You all know I am a huge Zappos fan…or at least you should by now…especially due to the many ”video of the day” postings that I  have  featured (including today) and the various other postings I have done about them.    Well a couple weeks ago,  I contacted Fred Mossler (nice guy!) and mentioned to him my idea of featuring more about the Zappos crew on shoebizness and he introduced me to Mike Normart who is the Sr. Director of Brand Development. We got on the phone and of course hit it off. He definitley fits the stereotype of the optomistic, fun, open minded Zappos peeps and I am so excited to have our very first Zappos team feature article which is about Mike’s career in the shoebiz. Great story….except the part about him being robbed at gunpoint….that sucks.  : )  Mike just arrived home from China and hopefully will share a little about his trip, but for now enjoy the tale of his career…….

My Career in the Shoe Industry

By Mike Normart Sr. Director of Brand Development Zappos.com

I was 19 and going to Fresno State University as a Psychology major and decided to move out on my own with a friend I’ve known all my life. I was working at a restaurant as a cook and also worked at a  carwash on the weekends to pay the rent. My mother and father had just divorced and my mother applied at this local shoe store and they told her she was too old (guess they could get away with that in 1980) so she told me of this “opportunity”. I applied with no experience for their management trainee position making a whopping $4.25 an hour. I got the job. Within 6 months I was a store manager in the “seedy” part of town. I had great increases and quickly became the guy who “cleaned up” the stores that were in trouble. I was transferred to Hawthorne, California a year later as they were closing the stores in Fresno. I had never lived outside of Fresno but always up for trying new things. In 1983 all the stores were bought out by another company so I decided to move back to my hometown. I got a job at a higher end store of Fresno as a sales person, hoping to work my way up to manager again. At the same time I was applying for the Clovis Police dept. (wanted to give back to the community I guess) but after being promoted to a manger, stayed in shoes. I was transferred to the Bay Area in Northern California in 1985, 3 months before I was to be married. I managed a Joyce Selby store for a few years then had an Opportunity to work for an independent owner that ran several Naturalizer stores in 1986. I worked for him for 3 years and decided I needed to make more money since I was having a family now. My son was born in 1987. I decided to apply at the biggest shoe floor around- Nordstrom.

The first time I applied the floor watcher was extremely busy and didn’t give me the time of day. I tried again a few months later at the store in San Francisco and was hired. Six months later they asked me to open the Sacramento Store in 1989. I always tried to give great service to our customers and after the first month we were opened I was awarded the “All-star” award by Jim Nordstrom for giving great customer service. I worked my way up the ranks and then one day Jim Nordstrom pulled me aside and said he wanted me to be the stores “Children’s Shoe Buyer” I told him I appreciated it but wanted to stay in Women’s shoes as that was my experience and wanted to work my way up that way. He asked me to join him outside, told me to look up at the stores name and said when it say’s “Normart’s” I can say no to him. I was a children’s shoe buyer for 9 month’s and was promoted to the Junior Shoe Buyer in Brass Plum. The dept. was a mess, I had to fire half the team and built a great team by the end of the year. We had great business and my favorite story was I was looking at the company rankings of brass plum depts. corporately. I was ranked around 20 and South Coast Plaza in Southern Calif. was ranked number 2. I called the buyer (whom I did not know at the time) and said “ Hi Jon, this is Mike Normart in the Sacramento store we are currently ranked 20 and you are number2. At the End of the year I will be number 2 and you will be number 3. He quickly said “who is this again?” Thankfully I was number 2 at the end of the year and Jon and I laugh at that story whenever we see each other now. I worked at the Palo Alto store and also Valley fair before leaving Nordstrom after 11 years.

I have many great memories of working there and remember the day in 1999 that Fred Mossler left Nordstrom to go to work for this “start-up” shoe company on the internet. We thought he was crazy at the time. I had talked to Fred a few times during the next few years and finally in 2003 three took my “leap of faith” as we call it at Zappos. We had less than 75 people in the company and only 6 buyers. I have enjoyed seeing the growth of our company over the years and am proud that “Service” is very important to us. We have a very unique culture at Zappos that makes it fun for employees, vendors and honestly anyone to come into the office on any given day. I have travelled the world developing shoes for our Private Label brands and feel very fortunate to meet people of many different cultures. We surpassed 1 Billion dollars last year and it has been very exciting.

I am currently the Sr. Director of Brand Development which involves the private label brands and our Contemporary Fashion brands; which include Junior’s to Bridge brands. I have a great team and look forward to going into the office every day.

-Mike Normart