November 2013

So the month of November…what a whirlwind! I went to our annual forecast meeting in Atlanta with my PC manager. I have a good friend who lives there so I actually drove down the weekend before and got to see some of the city. Basically the forecast meeting is equivalent to the annual budget meeting other companies might have, except it is much more focused on personnel, team building, and goals for the next year. We had meetings and different vendors gave presentations. I found the whole experience to be informative since all of it was new to me. Some of the products and vendors didn’t really apply to me at my current location, but I never know what might apply to the profit centers where I could work next so I tried to take away as much as I could from all of them.

One high point was a presentation by a lady who used to be an interior designer for retail stores. What she said really resonated with me based on my experience in visual merchandising. I took that as an opportunity to offer some suggestions for improvements to my PCM while it was fresh on our minds, and he gave me a budget to put those improvements into place. Less than a month later, about half of those plans have been put into place. I wanted to update our counter area so that we could use the limited floor space to do more product merchandising. Our profit center offers free popcorn and free coffee to the customers. The snack area was set up on a folding table in the counter area which took up valuable floor space in a high traffic area where we could have displayed products. I bought kitchen cabinets and put them around the corner in our display area so that we could hide all of the cords under the countertop and store the popcorn and coffee and other supplies in the drawers and cabinets instead of bins underneath the table. I was also able to procure a Keurig and an under counter cooler for the snack area. Our soda machine was also taking up floor space where we could display a shower or another large item such as that. I have ordered a tool display to go on the wall where the snacks used to be and also a standing display for gloves and work safety equipment. I wanted to showcase actual products in the higher traffic areas and put the concessions in another location. People will always be able to sniff out the popcorn! Without seeing the area I am talking about, I know it is hard to visualize it, so I will include some pictures. Keep in mind it is still a work in progress. I haven’t yet received the tool display for the wall or the safety gear display.

At the end of the month, I was able to go back to Kentucky for a nice Thanksgiving break. I am so lucky to have great people to work with, I was able to be out of the office and work from home for a good part of the week because they were concerned that I would get stuck in Tennessee due to the weather and wouldn’t be able to make it home to be with my family. Since I don’t know many other people here in Kingsport, it is nice to have people who are genuinely concerned about me. That doesn’t happen very often in most work places, I would imagine. (And I swear they didn’t pay me to say that…it is true!)

Happy holidays to all!