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GENERAL MANAGER
Stowe, Vermont – Unit Management Team, Some Travel Required
THE POSITION RELATIVE TO DEDALUS
Dedalus exists to shape wine culture. We’re a group of spirited, creative, wine and food professionals and storytellers. We’re building a whole new approach to the experience of wine as a part of life. Our mission is to create deep, lasting, and personal connections to wine through uncompromising curation, powerful storytelling, and immersive experiences.
Retail wine sales are at the core of a business model that leverages experiential customer engagement to drive growth. Integrated into our retail wine environment are carefully selected artisan foods and a gorgeous wine bar and tasting space. We marry selection, environment, and a cutting-edge understanding of wine trends with a deep love for building connections to wine through education, food, and community.
We give our customers endless opportunities to learn, explore, and enjoy wine and food both in our beautiful spaces and in their homes. We are welcoming and confident in our interactions with both staff and guests; providing structured, easy-going guidance to staff seeking support, as well as modeling a similar demeanor in guest interactions to see that other salespeople are carrying themselves in a similar fashion. We are doing something fun, important and worthwhile that ultimately makes life better. We carry those ideas with us all the time.
YOUR TEAM
This is a unit-level leadership role responsible for executing our complex ground game where it matters the most. You will report directly to the COO, as well as occasionally the CEO and CFO. You will support and work closely with key stakeholders across your unit including the Wine Bar Manager, Chef, and Market Manager.
THE ROLE & THE PERSON
A successful General Manager has a developed ability to see all of the things that need to be accomplished, delegate them responsibly, and with the appropriate time needed to do the job well. Their wine knowledge should be intermediate, with clear steps of advancement in place. Those who excel as General Managers have an incredible ability to organize tasks and projects, maintain excellent relationships with other department heads, stand strongly as leadership within the space, exude a sense of humble authority, and maintain emotional regulation in the face of stress.
In this role, you will contribute to and execute an exciting integrated retail playbook. You will oversee operations across our wine sales floor, market, and wine bar and work with your management team and our creative team to integrate these three areas into a powerful whole. Your work will ensure our place as a tastemaker at the heart of our local and national wine and food communities.
You will be an Ops Powerhouse, tying sales, scheduling, training, customer service, environment, and rapid execution to our budget, business objectives, and overarching strategies. Each area of your unit will be fiscally and operationally sound. Every member of your team will attack their work with clarity, urgency, and intensity.
You’ll measure your performance by the numbers. You’ll make sure those numbers are as clear as a bell for you and your team. A day won’t go by where you don’t know how much revenue needs to be generated and how you’re planning to get it.
Your retail sales team will know where they stand every day. They’ll bask in the glory of crushing revenue goals and understand the urgency of making up shortfalls. Your management team will know their KPIs and will communicate them to you regularly. They will use them to inform their decisions and to drive their teams and their areas to succeed.
Goals are a part of your DNA. You understand the company’s goals, translate them into your own, and spend every day attacking them. You help your team set and track their own goals, rally them every day, and hold them accountable with direct feedback in real-time.
You communicate often and follow-up always. You understand that clear ownership, concrete dates, and sound expectations are the foundations of strong communication. You know that a shoulder shrug or the words “I don’t know” are the first indicators of failure.
You’re a self-starter who sees most issues before they’re brought to your attention. You understand that solving problems is a part of the business. You run at them not away from them. But you also know there’s a fine line between brave and foolhardy. You’ll work out solutions and attempt them but you’re always certain to raise your hand for help before it’s too late.
You have a plan (and a backup) for every day, week, month, project, and goal. You know what you should be doing every day. You know what your team should be doing every day. They know what they should be doing every day. And you know what to do to put all of those plans back on the rails if something gets in the way.
You understand that there is no safety net if you’re not it. Your organization and execution are critical to our business goals. You see every detail and nothing falls through the cracks. From opening the shop and sweeping the entryway to launching a new revenue stream hitting targeted sales, every project and every task is attended to. Every deadline is noted and every stakeholder is aware of it.
You will move fast. You will make things happen with urgency and intensity. Every member of your team will attack their work with clarity and move with purpose. Hustle is the MO of a team driven to succeed.
You will possess the emotional intelligence necessary to navigate the intersection between storytelling and sales. Customer service is not a catchphrase. Sales training is not a nice option. Product knowledge is not an aspiration. You and your team will inspire our customers to fall deeper in love with wine, drive them to explore and discover through drinking and eating, and build a real, powerful connection that ties them to Dedalus. You will leverage all of this to obliterate revenue goals in every area of your unit.
Finally, you’re a huge fan. You’ve spent your whole life loving wine and food and you feel lucky that you have the opportunity to build a career in a field that you love so much.
THE REQUIREMENTS
- Passionate & strong commitment to learning about wine, all the time
- Natural sense of organization & eyes for inconsistencies in layout
- Develop strong relationships with unit level department heads
- Evolved ability to take criticism from CEO, COO & CFO while implementing changes promptly
- Maintain poise & professionalism during busy periods
- Ability to emotionally regulate oneself in the face of intense stress
- Brilliant attention to detail, especially as it pertains to spatial hospitality
- Self-motivated & have the ability to work independently
- Possess a strong team mentality & desire to work together
- Incredible critical thinking skills
- Above average communication skills
- Ability to take direction with an emphasis on introspection
- Deliver excellent customer service & guest interactions
- Commitment to learning about the full range of products & services Dedalus offers
THE RESPONSIBILITIES
- Create development plans for unit department managers based on education/experience & implement them accordingly, as well as hold them accountable for executing the same for their staff
- Implement seasonal programming & operations agendas provided by COO
- Oversee product intake process & ensure that all steps are followed (bottle shots, barcoding, updating website product pages, etc.)
- Oversee merchandising & implementation of marketing plans within the unit
- Maintain accountability of unit department managers schedules & presence in the store
- Host bi-weekly management meetings with unit managers
- Provide marketing with unit programming information with appropriate runway for promotion
- Supply wine club counts to product buyer at the end of each month
- Assign wine club copy assignments on a monthly basis to retail staff
- Adhere to retail budgets provided by CFO & track expenses
- Update retail leaderboard on a daily basis
- Host weekly sales meetings with wine retail team
- Maintain staff accountability in retail department around guest reach out
THE WAGE
Entry level pay of $65,000/year, with a raise after three months commensurate with performance, and annually thereafter..
Job Type: Full-time
Pay: $60,000.00 – $80,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Dental insurance
- Employee discount
- Health insurance
- Paid time off
- Paid training
- Vision insurance
Schedule:
- 10 hour shift
- 8 hour shift
- Day shift
- Weekend availability
Supplemental Pay:
- Bonus pay
Ability to commute/relocate:
- Stowe, VT: Reliably commute or planning to relocate before starting work (Required)
License/Certification:
- Driver’s License (Preferred)
Work Location: One location
