What is Hyde Closet?
- Solves the problem of men not knowing what looks good for certain occasions and the challenge of shopping for those clothes
- Solves the problem of apparel retailers having too much excess inventory, that will likely get dumped in landfills
- Partners with retailers to use their excess inventory to create a rented personalized outfit that gets delivered to your door
Overcoming Communication Challenges
- For my first day on the Partnerships Team, Misunderstandings, language barriers, and conflicting perspectives would happen frequently in the first few meetings - somewhat casual, yet professional in tone and content
- Took time to get used to the language and the industry concepts
- Leaving meetings confused, often needing follow-up meetings
- started to use strategies like active listening, seeking clarification by asking more questions, and using empathy to foster further understanding
- Feedback from managers helped - my boss mentioned that I should take more advantage of my creative side, instead of trying to seek clarification
Adapting Professionalism - Non-Verbal Communication
- Practice non-verbal communication skills such as maintaining eye contact and making appropriate expressions
- Peter, also working for Hyde, and I had a meeting with the CEO of Calvin Klein and made sure to apply professionalism techniques
- Led me to have - more professionalism/credibility in what I had to say during and after meetings
- More engaged in conversations which I would normally be tuned out of otherwise, also helping confidence as well
Leveraging Technology / Tailoring Communication to Specific Audiences
- After about a week in, I was assigned my first major task:
- Creating a partnership pitch deck to UVA(University of Virginia)
- Shown previous pitch decks - UMiami Sebastian's Closet pitch deck
- Needed to use the exact UVA colors, logos, and fonts to match their style
- There are 4 entities for the company:
- Universities
- Travel
- Dating
- Military
- This task was aimed at obtaining another university partnership to offer clothes to students
- Invited to join the Monday Work Management network
- Housed all of Hyde's most important tasks and initiatives with organized folders and tables
- New Hyde email
seanandrews@hydecloset.com
- data we found was stored inside Monday's - messages sent through LinkedIn, PhocusWright, and email
- Researched people in Career Advising in Universities, merchandising employees that previously worked in top retailers like Nordstrom or Sak's Fifth Avenue, and even VP's, EVP's, or anyone of the senior level in that field
- Utilized several softwares to keep my work organized and visually appealing - google sheets(excel), google slides, Figma, etc.
- Drastically helped the communication process between partnerships and my colleagues - helped me to prioritize my tasks and see exactly what needs to be done
- Tailored the tone and diction of that email to the target audience
- When writing emails to the leaders of consulting clubs at different universities, I used a shorter email with more to-the-point content and subject to tailor to younger college students - Also made the emails more personable
- LinkedIn messages and emails for past employees at top retailers - tone was slightly less casual and more professional/detailed
Accomplishments
Eventually, one of my managers, Sabrena, had her newborn, and had to go on leave. Because of that, I had to fill her role as the Partnerships Manager, and also update my LinkedIn to say that role(to make people more inclined to respond to me because I showed a higher role in the company).
Crafting Compelling Emails
- Emails for potential partnerships and try to foster a good relationship with them
- Emails would simply explain our business briefly, say what we have to offer, and request a short 10 minute zoom call to exchange ideas
- Other emails - lengthy and request time to meet as well as offer other incentives - My boss, Rahul, would provide me with the emails to send out either via LinkedIn, email, or PhocusWright
- Many typos and some sentences looked to be too wordy, redundant, and a little off
- Corrected any grammar or spelling, then reworded them also to make it more appealing to read
- The subject is huge part of the email creation process since it is the first thing that the recipient is going to read - I needs to look legit, professional, and compelling enough to click on it.
- Example - Introducing Hyde Career: Empowering Students for Professional Success
- Many are blocked or failed to be received by the recipient - Or, the emails they have on crunchbase are out of date and don't exist - Sometimes, the emails are just blocked for privacy reasons
- "Sorry, I'm not interested"
- Best times to send out the emails - Sunday night
- Can only schedule 100 emails to be sent at a time - For the others, I would have to have those drafts open and ready to send by Sunday.
Lessons Learned - Visual Appeal in Case Studies
- Creating an effective case study layout that ties together compelling data and pictures
- Rahul wanted mostly pictures, big numbers, and nothing else besides maybe a quote
- He referenced Shopifyplus for case study layouts
- Looked up several videos as to what makes the best looking case study - had to keep in mind the target audience
- Just needed the data to get reference
- Asked Rahul to send whatever data he needed for me to turn into a case study
- Not to my surprise, he gave me 7 slide decks with all of the data I needed scattered in there somewhere
- I needed to make 3 for 3 separate companies:
- Pact
- Generation Typo
- Icon Luxury.
- Frequently asked where the specific data lied, and then had to convert it
- Hyde also had some previous case studies - they lacked the visual appeal that Rahul wanted to see with my revisions
- Too wordy and less visually appealing
- I threw together several different case study formats(same info)
- I utilized our fonts, stuck with out basic color scheme - added big numbers, more visual graphs, and bolded words in sentences
- Macbook, ipad, and iphone versions
- I found another template online that I thought I would share with him
- Rahul liked it, but said he wanted it more similar to the original - So, I did just that:
- Meeting right before Thanksgiving break - Nov 17th - Rahul visited UMiami and convened with us(Peter and I) in the employer lounge in the Toppel Career Center, then eventually bought us lunch
- Discussed several things on the partnerships and business development side of the company
- Drew up several different concepts to the case study page and decided the best way to convey the message and communicate our thought was with this design
Reflection - General Communication in the Workplace
- Finally - general communication in the workplace as I have seen it from the intern perspective gets complicated
- Meetings will get canceled, people won't show up, and Rahul gets frustrated
- I have seen, firsthand, the amount of time and effort Rahul puts into this company
- I understand some of the things that go wrong - small miscommunications with assignments or mishaps with meetings
- Overall, the startup interning experience has shown me that there is a lot to manage, as well as a lot to do
- I shouldn't be too surprised when things don't go as planned
- But, I am always there to help things move as smooth as they can
My Learnings for the Future
- I am still working for Hyde until December 25th, 2023.
- Work now entails Business Development, or fostering new partnerships with new companies - I have been requested to help the teams in searching for and sending out emails
- Making a compelling email requires a lot of trial and error, it's always a hit or miss
- for every 200 emails I send out, I'll get about 5 responses, usually saying "no"
- Using better ways to find emails - searching on University website or using UpWork
- Sometimes, Crunchbase gives outdated emails of people who don't actually work there
- Making emails more personable, less wordy, and more appealing receives more clicks
- Through working with Hyde, I have learned about the complications and intricacies of working in the retail apparel industry
- This industry has a lot of competition - But there is still lot's of room for opportunity
- I've learned so much about the importance of recurring compelling emails, reminders, constant industry trends, and how to make effective case studies or pitch decks
- I plan on looking for a new Internship for Spring 2024 that involves more creative work and less tediousness, hopefully in the realm of UX/UI
- Although I am very grateful for the experience, I would look to explore my career paths further