Sales & Experience Lead (FAO Schwarz Boutique at Nordstrom)

The Role at a Glance

The Sales & Experience Lead is the heartbeat of the FAO Schwarz boutique at Nordstrom. This is the first-line leader who holds the guest experience together across each character, every demonstration, and multiple interactions, building a team that makes the magic feel effortless. No two shifts look the same. This role thrives on variety, owns its areas with full accountability, and steps up to lead the whole floor when the moment calls for it.

Creating the Magic

Lead the Floor

• Set and protect the guest experience standard across all boutique touchpoints, including experiences, demonstrations, sales floor, and register, ensuring every interaction is warm, energetic, theatrical, and consistently on brand.
• Conduct regular observations across your areas of responsibility, providing direct, specific coaching that raises the bar for performance, guest connection, and sales.
• Manage guest flow and zoning in real time, adjusting coverage, redeploying the team, and making calls to keep the boutique running at its best throughout the shift.
• Ensure experience props, costumes, and areas are maintained to standard so the world of the boutique is always ready before guests arrive.
• Play an active role in special events, activations, and product launches, ensuring the team is briefed, areas are prepared, and every moment lands.

Lead the Team

• Lead and develop a team of Sales & Experience Associates, adapting your coaching style to bring out the best in each person and help each find their confidence across every character, experience, and floor responsibility they carry.
• Own the onboarding experience for new team members, getting them up to speed quickly and confident in the full range of boutique responsibilities from day one.
• Recognize strong performance and hold the team accountable when expectations are not met, escalating people concerns when needed.
• Build selling skills, product knowledge, and experience standards into everyday floor interaction.

Run the Operation

• Own the daily zone chart and team deployment, ensuring coverage is clear, balanced, and responsive to activity on the floor.
• Lead opening and closing routines, set up the boutique for the day, and ensure nothing is left to chance before guests arrive or after the last guest leaves.
• Own the readiness standard across your rotating areas of responsibility, ensuring props, costumes, stock levels, and product availability are consistently maintained, and that gaps are resolved before they reach the guest.
• Uphold register compliance and cash-handling processes, ensuring the team executes consistently and to standard.

Drive Business Performance

• Track the boutique’s KPIs, stay close to bestsellers and trending products, and use that knowledge to keep the team focused on the right opportunities and behaviors that drive results.
• Build a team where confident, natural selling is the everyday standard and each associate understands their role in driving the boutique’s performance.
• Coach the team to read the room, spot guests still deciding, and use product knowledge and selling skills to turn curiosity into purchases across experiences, demonstrations, and the broader sales floor.
• Use floor observations and performance data to identify opportunities, adjust in real time, and sharpen the team’s focus on what maters most.

Partner Across the Store

• Work closely with fellow Leads and the broader boutique team to ensure the floor operates as a cohesive unit with shared standards and no gaps in the guest experience.
• Navigate the complexity of operating within a host store by knowing where FAO Schwarz and Nordstrom standards and expectations apply ; embedding both so deeply in the team that every interaction feels seamless.
• Cascade key communications across the team so everyone is aligned on goals, events, product launches, and expectations for their respective areas.
• Surface guest insights, team feedback, and floor trends to the Boutique Manager so the right decisions are made at the right level.

What Success looks like

You’re doing well in this role when:

• The team knows what’s expected, feels supported, and is growing in confidence, product knowledge, and commercial instinct.
• LOD shifts run smoothly: the floor is covered, the team is aligned, and guest concerns are resolved before they escalate.
• Sales targets are being met, and the team understands how their engagement on the floor drives results.
• Both FAO Schwarz and Nordstrom standards are upheld consistently, and neither brand’s magic is ever compromised.
• You exhibit a calm, confident, and trusted presence that the Boutique Manager relies on, which assists with how you support the wider team.
• When AORs rotate, the handoff is seamless. Standards are upheld, the team adapts, and the guest experience never skips a beat.

This role aligns with Level M3 in our Career Framework and reflects first-line leadership responsibility, primary MOD accountability, and growing ownership of team performance and commercial delivery across the boutique. It provides a strong foundation for progression into Assistant Manager roles (Level M4).

What you’ll bring

You don’t need to be perfect, but you do need to be confident leading a team in a high-energy boutique environment where no two shifts look the same.

• 2+ years of leadership experience in retail, hospitality, experiential, or performance based environments, with a track record of coaching and developing a team through feedback and daily floor leadership.
• Strong floor presence and the confidence to make real-time decisions under pressure.
• The ability to lead confidently across a broad range of guest-facing responsibilities without losing energy or standards.
• A natural selling instinct and the ability to build that capability across a diverse team.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to adapt across a diverse team, guest base, and dual-brand environment.
• A genuine interest in toys, play, and what the FAO Schwarz brand stands for.
• Flexibility to work days, evenings, weekends, and peak retail periods.
• Ability to stand for extended periods and lift up to 25 pounds.

Experience in experiential, flagship, or concession retail environments is a strong plus. A love of play is non-negotiable.

This job description should not be construed to contain every function/responsibility that may be required to be performed by this role. Employees are required to perform other related functions as assigned.