7 Transferable Skills a Visual Merchandiser Should Have

On my previous post, I mentioned several creative skills a visual merchandiser should have and now, here are seven more skills a visual merchandiser should posses – the soft skills for visual merchandisers.

Planning

There is a popular line which goes, "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail."

A plan serves as a blueprint of your activities and priorities, and a person who knows how to plan understands clearly his responsibilities and authority, formulates realistic objective and schedules to carry out his job, classifies the work to be done, divides it into sections, and creates orderly and productive arrangements. 

Planning minimizes the necessity for overtime, helps you manage your time, helps you manage your resources.

Initiating

This what employers appreciate. Peter Weddle mentioned on his article, The iPhone Proposition, that the two traits that employers highly value are initiative and self-reliance. 

A person who have good initiative Recognizes and corrects situations which need improvement, originates new approaches to problems, makes the most of the promising new plans or idea ad faces up situations.

Delegating

It lightens your tasks, it generates a sense of belongingness and it encourages cooperation with others.  

A person who has good delegating skill provides the necessary know-how for others as required, defines jobs for others that provide the greatest challenge and opportunity, makes full use of the skills and abilities of his or her co-workers and avoids trespassing on authority once it is delegated periodically.

Organizing

 According to John C. Maxwell, if you do not choose to organize, you choose to agonize. Organizing helps to make your work easier especially when you are looking for your visual merchandising tools and supplies or searching a file in your computer. 

The props the materials and designs are increasing in your room every day, so when you do not know how to organize, your “arts room” will look like a junk shop.

Communicating

This one of the most important skills that is required in any field. It involves listening, speaking and writing.

A person who is good in communicating expresses himself clearly and effectively – in writing, listening and speaking and manner, keeps inform on how others are thinking and feeling, encourages his colleagues to express their ideas and opinions, listens with intelligence to criticism of his own actions handles question satisfactorily, explains the why of his decisions and recognizes good work and expresses appreciation.

Using Mathematics

If find it difficult to convert centimeters to inches or feet to meters, you better review or study Mathematics before pursuing to become visual merchandiser because you will also be engage this kind of situation and other Mathematical problems in the field. 

Financial management which indeed involves Mathematics is also important.