Drive personalization sales and build customer loyalty by engaging and assisting prospective customers in their selection of custom invitations, banners, accessories, and personalized gifts to coordinate with party items within the store. Engage and assist customers in the personalization studio by asking questions, sharing product knowledge and listening to customer needs to determine sales strategy and product selection. Responsibilities include the initial sales presentation of product, and the in-store and off-site production and processing of custom orders. • Surpassed monthly sales goals by as much as 280% since the store opened. Achieved 2.3% of store’s gross sales in 2013.• Enjoy a reputation amongst my customer base and other studios within the district for developing creative solutions by customizing stock designs to coordinate with customers’ unique event themes.

Responsible for driving sales, reducing controllable expenses, and the day to day operations of a temporary Halloween retail store with eighteen part-time employees.• Despite poor street visibility and the proximity of competition, consistently surpassed weekend sales goals throughout the season, plus weekly sales goals were met during the critical month of October.

Performed various marketing tasks in support of driving sales, including administration of social networking sites, design of signage and collateral, composed press releases, updated online hotel and restaurant directories, and directed a targeted marketing campaign to increase the Executive Chef’s visibility within the community.

• Provided customer service to collegiate, corporate, and resort clientele, primarily via phone, but occasionally in personal interactions.• Maintained relationships with company’s independent sales rep network, providing them with sales support and served as internal liaison to enhance their relationship with the company and its clients.

• Duties performed concurrent to my sales position, my in-house time included co-management of a department of sixteen customer service representatives.• Resolution of customer complaints and negotiation of disputes resulted in increased goodwill among a client base of major accounts as well as small distributors. 2003 company sales reflected a 9.9% increase over 2002.• Adopted a hands-on approach to expediting orders from start to finish within the factory, communicating directly with the art department and printing supervisors to accomplish an exemplary rate of customer satisfaction in our service and performance.• Troubleshot existing production and inventory issues with both the department and the clientele. Directed the reps to utilize a pro-active approach to preventing problems late into the production process, which significantly reduced the rate of customer dissatisfaction.

Served as primary internal sales contact to three key distributor accounts and travelled to maintain relationships with their franchisees and sales forces, in addition to representing this Top 100 promotional products supplier at industry trade shows.• Established marketing programs for our inclusion in the annual catalogs of my accounts and developed special promotions for them, working closely with their marketing departments.

Provided customer service and sales support for eight major national distributors of our promotional products.• Achieved $2.2M in combined sales in 2000 from my accounts - more than doubled since 1998.• Increased order count among my accounts by 15% from 1998 to 2000 year-end.• Selected as Top Vendor by two major accounts in the industry in 1999 and 2000.• Increased distributor loyalty toward the company by focusing attention on individual sales reps at key distributors and offering incentives and support not provided by our sales staff.

• Coordinated offset-printing projects from concept through printing.• Utilized Macintosh drawing and page layout applications for pre-press production of all forms of print media for a broad spectrum of clientele.• Attained experience in pre-press operations and the offset printing process from 1- to 4-color process jobs, paper selection, and bindery operations.