We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Meredith McNeely. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Meredith below.
Meredith, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Alright, so we’d love to hear about how you got your first client or customer. What’s the story?
In early March of 2020, I left the field of nursing after many years of working in the hospital and outpatient setting. While it was a big leap of faith to walk away from this chapter, I knew great joy was to be spread in sharing my love of florals with the Dallas community. Little did I know, that we were just a week shy from the early days of Covid and a threatened “shut down”. Susan Baldwin, a local realtor with Allie Beth Allman, contacted me in hopes that I might provide a small sussy style arrangement that could be delivered to 60 of her clients as a little “thinking of you” in reference of the uncertainty of what was to come. In just two days, I selected, conditioned and designed these and they were out for delivery. I decided to use this chance to document on my new instagram page and within days, the business grew! While you couldn’t take a friend out to lunch to celebrate a birthday, you could send flowers! During this season, everyone started sharing their “favorites” from florist, to cookie delivery, to Queso & Margs (Nonna, that was brilliant!). Pointer’s Petals name was on a few of these list, I was shocked and honored. Just a month prior, I had finished an intensive training course at Flower School New York. My plan had been to slowly get my feet wet, but that wasn’t the plan God had set before me. Within two weeks, we were averaging 30-40 non-contact porch pick ups and deliveries a day. What a dream!
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
We believe each day should be filled with beauty. Life’s moments, whether big or small, should be celebrated. That’s why Meredith McNeely started Pointer’s Petals— she creates floral arrangements designed to bring natural elegance and beauty to these moments.
Meredith’s passion for flowers took root at a young age. Growing up, her parents cultivated gardens and could often be found sipping a cup of morning coffee or an afternoon tea overlooking the blooms. Whenever Meredith’s parents left for their nightly walks, she would rally her siblings to the garden to pick a few flowers and then create an arrangement for their mother. To her, it was a way to show love for their mother. but little did she know, she was cutting away their freshest blooms leaving a flowerless garden for dinner parties and events her mom hosted. Her mom didn’t mind though — she could tell the flowers brought Meredith such joy, so she didn’t have the heart to put an end to the nightly arrangements.
Meredith would also visit her grandmother, Nanny B, in Arkansas in each summer. Her grandmother had a vast rose garden where many days they spent afternoons teaching Meredith the ins and outs of growing and caring for roses. Meredith always admired her grandmother’s love for flowers, plants and birds; her appreciation of nature was contagious. You couldn’t help but fall in love with all its beauty after hearing Nanny B light up when discovering a new bloom or uncovering a fallen birds nest.
Fast forward to today, and Meredith is now the Founder and Lead Designer of Pointer’s Petals. After years of honing her skills as a hobby and then completing formal floristry education, Meredith is now living her dream, bringing her love of flowers to others.
Her arrangements are inspired by the changing seasons — each arrangement tells a story of the hues, textures and shapes unique to each season. She also sees floral design as a collaborative process, inviting her clients to weigh in and inform the style and direction — she wants each arrangement to be one-of-a-kind and truly personal.
As for the name? ‘Pointer” was Meredith’s middle name before marrying her husband Justin, the one who truly encouraged her to pursue this dream. After choosing to carry my maiden name, she wanted to hold onto Pointer in a business name. This name serves as a daily reminder of her childhood, where it all began… her family gardens, her nightly arrangements, and her grandmother’s love for nature.
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
My love of florals began at an early age, I was often found picking all the newly bloomed florals from the garden to create a little arrangement for my mom at the end of the day. Fast forward, I was asked often to do the floral arrangements for friends baby showers as a hostess duty. This sparked great interest and after a trip to Houston during my engagement to my husband, some friends encouraged me to really pursue this. After a busy work week in the nursing field, I would find myself at a local wholesaler, American Agro Products, pulling together a fun theme for the next event. For my 30th birthday, my husband and parents surprised me with a trip to New York City to attend Flower School of New Yorks intensive floral design course. Little did I know, the owner, Calvert Crary, would be teaching our course. Not only did he teach all things selecting florals, conditioning and designing, but also a high speed business 101 course. I asked EVERY question I could think of. Cal really poured into each of us and also availed himself for any questions after the course was complete. I was able to zoom into many of his online courses over the coming months. These coming months were also the beginning months of Covid. Sending florals became not only a way to encourage, share condolences, celebrate friends, it became a way to say “I’m thinking of you”. Whether you wanted fresh florals to bring life into the four walls of your new “home office”, celebrating a birthday, “Get Well Soon”, or sending a heartfelt “I’m sorry for your loss”, fresh florals became a sweet way to mark these moments.
While Covid was a very challenging time with great hardship and heartbreak, I do attribute the take off of Pointer’s Petals to this season. My husband and I spent our days pouring into this business. While I was designing, he was jumping in as CFO.
Throughout the next two years, the business grew alongside our family! We have since welcomed two little girls into our lives and they are learning from their early days, the love of florals! The business continues to grow and we are really enjoying getting our feet back into the way we did in the early days as a side hustle, small events!
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
Let’s start by saying that I am really not a lover of social media, so the idea that a business would grow best during this day and age through social media, became a hurdle I had to overcome. As mentioned earlier, during the early days of Covid, many active social media gurus, better known as Influencers today, were posing questions of “best….”. Pointer’s Petals name was submitted on a few of these questionnaires and this really allowed my following to blossom. I was able to share a little bit of what I was doing each day on this Instagram platform and I began to love creating little videos of “step by step” build an arrangement. While I may forget to post often enough, I still feel their is a strong correlation between social media activity and website orders.
My advice to those starting to build your presence on social media, have fun with it! Don’t let it be overwhelming. You don’t need the perfect caption, just document what you love and it will show!
Contact Info:
- Website: pointerspetals@gmail.com
- Instagram: @pointerspetals
- Facebook: Pointer’s Petals