Latest / Exploring Fashion Futures With Dr.HB / 4 things to learn and develop if you want to be an Account Executive.
Transcript
- Jung: In this episode, I will recap what we learned from the conversation I had with Molly last week. Okay, so let's recap. Molly Yulam, she is a senior accounting executive for a global luxury. fashion brand and her main responsibility is to basically take care of selling wholesale selling men's ready to wear not the couture and footwear to the major retailers in this country like luxury retailers in this country. Her products about on any given day if you Google search their product it's gonna be two three thousand dollars for a sweater two three thousand dollars for just a simple jacket and that type of level of brand Okay. So having said that, she mentioned so accounting executive, you learn what an account executive was for a brand and wholesaler. And then she said, she said the the Excel was the most important class to take and most important skills that you have you have to possess if you be an accounting executive. I totally agree with her. But what she really meant is because she already knows the formulas and logic and science behind it, it's just that she didn't have a technical skill of Excel, and that's why she says she's learning all the time. So yes, Excel basically Excel is a gigantic calculator, right? Like nowadays, AI will do a lot of analysis for you. But the thing is, you might have an AI, you might have an Excel, but if you don't know what To ask if you don't know what that number means. It doesn't matter whether you know all kinds of shortcuts and formulas and cheat little short keys in Excel, even if you know it all, if you don't know what numbers mean, if you don't know what to look for, then Excel AI doesn't mean anything to you. So at Mizou in TAM, I know most fashion merchandising programs have this retail math. class. So some people will call it retail math. Some people will say retail inventory control. We, you know, we call it basically retail math class. They teach you initial markup, cross margin, cost of good soles and margin rate and things like that. So you need so we're not talking about complicated math. We're basically it's the plus minus subtraction and addition and percentage. But you need to know that concept very, very clearly. So that once you know the concept, then the Excel will make your life so much easier because it will do all the calculation for you. So if you just don't know the concept, if you only look at the number, then you don't know what to do with the numbers, right? So first of all, my suggestion is go take the retail math, no matter how you think, you like math or you don't like math. By the way, this is not a complicated. Math at all. It's not calculus. It's a simple plus minus in percentage. So just practice it, practice it, and practice it. Take the class, you learn the concept, and then practice it. And then you also take Excel class. Nowadays, Coursera, LinkedIn Learning, Go Skills, they all have Excel tutorial certificate. classes like you can take the class and you get a certificate or things like that. If you, in addition to taking retail my class in your school, but you also took additional Excel courses from all these resources, you should put them in your resume. Don't say proficiency in Excel alone, because because you use Excel like a couple hours a week, that doesn't make you proficient in Excel. But instead you can you completed 15 hour Excel tutorial from Coursera and you have a class certificate, put that in there in Excel. That says a lot. You completed LinkedIn Learning, Excel courses, three classes. Okay. Put that in your resume. And that says a lot. So these that's more above and beyond more than just taking class and using calculator or Excel to do that number. So that's number one. Number two, second skill that when she was talking about her job, but also based on my experiences when I saw people who do a good job in a being an accounting executive, is that you need skill as to how to interpret numbers, specifically looking at trends and sales trends and return trends. It's like why am I getting return so much higher for this particular product item compared to other product item. Look at you look at these numbers and suddenly this one particular product has a high return rate. You now need to start asking questions. What's going on? What's the issue here? Things like that. So so you looked at the number, but just interpret what that means and you gotta ask questions as to why is this number this way? So that's that. Another thing is the trend. That's why a lot of people look at fashion magazine or TikToks or social media to see what's the latest trend, what's hot, what's the consumer's mood, what's the social mood, so that next upcoming fall or holiday, we believe this homey feeling trend will be very good because of all of that. Or we believe this futuristic theme will be very good. So this will be good for my buyers, this will be good for my brands. So you can say things like that. For that, you need to read newspapers. You need to know about global situation, political, social, technological, environmental issues, what's going on, what do people care about, and what kind of products will meet their passion, what's the social mood. So you gotta kind of assess not only just your own friends, but the but the what's out there, what's big picture, global trend and How can my brand take advantage of that social mood? So that's where like reading papers, connecting the dots, this is where you also need a little bit of creative gut and gut feeling that will help enforce your analytical skills, right? So that's that. So then today, what should you do? I would start reading like you you don't have to read the whole thing, but it's just the headliners of major like a popular culture or social political environmental news, just headlines alone. At least you need to know what's going on. Like you don't have to be an expert in it, at least you need to what's going on. And also depending if you're really like like Molly's case, she's really high luxury fashion market. So she now needs to read what's other high fashion market, what are they doing? What are they talking about? What's their next season's gonna be? And then this way, how I can our brand can be differentiated amongst those, or you know, at least be part of the bigger trend. So that's that. But if you're in a mass market, it takes a little bit of time for that high end fashion to trickle down to the mass market level. So you kind of say like what is the high fashion designers are doing? What what the high fashion technology companies are doing? Believe it or not, a lot of technology is influencing fashion nowadays. The you know, Apple fundamentally changed the way we look at the fashion anyway, minimalism and all of that. So things like that. So looking at non fashion area and learn about social mood and