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my name is kyra burke and i'm a retail professional with over 25 years experience in retail i've worked across all facets of retail in all functions such as buying operations and merchandising i've worked in all business types from small family businesses to large corporations and i've worked across fashion healthcare and food and beverage today i'm here to talk to you about the top 10 skills that are required in retail management if you work in retail management regardless of your role if you're a store manager of a small business if you're an area manager in large plc or if you're the owner of a retail business you will need to wear many hats within your retail role be a team leader a motivator at times a task master and maybe even a disciplinarian there are many skills that are required to be able to effectively complete your role in retail management some skills are based around the functionality of managing a business and these are skills such as leadership skills and being able to motivate others some are more thinking based and these are skills such as decision making and analytical skills some skills are based around understanding the business such as commercial awareness but regardless of the type of business that you're running what good you're selling and the size of that business there are 10 essential skills that everyone in retail management should possess the level to which each person possesses them will obviously vary you wouldn't expect a store manager to have and display the same level of leadership that a ceo of a large plc would show but regardless leadership is a required function of management today i'm going to give you my top 10 skills that are essential in retail management leadership is an important function of management which helps to maximize efficiency and to achieve your business goals a leadership style generally results from the way a manager applies his personality or her personality and temperament to the people and the business decisions they make in a retail business the approach a manager takes in leading can significantly impact the culture for both the employees and the customers every leader is only as good as the team they have behind them and it's no different when it comes to managing a retail store a wider retail area or business or a website leaders throughout every rung of an organizational ladder are integral to the overall success of the business and leadership is about motivating people to work together and to cooperate with themselves and other teams to achieve a certain goal so what makes a good leader well firstly they always lead by example and practice what they preach secondly they always keep sight of the bigger picture and the goals they don't dwell on the problems and they focus on working for the solutions they may not have the answers all the time but they will work with the team to be getting the answers good leaders are always accountable and understand the role they play within a business they are open-minded and willing to listen to others good leaders like to share the success and they're quick to credit team members or colleagues for good ideas they understand that success is through teamwork and they respect the contribution and work that other people make good leaders like to build up the team and foster strong relationships and cooperations within the team they're willing to share what they know and look out for learning opportunities for the people they work with good leaders work in a transparent manner and they communicate well they know that proper communication allows for better dissemination of information as well as a stronger ability to work well with others leaders are required in all aspects of the retail functions and are key to the success of a retail business every level of leadership within a retail business has a function and ability to collaborate and move the business forward for supervisors who manage the manpower and the day-to-day operation stockroom managers who keep the inventory moving logistics managers who bring it in on time merchandise planning finance managers every function has a role to play and choosing good leadership and ensuring them within your business is critical to the success after leadership in retail management one of the most important set of skills to have is interpersonal skills now these are a wide range of skills that can include friendliness positive attitude being flexible being able to work as part of a team team building relationship management the ability to manage conflict showing empathy but the most important ones in retail management are communication skills such as listening effective speaking and showing empathy in the workplace all interpersonal skills will benefit people but these specifically will help you to work better as a team and reach those shared goals effective speaking is defined as speaking in such a way that your message is clearly heard and if possible acted upon there are two main elements to speaking effectively it's what you say and how you say it active listening is the ability to pay attention to somebody when they speak and to truly understand what they are saying active listening is extremely important for communicating effectively and to prevent misunderstandings empathy which is also known as having emotional intelligence is the ability to understand others emotions needs and ideas and seeing things from their point of view and using this in the workplace can be good for morale and productivity it helps to prevent misunderstandings and is likely to gain you trust and respect from your employees by using these interpersonal skills you will promote teamwork and have a better chance of success and achieving those common goals it will allow you to get the best out of your team to maintain social bonds and to influence them successfully another very important skill in retail management is to have commercial awareness or it's also known as commercial acumen this is the ability to recognize how different actions and strategies can impact your profitability and your business performance it is the ability