Recapping The Sales Meeting

This past week has been a whirlwind. So much has been going on and this is only the start. I went to California this past week for The North Face sales meeting and I got a chance to meet every designer in each activity-based meeting. While I enjoyed learning about every activity my favorites were Action Sports and Youth. There was so much color in the new line and a ton of new styles, it’s insane. Little details that you never thought about, like the pull chord of a zipper were large topics of conversation. I loved hearing about each part of every garment and why they put specific features in to make a more technical garment for the customer.

My favorite category was Action Sports because I can relate to it the most; the entire line revolves around Ski and Snowboarding  which is what I love to do in the winter. Also under that branch is the Sochi 2014 Olympics, so we got a chance to hear a lot about the new uniforms that The North Face made for the US Freeski team. One night we went to a Sochi Olympics party where we heard more about the athletes and the uniforms (we even met some athletes from the ski team)!

The entire trip was so incredible. What other business trip can you go on that starts with a day of Crossfit or Yoga, has line presentations of every product that the company sells (which by the way is a lot) and ends with an obstacle course and Olympic athletes? Not many places, I’m sure. I cannot even describe how nice the new line looks with over 80% new styles. No more will people just associate The North Face with Denali jackets.

After the sales meeting we came back to our office to put the samples in workbook order. We then picked out our line presentation and collaborated on what apparel we really felt we wanted to push to the buyers. Tomorrow I am headed to New Jersey bright and early to set up our show room and then next week I am kicking off my travel season of the Mid-Atlantic region with a trip to Maryland to help sell to buyers and to clinic our accounts on how our technical garments work!

It’s going to be amazing! In two weeks, I will be in New York City sitting in on meetings with the Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s buyers as well as specialty store buyers as they buy The North Face for stores across the country! I can’t wait!