insights! #103: Team first, ego last – Christina Skoeries on genuine empowerment in e-commerce

Joubin Rahimi

Brilliant that you're back for a new episode of Insights! My name's Joubin, Joubin Rahimi, and today with me: Christina Skoeries. Hi, Christina.

Christina Skoeries

Hi, I'm delighted to be here at the trade fair today.

Joubin Rahimi

Thanks to the colleagues who connected us in the first place.

Joubin Rahimi

And in the preliminary talk I can already say, we can fill hours today.

Christina Skoeries

We yes, we could, yes. But then we'd still be sitting here alone afterwards, because-

Joubin Rahimi

I don't think so.

Joubin Rahimi

They'd be listening to us. Then it gets quieter. Pretty much every topic area we touched on was really deep and great. Maybe you'd like to say a couple of sentences about yourself and the company you're currently working at.

Christina Skoeries

Yes, exactly.

Christina Skoeries

So you also know who's speaking here today. I'm Christina Skoeries, Head of E-Commerce for the CamelActive brand at the company Bueltel. Not everyone always knows that. There are actually other brands housed there too: Calama. We also produce freestyle for other brands, but mainly we've been given the master licence for CamelActive, for EMEA, for the apparel segment. There are also sub-licences for this brand. Licences aren't always something everyone knows well. There are also sub-licences for socks, for shoes and for bags.

Joubin Rahimi

Well, CamelActive is well known, even when I walk down the street in Cologne. You had a store there too, or used to. I'm not sure now. I'm not in the city that often any more. Deliberately so.

Christina Skoeries

Yes, we actually now have 17 of our own stores. We took them over from our franchise partner back then, because we haven't been doing D2C for that long, and now we're gradually planning a store design too, and quite a lot is happening there.

Joubin Rahimi

And I'd like to jump straight into a topic where we also had another podcast on it with Ben. Ben from HubSpot called it Traffic Treaser. I asked you: do you have that too? Are you noticing, through the changes at Google, that something's shifting?

Christina Skoeries

Yes, we actually have that too. Funnily enough, we didn't realise it was directly attributable to Google. Of course we first looked for the error on our own side and said: okay, what's just happened here?

Joubin Rahimi

What were the effects for you? What changed for you?

Christina Skoeries

We simply saw that traffic had dropped off a bit and that revenues had accordingly declined a bit too. We also saw, or linked it to something else. At that time we'd just ended our sale campaign and had actually carried out a re-reduction of the very highly reduced items and also a clearance of remaining stock, and initially linked it to that, after first checking all channels, all ROAS figures, all conversion rates and so on, and really couldn't find any errors on the site. Then at some point it became clear, okay, this is definitely a Google issue, and we're not the only ones struggling with it, which is reassuring on the one hand, but on the other hand of course now also calls for a bit of action, looking at okay, how can we tackle this challenge now.

Joubin Rahimi

And you said your webshop sold noticeably less, but the marketplaces didn't, right?

Christina Skoeries

Exactly, so we screened everything very closely, but marketplaces stayed stable, which of course, in hindsight, makes sense somewhere, because the big players like Zalando and About You are probably used mainly via app, so naturally there weren't as many losses there.

Joubin Rahimi

Is it quite fresh right now, or do you already have a strategy for what you're currently doing? It's probably already outdated by the time we send this? It moves really fast. Or are you still looking into it? What can we do now?

Christina Skoeries

We did actually have some initial assumptions, and to a certain extent they were justified. So the topic of clearing out old stock, reducing it, and so on. We took another critical look at that and checked again which range sells when, and then of course adjusted our measures accordingly. As for how we're now handling Google, we're actually still working on that right now and considering together with partners what to do next. We already have a few next steps in the pipeline, but yes.

Joubin Rahimi

Still a hidden secret, try it out first.

Christina Skoeries

Yes, trying things out is an important keyword anyway, I find, because just talking and speculating too much sometimes doesn't help. Sometimes you just have to do it.

Christina Skoeries

Yes, doing is great. In the pre-interview, yes, I asked you about your superpower. Yes. And would you like to say where you'd say that's your power?

Christina Skoeries

My superpower, I'd say myself, and my whole team actually says so too, is the passion I can bring to every area, because I simply burn for it. But a really big topic for me is team building, team development, and also female empowerment, because that's something very close to my heart personally, and because I always think the business is built through the team, and the team is actually the valuable part. Every single person, with their intrinsic motivation, contributes to carrying and building up the department, and giving it a certain glow-up too. That, I think, is important.

