and our roses. Ready? Yep. All right, let's do it. Let's start with the gerberas So tell us, what's the first golden rule of putting together a bouquet? Well, I think it would start with the focal point. I'd like this [ UNKNOWN ] daisy to be right up, right in the top, just sitting above the fray a little bit. We put in the taller flowers, the Liatris that we mentioned before, the snapdragons, put those in. This gives it the shape at the top. Now, we're filling it out and rounding it out. So we start kinda from the top down. [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] Now we have it. Well these are great. I do say so myself. So thank you for the instructions and Happy Valentine's Day. To you and yours. And to you as well. Thank you very much, they look beautiful. [ MUSIC ]