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PuristSPro interviews John Simonian of Westime
Passion and profession – It's rare that one comes across an individual who experiences one relative to the other. Such a dynamic is reserved for the fortunate ones, the ones that don't count the hours before the end of the work day. For John Simonian, not only does he not count the hours, he adds to them by arriving early and staying late. One can almost say that he has no concept of time when it comes to work. This is a bit ironic for a man who has a $440,000 pocket watch attached to his belt loop and who has established himself as owner and CEO of Westime in Los Angeles, one of the largest and well known retailers of high horology timepieces on the west coast.
A PuristSPro exclusive interview with
The Horological Eminence Gris of the Americas
John Simonian, owner and CEO of Westime
By Ping & Anthony Tsai
© June 2010
John Simonian of Westime
Mr. Simonian is without a doubt, passionate about what he does. How else can you describe someone who spends even his free time and vacations working in a business that he was born into and has known since the age of 12. From a very young age, he began learning the ins and outs of the watch industry from his father and uncle. He assisted his father with deliveries and often accompanied him to Swiss watch factories. It is a business that for Mr. Simonian, began in a family oriented manner and continues that way till today with his son Greg joining the group as well. It is evident that people and relationships are what drive John Simonian's passion for what he does. He is careful to distinguish that as much as he likes 'watches' it is the 'watch business' that he loves. For him, it is a business that has been successfully built over the past 20 years and now continues with new ventures into the distribution side for brands like Richard Mille, Greubel Forsey, and Urwerk. Mr. Simonian recently took some time to sit down and speak with PuristSPro about his so called "passion and profession".
1. You seem like you could sell just about anything, why watches?
I was born into this business, after two generations. My father was in this business, his uncle before that, and now my son is in the business. Actually, he's heading our retail operations. I know watches and that's it. I grew up in it.
2. How has your business evolved since you first started?
We started from the low end. Our first store was 600 square feet. Our last store is 6000 square feet so it grew ten fold. Our most expensive watch at that time was a Citizen and now there's Richard Mille and all the other brands. There's no limit to how expensive our watches are. We went from one extreme to the other extreme in about 20 years. We've been in the high-end luxury watch business for about 15 years now. We then went deep into the unique unusual watch business.
3. How do you make that transition from low-end to such high luxury? Is this something that just happens over time?
You cannot enter this business at the high end. You can call it discrimination or you can call it a close circle. There's a circle of dealers of the high-end and an outsider cannot just come in and say hey I want to become an Audemars dealer or Breguet dealer. You have to establish yourself. You have to start low and climb up. It takes time. Some people are not willing to pay the price. We paid the price in time and effort. I remember our first Swiss brand in 1987 was Tag Heuer. At that time going from Japanese to Tag Heuer was a big deal for us. Then Rado came then Tissot. The first that we can call a luxury brand was IWC. IWC at that time was doing Porsche Design watches. We started by that. It was in the early 90s. Frank Muller was then added and more brands followed. So you cannot just enter. It's a process.
4. How do you feel about watch discussion forums like PuristSPro?
They're very useful, not only for the watch aficionados, but also for the watch ignorant. Let's say someone is interested in buying a very expensive watch and he doesn't know anything about watches. Just by Googling certain brands all these discussion sites come up. He goes to one and sees a discussion about the watch he's supposed to buy, asks a question or two and that guides him to want to buy. It's very useful for us as retailers in educating the non-aficionados.
5. Would you say that it's been more helpful or causes more problems?
Well sometimes it causes problems. You cannot have it 100% without. You take the good with the bad. It's more useful than not. Sometimes the people use sites like PuristSPro.com as blackmail material for after sales service, if they are not satisfied. Sometimes they become unreasonable. We try to accomodate them as much as we can. Then they say, if you don't do what I want, then we'll go and post this and that on those sites. So they use it as blackmail and that's why you have moderators to identify the guys with good faith or bad faith. There are a lot of those guys. It's like someone who is not happy and takes a banner and protests in front of the store. It has to happen, whether they are right or wrong.
6. Do you feel that your customers usually already know what they want when they go into your store because of watch internet sites? Have they done their research?
Some of them do their research before coming in. We like them but after doing this for so long, all of my sales associates are very knowledgeable. We're the ones who get to the final decision even if they had their mind made up on a certain watch. With a few questions, we see their needs and sometimes maybe they made the wrong decision. We know they are not going to be happy with that decision. We guide them towards the right watch. We want them for the long term. I'm not interested in selling the person just one watch. I want them to come back. In 23 years in the retail business in Los Angeles, we are almost at the third generation of customers. We served the father and now we serve the son. We are hoping to serve the grandson.