of the individual to make good judgments and be effective in the decision making and it's used alongside a wide range of other skills and understanding commercial acumen and financial acumen are often confused but being commercial means having a lot more breadth and understanding of the impact of actions in the wider retail function for example cost saving exercises that finance think make sense may have long-term impacts on your ability to drive sales your customer relationships your brand building and looking at the ability and impact in the wider picture and seeing the benefits overall is known as commercial awareness individuals who have good commercial awareness will use their skills alongside others they will have the ability to work under pressure to have perseverance work with confidence and show leadership and in many cases they are the face of the business in terms of negotiation whether you work at a retail store level you can show commercial awareness in finding the opportunity to grow your sales and to minimize your losses whether it's through inventory management planograms and even through exploiting customer service if you're at a more senior level you can exploit opportunities in rental negotiation through negotiation with franchise partners through supplier management transportation costs there's many ways to exploit opportunity and to see potential for business growth and those individuals who display commercial awareness will be more effective and achieve more in their job roles the purpose of a retail business is to generate sales and to create profit and the individuals or groups who participate in the process are known as stakeholders this can include anyone who contributes to the process but the main ones that you would deal with daily in your retail environment would be customers employees the business owners internal business departments such as finance logistics visual merchandising and good stakeholder management skills are critical to be able to understand the different needs of the various stakeholders and to communicate with them appropriately this will allow you to have good relationships with the people who most impact your work each stakeholder will have a different level of interest and influence over the objective you're trying to achieve and knowing how to communicate with each one in the right way will play a vital role in helping you keep them on board and achieving your objectives stakeholder management is one of the most difficult aspects of retail management as you'll be dealing with different groups of people and individuals who have different goals and objectives some of these may be your direct subordinates you may be their direct subordinate you may not be managing them at all they may be peers or outside personnel but you're still in charge of the project and have to achieve the objective an example of this could be a new payroll system this would involve hr i.t finance and potentially some external software companies if you're completing the annual budgeting process this will involve finance the business owners maybe franchise partners and management teams of the individual stores or area that you manage so what does good stakeholder management look like people who have good stakeholder management skills understand that you need to identify these stakeholders that are involved in whatever objective or project you're trying to achieve map out everyone who is impacted or affected by your project you need to determine who are the priority stakeholders not everybody will be impacted to the same extent and some may have the authority to block your progress or importantly to advance your progress understanding the needs of each one and how they can impact you will be the best start the next step is to choose the communication method that you are going to use consider the resources and the background that each stakeholder will need to understand your project and how often updates should be provided as everybody will have various levels of understanding and background to the project people will require different levels of content also people have different preferences in how communication is completed understanding who's involved what they need to know how often they need to know it and ensuring that this process is smooth and consistent is the key to good stakeholder management another essential skill to have if you work in retail management is the ability to problem-solve those who have good problem-solving skills are a valuable and trusted asset in any team these people have the ability to think of new ideas improve the way you do things and make it easier for people to understand things and help save time and money retail managers who have the ability to systematically think through the facts diagnose the situation and find an accurate and workable solution will help any retail business thrive and prosper to be an effective problem solver you will need to have a number of other personal skills these will include being flexible adaptable having a lateral mindset being innovative in your thinking showing initiative having resilience in case your first idea doesn't work out and been able to work as part of a team so what is an effective problem-solving process the first step is to identify the issues and be clear about what the problem is the second step is to understand all the different stakeholders and their specific issues what is everybody's interest in the problem the next step is to list the possible solutions and then to evaluate your options then select an option based on the most workable solution for you and your business and it's always good to evaluate contingencies and then monitor and evaluate the progress of the actual problem a retail manager will deal with numerous problems on a daily basis and they can range from the daily grind of manpower issues such as floor cover when people call in sick to delay deliveries when shipments are late from suppliers and you're going to miss weekend trade roadwork accessibility into your store to a range of higher level issues the ability to deal with these problems on a daily basis and an effective manner