Archived Sell, Sell, Sell

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Last week we had individual meetings and numerous huddle conversations regarding selling. We have all heard about "adding to the basket" but this was a new level. I felt that I was told basically that you will greet every guest, and participate in suggestive selling (while running truck, answering the phone, covering the registers, covering breaks, running instocks and organizing and stocking the backroom) or you will be coached and that could lead to "further actions". It gets really ridiculous when the plan for the fitting room is to have (1) tm greeting each guest that wants to try on clothes "through their entire experience" including "running other sizes or suggestions" to each guest! After each guest leaves we are supposed to run out what they left to the floor. Does anyone else see an difficulties with this approach?
 
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We have a team member at the fitting room who is a star at doing this—she greets, finds out what the guest is shopping for, builds them an outfit, and brings them other options. She is so good at upselling.

Obviously, if there are a ton of guests, she can’t give them all that specific attention to detail, but she does a fantastic job balancing multiple guests.

All that said, our fitting room does not do guest first or backroom organizing. They focus on guests, phones, and keeping the fitting room clean and clear.
 
As @Rock Lobster put so well in the other thread "selling" is not a business strategy.

Target is using selling to cover our defiencies.

"Yeah our store has a crappy zone, the shelves are empty, pallets everywhere but were going to get in your face and sell to you!"

Now dont get me wrong a team member in beauty or apparel who can sell can do wonders for your comp in an area where we make most of our profit but you also need people who are task oriented and sadly that has gone by the way side.

My store has plenty of people in softlines who can smile and talk guest head off but they also stand and talk rather than push truck when there isn't a TL or ETL to hold them accountable

We fired a tm because she wasn't friendly enough, she would clock in push z racks like nobodies business but they instead kept a girl who takes two hours per Z just because she smiles.

The chickens will come home to roost eventually and the company will pay for it.

I don't have as much faith in Cornell as @Rock Lobster to fix it. He may be a bright guy but he doesn't seem to be in touch with the actual problems at stores, which doesn't surprise me. The last time he visited my group they rolled out the red carpet and had ETLs from other stores show up to that store days before to prep for his visit.

Until they get rid of this toxic culture. It will be more of the same
 
or you will be coached and that could lead to "further actions". It gets really ridiculous when the plan for the fitting room is to have (

I think the ironic thing is a lot of people thought that the changes for 2018 would be "getting rid of etl aps, reducing team leads" etc. When the changes are actually to coach and sometimes get rid of team members who aren't able to adapt with modernization.

The key to surving all that is to be friendly and do your best. So many team members struggle with the sometimes unrealistic expectations given but you have to remember "It's just Target."

While they want to hone in on team members who can't sell. What about etls who can't sell? Or can't manage talent? Or can't drive results? Stls who never leave their offices?

Don't forget this when it comes to Best Team Survey.
 
As @Rock Lobster put so well in the other thread "selling" is not a business strategy.

Target is using selling to cover our defiencies.

"Yeah our store has a crappy zone, the shelves are empty, pallets everywhere but were going to get in your face and sell to you!"

Now dont get me wrong a team member in beauty or apparel who can sell can do wonders for your comp in an area where we make most of our profit but you also need people who are task oriented and sadly that has gone by the way side.

My store has plenty of people in softlines who can smile and talk guest head off but they also stand and talk rather than push truck when there isn't a TL or ETL to hold them accountable

We fired a tm because she wasn't friendly enough, she would clock in push z racks like nobodies business but they instead kept a girl who takes two hours per Z just because she smiles.

The chickens will come home to roost eventually and the company will pay for it.

I don't have as much faith in Cornell as @Rock Lobster to fix it. He may be a bright guy but he doesn't seem to be in touch with the actual problems at stores, which doesn't surprise me. The last time he visited my group they rolled out the red carpet and had ETLs from other stores show up to that store days before to prep for his visit.

Until they get rid of this toxic culture. It will be more of the same

x1000 for us it started with the seasonal hires the ones who could actually work were let go for the cute ones who frustrated the ones who got held accountable for the actual work getting done.

Let me get this straight, you want me to shove sales down a guests throat while picking orders and while being told don't INF anything while no backstock is done for weeks on end.. Ok..

I am waiting for them to tell me if a guest in store wants what I picked already I should give it to them and screw the guest who did the on line order.. They forget I am guest and employee when I am picking orders.
 
I tell anyone doing SFS you are the most informed guest that the store will ever have. If SFS is having a high INF it's an issue with the way the rest of the store is run. And that order that you picked that the guest wants, sorry a different guest already purchased it hours ago.

