Retail Week

As you may or may not know I am in the Retail Management program at Ryerson University. Every year around this time, my program holds a series of events entitled, Retail Week. Now I always find myself extremely busy around this time of year and never manage to get to many events, however, I managed to attend 2 events this year.

The first one was a panel of established people from different businesses including Shoppers drug mart, Target and Elle's Hardware. Now being the entrepreneur I am, I was most interested in hearing what the creator of Elle's Hardware had to say then the others.
I find it hard to listen to people whom aren't in a place in life that you want to be in. The Shoppers and Target representatives, with their 9-5 jobs, and a boss (most importantly), are not living the life I want to live. Even the Target representative herself complained about her hours and said she wished she had the freedom to change them. I never want to be in a place where I can't choose my life. Now the Elles Hardware creator, I think her name was Lindsay ( I can't remember :( ), talked about how sometimes she works months without weekend breaks (which of course you would think is worse). The difference is that she is doing something she is passionate about and she clearly wants to be a success, so that's why she puts in the extra effort.
I just didn't get any passion from the other two. They just seemed comfortable, and to me, if your not out of your comfort zone every once in a while, then you just aren't living.

They all had valuable advice such as make sure to consistently be marketing yourself and your brand, as well as give your all to everything. I think Elle's hardware was just a little more inspiring because she really is the one with courage out of this group and she is living to the fullest. She also had such a beautiful way of speaking and you could tell that everyone went into a dream land when she spoke.
(I'm clearly in love with her hahaha)

The next event I attended reminded me of playing musical chairs as a child. This event was essentially like speed dating and every ten minutes, you and a group of people would switch tables and meet a representative from a new company. In order to make an impact on people in circumstances like these you have to find a way to stand out, and essentially 'fight for your chair' much like musical chairs.

I made a point, after loosing my group in the first round, to join a different group every time I moved to a new table. My opening comment would be, "I'm choosing your table next because I've lost my group, My name is Melissa Eggert" haha. My words of course changed every time, but the reaction was always the same and it gave them something to remember. I was the lost outgoing girl. I didn't care how I came across, as long as I was remembered.
I made a point to make eye contact a lot with the speakers and smile a lot to show that I'm really interested. Now the people that stood out in my mind was Starbucks, Smart Set, Sears and H&M. I don't necessarily want any of their jobs but they all seemed like such intelligent people and people I would love to work with when I get my brand up and running. Keeping these contacts could mean a potential interview in the future to open my brand with their stores, and so I think this event was extremely useful in that case.

Anyways I had a grand ole' time at these events and I will definitely take a trip to Elles Hardware on Queen street soon and review it for you guys!

xox