to achieve the best result for your retail business is a skill that is essential to all retail management following on from problem solving the next skill that all retail management need to have is the ability to take decisions problem solving is the analytical process that's used to identify possible solutions to situations that you're dealing with and decision making is part of the problem-solving process when you're dealing with problem solving it's a complex process and judgment calls or decisions will have to be made on the way and decision making is the choice that you use when making that judgment retail is a fast-paced industry actions have to be acted upon quickly and making the right decision rapidly without making mistakes means evaluating information to get through to what is important and what is not there is so much multitasking and a wide variety of decisions that need to be taken daily sales decisions implementation of promotions sales targets to achieve the daily weekly monthly goal visual merchandising window displays new delivery planning inventory mix every effective manager needs to have the ability to evaluate and decide what is crucial for the success of their business and to be able to do this in a quick and efficient manner good decision making requires a mixture of skills being able to creatively develop and identify options clarify judgment be firm and hold your decision and be effective in the implementation and the first step to achieving this is to have a clear decision-making process once you've identified the decision needs to be taken you need to clarify the issue does it really warrant action if so does it need it now is it urgent is it important or is it important and urgent gather relevant information identify the options that you have weigh the evidence consider the pros and cons and compare each option then you need to choose among the alternatives that you have and select the best option for your business then you need to take action make the decision and ensure that you explain the decision to the stakeholders that are involved and affected and follow up to ensure there is proper and effective implementation lastly you will need to review your decision and the outcomes when taking decisions you need to accept that the reality of decision making involves taking risks and sometimes we can be averse to loss that the potential mistake can cause us to freeze up in the moment and not want to take the decision but doing nothing is almost always worse than doing something you also need to consider slowing down when it's needed retail is a fast-paced industry and there are many quick decisions that need to be taken daily but some decisions require focused thinking and it's required to spend some time engaged in the decision making process to ensure that you're making the effective decision and lastly don't let data overload you we can never have every piece of information so it's essential to learn and recognize when we have enough data to make the decision at hand and move forward the next skill we're going to discuss that is essential for retail management is multitasking and multitasking refers to the ability to manage multiple responsibilities at once focusing on one task while keeping track of many others multitasking in the workplace often involves switching back and forth between tasks and effectively performing different tasks rapidly one after the other multitasking in retail is a valuable skill that should be continuously improved upon in order to maximize productivity and success this is especially true today when retail leaders and employees alike are faced with an influx of tasks and duties and are encountering various challenges and distractions along the way from the ground up everyone in retail will be multitasking sales associates will be continuously multitasking by greeting customers restocking shelves offering customer service to customers finding sizes manning the fitting rooms and till points management will be looking at the operation on the shop floor making decisions about inventory management dealing with administration and much much more the higher you go in management the more you will need to be able to multi-task and continually assessing all the pieces of moving parts being able to prioritize and ensuring the smoothest flow of your operation the best managers can multitask and balance these priorities without losing pace or productivity while multitasking is a necessity there are always downsides so you need to watch out for the pitfalls it can take more time to get the task completed if you switch between them than if you did them one at a time you can make more errors when you're switching if the tasks are complex then these time and error penalties will increase every task might only waste a small amount of time both switching between tasks every day and multiple times will add up to a lot of lost productivity we're now going to talk about the ability to influence and motivate people effective retail managers have the ability to influence and motivate those that they work with to behave in a specific goal directed way how willing are your employees to go the extra mile essentially motivation is the willingness to expel energy to achieve a goal and retail managers want to have a sustained effort from their employees so that they can work hard whether the boss is present or not it is important for effective managers to understand how to influence people to perform specific behaviors and tasks that they're likely to find mundane learning how to influence that behavior is considered a social art and you set yourself a foundation for success when you learn to make the effort to improve those skills and have a positive effect on those that you supervise your peers and even your boss motivated employees get what they really want at work and this is recognition and satisfaction which in turn gives you and your retail business what it wants sustained productivity equality and service so what are some of the things that you can do to help motivate your employees one way is to give them responsibility everybody wants to feel valued and like