Maarina Budd

Day to day duties include but not limited to overseeing the smooth running of the store in the absence of the Store Manager, developing customer relationships and understanding their needs, planning and implementation on delivering on promises to further promote the business.

Being accountable on customer growth by looking for and chasing new business leads and sites to enhance profit margins and growth for the store, demonstrating a clear understanding on margins, targets and windows of opportunity where communication is key to better and further future business leads.

Demonstrate a clear and sound knowledge store KPI's and Targets and for the execution of all aspects of Procedural, H&S, GDPR and Compliance.

To actively lead by example, develop, coach and mentor members of the team and or other team members from other DDC Stores.

Oversee and uphold store standards from store presentation, cleanliness, merchandising, stock control, procurement and to understand the journey of a customer throughout the store.

Account Management, customer retention, to make each customer interaction count and demonstrate that DDC is the place to shop for all painting requirements. Actively calling missed calls back, to follow up on conversations with customers, logging conversations and notes on CRM, chasing missed account payments from customers, delivering a better shopping experience to customers by looking at pricing versus competition to win the sale over to the store.

Organise delivery routes and liaise with the store van drivers to ensure prompt deliveries to customers further maintaining that the customer will contact us first for a delivery and not a competitor.

Arrange the maintenance of the store, store van, tinter machine and order sundries for the smooth operational success of the store.

To be fully accountable for everything that is asked of me in my role and to uphold excellent reputation of the store.

Within three months of returning to Akzonobel and to the store that I was initially trained in I would be running the store with no Store Manager being present for six months and where I successfully ran the store on my own with help from other Store Managers who would come over for a day but the Tunbridge Wells store was primarily my responsibility.

The six months running the store on my own went extremely well, beating sales targets in both Q1 and Q2 with volume also going through the roof and exceeding target also and I was awarded the equivalent of a Store Manager's level of bonuses in recognition of a job well done.

Duties included to demonstrate and confidently run the shop in the shop manager's absence.

To lead by example, staff training and mentoring, a strong understanding of store KPI's and store targets, to demonstrate effective communication in all forms both on the telephone and by email.

Offering the 'Personal Shopper Experience' by displaying and delivering exceptional customer service. Administration, stock control, booking in and booking out stock, cash handling and housekeeping.

Duties included coaching, mentoring and training of staff and volunteers, merchandising, cash handling, administration, housekeeping and stock control.

A clear understanding of KPI's and shop targets. Confidently running the shop in the absence of the shop manager and a crystal clear understanding of fire regulations and H&S.

A fast paced environment, dealing with customer queries and donations, booking in deliveries, sorting through stock for the salesfloor and liaising with volunteer drivers to pick up donations from the donors on the telephone.

Responsibilities for this position were to run the store and storage facility in the absence of the store manager and to promote and actively sell 'add on' products to customers when completing Storage contracts.

Demonstrate good communication throughout and display strong administrative skills in all areas of administration of storage management, this was achieved with a clear understanding of store KPI's and targets and knowing the capacity of the storage facility at all times whether space was occupied or unoccupied.

Customer service and following ups enquiries was also key to the job as well as administration, debt recovery, H&S, fire safety, security, conducting regular store walk throughout the day, staff training coaching and mentoring, stock control and booking in deliveries, managing customer deliveries to the store and the selling of packing materials and unit space per square foot.

Responsible for the day to day running of the store through effective coaching and mentoring of the sales team in positive customer service training, introducing and implementing a higher level of customer service for the customer's experience instore.

Driving sales by introducing 'add on products' to the sales counters, a strong understanding of store KPI's and providing feedback based on those margins which were all positive to the team to celebrate success and to capture inspiration on how more little wins can be achieved.

Demonstrate a strong understanding of account management, stock control, administration, H&S, procedural and fire safety. Actively talking to customers and visitors to the store, taking orders on the telephone and assembling customer orders emailed in.

After arriving at Medway and with help of the team I devised a housekeeping cleaning plan which turned the appearance of the store presentation around in a positive way with positive comments being heard from the stores regular customers.

