I have spent a majority of my life in retail, telling customers where the best deal is, what items they need and keeping those upt’s up and margins as high as possible. There is something that struck me recently. Most of my interactions in retail though interesting, have been one sided. People are interested only in where the deals are, what the features are and how quickly you can serve them. let me tell you, it wears you down. This is not meant to make people feel bad for shopping for deals, hitting up black Friday and boxing day like ravenous piranha or just generally dehumanizing the people that help them get what they want. This is just my reflection of my career serving people at a retail level.

To set the stage lets start with school. Like most of the students taking the Sporting goods business program I went into it with a particular mindset. I would finish my 2 years, and start my career as a rep for Bauer or CCM as a sales rep and be set. I would spend my time going around to shops filled with people like me that loved sports and the gear you needed to play them. It dawned on me pretty early on that with 50 other students wanting to do the same thing as me, and that’s just at my school I might ad add my chances were slim to none. The other thing that became very apparent over my 2 years at fleming is connections….connections are key.