Isabelle Gonzalez Squires

As a QAM, I first began my day by,

-opening up the store and watching the front

-making sure the planting crews loaded safely and efficiently

-answered any last minute questions from the foreman

Next, I would head back to my office and

- Check my emails, following up with every customer, answering their questions, concerns or simply responding to positive feedback

-I sent out 811 tickets and emails so that all planting runs smoothly

Then, I would begin my calls for the day,

-I would follow up with all of our clients and the planting from the day prior, reviewing before and after photos to make sure that quality first was met and that the customer was 100 percent satisfied.

-I would check for MOTB, asking the customer if he would like or need a second phase of planting or simply email these photos to their designer so they can reach out to their clients.

After this,

-I would go outside and check the material going out the next day, ensuring that the material is our best quality and if requested by the designer or client that it is all tagged with their color ribbon and name. then make sure the plants are properly hydrated before the crews load up.

-Once orders are checked with no issues I begin my pre-calls and emails reminding and informing our clients their planting schedule.

Between all these tasks, whether I am on the phone or not, I was constantly trying to sell our fertilizers and more plant material on every call and to every customer that walked into the store. This was a huge part of my job as I had to meet a certain sales goal each month, which I surpassed each time.

Last but not least,

- I would help run the operations side, routing, customer service issues, filing, making copies, selling, and anything else that was need by my general manager.

Running two separate yard locations for Moon Valley was tough but very rewarding. I was constantly adapting to weather changes, new employees, new management teams, and change of flow for the stores. My job each day was to

1) Begin the morning by stretching with my team, safety first

2) Divide my team to complete the tasks for the day and let them know my weekly plans and goals for the yard

3) Head outside and clean the parking lot, nursery aisles, begin watering all the plants, leaf blow any messy areas, taking out the trash, string-lining any crooked aisles, and overall making sure the nursery was in great condition for our designers to sell and our clients to enjoy the nursery.

Some of the daily tasks we constantly took care of would include

-Checking baseline, that all the water systems worked properly and fixing any issues right away

-operating machinery to move trees and put plant material neatly into the aisles and sections of the nursery

-loading and unloading trucks daily

-loading customer vehicles as well

-maintaining plant material through trimming, watering, proper spacing, string-lining, re-boxing, pulling weeds, spraying pesticide/herbicide/insecticide as well.

-dig holes, placing cement and large metal poles in them to secure and tie down the trees in each row so the wind does not damage them.

-pulling the orders each day for the planting crews

-one of the most important tasks was making sure the biggest and nicest material was out front in our parking lots and at the front of each new section. Marketing was one of my most important tasks. Making sure each tree and plants signage was at the front of each row, and our product and fertilizers were at the front of the store always stocked so customers could see and buy them.

-also helped manage the yard with our inventory specialists keeping them updated with what my team and I were doing, if I made changes to the plants then they made changes to the price, etc.

Overall, I was constantly training all my yard workers to be able to complete these tasks each and every day. Some days we had more than just this on our to-do list, but at least each day all these tasks were to get done at the same time.