Choose How to Spend Your Money When You Are at Your Best

“The key to high performance is managing energy, not time.”

— Jim Loehr

Before I joined Tango in 2021, I was a buyer for a local group of stores. As we grew – I realized I had to get better at managing myself. My time. My energy.

I was managing 80-100 lines for up to 23 stores each. The initial decisions after deciding to pick up a line (and which stores would carry it) were the hardest. Product mixes among stores could vary. That’s a lot of brain work.

Like most people, my brain is at its best in the morning. I have come to protect that time. If I don’t allow myself to be distracted – by anything –
I can figure stuff out pretty fast compared to any other time during the day.

As a buyer, I had multiple responsibilities like you do:

• Find new lines
• Keep up with reorders
• Clean the data

The hardest thing to do (well) was to pick out new products. This could be either for a new line or when there were a lot of new introductions like at January/July markets. So I did the picking out (designing) first thing. One line could take my entire morning.

Reordering came next. I loved reordering. It was easier – and the most fun part of the retail game for me. Seeing all the data was like looking at a maze and a game scoreboard. Were we selling? How fast? At what margin?

I would think, “Woohoo, look how fast that SKU sold – yes, we need enough for a reorder, now get it in the system and to the rep as fast as possible…” and then it was on to the next store, the next line.

Cleaning up data was my easiest almost no-brainer kind of work. You guessed it – that was the last thing I would do every day.
Mostly I would zero out SKUs that were sold out and we weren’t reordering.

Clean data makes it much easier to see what is important.
Cleaning up is necessary – it just doesn’t require as much energy.

Your Takeaway

Note that the hardest thing I did after choosing to carry a line (with my team) was to pick out the products. To do this well, you have to think about all the things – price, margin, color, quantity, space, placement in your store, ETC.

When do you buy? Is it when you are at your best?
Or is it when you need to do something that seems easy & feels good?
Let’s face it – it’s fun to spend money.

But I promise you, if you are looking at your data carefully and using it – your real fun is when your store’s bottom line is blowing up so fast it is hard to keep up. You are thinking, “Wow, what trip do I want to take this year?” 😍

Choose how to spend your money when you are at your best.

Market is coming. I encourage you to make appointments with people who spend your time well. I also encourage you to visit your most important showrooms and lines at the time of day you are at your best.

Manage your energy level. Your time will be spent to its fullest – and hopefully your dollars, too!

Here for you –
xoxo,
❤️ AmyFay

“Examining how we instinctively make choices is a powerful first step in making better ones.”

— Seth Godin

I super appreciate you and your business.
🩷 AmyFay