their contributions make a difference to their work the monotony of a retail job can sometimes make employees disengage and one way to combat this is to reward them with more responsibility delicating tasks also lessens your own workload but it helps disrupt the routine for the employee's day it's important to build a culture of recognition recognizing retail employees for their effort is a true key to motivating them people thrive on recognition for a job well done and recognition can come in many forms it's also important to encourage feedback your retail employees are the conduit between your retail business and your customers they hear feedback from your most precious resource your customers every day so encourage them to pass this feedback onto management they will feel valued and listened to they spend most of the time on the shop floor and they have a clear understanding of what works and what doesn't it's also important to encourage career development many retail employees don't consider that their jobs in retail offer more than cash in their pockets but in fact retail can be a career launching point and it's important that your employees understand this from day one one of the most valuable ways to motivate your team is to make time to talk them in one-to-one meetings having regular meetings with their manager and communication helps them feel valued and it has numerous purposes it will help build a trusting relationship between you both parties are allowed to stay informed and aligned with objectives it gives you time to provide mutual feedback and it gives you time to address topics that are prone to getting lost in the shuffle like career development or constructive feedback another essential skill that all retail management require is good time management time management is the process of organizing and planning how to divide your time between your specific objectives good time management enables you to work smarter and not harder to get more done in less time even when time is tight and pressures are high understanding the distinction between urgent and important is one of the keys to prioritizing your time in your workload and you should use some sort of priority matrix to help you do this this will enable you to work out what to do first what can be left till later or even not done at all for example if you leave an urgent but unimportant task you may find that it becomes unnecessary other ways to categorize your objectives and allocate time to them are to categorize them in ways such as quick wins these would be high impact and low effort these are the most attractive tasks and objectives because they can give you a good return for very relatively little effort you should focus on these as much as you can you will have major tasks or projects and these will be high impact and high effort they'll have good returns but can be time consuming and this means that one major project can crowd out many quick wins and they'll always be what's known as thankless tasks not only do these not give you much return for your time but they can soak up time that you could use on quick wins and adding value to your business to have good time management you will need to use other skills these will include the ability to prioritize the art of delegation being able to schedule to be good at time management you should try and eliminate the unnecessary try to keep a to-do list of all activities set time frames know when you can multitask and when it's not possible and importantly reduce the interruptions when you're trying to achieve something having good time management will enable you to be effective in your job role and to have a good work-life balance now we move to the last of our top 10 essential skills that are required in retail management and that is planning alongside organization planning is a fundamental cognitive skill that forms part of our executive function planning can be defined as the ability to think about the future and mentally anticipate the right way to carry out a task or to reach a specific goal even though everybody has the ability to plan some people are just more skilled at it we've talked a lot today about how retail is multifaceted and how it almost always consistently requires multitasking staying on top of your responsibilities and accountabilities and ensuring your jobs are completed and effective achievement of those various tasks requires planning and to be skilled at it everything from basic operations in retail such as the opening and closing of a store each day requires planning manpower planning shift patterns break patterns administration and as you move up the corporate ladder there are more complicated tasks that need to be planned such as store openings and numerous business opportunities it takes a lot of planning alongside the skills of organization to stay in control in the fast-moving world of retail if you lose the ability to organize or if your organization skills are not as strong as they should be you'll quickly lose track of everything that's going on around you to be good at planning and organizing you need to set yourself up with specific procedures to ensure that your goals are achieved this means setting the specific goals in advance setting deadlines attached to each one knowing how to prioritize each one and ensuring that you identify critical tasks over non-critical tasks ensuring that you allocate the right resource and use teamwork to achieve them you will need to have strong communication skills and be able to think ahead and see contingencies where needed planning and organizing requires the use of other skills alongside them such as time management there is no way to increase the time that you have but you can always find better ways to use your time and time management is about making sure that your actions help you complete the things that you need to do planning and organizing is a mandatory skill required in retail management and without it you would be ineffective i would like to thank you for taking the time today to go through the top 10 essential skills in retail management i hope we've been of help and i wish you luck in the future