Why Being a Buyer at Nordstrom Made me a Great Chief of Staff.
Let me tell you how my experience being a buyer for Nordstrom made me a great Chief of Staff.
When I was 26 years old in 2012, I started a job as an Assistant Buy Planner at Nordstrom. It was my first real office job working for a big company. I was surrounded by ultra fashion-forward women, samples littering the desks, and dozens of cubicle-made "buying offices" of 8-10 people stretched across the office floors. I worked above the flagship Nordstrom store in Downtown Seattle, which meant lots of social breaks to walk the floor, merchandise our product, shop the competition, stretch our legs, and grab a Starbucks from across the street.
When the Nordstrom Brothers say they put the customer first and their employees second, I was living and breathing that reality. But it didn't matter one bit to us. With a 33% discount, you can be sure we were all very happy. Though I had a small stint at a Seattle-based probiotic company, Nordstrom was basically my first job sitting down at a computer and I was in the very early stages of learning just how to color code my Outlook emails, send replies to the right people, create PTO calendar invites, navigate Excel pivot tables, and more. I will never forget that in the year I started, 2012, we were using Office 2003 products. Again, the discount made it all worth it.
Each year at Nordstrom, I was promoted to a new role, in a new office, with new people. At the time, I was hungry for recognition, mastering my work, more responsibility, and getting back into people-leading roles. I did love the work, but even more so I loved being great at my work.
Buying at Nordstrom was a competitive environment. Growing up in sports, that was comfortable to me. Imagine 40 female buying assistants on one floor, half of us working closely together, idolizing the iconic female leaders in our company, and ONE buying job opening that we've all been eyeing. Who's "ready" for a promotion? Who's proved themselves? Who can handle the pressure? Me! Me! Me! I lived for those promotions. And I moved quickly through the ranks.
The Nordstrom Buying Offices were home to me for five years. I worked in five different categories, moving from Assistant Buy Planner for Trend Accessories, to Assistant Buyer for At Home, to Online Buy Planner for Main Floor Accessories, to Multi-Channel Buy Planner for At Home, and finally managing a $200M annual budget as a Multi-Channel Buy Planner for Dresses. I was always working as hard as possible for the next role. I had consistent conversations with my current managers about what was next for me and organically networked with people who worked in the places I wanted to land. Essentially, I kept raising my hand for the opportunities that I wanted, over and over again.
As a 120 year old company, Nordstrom could be pretty traditional. I was told–and I don’t necessarily disagree–that you don't want to move too quickly through the ranks. "Anniversarying" yourself in a role adds a ton of learning and experience, especially in sales. I had one boss at Nordstrom tell me, "We don't raise our hands for what's next here, we wait until we are tapped on the shoulder." I had friends in admin roles who were told that there was absolutely no path for an Administrative Assistant to move to Assistant Buyer–and there wasn't.
But patience has never been my strong suit. Why wait when you feel ready for what's next and you'll get paid more? I am thankful to my mom for always pushing me to raise my hand and take the leap. “Raising my hand” was the norm that I grew up with and what I’ve learned to appreciate is rare as young women. Through each of my job transitions I learned that it takes doing great work and making it known that you are ready for what's next to set you apart from those who are just waiting in the wings to be tapped on the shoulder.
The need for competence and confidence is something I teach today at Nova Chief of Staff. Nurturing both, I was led to promotion after promotion, moving from Assistant Buy Planner to Multi Channel Buy Planner in less than three years; it was the fastest progression from Assistant to Buyer that my Nordstrom leaders had seen. Women are historically afraid to raise their hands. So let my experience be an example: do the hard work, do great work, ask for more responsibility, improve when people give you feedback, and vocalize that you are ready for what's next. It will pay off.
While I’m sure my expertise would have only grown if I stayed in roles longer, I actually believe that my quick movement from one buying office to another over those five years was critical to preparing me to be a great Chief of Staff.
For one thing, I was in each buying role for about a year, and each buying office had completely different people and processes, including:
Target customer/customer profile; which nordstrom shopper are we catering to?
Product and suppliers: They are different in every buying office, with some overlap.
The quantity of products and suppliers: Some offices had 20 suppliers, some had 300.
The size of the business/industry: Handbags, for instance, is much better established with many more big-name suppliers than something like Hair Accessories.
Inventory turnover targets and margin requirements: Some offices required 50% margin while others required a 70% margin.
Vendor rates/agreements, returns to vendors, and margin negotiations; each supplier and each category had different processes, targets, and room to negotiate.
Other Internal processes: The various offices had different standards for functions like purchase orders, tracking tasks, financial performance reviews, buying cycles, and market trips.
Channel differences: The online business couldn't have been more different than the in-store channel, even within the same category.
By moving from office to office, I was given the recurring opportunity to observe brand new businesses and to assimilate to a new team and the people we worked with. I was tasked with learning how to do the major functions of my new job, and then–because it's just what I do–figure out how to make the business better via more efficient processes, better communications, improved visibility, and an overall improved rhythm of business.
