Archived How do you lead your Ad Set team?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Oct 24, 2012
Messages
83
Hey everyone,

I'm an extended intern and my STL wants me to streamline our ad-set process. Currently I have our signing TM's go through as a group starting in A (general layout), going through market then over to C/D and finishing with E/F. Last Sunday we didn't have a very strong team and opened with no signs in E/F.

How are you all leading your ad-set teams to get through the entire set before the lights come on?

Thankfully we've scheduled stronger team members to help out this upcoming Sunday. I'm thinking we'll split into two groups of two, one in A and one in market then eventually meeting in F (it'll be easier to see who's lagging that way, too ;] ). I usually follow behind and scan but I'm going to be hanging with them this time. That way if I need to I'll be able to scan in past opening without extending anyone.
 
This link may help:
http://www.thebreakroom.org/showthread.php/251
Welcome!
Market is usually the biggest. I do electronics/toys/sporting goods/office by myself. Everyone else does other areas. The ad is a beast. You might want everyone in hardlines to come in at 4am, scan in for 1 hour to 90 minutes, then start sending folks out to areas with one tm to finished scanning. Depending on how many tm's you have, it should be by 8 or 9am.
 
Last edited:
I have 2-3 people come in at 4am to scan the ad in, then an additional 6-7 team members come in 6-10 to hang the ad... We generally are done by 8, 9 at the latest.. Each team Member has there own area. I can hold them more accountable that way.
 
I have 2-3 people come in at 4am to scan the ad in, then an additional 6-7 team members come in 6-10 to hang the ad... We generally are done by 8, 9 at the latest.. Each team Member has there own area. I can hold them more accountable that way.

You guys scan the whole ad in first? That is my biggest pet peeve! When you talk about streamlining the process, you just have to get it back onto best practice! I think your first two steps to accomplishing this is to 1) Print out whatever best practices you can find on the process and grade your process compared to it so you know EXACTLY where you stand and what needs to change and 2) Contact your hardlines district resource and schedule a call with them to review your ad process... This is what they are there for and it will help build relationships with some "bigger names" within your district! Take notes from them if you have to!

Once that is done I would make an action plan about what changes you want to make and when (don't just change everything one Sunday... make it take a month or so to get it all implemented! Make sure to collaborate with other leaders in your building as well to get them on board and go from there! The times and amount of people you need will vary by store, so you'll need in store help to get those plans down!

If you can accomplish that it will be a great interview answer for multiple situations (Solves Problems, Demonstrates Courage, Collaborates, Manages Execution etc)
 
Yes, I know bp. The issue is, there is only 4 folks scheduled to do hardlines on Sunday. We are unable to get more folks due to lack of payroll. My etl-hr was sending mid/am shifts early to save payroll on last weekend on bith days.
 
we come in at 5 and normally we have 5-6 tm that come in and one very strong TL and she goes around and takes care of all the endcaps, the urgent e batches and walks the ad. We have 4 people start in Grocery HBA COSM and CHEM ( or section A) then one goes to B/C/D and one for E/F. They scan and put up and per best practice until 7 am and then they stop and scan on anything remaining from 7-8 usually we can be completely finished including endcaps and the ad walk by 9 am, but with the holidays it will get harder without more people, we had a hard time this weekend because the urgent batch was 186 signs. Now it doesn't always go this way but normally it does. Also I agree with not changing everything at once, get one thing working right then move on from there, I think the most important thing is that the tm's setting ad are motivated and move very quickly.
 
Thanks for the feedback everyone.

Currently I have one very strong TM go through and audit endcaps - she always finishes by the time we open.

This upcoming Sunday we have 3 hardlines signers and 2 softlines (one is our PATL), per the hours assigned by HQ. I'm scheduled under our extended intern hours so technically we'll have an additional 4 hours in signing without touching our signing budget.