consumer behavior so that you can apply into your brands so you can be that brand representative. The third skill I would say for this particular role is visual merchandising skill. So visual creativity basically. You know, I personally have to say I do not have good visual skill. Like I don't I don't even think about like things I can't even connect the dots. And so I'm not a good visual creator visually creative. But some of you, a lot of you are Because you are representing your brand, right? So you are the salesperson of your brand. So then how am I gonna coordinate? How do I wanna showcase like if you go to their showroom and if I'm a buyer, of course, Molly will do her showroom like perfectly presenting, looking gorgeously, like this sweater goes with these pants and this dress goes with the jacket and this like this flower, we should have it, and the accessories there and These hats needs to be showed it this way. Like you gotta visually merchandise it so that the when buyer walks in, wow, that works for my store and my customers, right? So, you know, a lot of people say, I want to be a stylist. Okay, stylists, you deal with one person. You're you have a one client and try to find a clothing that one client wants to buy. Wear. This is that you you have a buyer, but But you present this styling for millions of consumers who might like this clothing, right? Whether it's a men's or women's, it doesn't matter, but in your mind, you have your target consumer and you are styling your products for them, but they're not just one person. They're like so many people who's gonna buy this branded product, right? So the visual merchandising skill or visual creativity is important. So what does it mean? So do you in general, do you know how to read color? Like, you know, there's a whole color reading test going on. Do you in general have a better, like a good matching or like, you know, good way to visually presenting your idea? These are the things that you might want to study about, or maybe you can start thinking about, maybe I could put together these two out. fit together to create a this type of personality. And then I'm gonna move this one into this clothing and that item and create another personality. So you can do that trial and error. And especially if you're working for a store, a fashion clothing store as a part-time or internship, that would be a great way to kind of experiment your visual merchandising skill. So like, you know, I tell my students all the time, like, if you are into if you are working for a store just as a part-time job, just to make, you know, money to go through the college, this is a great opportunity. Talk to your manager and say, I would love to dress the mannequin this week because You know, really like this, but because I think the customers like that. So we can put these two together and we can showcase this way together and see if the people like it. Because of that, people walk into our store more. So you do that, you you record the numbers. I'm like, yeah, I I do think the my visual merchandising increased the foot traffic into my store. That's your outcome, right? So you can talk to your manager, you can start experimenting what works, what doesn't work. You can also ask a customer. So do you like this? Do you not want like this? How could I have done differently? Or you're a store manager as well. So these are the things you can start doing things today. Okay. The finally she talked about communication skill. Of course, communication skill is important for every job, every job. Because after all, we are all working together, right? No matter what industry it is. But in this particular case, what Molly was saying was about note-taking, follow-up, follow-through. What that means is at the end of the day, you're dealing with your buyer, right? So you you want to present the best of your product and yourself to your buyer. So you need to take a rigorous note-taking take note to make sure that that buyers believe that you hear them and you understand them. You listen to them. So you take notes first. And then with that notes, now you have to follow through. Like if you have to make changes changes to color assortment, if you have to change the quantity, if you have to change the the fabric or this I like that design detail, but I want to put it on this garment so that I don't want to have that, but I'm gonna have that. Whatever that that they said, you need to follow through, meaning who need who do I need to talk to in my company to make that change happen. So like I might have to talk to my designer if this is the design change. I might have to talk to planner if I have to change the sizing, size assert. I might have to talk to product fabric developer if I have to change color from pink to purple. So that followed through. So I like I need to talk to all my teams in my company to make sure all my buyers' wishes are being can be fulfilled and can be you know achieved. And then I talk to the buyer that like these changes, you requested ABC, we can make it happen. This is what's going on. So you have to be organized, not only organized, but you have to take notes, you have to understand what buyers want. And then you talk with your team within your company, whether it's designer, product developer, shipping, or whoever person is, and then you make sure that changes can happen or And then you talk with the buyers again. So you're in between person between your company, your brands, and the buyer. So that's why communication skill is so important, right? So this is a recap. If you want to be a successful accounting executive for wholesale brand and fashion company, number one, you need to understand the basic retail math and then learn Excel. Number two, you need to understand or you know, you need to learn how to interpret. Numbers. All the numbers are in front of you all the time. But what does this number mean? How do I interpret as a macro level trend or micro level trend? You gotta look at those and you gotta learn from it. Number three is the visual creativity. And then number four is follow through note taking communication skills. You Obviously, you're not going to get all disability overnight. Like a Mali's been out for about 10 years, right? You will learn it from your job. But at least right now, if you're a student and college students and high school students and middle school students, you're going to start learning one thing at a time. Like, how do I, what can I do today? Or to learn enhance my communication, follow through skills. What can I do today to enhance my visual creativity skills? What can I do today to start reading macro level trends? So these are the things you can still do it even today, even without being at a job. Okay. I hope this was helpful for you. And I look forward to seeing you next week for a whole new job responsibility. And I look forward to seeing you back. Thank you and we'll see you next week.