with Allie Moore & Cam Petty

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Continuing the Render Team Series on the Render Podcast!

This week we are continuing a new series designed to help our listeners identify areas of growth in their business while learning different tips and tricks to succeed in key areas.  We will be 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 between Allie and Cam

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, we are going to chat about operations and I’ve got three incredible dudes with me today! 

Allie has been working on the team for almost a year now and is our lead floral designer. She is a joy that keeps our team laughing and simultaneously on track also! She’s got incredible designs and the ability to lead our freelancers in a professional manner! 

Allie — Yes! I’ve been around Render for over a year as a floral freelancer and joined the team full-time a couple of months ago. I really love being a part of this team and working with the events Render does. 

CAM — So sales in this events industry have been off and on and a bit different over the last few years. We used to have a ton of lead time before an event, at least 3-4 weeks before the event at the very latest, but now we are getting event inquiries literally on the day of the events sometimes. How are you handling these quick turnaround times with ordering products and staffing floral well?

Allie —   Fortunately, I am a designer! If I am unable to find a designer for an event that pops up last minute, I am the person responsible for ensuring that the project is completed to our company standards. Keeping a healthy and respectful relationship with our wholesalers is also really important so when events come through last minute, they’re usually willing to meet me with my request or do what they can to come up with something that would please the client. 

CAM — As a designer and someone who runs logistics, how do you plan your days or weeks around having to be logistical and then also a designer?

Allie — Finding freelancers who are already great designers. When they know what to do by looking at a Rendering, I know that I can be in the office running logistics. I really try to stay on top of what needs to be done and what kind of preparation is needed before busy events so that way during event week, I already know what I need to be taking care of. 

CAM — Finding good help is hard to come by sometimes. What do we look for in a floral designer or freelancer?

Allie — The ability to be trained, even if they’ve been doing flowers for a long time, a lot of times styles are very different. It’s easier to get stuck in your ways for your design style as a florist. When they’re new to it or open, I like working with those who can be trained and who are team players the most. 

CAM — Ordering floral is really important to every design we create. We order blooms in different varieties from foliage, texture, focal blooms, accent blooms, and buds. What is important to pay attention to and chat with our wholesalers about when ordering flowers for an event?

Allie — Seasonal blooms. Flowers are super seasonal but there are different hemispheres we can order from. However, with that may come to a price tag. Prices have risen in multiple areas. Knowing what is in season can help save money.  

CAM — Since the pandemic, the floral industry has been hit and continues to see ripple effects from it. What specifically is still hurting the floral industry?

Allie — The inability to export different types of flowers. Additionally, not being able to source floral foam because of its shortages. Not every design needs it and there is some controversy about it not being the most sustainable material, but some designs need it. Some vases have been on backorder, and we don’t know when or even if they will come in. It’s all indefinite. Before the pandemic, this was never the case.

CAM — You schedule all of our teams for floral events. How do you approach scheduling for all the different parts of floral orders and the people needed?

Allie — It’s super important to know each person’s design style. I try to note this as I work with them to refer back to when planning a schedule. I want to succeed them up for success and have designs they’re comfortable with! Cross-training really helps us here too with mundane tasks on the floral side. 

CAM — Sometimes, especially if we don’t do a mock-up before the event, there can be some nerves with us creating the perfect product for our client. How do the design decks help ease that?

Allie —  I think design decks help our clients visualize. Kathleen does an amazing job at putting these together for our clients. It helps show the client what we’re trying to achieve with their design and helps them feel more comfortable with our design and sometimes helps us in upselling. 

A couple of weeks ago we did a really unique wedding. Emotions are already heightened for weddings and we never want to be the reason someone is upset with their wedding design. This bride specifically wanted to do some bouquets with branches and was not local. So not being able to do a mock-up felt a little scary. Fortunately, there were enough conversations with the bride and planner prior to the event and inspiration shared through the design deck that the bride was not only satisfied with the bouquets and installations but actually shared our designs were the highlight of her day! She wrote us a raving review on google too (see in the affiliate links section). 

Three questions

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

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

Allie — The community table! Wanting to work together as a team and enjoy each other’s company is awesome. I think we would all actually be friends outside of work and trust each other’s humor without things ever becoming uncomfortable. 

CAM — What was your favorite event? 

Allie — Jess and Blaine’s wedding. It was my first large hanging installation which was cool. Then Morgan and Braden’s wedding because it was the largest wedding I had ever worked and I randomly knew a ton of the guest. Because of the large number of florals, the venue smelt beautiful, I received tons of compliments/messages from people at the wedding and it turned out so well. 

CAM — What is your favorite core value and why?

Allie — Work Hard | Live Well – before I joined render, I did this on my own and was in a position where I would say yes kind of to anything that came my way because it was my business. Since I’ve joined the team, now I have people who help assist me in planning to succeed for each event and it’s more of a collaborative effort instead of it just being up to me to get everything done. It’s nice to finally have that flexibility. 

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE FOR ALL THE 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 and Allie both share insight about different parts of their job at Render relating to the floral team and their years of experience.

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

Product or Affiliate Links

Design Deck Importance for Your Quotes

Asana

Slack

Render Google Review’s

Jess + Blaine Reel

Morgan + Braden Reel

Next week we will drop an episode for our leadership team in this team series! As our final team series episode, Kaley Goodall and Gabriel Messenger will join Cam to discuss our leadership team and how they constantly have our team and company’s best interest in mind when making decisions.

Joyfully,

TJ White | Content Manager