Joubin Rahimi

The key essence is trust. You'd have said trust is it.

Christina Skoeries

Yes, exactly.

Christina Skoeries

You're already triggering all pre-discussion highlights here. Right, trust, I find, is one of most important factors for me, because ultimately I don't think it's bottleneck everything has to pass through, like some super-check authority. That won't work. You're far too slow, far too sluggish in company that way. You really have to enable your team so they can actually work without you. Actually you should make yourself redundant, but still hold team together strongly enough that it also feels like a team and has a bit of that ambition itself to grow itself and develop itself further. And then a team delivers top performance you don't even demand, but that they deliver from own self-motivation. And that's best thing that can happen in a company. You just have to understand that.

Joubin Rahimi

How do you handle that situation? You have hired team members or you have joined the company, and have also been introduced to a team. And there might be things you are really good at. And then there is a situation where you see something is not good. How do you deal with that?

Christina Skoeries

Yes, that's the whole topic of process optimisation, workflows and so on. When you join a new company, you naturally screen the status quo first and look, okay, what's going well? What's going wrong? Where do we need to act? And you have to look at the process as a whole, and also with all its dependencies on other processes. But I'm not someone who moans about existing structures and says: oh, it's all rubbish, rather I'm someone who really says: no, this isn't good as it is. We need to optimise this. And then I look for a team of people who are strong exactly in that area of expertise and together we build up a new process.

Joubin Rahimi

Point one, I think point two is also that the processes take long. There's the e-mail newsletter or similar, and we also write copy there with one of your strengths, right?

Christina Skoeries

Yes, this isn't a process as such, but that's where I come from. I was originally at Jung von Matt and Springer and Jacobi before that, and there you're instilled with the belief that you should be particularly critical of yourself. A Jung von Matt credo was: we remain dissatisfied. That's stuck with me like a mantra to this day. Which is also good, because it makes you keep challenging yourself: is this really the ultimate, or is there a bit more to be had? Is this the best solution, or should one think it through again? That's why texts are a bit… that's just my way of expressing myself, but it's not process optimisation as such. That's where my heart lies, for marketing generally too, of course, but what matters in process optimisation is understanding the bigger picture. You really have to look at the problem from 360 degrees, and also look at it a bit from above, not get too deep into it, and then try to get the right target thinking in place first. So not to think in small steps straight away, but to look: okay, what is my target picture actually? Because sometimes you're far too close to see that you might need to choose a completely different path.

Christina Skoeries

That's very high level now, but …

Joubin Rahimi

Yes, I'll get specific now … I have one point I'm getting at.

Christina Skoeries

Yes, okay. I'm curious.

Joubin Rahimi

You've got a text in front of you and you're shaped by Jung von Matt and you know: it's rubbish. What do you do then? Do you say: Okay, I'll sit down today and make it better and then hand it in? Or for empowerment: how do you go about it? And my example is probably the worst one of all.

Christina Skoeries

Yes, I was just going to say, that's of course quite mean, or you naturally chose that specially too. So it should work like this and I'm also working on it working like this, that you of course give your team good briefing, because text is only as good as you brief it too. You need guidelines, in which team can work. They need to know, what's tone of voice, what language may they use, what's message, what's purpose and so on. And if you specify all that, then team can also grow and learn from it. So everyone was once at school. So I too had to go through tough school and had nobody taught me to think like that and shape thought approaches that way, then I wouldn't have learned that so well either. That means, if I just write over it at night, team doesn't learn from that. But must say quite honestly, especially with text and in practice you usually only have little time. Then sometimes it just goes really fast, I sometimes just write it briefly too.

Joubin Rahimi

But that's very often the case, because it's then so obvious. Ah, let me shake that out. Right. That's one of those things where you say, teaching learning isn't the result.

Christina Skoeries

But on all other topics I'd rather say: think about what would you choose? Why would you choose that? Where do you see problem? Where do you see solution? What would possible solutions be? Which one do we want to go with? So that's more at that level.

Joubin Rahimi

You mentioned empowerment too. You said early on female empowerment matters to you. Yes. Want to build bridge to that. What do you mean by it? What matters? What do you do for female colleagues, and male colleagues too, in end?