Just found out one of the TM's swapped their shift :wacko:

I sneaked a peak at the signage today and A/Market were pretty heavy as usual. Toys is starting to get bigger... I'm going to have everyone go from A to market, then over to toys. Everything else is really light. I'll dangle Starbucks in front of them as recognition for finishing everything by 8 :spiteful:

Also, what do you all do with Price Cut tabs? I just have the team take them down because a 3x5 stuffed into a PC tab doesn't look very brand. Not to mention, there's a 90% chance they'll fall out by Monday in heavily shopped aisles.
 
You should not take those down, unless you put them back up. Just fold the top of 3 by 5 & keep bottom half flat, slide down into tab. I love seeing those, the ad goes up fast & no cuts from putting the ad sign behind the white label strip corners.
 
Last edited:
As HLM said about price cuts that's the easiest / bet way, best practice is to actually remove the yellow flag insert from them and then the ad takedown team is supposed to re-attach the flags. I don't think I've ever seen a single store do this though.
 
Alright, so this past Sunday went a liiiitle bit better.

We had 4 hardliners, including myself. I could tell we weren't going to finish hanging in time with only 4 people so I ended up having out endcap auditor jump in with us (discussed this with my ETL Log). We finished A in about 1h 15m, moved over to G and that took us a little longer. Had someone jump over to get C/D/B knocked out then met up with everyone in F. I helped hang up until we finished with G, then started scanning with my ETL Log.
We ended up opening with A (HBA/Pets/etc) complete, B (Stationary/Kitchen) complete, C (domestics) hung, D (bedding, furniture, etc.) half up, E (toy/SG) around 5 aisles up, F (Electronics/seasonal/etc.) around 10 aisles up, G (market) complete.

My auditor and I were able to complete everything by noon, but EC audit was only completed in A/B.

After seeing how quickly everyone was moving (the skin on my fingers started to rub off...) with 5 people hanging for 4 hours and STILL not finishing I think I just need to extend TM's in the future.
Are any of you able to finish scanning, hanging AND EC audit in 4 hours? If so, with how many signers?
 
I was in charge or streamlining our ad-setup process and was able to turn a pretty broken process when I arrived (not finishing until NOON! sometimes) to finishing before the lights went on 95% of the time. When I started, they would scan the entire ad in at 4AM to fudge the numbers then lazily put the signs up as the day went on. The DTL had caught onto this trend and had put the hammer down on my STL - me being a new ETL-LOG at the time - it became my new challenge.

The first step in ensuring a really good ad-setup is having a really good ad-prep, this will save you so much time when actually putting up the signs. Make sure you ad-prep team is sorting everything properly - they should run the reports and actually walk the floor to make sure come Sunday everything runs smoothly and is in order. Clearly marking some ads with END-CAP (vs just putting (0)) saved a lot of time because the team understood these signs NEEDED to go on the end-cap.

The biggest report (the name is escaping me, I've been gone from Target for too long now...) actually told you which signs you could safely throw out, which eliminates some double-work, but you still have to be careful because sometimes the report went crazy and told us to throw away 15 pages of signs, which obviously was wrong...be smart about it. Also, the prep team should put all the extra things the team might need when setting up (sign holders, clips, etc) with their signs. The last thing you want during setup is everyone walking across the entire store to the signing room every 10 minutes just to get one sign holder...

Also, the green-dot prep for softlines (not sure if its still a best practice considering softlines BP seemed to change several times a year for signing...) saved us so much time putting up softlines ads. The softlines TL or brand attendant, should walk the entire ad prior to Sunday to help the team place signs up. When we did this, Softlines was usually done before the rest of the store.

