Make The Day

[lucky me]

So is anyone else doing this? I'm surprised I haven't seen any mention of it yet. I hope it's not just our region because I don't want corporate narrowing down who I may be, but I'll take the risk.

So, last week in Box Office we got a message about the new Make The Day program that Blockbuster is doing. For those who haven't read it, it basically says that for the next six weeks, they want us to focus on exactly what will "make the day" for the customer, not the priorities and goals set for us each week. So, for six weeks we will not have priorities and goals mandated from up above. Instead, we are to focus on customers' needs and offer them what will really make them happy.

So, they're not saying "don't sell", but basically giving us the freedom to figure out the best sell for each person. And the program suggests possibly still doing goals, but having the store manager set them and making them specific to the store and each employee and their strengths.

Sounds great! Blockbuster is finally getting something right, even if it is just a six-week experiment. It sounds too good to be true.

And I literally thought that. It sounds too good to be true, so it won't be. I hadn't heard a thing about this from my DM, so the message in Box Office came out of the blue. But I knew, I just knew that if we are supposed to do this, that our DMs and RDOs were going to somehow twist this and end up just giving us goals anyway, or something.

So, conference call came this week, and DM went over new way of doing things. Said that they had decided as a region on the RDO and DMs call that we were going to have the same goals as before, plus each store has to make up two or three of their own, and my DM will want reports from us on which goals we're making up to make sure we're doing it, and she'll be checking our cam sheets too to make sure.

LOL! So, here's where we stand now - a program designed to eliminate priorities and goals so we can give the customer exactly what they want has mutated into us having THE EXACT SAME SALES GOALS AS BEFORE......PLUS now we get the additional pleasure of ADDING EXTRA sales goals on top.

All I can do is laugh at the absurdity of it all.

[orbitdvd]

It's making my day.

If I can figure out how to get mp3s on here, I'll post my new radio commercial.

[EVFNazi]

Oh, it's harder than that. You have to take last years revenue for the day divide it by the hours and keep track of how close or how far you are towards "make the day" last years revenue + $100...You have to track it and know it if you're called by the DM or RDO..then you have to have conference call at 9:45 am and 5:15 pm to report your plan for making up the difference...then report it again in Compass at close of day...Just 10 extra rentals and hour will add $50 to your revenue..Oh, don't forget to back out gift card sales and do strialbals instead of trialbals so you don't waste receipt paper!

[DavidNewlySL]

Sad part is u have to make what u made last year..with cheaper rentals..and less customers..when they said it was based on the economy..prices..ect..how is that when u have to make what u made last years..its harder than anyone thought..

[Backer Card]

Do you guys have the tracking sheets where you get to write down every hours TNR to watch it slip more and more under your goal? Are there actually any stores that are comping positive?

[Propoxy]

So here's what I think about Make the Day.

I am elated. I did a little dance when I heard about it. This is because I come from a time in Blockbuster before Sales Priorities, when all there was was a magical number called a budget. And all you had to do to be a successful store, sales-wise, was to hit or exceed the budgeted TNR number.

Few remember a time before Sales Priorities, including a lot of DMs and RDOs. This is my theory on why they all seem to be saying, "Make the Day, yes, but also Sales Priorities!!!" They don't remember a simpler time when all we had to do was give people what they wanted (and maybe talk them into something extra, but still something extra that made sense for them.) DMs and RDOs have no idea how to function without a Sales Priority. OMG! What do we sell?!? How will we make money if nobody tells anybody what to sell?!?! Store employees obviously can't think for themselves!!!

Ugh. Fuck off. Make the Day is the only priority I saw communicated by corporate. That's all I'm focused on now, and we're kicking ass. Because we know how to sell. We don't need our hands held. Just let us do our jobs and make the customers happy. Happy customers spend more.

If Make the Day would be applied correctly, it would be the best thing the company has done in a really long time.

[sarge]

If your "Make the Day" ends up being anything like Roger had at Movie Gallery. It will be a lot of extra tracking. We had about an 4 column sheet for this program.

You had to track revenue for that day a year ago. Mark each hour revenue for the current day. Have a column for transactions per hour. Have another column for goal per hour and last column for the difference. Then we had to report it up to the DM Twice per day.

If Roger came into the store. This had to be posted by the in store return box and if he asked you where you were at for the day. You better know where you were at last year and how much you made so far that day and what you were doing to ensure hitting rev. goal.

[BBBlows]

This could work, I for one felt much more relaxed my last shift. Our store also has goals, although less than we use to. I'm not use why we still have TA goals, kills our revenue. And there is no way we are comping from last year. We have way to many TA members who don't buy shit. I can't wait to get punished as a store for being so successful selling TA when we aren't even close to our revenue goal.

[Spohiesmom2008]

Yes in theory this program is great. One of my stores is over the MTD goal and the other a little under but we should make up on the weekend. I too did a little dance when our RDO announced this at the 4th qtr meeting and just to be sure I was hearing correctly asked the question "so my stores could be blood red in whatever priorities they are tracking but if I am green in the TNR piece no one is going to hassle me...correct?" YES was the answer.
I am very happy as neither of my stores could hiy bthe candy goal and were always red in that even though as I explained to my DM if you looked at the numbers closely neither of them was comping as down in this category as the district or the region so the goal was stupidly impossible for my teams.
So yes I love the program I hope it is a success i think the goals in both my stores reflect the 30 plus percent we are down over last year wich we were told they would and they are also supposed to take into consideration the lower rental prices.
The make the day tracking is ok but time consuming getting your two hourly numbers and yes even that would not be too bad but then we have the CAM crap to fill out. They should just give up on that shit and go back to using the shift stuff in the blue book. As SM's we know who is and is not selling in our stores we dont need a to of tracking sheets to tell us. Lord knows most of us have half the staff we used too.

[BUYMECAR]

i'm actually doing quite well on this new sales goal thingy.

we have 3 sales categories: bundles (which includes 2for3, 2for4, 2for2, 3for3...etc), holiday items (you can choose any merch that is $5+ to sale), and rewards renewals.

i'm not bothering with the renewals because i have never been in the practice to mislead customers... we may not even make it another 6 months for all i know.