ETLs who aren't cross trained in how things are actually done in the store are fairly useless unless they have a TL or TM that can keep others accountable.

Everyone is a cog, if you're not spinning correctly it impacts the rest of the machine. End to End or store modernization only works if the basics are covered and smiling or upselling won't solve basic issues. I'm sure I don't have to tell you how annoying it is to upsell to a guest, have the MyDevice say we have something on hand and then there aren't any on the shelves.
 
I hope whoever is driving this reads some of the stuff we are posting (although I doubt it)...

The vibe didn’t save Tina from losing her job, and selling (which is no different) won’t save yours! In fact, this is getting close to the worst I have seen stores. The only redeeming thought I had for whoever is doing this is that they realized how top heavy the company is (ETLs and above and their salaries) and the secret mission this year is to make stores so miserable to work at that we all start to turnover. That is the only rational way I can justify what is happening because anybody that knows anything about business wouldn’t come up with this and think it was a good idea.
 
I don't have as much faith in Cornell as @Rock Lobster to fix it. He may be a bright guy but he doesn't seem to be in touch with the actual problems at stores, which doesn't surprise me. The last time he visited my group they rolled out the red carpet and had ETLs from other stores show up to that store days before to prep for his visit.

Until they get rid of this toxic culture. It will be more of the same

Just to touch on this part, I think Cornell's strategy is perfectly viable for the market we are currently experiencing. I have a problem with the people who are executing his plans (at least when it comes to store operations). The end product he is envisioning, where freight arrives pre-sorted and even mostly deboxed at stores on vehicles that can be pushed directly to the floor for stocking in an appropriate manner, allows for this "selling" culture to take place. Field leaders are out in stores demanding we achieve this end product today... when we have not received any help or support in making our supply chain and replenishment model take less investment with payroll. If you want us to spend less time stocking and more time selling... then YOU find a way to make the trucks easier to stock. Its the models fault, not ours!
 
Just to touch on this part, I think Cornell's strategy is perfectly viable for the market we are currently experiencing. I have a problem with the people who are executing his plans (at least when it comes to store operations). The end product he is envisioning, where freight arrives pre-sorted and even mostly deboxed at stores on vehicles that can be pushed directly to the floor for stocking in an appropriate manner, allows for this "selling" culture to take place. Field leaders are out in stores demanding we achieve this end product today... when we have not received any help or support in making our supply chain and replenishment model take less investment with payroll. If you want us to spend less time stocking and more time selling... then YOU find a way to make the trucks easier to stock. Its the models fault, not ours!


Amen. Target put the cart before the horse big time and TMs are paying the price. I can’t see this lasting much longer. Our SL breakout area is a nightmare. Never clean, rolling truck after truck after truck. You can’t sell from the backroom! TMs are beyond frustrated.
 
All our bare spots are filled with reshop/abandons/go-backs from other departments.
Annnnnd half empty beverage containers of every imaginable description. A couple of pounds of defrosting meat, broken toys (not ours), used diapers :eek: gum, half eaten food and once I found a neatly written note in the spices informing me that cats can’t taste cinnamon. Never found cash....
 
Cornell is one of those hugely overcompensated execs who hop from company to company every some-odd years, roll out Five Year Plans and then bail right before everything goes tits-up. It's far from unique to Target, as American corporate culture in general has created this same situation across many industries (it's a feature, not a bug). They've reinvented a common problem that we always see in undemocratic governments, with an upper layer of elite leaders who are poorly suited for their roles and completely insulated from the consequences of their actions - a really gnarly combo. Corporations are meticulously structured so that no one in charge of making decisions ever has to hear anything but "yes" from the people nearest to them, much like how things are done in Pyongyang
 
The last time he visited my group they rolled out the red carpet and had ETLs from other stores show up to that store days before to prep for his visit.
The last time Cornell visited a store in the group we had ETL's from our group at that store for weeks prior.
 
The last time Cornell visited a store in the group we had ETL's from our group at that store for weeks prior.

What a smart corner office exec should do is pick a store to visit unannounced. Study the store's schedule to see when the most TLs are in. Show up, tell the ETLs to run the store and walk the store with the TLs.

By continuing to announce visits they are only going to see fantasy stores, not a real Target. Unless the corner office folks see how a store works and what the real challenges are Target, we are just treading water, or sinking.

So yes, they can push us to sell, but you can't sell stuff that's still sitting in the back room.
 
