with Kaley Goodall, Gabriel Messenger & Cam Petty

LISTen now – Apple | Spotify

Finishing the Render Team Series on the Render Podcast!

This week we are finishing our team series, which was designed to help our listeners identify areas of growth in their business while learning different tips and tricks to succeed in key areas.  We have been sharing a deeper insight into what the day-to-day tasks and goal setting and achieving look like at our Render HQ.

If you’ve been keeping up with us on our Instagram, you’ve been seeing our “A Day In The Life” reel series. This is us trying to give you another authentic glimpse into how we serve our clients and each other daily.

The Interview

CAM — Hello! Welcome into the series we are in right now with our TEAM breaking apart each part of our business and the people who serve in each of those positions. Today is the last of the series, and you will get to hear from our leadership team! Kaley leads our creative team members, Gabriel leads our operations team members, and I lead our sales and floral team members! 

Kaley has made her appearance on this podcast from day one, but for our new listeners, Kaley has been on the team since 2017 and is a vital part of this team! She is the Chief Creative Officer on our leadership team and has beautifully orchestrated how the Render brand looks and feels through her creative eye! 

Kaley — Yes friends! Happy to be back on the podcast today. 

CAM — You heard from Gabriel on the team series about Operations just a couple of weeks ago, but he’s back again as he also is on our leadership team. Gabriel is our director of operations and brings a sense of humor and joy to our team daily. He gets all of our logistics and operations sorted out and put together for our event teams! 

Gabriel — I’m happy to be back, I’m glad that I am able to bring some dynamics to our leadership team as well as our day-to-day with my dad jokes. 

CAM — In our most recent leadership team meeting I brought up something I am learning from Donald Miller about how to set up a company and I want to share it here with our listeners. 

• Cockpit – Leadership
• Passengers – Team Members
• Body – Overhead Cost of Business
• Engines – Sales & Marketing (one on each side)
• Wings – Products
• Fuel Tanks – Cash Flow

Kaley — I think we think about these things on a daily business (or hope we do) but when it’s laid out this way, it emphasizes the importance of each of these areas. 

I remember once when we were in a lull as far as revenue goes, and so to try and save money, we lowered some marketing costs. As a result, our sales dropped too. It helped us realize you really have to make sure all parts are working properly and being poured into for the plane to fly successfully. 

Gabriel — I really like the way this paints a picture of the cohesion of a team. You can’t have one without the other. 

CAM — Leadership is at the core of our team as we are able to look at the business from different angles and anticipate in ways that others may not be able to see or experience. Kaley, how has this informed how we navigate tough situations throughout your time at Render?

Kaley — Everyone is gifted with different skills which lead to valuable insight when brought together. For example, I’m an extremely empathetic person and care deeply about how each team member is impacted by our business decisions. When our leadership team meets to discuss new initiatives, I’m able to provide input as to how it may strengthen or hinder our current team. 

CAM — We meet quarterly as a leadership team to do a deep dive into the business, however, we all share an office as well as have a weekly connection call to keep us on the same page. Gabriel, you’ve been on the leadership team for only 2 months now and have been a part of one leadership team meeting now. With that said, how important is sharing an office and staying connected as a leadership team?

Gabriel — It’s proven so vital to what we do. You know communicating daily is obviously so important but setting aside time to be intentional with our mission I felt really helped us regroup, readjust where needed, and revitalize our plans to succeed as leaders and as a company. 

Kaley — Now that I’m working remotely, having a weekly checkpoint is vital for me in serving our team. Cam + Gabriel are able to loop me in on the current pulse of their teams as well as what projects they are working on. This helps not only helps me stay in the know but also helps me lead the creative team effectively! 

CAM — During our team meetings we talk about PPP, People, Projects, and Plans! We will talk about the people and how they are performing, how they can succeed more, and big accomplishments. For projects, we will talk about what’s coming up that needs attention, has COGS, big launches, and places we need assistance. For plans, we will look at any upcoming plans we have outside of people or projects we need to focus on. 

Kaley — It helps us refocus on our why! At Render, we are high achievers who do what needs to be done to complete the task at hand. When we’re not at work we live well, enjoy ourselves, and reconnect with our personal values. We are growth-minded. We are intentional. We anticipate. We choose to ground ourselves in gratitude and celebrate wins. These values are core to Render’s DNA and further our mission of creating a work environment that is healthy, thriving, and intentional for all team members. As a community, we all play a role in executing our mission. It’s even more vital that our leadership team keeps this at the forefront of our minds as we lead our community. 

CAM — We also have a SWOT Analysis, which is a pretty corporate-driven term, but SO important to do for any business of any size! This means you focus on the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats and make a plan for specifically flexing the Strengths and Opportunities and then creating a game plan to attack our Weaknesses and Threats. How does this protect and help inform our business, Gabriel?

