Her Story
About Tiara
I'm currently an Assistant Store Manager at Journeys in Atlanta, where I've been for 2 years. My retail journey started back in my hometown in Florida at Claire's, where I began as a sales associate and was quickly promoted to sales lead, a part-time manager position with full managerial responsibilities including opening and closing the store, cash handling, and all customer service operations. I moved to Georgia to attend Georgia State University, where I'm majoring in finance and marketing with the goal of breaking into corporate marketing or finance in the business world. While in school, I worked at American Eagle as a brand ambassador, really honing my skills in visual merchandising and learning how to set up stores to maximize sales. I then transitioned to Journeys, starting as a part-time manager before moving into my current full-time role. My typical day involves opening or closing operations, handling email correspondence, managing refunds and exchanges, conducting inventory checks and transfers, coordinating with my stockroom manager on shipment and merchandising priorities, updating schedules, preparing daily goal sheets for my team, conducting interviews when needed, and of course, providing excellent customer service throughout the day. What I love most about my role is working with diverse team members and helping them develop their skills. I value teamwork and communication above all, and I make it a point to help each person bring their authentic personality to their work rather than forcing them to fit a mold. Having started in retail at 16 myself, I understand what it's like to navigate your first job, and I try to provide the guidance and support I wish I had received when I was starting out.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Tiara
01What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice I got was from my old manager, and it was to always elevate myself every time. I've been at my location for a fairly long time, and usually in our company they do interchanging where you hop around to different stores, but I've been one of the only people who've just stayed at one location and kind of created a system of it. My old manager told me to always make sure I elevate myself, no matter if it's uncomfortable - to be comfortable with the uncomfortable. I followed this advice even when coming out here for school. I didn't need to go to Georgia State. I could have stayed at school in Florida and done everything that everybody always does, but I decided to go against the grain and go out of state to try to open up more opportunities for myself, regardless of it not being the norm or something that a lot of students don't do fresh out of high school, especially when the village that I have is less than what it would be if I were home. So I would say the best advice I got was just to always push yourself and elevate yourself.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Do everything, take every opportunity, do everything your heart desires. If you're into cooking, and one day you want to horseback ride, and the next day you decide that you want to be someone's CEO, try it all. A lot of people, even myself, feel like they can't try it all because of everything that's going on around them, so they're like, I'll do it, but I'll just do it later. No, if you want to do it, go ahead and do it. You have the tools, you have the resources to do it. I'm a fairly spiritual person, so if you really have the gumption, the hope, and the faith that you can get it done, don't worry about the demographics and the other things that you have to figure out as well. It will follow through, it'll fall in place. Do everything that you want to, do everything that your mind said to, because while you're young in your 20s and your teens, this is the time to experiment. When you're older, your frontal lobe develops, and there's a lot more other responsibilities piled up onto you, so you don't get that chance to want to be as free, depending on where your life goes. So, while you have the time and the energy to do it all, do it all.
03What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
As a manager, I value teamwork and really communication. I feel like when you work with different people, and it's always changing per season, even in my personal life, communication is a big thing, but as well as understanding a person and not making them feel too uncomfortable as to your level of comfortability. For my team, we sometimes hire younger kids, and this may be their first job, so I don't want to necessarily dim their lights. I hone in on making their personality fit for us, instead of them trying to fit us. I like to use what they already have personally to the advantage of the store. For example, if you're a personality type person and you love to talk, and half of our business is selling, then I know that you'll be a strong salesperson, but I gear it to not just have conversations about any and everything, but gearing it to your job as well. I do like to take a person for everything that they are and kind of learn it, and I value that in my job as well, because I was 16 in retail, trying to figure out what I was going to do while I was here, and how to really cater to my duties as a worker for the first time, actually making a paycheck for myself. So I tried to instill that knowledge that I wish I would have had, or the guidance I wish I would have had to other people as well.
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