My ambition led me to ascend these roles quickly. I look back on this time as akin to consulting experience: diving in a new business over and over again, quickly learning the ins and outs, and then making it better.
To describe the culture of buying office, let me explain the basics. In each buying office, there is a Buyer and a Buy Planning that lead the team. It was often described as a marriage: the Buyer picked the pretty things and the Buy Planner held the checkbook. In reality, it was much more in-depth than that, and on a great buying team both leaders should be good at both roles. Ultimately, though, the Buyers were the head of the Buying Office. And although the company strived to keep the two roles seen as equal, it was important to have a visionary leader focused on the future of the business (...sound familiar? This is how I describe the CEO role). The Buyers led the long-term strategy of the product and the relationships. And the Buy Planners were essential to the execution, the planning, and the leadership of the team. I was a Buy Planner in most of my roles; it fit me perfectly.
When I compare the Buy Planner and Buyer relationship, it's hard not to notice the similarities to the Chief of Staff and CEO dynamic. Frequently, a Buyer had more seniority and the Buy Planner was newer to the office. To succeed in the role, a Buy Planner must have a deep understanding of the Buyer’s goals and the Buying Office’s overall vision. In my time as a Buy Planner, I focused on driving efficiencies, executing the Buyer's vision, preparing for presentations and market trips, leading the team of assistant buyers, solving problems like tackling new buying tools/technology, and negotiating with stakeholders and suppliers.
Being a Buyer, or more specifically a Buy Planner, made me a great Chief of Staff, but I wouldn’t have been able to tell you this back then! Here’s a breakdown of some of the skills I learned with Nordstrom that show up now in my role as a Chief of Staff:
How to prepare: As buyers, we went to Market Week in NYC nine times a year and often had 10-15 meetings per day. This included massive amounts of preparation from the whole buying team for materials gathering, summarizing, and iterating each time to do it better. A key responsibility of a Chief of Staff is to create processes and systems to ensure their leader is prepared every time for every engagement.
Executive presence: As Buyers at Nordstrom, we had to represent the brand well at all times. From walking around the office halls to supplier meeting after supplier meeting in beautiful New York showrooms, polish and presence was important. As a Chief of Staff, you must represent your principle and the business well at all times.
The ability to learn a new business quickly: In any setting, it’s important to ask the right questions, connect the right people, and understand the key metrics that make the business tick. As a Chief of Staff you must know how to dive deep into what's important for a company.
How to manage wild egos: In any job, managing those with out-of-control egos is expected. But add designer labels, expensive taste, extreme focus on how you dress and look, and the competitive nature of the buying office it was ever-present. As a Chief of Staff, you're inevitably working with powerful business leaders which can at times mean dealing with unmanaged egos.
How to navigate networking and politics: From job moves, to informational interviews, to asking the right questions, my time at Nordstrom helped me build a foundation that took the fear away from networking and office politics. Both of which are critical to understanding as a Chief of Staff.
Change management: as a Buy Planner, I was continually creating new processes that required adoption from my entire buying office team. From observing first before making changes, to getting buy-in and collaboration, to the importance of over-communication, these pillars for change management are equally as relevant as a Chief of Staff.
Solving problems and creating processes based on the leader’s needs: Not only do we need to troubleshoot problems but we have to learn what those problems are first and prioritize which ones to solve. As a Chief of Staff our scope is wide: how we learn what to tackle from our leader and the best way to solve problems is an art not a science. And it’s a darn important one.
The value of art and science: As merchants, early on in our careers we had to learn the value of both the art and the science. Which for us meant trusting our gut or first inclination, while doing the mental calculus concerning the data and the overall performance of like-items, past performance, and competitive analysis. Nordstrom leaders prioritized decisions, including hiring, when both the art and the science were strong. As a Chief of Staff, we create, build, and strategize while firmly relying on data and efficiencies to guide our execution. A role highly reliant on both the art and the science.
How to have fun: There is nothing more important than team culture, and some–not all–of my buying office teams did FUN so well. When people get to know each other outside of work and truly prioritize connection as fundamental to business, a team becomes wildly more successful. A huge part of the Chief of Staff role is cultivating a positive team culture.
Servant leadership: Nordstrom does servant leadership better than anyone: you serve those who you lead. The best leaders serve their employees, NOT the other way around. And Nordstrom even uses an inverted pyramid to display this leadership philosophy: the employees and customers are at the top of the pyramid and the Nordstrom Brothers and their executive teams are at the bottom. As a Chief of Staff, our ability to be the eyes and ears of the company's people is important. If we are approachable and care deeply about our people our job is much easier.
At Nova Chief of Staff, we are all about mining wisdom from past experiences to more effectively and intentionally navigate a successful career path. Of course, being a Buyer for Nordstrom is not the only job with transferable skills to a Chief of Staff. But looking back, my experience was crucial to my understanding of and preparation for the demands of a Chief of Staff. Most Chiefs of Staff arrive at the role with a background of various skills, industries, and experiences. And that’s what makes us great.