7. Would you say that's a way that Westime stands out from other retailers? Your sales staff is more knowledgeable.
Personal service. Someone who is buying a significant watch might want me to help them. I'm not there on the floor all the time. I used to be. My wife was there for years on the floor. Today it's my son. So they know that one of the owners is standing behind the watch they are buying. If they come back because someday there is a problem with the watch we are there to resolve the problem immediately. It's not a sales associate or the manager saying, "Let me see what I can do." which is going to take time. We're there. Even if we are not physically there, by cell phone we are there 24/7.
8. Is your wife Barbara still part of the staff?
She is pursuing other interests and is not involved with the business at this time.
9. How do you choose which brands or watchmakers to add to your inventory? Specifically for example, Richard Mille and Urwerk?
My first criteria is that I must like the person behind the watch. I don't do business with watches. I do business with people. The watch can evolve, even if the first watch they present to me is not to my liking. If the person behind it is an open-minded person, knows what he is doing, the second watch they manufacture is going to be better. Look at Felix from Urwerk. His first watch was okay. It wasn't very visible. You cannot read the watch and it evolved. Look at his last watch. It's incredible how the 103 evolved from what it was from the first one until now. As for Richard, it's a personal friendship. We're like brothers. From day one that I met him, it was a love affair.
John Simonianadmiring his Richard Mille RM020 TourbillonPocket Watch
10. Have you had any actual watches that you've influenced on the design?
Always with Richard, we talk weekly. He shares his projects. I know what he is doing in 2013 already. Two or three years ahead of the projects, I know what they are. I don't design them myself but I give my input. Sometimes they take them, sometimes they don't. At the end of the day, it's their name on the watch so the final decision is theirs. Of course I'm known to have a big mouth so I say what I think.
11. Does your influence come from what you get from your customers? What the feedback is?
With 36 years in the business, you develop a certain nose and of course my contact with my customers helps. I'm there all the time. They visit me. They are the input for my end users so I know where the trends are. Plus from my contact, as a retailer, with another 55 brands, I see how other brands react. In 23 years, I've been a dealer for over 100 brands, more or less, brands that came to the market and they don't exist anymore. They disappeared. I watched them do the right thing and I watched them do the wrong thing and from both sides, you learn the lessons and you apply them to your future projects and the next project. So that helps a lot.
12. What brands are strongest for you right now and why do you think so?
On the retail side, at the stores, Audemars Piguet is one of our strongest brands along with Richard Mille. Then Vacheron, IWC and Hublot are holding their own. Breguet's holding its own, all the high end. In the lower end or medium range, Breitling is very strong. Tag Heuer is holding its own. On the distribution side, we have Richard Mille, Urwerk and Greubel in that order. Greubel Forsey is doing pretty well. With Richard, he crossed the economic downturn almost without feeling it. Actually for Richard, it was a blessing because we were outsold like 20 to 1, on backorders. What happened is the downturn helped us to control the demand. Now the demand and the supply are not that far apart.
13. A lot of the independent brands that you carry and distribute seem to be nontraditional. Do you try to stay away from the more traditional looking watches?
No. I found out pretty early that if I start promoting a watch that's round and looks like any other watch - when you walk into a store, it will not get noticed. Having a non-traditional, unusual shape is a way to be noticed. There's no way an independent small brand will be able to match the advertising money and the promotional money of Breguet or Audemars Piguet. These big brands that are out there are spending huge amounts of money to promote themselves. So the only way to get noticed is to be different. When a customer walks into a store and sees something with a different shape it's much easier for us to attract attention. It's like you sitting in a stadium in a crowd. Everyone looks alike but then one guy puts a yellow wig on his head. Everybody is looking at him because he is different. So that makes that watch stand out from the crowd. That was my first instinct and then of course the person behind it, the complication, and all of that.
14. Are there any brands or independents that you've passed on in the past and you wished you hadn't?
Well, yes, but Monday morning quarterbacking is easy . There are a few but it's not fair to them to publish that I passed. For some, maybe without the economic crisis, the downturn, we almost did it. And then the downturn came and I was consolidating. When the downturn started, I didn't add anymore brands. Some brands fell off the wagon but it was consolidation time. Maybe in 2011 we'll start back to grow the brands. I don't know but at this time we're on wait and see mode.
