Top Skills for a Director of Brand Partnerships at Neighborhood Goods
Christine, a Director of Brand Partnerships, highlights the differing skill sets needed for buying roles in startups versus traditional retail. In startups, "problem-solving and flexibility" are key, along with a "sense of urgency," while more established retail demands a balance of "creative and analytical mind," integrating visual curation with data analysis of sales and inventory.
Problem-Solving, Flexibility, Data Analysis, Creative Thinking, Sense of Urgency
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Christine Waters
Director of Brand Partnerships
Neighborhood Goods
New York University, 2012
N/A
Entrepreneurship
Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG)
Sales and Client Management
Honors Student, Scholarship Recipient, Pell Grant Recipient, Took Out Loans, Worked 20+ Hours in School, Greek Life Member
Video Highlights
1. Problem-solving and flexibility are crucial in fast-paced startup environments.
2. A sense of urgency is critical in retail due to limited windows of opportunity for maximizing sales.
3. Traditional retail buying requires a balance of creative and analytical skills: visual merchandising and data analysis.
Transcript
What skills are most important for a job like yours?
As a buyer, it's important to differentiate between working in a traditional retail environment, often with more corporate companies, versus a startup environment. Companies like goop, Neighborhood Goods, and Verishop were all startup environments.
In a startup, especially in buying, being a great problem solver is crucial. You often learn as you go, creating processes and working out the kinks. Problem-solving and flexibility, or the ability to pivot, are really important.
A sense of urgency is also key, particularly when dealing with brands daily. In retail, timing and urgency are everything. There's a specific window of opportunity to implement product launches or changes to maximize sales potential.
In more traditional retail, and buying in general, it's important to have both a creative and an analytical mind. There's a trade-off between the visual and creative side, selecting products and curating their aesthetics, versus analyzing sales reports, looking at inventory, and using data related to purchasing and sales trends.