Being in a 4AM flow store, I was used to getting there early. So on Sundays with no truck, I'd get in at 3:30 and start prepping for the setup. I'd move all the waco-boxes with signs into carts with all the holders, headers, etc and move them out to the section they belong. I'd also print out the summary of end-caps for each section so they could do them with the rest of the setup. At about 4-4:15 I would start putting up the signs in the easy areas. I'd have plug, office, one spot/checklanes, home and part of toys done before the team arrived at 5AM (usually 5 people with one TL). Once they got there I had a small huddle and we sent the entire team to the biggest section (often grocery or HBA) to blitz through it. As they went through the section I walked a step behind them auditing aisles and end-caps and make sign batches where needed. Once the team finished the biggest area, I split them off to tackle the left over areas. Know each individual's strength here - don't put someone in electronics who has never seen the browser before or softlines, etc.

It took a while to get it going but we eventually got into a system where we were always done around 7:30 and the TL and I would finish auditing the ad and printing missed signs. The biggest thing I learned was its not about the number of people or taking "strong" team members from through the store - it's about drilling in the process and having them understand why it was so important and rewarding them for meeting the goals. If the team finished on time and the audit was done - everyone got breakfast, every week. Free food may be the secrets to all your struggles :O

I know a big concern is payroll - this was in a ULV store that sometimes got as little as 1000-1100 hours a week for the entire store. I made a business case for the STL on why I felt signing should have their hours adjusted and he agreed. If the store is not willing to make any changes to improve the process, it will never change.

Hope some of that helps, again BP may have changed as I stopped working for Target about little over a year ago, but the idea should be the same!
 
I was in charge or streamlining our ad-setup process and was able to turn a pretty broken process when I arrived (not finishing until NOON! sometimes) to finishing before the lights went on 95% of the time. When I started, they would scan the entire ad in at 4AM to fudge the numbers then lazily put the signs up as the day went on. The DTL had caught onto this trend and had put the hammer down on my STL - me being a new ETL-LOG at the time - it became my new challenge.

The first step in ensuring a really good ad-setup is having a really good ad-prep, this will save you so much time when actually putting up the signs. Make sure you ad-prep team is sorting everything properly - they should run the reports and actually walk the floor to make sure come Sunday everything runs smoothly and is in order. Clearly marking some ads with END-CAP (vs just putting (0)) saved a lot of time because the team understood these signs NEEDED to go on the end-cap.

The biggest report (the name is escaping me, I've been gone from Target for too long now...) actually told you which signs you could safely throw out, which eliminates some double-work, but you still have to be careful because sometimes the report went crazy and told us to throw away 15 pages of signs, which obviously was wrong...be smart about it. Also, the prep team should put all the extra things the team might need when setting up (sign holders, clips, etc) with their signs. The last thing you want during setup is everyone walking across the entire store to the signing room every 10 minutes just to get one sign holder...

Also, the green-dot prep for softlines (not sure if its still a best practice considering softlines BP seemed to change several times a year for signing...) saved us so much time putting up softlines ads. The softlines TL or brand attendant, should walk the entire ad prior to Sunday to help the team place signs up. When we did this, Softlines was usually done before the rest of the store.

Being in a 4AM flow store, I was used to getting there early. So on Sundays with no truck, I'd get in at 3:30 and start prepping for the setup. I'd move all the waco-boxes with signs into carts with all the holders, headers, etc and move them out to the section they belong. I'd also print out the summary of end-caps for each section so they could do them with the rest of the setup. At about 4-4:15 I would start putting up the signs in the easy areas. I'd have plug, office, one spot/checklanes, home and part of toys done before the team arrived at 5AM (usually 5 people with one TL). Once they got there I had a small huddle and we sent the entire team to the biggest section (often grocery or HBA) to blitz through it. As they went through the section I walked a step behind them auditing aisles and end-caps and make sign batches where needed. Once the team finished the biggest area, I split them off to tackle the left over areas. Know each individual's strength here - don't put someone in electronics who has never seen the browser before or softlines, etc.