Other duties included the merchandising of the store, cash handling and ledger work, reporting, running the back and the front of office in the absence of the store manager and, together as a team, we turned the fortunes of the store around to a clean, winning and rewarding store that was the store to visit for all things paint in the area.

Based at both the Tower of London and Hampton Court Palace my role was to directly report, work alongside of and the Retail Team Leader.

To lead by example in successfully driving sales and maximise visitor/customer income.

To achieve this I devised training and coached and mentored the retail team in my care delivering courses and carrying one to one mentoring in customer care that helped my team deliver a 'tailored' customer service that was above and beyond what our customer's expectations were.

A mainly customer facing role other duties included the planning and organising of 'Pop up' retail offers at HRP Events, having a clear understanding of KPI's, looking at ways to increase spend per visitor and conversions, stock control and management, deliveries, merchandising, housekeeping compliance, cash handling, conducting staff reviews with feedback and directions, all aspects of H&S and fire safety, HR and recruitment of seasonal staff.

Hampton Court Palace additionally involved the overseeing of the day to day running of four shops with the respective shop teams and pop up stalls in the absence of the Retail Team Leader, I was assigned two shops to oversee when the Retail Team Leader was in.

At the Tower of London my role was assigned to one shop with a Retail Team Leader but to cover other shops if no Team Leader was available which also included the shop at Kensington Palace.

Duties included displaying and delivering exceptional customer service to all customers and visitors, ensuring that the shop was clean, tidy and well presented, fully merchandised and stocked at all times.

Cash handling, opening and closing the shop and tills, handling customer exchanges and refunds, working within the team to achieve and exceed daily targets, converting spends and spend per visitor in the shop.

Occasionally, I was asked to and would willingly step forward into my previous role of a Retail Deputy Team Leader to assist the Retail Manager in providing a united and sound management approach in the absence of a Retail Team or Deputy Team Leader this, also included me providing management cover for six months in the Raven Shop in 2014 at the Tower of London and along with the team, successfully achieving and exceeding the shop's financial target by some margin for the financial year.

Reporting directly to the Retail Team Leader and Retail Sales Manager my first six months in this role were based in the flagship store The Tower Shop at the Tower of London working alongside two other Retail Deputy Team Leaders.

Together we devised a working bible of staff training including coaching and mentoring, carrying out sales observations to better understand training needs of the team if needed, merchandising training and historical storytelling to aid sales.

I assisted in successfully leading the store team in covering for the absence of the Retail Team Leader and ensured that all aspects of sales and sales techniques that were used were above the customer's expectations, delivering first class training tailored individually or to the team in giving them the tools to achieve in their delivery of customer service.

My role also involved effective planning and organising of staff shop operations and rotas, targeting, conversions and spends, KPI's, stock control, cash handling, H&S, fire compliance and security.

Six months into the role I was assigned my own shop within the Tower, at very short notice and through careful planning and implementation I turned that store team around and in turn again we, as a team, turned the corner in successfully turning the shop around from a previously underachieving shop into a shop that was repeatedly exceeding the shop targets and conversions for the shop for the first time in years.

Having joined Historic Royal Palaces in September 2003 as a Seasonal Sales Assistant I was successfully made permanent as a Senior Sales Assistant six weeks later.

My role was to support the Shop Managers in the day to day running of the shops at the Tower of London.

Duties included the opening and or closing of shops, leading shop teams, administration support, handing customer or visitor queries, completing refunds or exchanges and sales.

In the absence of the Shop Managers I was the eyes and ears of the salesfloor.

My role was based within the London Eye Gift Shop where I would supervise the sales team who were rotated around the different sales areas at the London Eye whereas my role focused solely on the Gift Shop.

Duties included cash handling, the opening, running and closing of the shop, completing sales, promoting guidebooks, handling and completing customer refunds and exchanges, housekeeping, stock control, deliveries and ensuring that the team and myself were creating memorable memories for the customers and visitors in the shop.