ABOUT THE ROLE:
This role meaningfully contributes to the overall success and growth of our brick & mortar channel and acts as a right-hand and reports to our founder/creative director. In addition to assisting on the sales floor, this role travels between both retail locations to keep day to day operations running smoothly. Main responsibilities include, but are not limited to: maintaining visual merchandising standards across both stores, training and continually managing all sales associates, handling escalated customer service issues, maintain constant communication with store owner about daily happenings, inventory needs, staff issues, and more. Three main skillsets are key here: visual merchandising, customer service and managing a team. This role is suited for someone with an artistic yet practical and strategic mindset, who is also great with people. We are looking for someone who deeply understands and embodies our brand ethos and who can use that understanding to help guide our continued growth and success.
ABOUT YOU:
You are a confident, upbeat and energetic leader both on the sales floor and behind the scenes. You’ll use your leadership and people skills to create a warm, authentic and hospitable experience for both customers and our team. You are comfortable giving both positive & constructive feedback to help guide individual team members to their highest potential. As a role model and manager, you’ll guide and train other team members to incorporate our brand essence into everything we do, maximize sales, keep the shops looking fresh & inspiring through creative visual merchandising and cleaning standards, while embodying our laidback but professional, authentic and engaged style of customer service and setting an example for positivity and productivity.
RESPONSIBILTIES:
Leadership & team culture
+ Facilitate an upbeat and energetic team environment and inspire your team to reach their highest potential
+ Conduct frequent one-on-ones with team members to improve communication and provide both positive reinforcement and constructive feedback
+ Exemplify and adhere to our core values while using them to lead and set an example for your team
+ Actively work toward maximizing sales by leading team with clear customer service expectations through training, leadership and sales strategies
+ Train and on-board new team members
+ Assist with scheduling: i.e. shift changes, reviewing time off requests, maintaining flexibility to back up your team to manage call outs / scheduling conflicts
+ Co-lead tri-annual team meetings to celebrate achievements, encourage team dialogue, and identify goals and areas for improvement
+ Celebrate team birthdays and anniversaries
Shop experience & customer service
+ Maintain an active presence on the selling floor and lead by example to demonstrate an authentically friendly yet elevated level of sales and service through communication, product knowledge, body language & morale
+ Maintain the welcoming, inviting feel of our brand by greeting and thanking every customer and ensure your associates do the same
+ Providing and assisting with customer service as needed via in-person interactions, phone and email, while offering expert product knowledge
+ Ensure prompt and reliable customer service by clearly communicating requests to the rest of the team and quickly and effectively following up on all requests and issues
Visual merchandising & space management
+ Keep up with the day to day visual merchandising by making adjustments as product flow changes
+ Maintaining cleaning and upkeep standards throughout the storefront, in both front and back of house
+ Address housekeeping issues promptly and ensure shop is stocked with needed supplies
+ Constantly adjust how products are merchandised to incorporate new products, fill in and adjust when products sell out, identify weak sales performance based on product placement and adjust accordingly
+ Switch out window displays regularly
+ Perform quarterly floor resets to re-merchandise and refresh the store
Operations & inventory management
+ Create, implement and maintain structural procedures to streamline & improve operations and increase efficiency
+ Logistical coordination (i.e. paying bills, communicating with service & utility providers, researching & sourcing new vendors for service requirements)
+ Ensure deliveries and inventory are properly processed in a timely, organized manner
+ Monitor e-comm sales, carefully packing items and shipping out online orders
+ Communicate inventory needs and customer requests to our founder
+ Attend trade shows and buying appointments with our founder
....and much more! This is an ever-evolving role that requires a genuine love of retail and customer service, and a whole lot of adaptability in order to support the needs of the shop and the team as they arise.
If the following resonates with you, you might be a great fit:
+ You're an all-star people person and have a knack for selling, inspiring people, coaching and leading a team
+ You feel confident in weathering the highs and lows that come with running a small business and working on a small team, and can adapt where necessary
+ You can effortlessly balance both a creative sensibility and a business-focused mindset
+ You're passionate about aesthetics (particularly home decor and/or clothing), and possess an eye for style and detail
+ You know how to have fun while also taking your work seriously
REQUIREMENTS:
+ Prior retail experience (applications with no prior retail experience will not be considered), resumes including management experience are preferred.
+ An "up for anything attitude" willing to do any and every possible task (we all wear many hats here)
+ An outgoing, warm, vibrant and engaging sensibility with an authentic, natural ease with people
+ Exceptional communication skills (written and verbal)
+ Exceptional attention to detail
+ Extremely reliable and high accountability
+ Self starter who takes initiative
+ Ability to multitask, effectively prioritize and perform tasks with grace and accuracy while under pressure
+ Organized, efficient and aesthetically/visually inclined (gift wrapping, merchandising)
This role will move between our two Williamsburg, Brooklyn retail locations — 99 Grand Street (Home & Gift) and 319 Graham Avenue (Home & Woman). This is a full time, 5 days (40 hours) a week position (please note weekend availability is required as needed).
About Us
Established in 2011, LEIF is an independent lifestyle boutique with a strong e-commerce and brick & mortar presence. Our specialty is creating a truly unique retail experience: in our expertly curated collection you'll find an assortment of products that you're unlikely to find at any other store. We aim to invoke a feeling of joyful discovery in our assortment (with a range of price points from accessible to aspirational) the main criteria of which is: an aesthetically pleasing product that brings joy or comfort to the everyday. All in a welcoming, authentic and warm environment that doesn't ever feel exclusive or pretentious — a store filled with beautiful things (which you likely haven't seen in a bunch of other shops) where the people are nice to you! We think you'll like our style.