Cornell is one of those hugely overcompensated execs who hop from company to company every some-odd years, roll out Five Year Plans and then bail right before everything goes tits-up. It's far from unique to Target, as American corporate culture in general has created this same situation across many industries (it's a feature, not a bug). They've reinvented a common problem that we always see in undemocratic governments, with an upper layer of elite leaders who are poorly suited for their roles and completely insulated from the consequences of their actions - a really gnarly combo. Corporations are meticulously structured so that no one in charge of making decisions ever has to hear anything but "yes" from the people nearest to them, much like how things are done in Pyongyang

Cornell served as the CEO of Michael's from 2007 to 2009, the CEO of Sam's Club from 2009 to 2012, and the CEO of PepsiCo Americas Foods, a subsidiary of Pepsico, from 2012 to 2014.

You know, you might have a very good point. I guess I do not know if Cornell is actually coming up with a plan and wants it executed correctly (and just doesn't have the people capable) or if he just is talking the talk until he gets offered a better job from the appearance of making us function better. I suppose time will tell, but he does hop quite a bit without that impressive of a track record.
 
The end product he is envisioning, where freight arrives pre-sorted and even mostly deboxed at stores on vehicles that can be pushed directly to the floor for stocking in an appropriate manner, allows for this "selling" culture to take place.
Sounds dreamy
If you want us to spend less time stocking and more time selling... then YOU find a way to make the trucks easier to stock.
I know nothing about stocking trucks, but I'm curious where the problems are on that side of things. Any thoughts on how a more efficient system might work?
 
I know nothing about stocking trucks, but I'm curious where the problems are on that side of things. Any thoughts on how a more efficient system might work?

The key problem is how the product arrives and the unload itself. Because we are receiving full cases, and poorly sorted partials (the repacks) we have to touch every box and put it down the line, sort it by area, and then take it out to its proper department before we ever start stocking the truck itself. Repacks also generally need to be broken down and sorted before getting stocked. You are talking about 12-18 hours of payroll for the unload plus another 4-6 just sorting out crap afterwards. Most retailers can do this process in a couple hours of payroll max. An improvement to this system would be presorted freight. If they could send freight palletized and by department at least, we could unload a trailer like our competitors. If the partials could be sorted by department as well, then we could just throw those boxes with the rest of the freight instead of sorting it all for the DC in the store. That is the primary issue.

The secondary issue becomes the replenishment and ordering model on its own. This is a chain issue tied to buyers and the way we supply our stores. For example, go to any store and pick 3 random departments, then go to the fillgroup aisle in the backroom... Usually there are more outs than you can count in a department but the fillgroup is full of product. You know there is a problem when the stockroom space that is available is so obviously being poorly utilized. Its a sign of a supply chain problem, but this has so many factors that there are too many to list.
 
What a smart corner office exec should do is pick a store to visit unannounced. Study the store's schedule to see when the most TLs are in. Show up, tell the ETLs to run the store and walk the store with the TLs.

By continuing to announce visits they are only going to see fantasy stores, not a real Target. Unless the corner office folks see how a store works and what the real challenges are Target, we are just treading water, or sinking.

So yes, they can push us to sell, but you can't sell stuff that's still sitting in the back room.
That would be smart, that's what I would do, but I don't see it happening. Imagine all the work that would have to be done to fix or alleviate problems, better to just keep up appearances and keep things plodding along. Also, if the higher ups saw all the warts they'd be out with chainsaws ready to cut off the whole hand lol.
 
The key problem is how the product arrives and the unload itself. Because we are receiving full cases, and poorly sorted partials (the repacks) we have to touch every box and put it down the line, sort it by area, and then take it out to its proper department before we ever start stocking the truck itself. Repacks also generally need to be broken down and sorted before getting stocked. You are talking about 12-18 hours of payroll for the unload plus another 4-6 just sorting out crap afterwards. Most retailers can do this process in a couple hours of payroll max. An improvement to this system would be presorted freight. If they could send freight palletized and by department at least, we could unload a trailer like our competitors. If the partials could be sorted by department as well, then we could just throw those boxes with the rest of the freight instead of sorting it all for the DC in the store. That is the primary issue.

Mr. Cornell, are you reading this? Fix this, and you may actually leave Spot in a truly better position than when you first arrived. Can you say that about Michael's, Sam's, or Pepsi?

PS: Gutting a company and trimming labor reduce costs, but seldom leaves the company in a better place; it just pacifies the shareholders.
 
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