In Blog 97 I talked about how honest feeback is key In this blog I want to talk about Politically speaking at Nordstrom.

The Half Yearly and Anniversary sales were fast approaching. These were such big events they could easily put us ahead of South Coast plaza for the year. We had worked so hard this year and it was a battle. We kept going back and forth and so far we had an edge.

The matter at hand though was Bob Nunn was coming to the store. He was in charge of the entire shoe area so it was a big deal. He was really nice but super intense.

I had met him a few times before and he was as sharp as anyone I’ve ever met when it came to the shoe industry. He was very well respected. So we had to impress.

Aaron volunteered to have the sales team work with him in the back to “spank it out”.

Aaron got to work

Aaron had every salesperson work with him for 30 minutes each day and they had the walls organized and flush. The day before the visit he pulled an over-nighter and the next day it was perfect. Everything was as good as it could be. 

Bob arrived in the morning and we walked the floor. He quizzed me on the tables and how we were doing with each item. As we were walking he met the team. He was super nice to everyone and the visit was about as perfect as you could hope for.

We got to the back room and he was amazed at how great it looked.  Robert, one of our salespeople had been gone on vacation and just got back. When Robert  got to the back room he said “wow!”

Bob’s one liner

Bob looked at me and said “you can learn a lot by just standing back here and listening”. He took a few more steps then turned to me and said “ I take it this back room isn’t always this pristine”. I grinned and said we had worked hard to make it look especially nice for him and also to get ready for Half Yearly. “An honest answer, I like that” he said. We talked about a few other things and then he left. 

I’m kind of glad Robert spoke out loud. It opened an honest dialog we may never had had. I also learned that being polical and always saying what you think they may want to hear, isn’t always the best choice. From that day forward I always had good visits with Bob and learned so much from him. This was my first at Politically speaking at Nordstrom that stuck with me.