By Laari Ruby
Feb. 5, 2024
Dress Up manager Kara Worley stands among the racks she helped style and stock, February 5. She describes the daily responsibilities and challenges of being a manager.
Kara Worley is the manager of Dress Up in downtown Athens.
Q: What do you think sets your store apart from all the other boutiques downtown?
A: I think our customer service. One thing I have noticed that a lot of our guests say is “I’ve walked into 15 different stores and you guys are the only ones who have said hey to me,” and that is something that I do go and take to my girls. And we have this special phrase, “Are you shopping for anything special?” And that is the other thing that sets us apart from other boutiques down here. We’re not just saying “Hey, welcome in,” or anything like that.
Q: Do you think you are training your employees to be super friendly with your customers or are you hiring that way?
A: Oh, no that is my big thing, our motto here at Dress Up is “love people, love clothes.” And the whole reason I am part of retail is because I truly, truly love everyone. I just think the more happy you are, I mean, people come in and they’re going to be in a bad mood and I make it my job to put them in a good mood, and that’s how I train my girls.
Q: Do students that come to work here have the intention of just working for a job or are they looking to get up that corporate ladder?
A: Honestly, I will say a lot of the girls who work here or even apply here, they’re either usually a fashion merchandising major or some kind of marketing major. So you can tell even when I interviewed them, they’re like, I want this to kind of be a step into my internship or a step into my career.
Q: Have you personally made any specific changes to the store or the way it’s run?
A: College girls are our main clientele and that has been a thing since we’ve been here in 2015. A big thing that I’ve worked on in the last two years that I’ve been here is not making that our sole customer base. So I’ve been reaching out to the staff at the University of Georgia and trying to bring them over here. So I will say I have noticed our clientele has gotten a little older. We have so many different styles in here, so I kind of like the different ratio of having that college girl and then having her mom being able to come in and shop with her. So I will say our clientele has kind of broadened a little bit since I have started here.
Q: Is there anything else that you feel like I should know about your business?
A: A fun thing to know about us, and this is kind of what we tell all of our customers especially if they didn’t buy anything that day, we get new clothes every weekend. So we get over 75 new styles every Friday and we release them every weekend. So our front of our store completely changes every weekend.
Comments trimmed for length and clarity.
Why I Wrote the Story:
Interviewing the manager of a boutique in downtown was a great way to get started learning about business in Athens. This allowed me to get comfortable interviewing, and I learned how to comfortably ask follow up questions and use my research to ask well-informed questions. This story helped me get a hang of journalistic storytelling styles.