Christina Skoeries

Well, first of all I want to say that it is not some quota that matters to me, or supporting women specifically so that as many women as possible get into certain positions. What matters to me is that women sometimes dare a bit more to stand by their abilities. We have a really great mixed team. There are some really, really great men in it, as well as some really great women. Simply great people. Simply super great people who have really great abilities and a lot of motivation. But often the women are simply more reserved. They are more reserved because they perhaps think: well, maybe what I am doing is not as good as what someone else is doing, or they just do not push themselves forward as much, are not as visible. And that is where I am simply someone who clears the way and who also says: just do it, just try it. It will work. Believe in yourself, believe in what you can do, and go for it.

Joubin Rahimi

You're a completely different type, you said.

Christina Skoeries

But I wasn't actually always like that.

Joubin Rahimi

Would you like to talk about that?

Christina Skoeries

Yes, I can do that.

Joubin Rahimi

Where was the point where it clicked for you?

Christina Skoeries

Also, when I actually had to. I was a very quiet one back in nursery and school, super shy. I think I mostly watched other people and learned from their behaviour – how do they behave? I think that also gave me quite good judge-of-character skills and a good gut feeling. That's partly emotional intelligence too, after all.

Joubin Rahimi

I think the core is emotional intelligence.

Christina Skoeries

Yes, exactly. And I think this ability to assess people, to assess behaviour, I think that's definitely a strength of mine. But how it came about that I came out of my shell like that... I was a cheerleader on my team and we had to organise an awful lot ourselves.

Joubin Rahimi

Which club?

Christina Skoeries

Hagen Bullets, don’t know that here. Think they don’t even exist any more. That was a football club in my home town. Right, and because you then had to organise things yourself, do things yourself, and then got the successes and the feedback, you grow bit by bit beyond yourself. And I think anyone can observe that who simply steps out of their comfort zone, does something they might not otherwise do, something that takes a bit of effort, and then you grow beyond yourself as a result.

Joubin Rahimi

Short anecdote: I also played football.

Christina Skoeries

Really?

Joubin Rahimi

Here at the Huskys.

Christina Skoeries

Oh, funny.

Joubin Rahimi

And in winter there was always the task for us lads to train with the cheerleaders. That sounds a bit silly now, but not silly at all. That was the toughest training.

Joubin Rahimi

Exhausting.

Christina Skoeries

Exhausting. We were all really stiff and the exercise for it. Afterwards it always really hurt, yes. And drill and structure, much more.

Joubin Rahimi

Yes, that's right.

Christina Skoeries

That was mad. Yes, I couldn't do it any more either, I have to say honestly. I mean, if you asked me to do the splits like that now, I don't know. I thought about it at the party yesterday too, after about two hours of dancing, my back. You do get older after all.

Joubin Rahimi

That was your point, that you do.

Christina Skoeries

Exactly. Step out of comfort zone, do it -So we also had to give an interview to WDR, we had to organise hall times for ourselves, we had to find a new club. So all of that too, out of a responsibility we then had, and taking on that responsibility as well. And then I think, for me, there was also the fact that I hold high perfectionism towards myself. Meaning everything always had to be perfect too. But I believe if you step out of your comfort zone and simply try to set things in motion and push them forward, then you notice just how much you can achieve with that.

Joubin Rahimi

And how do you do it today at the company? How do you empower people there?

Christina Skoeries

Yes, I'm still a very passionate type. That's actually fed back to me too. When it comes to reordering processes, rethinking things together, also taking a completely different path sometimes. I'm always the first to enable the team, not someone who always puts up a barrier and says: No, we don't do that. No, that's not possible either. We always listen very specifically to what ideas come from the team, but also, what challenges are actually there right now that need to be overcome? And I always find it exciting how you then deal creatively with solutions. I've also been asked before: Don't you miss the creativity from the agencies before? I said: No, not at all, because for me creativity is also about how you deal with problems and solve them and find new solutions for them. There are then goals like growth and so on, but of course there are also problems like, I don't know, missing infrastructure or similar.

Joubin Rahimi

Or now traffic.

Christina Skoeries

Or traffic, or, or. And honestly that only spurs me on more to find out, okay, how can we solve this problem? And the team is just as fired up. They just know, every idea is welcome, we can work together on that, one hand reaches into the other. And if the team hadn't been built so that everyone carries this responsibility, that everyone thinks independently and doesn't just execute, then such rapid growth and such agile scalability wouldn't be possible at all.

Joubin Rahimi

What I find exciting is that you never even used the word female. You've always said the team is for everyone. And I'd translate that as: it's also the credo where you simply say, it's about female empowerment, yes, but it's about people as a whole, that we have a different framework and a safe space. Is that where you can experiment?

