Find Your "Sparketype" with Ellie and Lori | BONUS Team Retreat Recap!
Lori is joined by Ellie this week, fresh off something the Flower Clique team had never done before: a face-to-face, all-staff retreat. For a fully remote company where some teammates had never met in person, "Camp Click" was a big deal — and it delivered. By the end, every single person was asking the same two questions: why didn't we do this sooner, and when are we doing it again? (One heartfelt shout-out: team member Donna had to miss the retreat to keep her family safe from the hurricane — she was missed, and she's safe.)
Camp Click: what a remote team retreat looks like
The itinerary was deliberately loose. A charcuterie welcome, a Fiesta night with walking tacos, games that spawned a season's worth of inside jokes, fresh company headshots, and plenty of unscheduled yapping around the table — because the whole point was to know each other on a human level, not just a virtual one. Thursday brought the business: a company update, a strategy and support workshop, and the session this episode is really about. There was also a legendarily competitive round of water volleyball, in which Lori scared Ellie a little, Kami egged her on from behind Ellie's back, and web-team Allie confessed mid-game that she had never actually played in high school.
The Sparketype quiz: ten minutes, free, surprisingly useful
Before the retreat, Ellie and Lori sent everyone the Sparketype quiz — free, under ten minutes, and deliberately lighter than a deep-dive assessment like Myers-Briggs (though Lori found it aligned well with hers). It gives each person three results: a primary Sparketype (what fuels you), a shadow (what enhances your primary), and an anti-Sparketype — the work that drains you fastest. That anti matters: it's not that you can't do that work, it's that keeping someone in a role built around their anti is a recipe for burnout.
The ten types, flower-shop edition
The hosts walked through all ten, with plenty of shop applications along the way:
Maven — lives to learn; give them the research projects. Maker — "I make ideas manifest"; Ellie's primary, and the type Lori sees in florists creating on TikTok with no idea how a piece will end. Scientist — fueled by burning questions and puzzles, like the flower breeders on the NextGen growers panel. Essentialist — creates order from chaos, thinks in systems and processes; the hosts argue a well-run flower shop needs one, and it's worth building interview questions around when you hire a manager. Performer — turns moments into magic (everyone at the retreat guessed this was Lori's; it wasn't even on her list). Sage — "I awaken insights"; Lori's actual primary, the teacher who leaves people wiser. Warrior — gathers and leads people; Vonda's primary, no surprise. A warrior makes everyone else feel safe: "she's got it." Advisor — "I guide to grow"; Ellie's read on Lori's coaching side, essential for one-on-ones and training new hires. Advocate — "I am your champion," the teammate who says: you're behind on eight casket sprays, I'm staying, we're doing this together. Nurturer — "I've got you"; the Flower Clique team turned out to have a bunch of these.
If you took the quiz hoping to be a warrior and you're not? Lori's advice: fine. You can develop some warrior with will and skill, but if it's just not in you, hire a manager who has it — your team needs that energy somewhere in leadership.
Tacos, recognition, and knowing your team
The nurturer discussion led Ellie to a connection she hadn't made before: the team's Slack shout-out channel, where anyone can award a taco emoji for a job well done, and tacos accumulate into real rewards like Flower Clique merch or gift cards. Silly-sounding? Absolutely. But watching a team full of nurturers lift each other up daily, the correlation was obvious — recognition systems work best when your people are wired to use them.
Lori's bottom-line suggestion for shop owners: send the quiz to your staff before your fall or holiday staff meeting, collect the results, and put everyone's primary, shadow, and anti on a single slide. Seeing how the types intertwine makes the whole team realize how important every single person's job is — and Lori is happy to share the slide deck she built; just reach out.
Key takeaways
- An in-person retreat is worth it for remote or scattered teams — prioritize hang-out time over a packed agenda.
- The free Sparketype quiz takes under ten minutes and reveals what fuels, enhances, and drains each team member.
- Pay special attention to anti-Sparketypes: keeping someone in a role built on theirs is a fast track to burnout.
- Every shop benefits from an essentialist (systems and order) and a warrior (leadership energy) — hire for them if they're not you.
- Run the quiz before busy season and share results at a staff meeting; it builds appreciation for how every role fits together.