Colin Biroc

Under the Sales Associate job title, I have worked essentially three jobs: entry level Sales Associate, Hard Goods Buyer/Manager and Green Goods Buyer, earning raises at each promotion. Within these jobs, I:

• Utilized my knowledge of seasonal, annual, and perennial shrubs, trees and flowers to beautify customers' yards while keeping in mind budget, vendor availability, time constraints and climate zones.
• Moved customer throughout entire gardening process, from selection of plant material to discussion of best practices in horticulture to solutions to pests or fungi.
• Reordered and stocked appropriate plants and plant care materials, abiding by changing weekly budget and seasons, often timed to coincide with sales or events, and placed proper signage.
• Conducted regular cycle counts of products and placed orders to maintain necessary stock levels, including special customer requests.
• Performed general maintenance tasks, including sweeping, weeding, planting, watering, blowing, and removing safety hazards.
• Maintained logs documenting any fertilizing or spraying.
• Analyzed sales, margins, inventory turns, and other key metrics to make informed decisions and optimize department performance.
• Worked with store visual merchandiser to create appealing and well organized displays of department merchandise.
• Checked store software to coordinate transfer of merchandise from other sites, if necessary, and then followed through on completion of sale after items arrived.
• Prepared merchandise for sales floor by pricing or tagging or re-pricing or re-tagging based on Armstrong's purchase price.
• Maintained calm demeanor and professionally managed issues in busy, high-stress situations.
• Collaborated with team members to improve overall store performance, sharing best practices, and offering support as needed.

• Performed general maintenance duties, such as cleaning inside the store and out, raking, weeding, blowing, sweeping, cleaning and pruning, being sure to log my actions when necessary on paper.
• Delivered soils, plants and other gardening materials to customers' vehicles.
• Restocked soils around the store when needed.

• Provided office support to ensure smoothly flowing daily operations, which included reordering merchandise, paying insurances, organizing repair of broken equipment, and formulating guest lists for important events using Excel
• Collaborated in timely processing of billing and accounts receivables
• Streamlined filing system
• Assisted with farm deliveries
• Contacted civic and community groups and schools to arrange and coordinate farm visits
• On occasion wrote "plea letters" urging financial donations to the nonprofit

• Worked with company head to create content to market a pool toy
• Established a web presence for two animal advocacy organizations
• Assisted in creating and updating an environmental organization's event website
• Created and edited photos and video clips using iMovie and Photoshop

• At Weider Publications (Muscle & Fitness, Shape, Men's Fitness magazines), initiated and kept up to date a 30-year index of cross-referenced articles
• Proofread monthly rough draft of the magazine for punctuation and style errors
• Supported the managing editors in day-to-day operations
• Fact-checked articles destined for future publication
• Rewrote press releases to formulate news items
• At OVID Technologies, proofread and edited CD-ROM versions of medical and scientific journals for layout and display consistency