It took a while to get it going but we eventually got into a system where we were always done around 7:30 and the TL and I would finish auditing the ad and printing missed signs. The biggest thing I learned was its not about the number of people or taking "strong" team members from through the store - it's about drilling in the process and having them understand why it was so important and rewarding them for meeting the goals. If the team finished on time and the audit was done - everyone got breakfast, every week. Free food may be the secrets to all your struggles :O

I know a big concern is payroll - this was in a ULV store that sometimes got as little as 1000-1100 hours a week for the entire store. I made a business case for the STL on why I felt signing should have their hours adjusted and he agreed. If the store is not willing to make any changes to improve the process, it will never change.

Hope some of that helps, again BP may have changed as I stopped working for Target about little over a year ago, but the idea should be the same!

you are correct on payroll thing. the current mindset at my store is, 4 folks to do all hardlines. we do try hard to finish early.
 
I suggest brings donuts and coffee.
Or Mountain Dew and Redbull for the folks who don't drink coffee.
Two or three per person.
Should help with the streamlining quite a bit.
 
I was in charge or streamlining our ad-setup process and was able to turn a pretty broken process when I arrived (not finishing until NOON! sometimes) to finishing before the lights went on 95% of the time. When I started, they would scan the entire ad in at 4AM to fudge the numbers then lazily put the signs up as the day went on. The DTL had caught onto this trend and had put the hammer down on my STL - me being a new ETL-LOG at the time - it became my new challenge.

The first step in ensuring a really good ad-setup is having a really good ad-prep, this will save you so much time when actually putting up the signs. Make sure you ad-prep team is sorting everything properly - they should run the reports and actually walk the floor to make sure come Sunday everything runs smoothly and is in order. Clearly marking some ads with END-CAP (vs just putting (0)) saved a lot of time because the team understood these signs NEEDED to go on the end-cap.

The biggest report (the name is escaping me, I've been gone from Target for too long now...) actually told you which signs you could safely throw out, which eliminates some double-work, but you still have to be careful because sometimes the report went crazy and told us to throw away 15 pages of signs, which obviously was wrong...be smart about it. Also, the prep team should put all the extra things the team might need when setting up (sign holders, clips, etc) with their signs. The last thing you want during setup is everyone walking across the entire store to the signing room every 10 minutes just to get one sign holder...

Also, the green-dot prep for softlines (not sure if its still a best practice considering softlines BP seemed to change several times a year for signing...) saved us so much time putting up softlines ads. The softlines TL or brand attendant, should walk the entire ad prior to Sunday to help the team place signs up. When we did this, Softlines was usually done before the rest of the store.

Being in a 4AM flow store, I was used to getting there early. So on Sundays with no truck, I'd get in at 3:30 and start prepping for the setup. I'd move all the waco-boxes with signs into carts with all the holders, headers, etc and move them out to the section they belong. I'd also print out the summary of end-caps for each section so they could do them with the rest of the setup. At about 4-4:15 I would start putting up the signs in the easy areas. I'd have plug, office, one spot/checklanes, home and part of toys done before the team arrived at 5AM (usually 5 people with one TL). Once they got there I had a small huddle and we sent the entire team to the biggest section (often grocery or HBA) to blitz through it. As they went through the section I walked a step behind them auditing aisles and end-caps and make sign batches where needed. Once the team finished the biggest area, I split them off to tackle the left over areas. Know each individual's strength here - don't put someone in electronics who has never seen the browser before or softlines, etc.

It took a while to get it going but we eventually got into a system where we were always done around 7:30 and the TL and I would finish auditing the ad and printing missed signs. The biggest thing I learned was its not about the number of people or taking "strong" team members from through the store - it's about drilling in the process and having them understand why it was so important and rewarding them for meeting the goals. If the team finished on time and the audit was done - everyone got breakfast, every week. Free food may be the secrets to all your struggles :O

I know a big concern is payroll - this was in a ULV store that sometimes got as little as 1000-1100 hours a week for the entire store. I made a business case for the STL on why I felt signing should have their hours adjusted and he agreed. If the store is not willing to make any changes to improve the process, it will never change.

Hope some of that helps, again BP may have changed as I stopped working for Target about little over a year ago, but the idea should be the same!

