Give Me Saks Fifth Avenue

My dream after Freshman year at Loyola was to work in retail - I needed a clothes discount and I could not wait to get a job.

You didn't see a lot of people who looked like me working on Michigan Avenue, much less in Water Tower Place, the mecca of shopping malls. People came to Water Tower Place just to walk around. We came there after school to walk around, but by the time we finished Freshman year, we were there to see our friends. Seems like Loyola had invaded Water Tower, and I wanted to join the group.

I started at Lord and Taylor - Lori gave me the exact pep talk I needed:

After you fill out the application - don't leave - just stand there until they hire you....

Never dreamed it would work - but guess what, it worked like a charm!

After a few months at Lord and Taylor, I stretched my wings and went to Saks - never thought they would hire me - but I already had retail experience, and I was welcomed with open arms.

I was assigned the dress department - and this was no regular dress department - it wasn't couture, but it certainly wasn't run of the mill.

At Lord and Taylor the emphasis was on keeping the crowd moving. People were in and out of there. They bought clothes without a second thought. I didn't take into account that there was a reason people didn't take prodding at Lord and Taylor - the clothes were the same as what I was selling at Saks.

At Saks the clothes were more expensive, more exclusive. Women took their time, they didn't always buy, some had no intention of buying something. I had two sales partners in my department - one was Mary, an older lady who sold clothes by the boatload. The other was Lorel, and she was a college student like me. She was attending Columbia college - her major was fashion design. I thought I knew about clothes, textures, pricing, a proper look - I was way off the mark!

Lorel taught me about the designers. She brought me French Vogue and made me stop reading American Vogue "This is garbage, they're six months behind the rest of the world - you want to see what we will have here, read this when it comes out." I got the guy at Bob's Newsstand to put a French Vogue away for me every month and picked it up before I went to class. It was an education - silk, velvet, cotton (real cotton), how to tell a blend - what a good color was - what it meant to make a color pop on your face - it was a new world. Lorel made me unpack the new stuff with her every Tuesday afternoon. I didn't usually work on Tuesday, but we convinced my department manager that I needed the advanced notice to target what I was going to sell. If a dress fit, was comfortable and didn't make me look crazy, I bought it. Like I said - lot to learn.

I learned about the designers and sub-designers - my department was strictly ready to wear, an d we sold to working women who were deciding between buying a new dress or two and eating that week. We wanted them to chose the dress.

Mary was a star sales person - she never missed a sale and she taught me how to sell clothes. She got me out of my comfort zone. Mary confronted her clients - she asked them what they were looking for, got it, got them into a dressing room and bombarded them with clothes.Mary made every client try on at least seven dresses or they couldn't leave. I was afraid to approach someone in the dressing room other than to ask if there was something I needed to take back. Mary taught me to take clothes to them while they were in their slips - if they're already undressed, what will keep them from trying on your suggestions? It's called anticipating needs - and making a client yours for life. It's called making that paper - and making a real commission.

I thought I was going to be arrested for disturbing the clients, but actually, they bought more clothes from me when I went back out and brought in suggestions. As I learned, a woman saw one dress she liked, had a style she wanted to stay true to, but didn't think about the overall look of her wardrobe and how this piece would fit into the overall picture. What was her color palette? What did she wear normally? What was everyday and what was work only? What was her best color? Ask the questions, get the answers, pull the dresses and bring them to her - make her expand her vision of what she was wearing and make the sale.

In those days a sale was slower. We didn't get cash registers until later. At first, we wrote up the sale by hand and took the money or the credit card to the main register. The girls at the register in the back cheered you on - you were making a sale, making money for the store. You weren't just there to pick up that weekly pay check. While I was taking my sale in to be tallied, I asked my clients to fill out a client card so that I could call them in for sales, specials, to update their wardrobe, and be their special person.

By the end of the summer I had 100 clients. Mary taught me to wean my client book - maintain the people who responded, dump the people who didn't call back or shopped infrequently. The goal was to make Saks their store of choice. There were other options on the horizon and we had to remain number one. Mary and Lorel taught me to let go and learn. I wasn't comfortable at first doing what they asked me to do and I was very hesitant. They kept pushing, and bet me that I'd have more money at the end of the summer than I had ever seen - and you know what, they were actually right. For the first time I had money left over. I was going from class to Saks and jumping on the 147 for an express ride home and a couple of hours in the library. Yes, that crazy discipline started early.

I learned in invaluable lesson - I learned how to sell - myself and other things!