George Verdolaga: Think like an entrepreneur

George with wife Maita at a brasserie in Paris.

As editor-in-chief, I have had the privilege of getting to know and learn from some truly amazing Canadians. It’s my honour that I could now consider some of them as close friends and mentors.

George and his wife Maita have been very instrumental in helping us navigate and appreciate Canada. Here’s his story.  

After growing a six-figure business into a seven-figure business in just three years, George Verdolaga found himself at the crossroads.

He was an Economics graduate who had just generated some impressive growth figures with the business that he was running. However, he found himself yearning for something else.

After some soul searching and exploring many options, he let his inner-creativity transform his life.

“It was a very long road that started with a simple dream. I had just discovered interior design eight years into running my business which had become a big success. I decided to explore it and take part-time classes, and after a year, I thought ‘I really like this’, then I thought ‘I think I’d love to do this for the rest of my life’, which turned to ‘I think I’d like to learn from the best around the world’.”

George did the hardest thing — move out of parents’ house, away from his tight-knit family — to embrace life abroad. “It was kind of a bittersweet moment for me as I never expected to leave my country. I literally thought that I would live and die there. But to become an international brand, I needed to do it from a place that would help me grow as a professional and not let anything stand in my way,” he said.

The top interior designers were in Europe or North America and he set his sights on those destinations.

New York, Milan, Vancouver

George started establishing his career as an interior designer in New York, and then Milan. “What made this enterprise surprisingly ambitious is I knew no one—not a single employer—in these places. However, I did have an idea of how I was going to go around looking for work and I did eventually find jobs in New York (in 23 days of searching) and Milan (11 days).”

Looking back, George says, “My life was never a straight line. It was more like one of those ‘tell God your plans if you’d like to make Him laugh’ kind of things. He’s always been revealing His plans to me without any advance notice and I’m constantly surprised at where I end up. I just trust in him that I’m headed in the right direction. That said, I do have goal sheets and business plans and things like that. I try not to leave things to chance as much as possible.”

It was Vancouver (where he found a job in a month) that he chose to make his home 1999. It also became the launching pad for his company, Flowform Design Group Ltd., which he established in 2001.

Flowform

Flowform Design provides interior design consulting advice and teams up with general contractors to do kitchen and bathroom renovations. “It’s a 2-person company, but we hire up to 3 or 4 subcontractors to help me when I have major projects. We have anywhere from 10 to 15 clients per year and we work on residential renovation projects from as  small as $30,000 to $1,000,000. We make sure to provide an excellent experience by spending our clients’ money wisely and recommending design elements that reflect their personal tastes, ” George says.

Personalized approach is indeed the advantage of Flowform Design. George explains, “We believe that listening carefully to our clients as they express their needs and goals is important to ensuring a good working relationship and a positive outcome. We are focused on delivering quality on each and every one of our projects and in making sure that our clients are happy with the results of our work.”

Currently, Flowform Design has residential design projects in Vancouver’s West Side and Downtown areas.

Like, Love, Trust

One important lesson that George learned in his entry into the world of business is that a person will hire a person he likes, loves or trusts. Hence, he advises entrepreneurs or would-be entrepreneurs to network, and to do it properly.

“Developing any business is a simple and straightforward matter that simply requires one to show up at business or casual networking events where people may (or may not) exchange business cards. From there, you just have to learn how to create relationships out of thin air. And that’s the whole trick, though. It took me several years to figure out how to do that as people generally do business with people that they know, like and trust.

“I joined a business networking organization that helped generate 70% of my business and that experience allowed me greater insights into how people build relationships. I was pretty social from a young age but I really didn’t understand how networking (in the true sense) worked. Most people think it’s simply a matter of exchanging contact information but it’s really more than that. It’s helping one another succeed and making a difference in the world as a result of what you do. And that’s the part most people don’t get, and what I had to learn myself as a businessperson. Once I understood that networking was a means to literally transform lives then it made me an influencer and connector, which enabled me to become known in the business community,” he said.

Working with Canadian clients

“They’re just the same as any other type of client. I think that if you think they have a problem with you, then the problem isn’t with them, it’s with you. That’s what made me a success with the Caucasians. I never once made an assumption that they had a problem dealing with someone who had brown skin. I think that if you carry yourself with confidence and dress like you’re ready to do business then the question of where you’re from (or why you have an accent) doesn’t even come into play. Most of the time, people think that other people have a problem with them but really there isn’t one,” George said.

He adds, “That said, Canadians are different in that they expect nothing but the best. If they don’t understand, they’ll ask you bluntly. In other words, they don’t just nod their head and pretend to understand your instructions, which is a uniquely Asian trait. And if they say they’ll show up, they’ll actually show up and not flake out. They don’t cancel at the last minute when something better comes up. And no really means no (no arm-twisting and guilt-tripping will get them to do what you want them to do, like in some cultures). I actually like dealing with them better as you know what you’re getting and they’re generally straight-shooters. There’s no hanky-panky when doing business which really takes out the stress.”

His message

George’s two biggest passions are teaching and helping people get out of their own way (yes, you read it right). This led him to write several powerful books.

“I’ve written THE CONTRACTOR LIFESTYLE to help people learn how to think like an entrepreneur, even if they’re working for someone else. The reason for this is that the job, as we know it, is an extinct 20th century relic. What people have are contracts that are simply automatically renewed every year but have a greater chance of being terminated as a result of competition from around the world. I wrote this book to help people create a safety net beneath them in case the plug was pulled and they find themselves out of work.

“I wrote THE JOB FARMER to show people the value of building connections with people throughout their careers or their business so that they never stop being in demand. I taught some important concepts using two characters, Kolo and Miiku, both prehistoric cavemen, to show the difference in both their approaches to survival—one is a farmer while the other one is a hunter. I had no experience writing dialogue or fiction at this point and am very thankful that I had a talented editorial and creative team at my disposal when I came up with this idea,” he says.

“I like helping people learn how to achieve everything they want out of life by networking with the people who can help them get to where they need to go,” George says, and he means it, doing everything he can to connect, inspire and guide the entrepreneur who seeks his help.