How did you help the team understand why it was so important/rewarding to meet the goal? I'm going to start posting up our setup DTK scores and sharing them in huddles, hopefully that'll give them a clear understanding of how we are compared to other stores and how we can improve.

Also, my store scored 3rd in our group for scanning-in last week :excited:
I was working offsite for the first two hours though...so hopefully they weren't cheating during that time ;)
 
I was in charge or streamlining our ad-setup process and was able to turn a pretty broken process when I arrived (not finishing until NOON! sometimes) to finishing before the lights went on 95% of the time. When I started, they would scan the entire ad in at 4AM to fudge the numbers then lazily put the signs up as the day went on. The DTL had caught onto this trend and had put the hammer down on my STL - me being a new ETL-LOG at the time - it became my new challenge.

The first step in ensuring a really good ad-setup is having a really good ad-prep, this will save you so much time when actually putting up the signs. Make sure you ad-prep team is sorting everything properly - they should run the reports and actually walk the floor to make sure come Sunday everything runs smoothly and is in order. Clearly marking some ads with END-CAP (vs just putting (0)) saved a lot of time because the team understood these signs NEEDED to go on the end-cap.

The biggest report (the name is escaping me, I've been gone from Target for too long now...) actually told you which signs you could safely throw out, which eliminates some double-work, but you still have to be careful because sometimes the report went crazy and told us to throw away 15 pages of signs, which obviously was wrong...be smart about it. Also, the prep team should put all the extra things the team might need when setting up (sign holders, clips, etc) with their signs. The last thing you want during setup is everyone walking across the entire store to the signing room every 10 minutes just to get one sign holder...

Also, the green-dot prep for softlines (not sure if its still a best practice considering softlines BP seemed to change several times a year for signing...) saved us so much time putting up softlines ads. The softlines TL or brand attendant, should walk the entire ad prior to Sunday to help the team place signs up. When we did this, Softlines was usually done before the rest of the store.

Being in a 4AM flow store, I was used to getting there early. So on Sundays with no truck, I'd get in at 3:30 and start prepping for the setup. I'd move all the waco-boxes with signs into carts with all the holders, headers, etc and move them out to the section they belong. I'd also print out the summary of end-caps for each section so they could do them with the rest of the setup. At about 4-4:15 I would start putting up the signs in the easy areas. I'd have plug, office, one spot/checklanes, home and part of toys done before the team arrived at 5AM (usually 5 people with one TL). Once they got there I had a small huddle and we sent the entire team to the biggest section (often grocery or HBA) to blitz through it. As they went through the section I walked a step behind them auditing aisles and end-caps and make sign batches where needed. Once the team finished the biggest area, I split them off to tackle the left over areas. Know each individual's strength here - don't put someone in electronics who has never seen the browser before or softlines, etc.

It took a while to get it going but we eventually got into a system where we were always done around 7:30 and the TL and I would finish auditing the ad and printing missed signs. The biggest thing I learned was its not about the number of people or taking "strong" team members from through the store - it's about drilling in the process and having them understand why it was so important and rewarding them for meeting the goals. If the team finished on time and the audit was done - everyone got breakfast, every week. Free food may be the secrets to all your struggles :O

I know a big concern is payroll - this was in a ULV store that sometimes got as little as 1000-1100 hours a week for the entire store. I made a business case for the STL on why I felt signing should have their hours adjusted and he agreed. If the store is not willing to make any changes to improve the process, it will never change.

Hope some of that helps, again BP may have changed as I stopped working for Target about little over a year ago, but the idea should be the same!

That reminded me of one of my old stores... We all came in for ad setup at 6AM and all the carts would be setup for us... Each one was labeled with the ad we were going to do and there was a cover sheet in each cart saying how many 7x11s there were along with whether they were pegged or shelved (the prepper set that up) and then the person who made the carts for us (generally an openning LOD or TLOD in at 5:30) would put the right amount in each cart! Made it pretty simple :)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top