CA Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger & JohnSimonian at a recent Audemars Piguet celebration in NY
15. What is your game plan to survive economic recession?
Be more aggressive, in promotion, in communication. When everybody is cutting down, we're increasing our advertising budget. We're spending more money than ever, not on traditional advertising like newspapers and magazines but more direct communication with the customers. I'm seizing the opportunity when the big groups cut on their advertising. The magazines become hungrier. They lost those revenues and become more aggressive in their pricing with us so we get much more mileage with our buck. So when others are cutting back, on the contrary we're much more aggressive.
16. With the demise of large watch dealers on the east coast, will there be Eastime and Midtime branches of Westime?
Where we stand as Westime, with no more economic downturn and the supply is like it was in 2008, I don't think the manufacturer could supply a second Westime. Our problem wasn't selling the watches. It was getting the watches. We're not limited to Los Angeles. Our customers are international. They travel. We travel to them from any state. We're very mobile. So I don't see an immediate need. What I see are more smaller-brand boutiques. Richard and I are opening the first Richard Mille boutique in the fall. I don't see the possibility of having more multiple brand boutiques in the future only operated by Westime, but again, on the west coast in Los Angeles.
17. How did you come up with the name Westime?
The first store I opened was in the Westside Pavilion Mall so Westside Pavilion, West Coast, West Los Angeles… Everything was 'West'. I stuck 'Time' to it and it became 'Westime'. We took one 't' out to make it one word.
PPro: What about 'Ildico'?
JS: It's just a freak name. I wanted something that doesn't mean anything.
PPro: So you just made it up?
JS: Yes, made it up. It doesn't mean anything. It's our corporate name.
18. What are your thoughts on grey market dealers?
Well, they will always exist. Our job is to educate the customers, that they have choices. They can choose to go grey but they shouldn't expect the non-grey service. It exists in every industry. You can buy a Mercedes imported from a German dealer in Germany but you cannot expect the service department of Mercedes Benz Los Angeles to service that car. It's not fair. Sometimes the end user has problems understanding that. So your job and my job is to educate them. They have choices. They can buy grey market. It's the same watch but they have to go through the effort of sending it to the factory themselves, sending it to the service center themselves and not expect the service from the authorized dealer. I don't understand why someone would buy a watch from a grey market dealer.
PPro: Because they can sometimes get the watch at 40% off.
JS: But can they be sure that the watch is new?
PPro: That's one of the risks.
JS: Of course it's a calculated gamble. But I think that if you are faithful to your authorized dealer and you stay with the same dealer long term, you'll get the service. Maybe you'll pay a little bit more than the grey market dealer, but at the end you get the better value. That's what we need to educate the end user on…especially if you are a frequent buyer. If you only buy one watch, it doesn't really matter.
PPro: So you develop a special relationship with the customers. Will you extend certain courtesies to them?
JS: Oh yes, our regular repeat customers, we treat them like family. I have customers who became personal friends. They just walk into my store, open the showcase, take a watch, and leave. They'll call me and say, "You know I was there, I took a watch." I say, "Okay, I know. They told me." They say, "How much do I owe you?" I say, "I don't have time. I'll call you later. I'll tell you how much." That happens.
19. What is the most exciting part of your job?
Well, I love what I do. For me, it's not a job. It's not work. When I get up in the morning, I can't wait to be here. Sometimes I am the first one here and the last one to leave. I really don't like 'a watch' or 'watches'. I love the watch business. It's my pleasure to be here. It's very exciting to be here. My family is the watch business now. All of my friends are from the watch business. I guess it's my destiny.
20. Do you ever get together with other Authorized Dealers?
Sure. A lot of them are good friends. Around the world, I think there are 20 to 25 dealers who do exactly what we do in the high end with independent brands and we all know each other. We talk to each other occasionally. We see each other like in two weeks I'll be in Paris. We talk to each other occasionally.
21. What is the most challenging part of your job?
Loyalty, to keep the brands loyal to us. They always think they can do better on their own. They try. Being in a major market like Beverly Hills, Los Angeles - It's the same problem with Europe. It will be the same problem in any major city - where the brands say, "Ok why do we need him. We can open our own boutique and do it ourselves." They find out that being in retail is a profession. It doesn't just take money to open a store. They decorate it, put some merchandise in it, put a manager there and think okay, the customer is going to knock on our door and start buying a watch. It's a profession to be a retailer and the brands sometimes don't understand that or they understand the hard way after doing it. We're the ones who develop the market for those brands. Once we develop them then they see the numbers and think, "Oh we can do it without him." But that's a thing with every dealer who's in a big city. If I was in a small city, this wouldn't happen. We're paying the price of success.
22. What is the watch that you are wearing today?
It's a prototype of the first Limited Edition Richard Mille RM011, boutique only, all black.
Richard Mille RM011 Ti "Americas BLACK" edition