Christina Skoeries

Definitely, an error culture is hugely important too. No one should be punished for making mistakes. I think with us it's always a 'we'. Whether successes or mistakes, it's always a 'we'. It's always, we messed up or we can celebrate, no matter who did it. So it's always a 'we'. We also have Marketplaces and E-Com. For me that's a 'we'. So if the Marketplaces are doing well, that's a 'we' for me. We're working well right now. Or if E-Com is doing well and marketplace isn't, that's also a 'we'. So I think you mustn't assign role clichés like that, because then you quickly end up in a fearful mindset and then no one dares to try things and do things any more.

Joubin Rahimi

That sounds wonderful for you. But you're now in a company that's existed for over 100 years, isn't it? I don't know, it's been around for a very, very long time. 100 years isn't quite right, I think, but it's been a very, very long time.

Christina Skoeries

With a great deal of experience.

Joubin Rahimi

With lots of experience, exactly. What about other areas that've been around much longer? Since e-comm and marketplace, I'd say, is rather younger area for you. How do they cope with that? Or do you have overall company culture that's like that?

Christina Skoeries

We definitely have a culture that's very fair and based on humanity, and everyone who starts there highlights that as a special feature. You feel really welcomed here, really supported. Everyone is really helpful. There isn't this classic, yes, this bit of competence jostling. There isn't really, because actually everyone is fighting for growth, for the brand, for the company, and people support and help each other. Of course, as you say, there are now some areas that are perhaps a bit more innovative, have a bit more innovative drive, push things forward, try things first. That exists among the population just the same. So first movers are always the ones who do things first. But I have to be quite honest, there's simply a lot of passion throughout the whole company. We also have four strategic core pillars in the company: passion, competence, courage, reliability. And these are actually lived, I have to say quite honestly. And other departments, I don't know, for example sales has grown a lot simply through our wholesale history and so on, but there too there's a lot of drive for knowledge, drive for innovation, drive for change.

Christina Skoeries

No one's holding back there. They're really all on the road, I'd say.

Joubin Rahimi

Mega. First off, what I have to say, which is really rare, you can just list the four values.

Christina Skoeries

Just did that.

Joubin Rahimi

Yes, you could. Yes, a lot of people can't say that about their companies.

Christina Skoeries

No? Okay.

Joubin Rahimi

What does the company do so that you can?

Christina Skoeries

That's important, isn't it? Exactly. I think we all identify very strongly with the company, and that's also why we all drive the company forward the way we do, because we're simply in it with heart and soul, and that's why we've internalised these company values so much. But you also always take something with you. I took something from Jung von Matt back then too, because there…

Joubin Rahimi

What was the motto there?

Christina Skoeries

We had loads of mottos, but the most important one for me was, we stay dissatisfied. There was a whole motto wheel, so to speak, but "we stay dissatisfied" is the one I genuinely took to heart, because it keeps driving me to deliver new peak performances.

Joubin Rahimi

They say you have to celebrate successes too. Does that fit with "We remain dissatisfied"?

Christina Skoeries

Yes, yes, yes. Actually, yes. Dissatisfied simply means that you critically rethink and reconsider your decisions and your initial approaches: Is this already the best proposed solution, or might we find another way? Or there are also plenty of people, often developers too, not to put anyone down here, but there are many who say: No, that's not possible, and that can't be done. And then I always say: No, not possible, doesn't really exist. The target picture is, we want to achieve this. What paths could there be? Sure, there can be paths that are super well established.

Joubin Rahimi

That can be a laborious one.

Christina Skoeries

Exactly, that can be an elaborate one, but then you can still make the decision: do I want that to achieve the goal, or do I not want that? For me, "not possible" is always … well, that doesn't really exist.

Joubin Rahimi

And that's a great closing line, “can't be done, doesn't exist.” That's a bit like OMR too. What you see here is incredible, all the very different things too. So, thanks for the insights. We haven't talked about logistics, nor e-commerce

Christina Skoeries

We're doing a part two and a part three. You could write a book about it. You vote on what else you want to hear.

Joubin Rahimi

Christina, thank you very much for now, for the preliminary discussion. And if you have questions or comments, write them below, message Christina, message us. We'll answer. Right.

Christina Skoeries

Pleased to connect on LinkedIn.

Joubin Rahimi

Exactly, always important.

Christina Skoeries

Yes.