Gabriel — I think in the past, unfortunately, I’ve seen leadership almost shy away from this structure just because the conversations may be hard or uncomfortable because it really forces you to be realistic and acknowledge maybe some blind spots you currently have as a company. I loved getting to go through this practice because if we talked about opportunities or weaknesses for my specific team it provided some accountability and an opportunity to make a plan to overcome those blind spots. As a whole, I think it’s another way we as leaders can look into every nook and cranny of our company just like you would take your vehicle for preventative maintenance.  

CAM — It’s hard to understand if you’re on track with overall goals as a business without having Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). We’ve set this up by category by the team and then even further with projects also. In short, We determine the overall goal, a deeper WHY, and how we will track if we are on track or not. For our overall goal as Render, our goal is to be seen as the industry leader across events and education in the rental community. We have defined why and we track this based on revenue and engaged communities through our platforms and students. Kaley, How do we track our marketing and sales goals?

Kaley — CREATIVE — The Render brand is viewed as a trend-setting and design leader in the rental industry. This will be done by executing two lookbooks per year as well as creating content that inspires our community.  (tracked through engagement)

SALES — Once a quarter we have a project that is a minimum of $40k. We do this through intentional marketing and the expansive services we provide. (tracked through reports)

Gabriel — OPERATIONS — The operations process is executed 95% resulting in maximum customer satisfaction. (tracked through surveys)

CAM — We review our budget and the spending that we are on based on what’s going on as a team. As the leader of the business, I look at this weekly and monthly, and then we look at it as a team together quarterly. Gabriel, why do you feel like being a part of the budgeting is important to your teams, and what you can expect?

Gabriel — Well I think the answer to that is in the question, it comes down to expectations. Being aware of the budget provides clarity on what our yes’s can be when it comes to special projects or equipment desired for the warehouse. We have a list of “Warehouse Wants” that stays in our weekly ops meeting and that helps us see and prioritize bigger purchases as well as finger the pulse of what our team sees as tools to help with the day in/day out operations. 

CAM — What is your favorite part of being a leader to your specific team? 

Kaley — I heard a quote recently and it’s really impacted my approach to goal setting with the business while ensuring our team is set up for success in their positions and the office culture is healthy and happy.

”A business that relies solely on your creative ideas won’t go nearly as far as a team can” 

Read more on this here.

Even if they don’t understand the vision, it’s important for your team to know that they can trust you.

Gabriel — My favorite part of leading the ops team is figuring out what is it that I personally can do to influence, strengthen or help make my team’s job easier at the end of the day. Also, stepping into this position more recently I kind of hit the jackpot because I inherited a team that was already working hard to produce those big needle-moving results as we talk about in our core values so it has allowed me to focus on helping promote the other half of that core value of living well. 

Three questions

CAM — To finish our podcast today, I have three questions for you to answer! 

Kaley, what is your favorite memory of working at Render? 

Kaley — The Hennesy trip with Brooke, John + Gene! 

CAM — Gabriel, what is your favorite memory of working at Render? 

Gabriel — If you didn’t listen to the operations episode my favorite memory still has to be moving our first floral fridge into the old warehouse.

CAM — Gabriel, what was your favorite event? 

Gabriel —   Working at the AT&T stadium. Being able to see how big the venue was for the event and how much we were able to do was really cool.

CAM — Kaley, what was your favorite event? 

Kaley —   I don’t think I can pick a favorite! We have been fortunate enough to work with so many amazing brands and people. Cam, has anyone asked you about your favorite event?

CAM — No one has! I’d have to say my favorite events have been any recent ones with the Cowboys and that is because of my personality and how hard I worked to get them. They’re an elite brand and pretty inaccessible. However, after spending years hunting and striving to make meaningful network connections, we finally got them as a client. They’re definitely my favorite. 

CAM — Kaley, What is your favorite core value and why?

Kaley — We choose joy 🙂 From the beginning, this has been ming and I don’t think it will change. 

CAM — Gabriel, What is your favorite core value and why?

Gabriel — Work Hard | Live Well – I’m recently learning how important is it to enforce this core value. 

Listen to the episode for the full stories!

We want to ensure you get all the information possible through our podcast episodes. If reading the interview wasn’t enough, click the Apple or Spotify link above to listen to this week’s full episode. Cam, Kaley, and Gabriel all share insight about different parts of their job at Render relating to the leadership team and their years of experience.

If you want to get snapshots of this episode, head over to YouTube to watch them discuss the leadership team at Render.

Product or Affiliate Links – Goodshufle

Next week we will drop an episode over strategies to upsell client orders.

Joyfully,

TJ White | Content Manager