The Young & The Restless
I met a young guy assisting on a shoot the other day.
We were talking during a break, and he was telling me how he worked a couple of jobs.
One of his jobs, was a casual position at one of Australia’s largest retailers, as a sales assistant in the Home Entertainment department.
He didn’t enjoy working there, although I could tell he knew his stuff, and added value there. He was telling me how the store was completely inefficient and had some messed up habits, that wasted hours of his and his colleague’s days, and ultimately effected 1000′s of dollars in sales.
Some of the issues were;
The staff didn’t know the products.
Stock of product on display in often unknown.
Little things like, having stocks of shopping bags, correct change in the till, and internal communications were grinding sales to a halt.
His Managers were uninspiring, and accept these issues. He said they were depressing, and middle aged people, that were bitterly aware their career wasn’t going further than the shop floor, that they had given up, merely getting through the day with minimum effort required.
Now – keep in mind, this kid works casual, for close to minimum wage.
He told me he had been working in his spare time on a concept for an application that ran on a tablet, that would arm the staff with some great tools, such as;
- all the facts and media surrounding the entire inventory of the products
- live data on stock in store and at the warehouse
- order and delivery forms that synced with the servers
- internal comms platform
- etc
He shared the idea in to his manager, and he his manager said to him (wait for it);
“you have been 4 minutes late twice this week. When you prove yourself to me, I will give you the opportunity to present the idea to the management group.’
When he told me this, I nearly vomited.
I left him my card, and said he can meet me and take me through the idea and we could see if there were ways I could help him hatch a plan to get it in front of the right people.
So, when he came past work today, I wasn’t expecting much.
Well, he knocked me over.
This guy had prepared a 10 page document that I would have been proud to present to my boss, unedited.
Everything was there that you would expect from a ‘professional’; Business Problems, Objectives, Scope of work, Key screens, Ball Park costs (from an established dev shop), and even things like Staff training schedules. I was staggered.
This million dollar retail business, (if not billion dollar business) is watching foot traffic and sales in free fall, and they didnt have the hunger to see how he could help improve things.
The document closed with an anecdote, that gave me tingles;
He had observed how Apple Stores did things, and highlighted if you wear a blue shirt, you are an expert, and you can do everything the customer could ever want, and customers recognise and remember that.
Even Apple are effected by the retail crisis, right? Wrong.
With sales going vertically, you still see 75% of total sales of Apple products, in store.
If you offer a great retail experience, it seems you can survive the crisis.
I remember when we spoke back at the shoot, that he had read Steve Job’s bio in 3 days. He couldn’t put it down.
Steve left a legacy of never giving up on making things better, simpler, and more accessible.
I could see this kid had i running through his veins.
The key take out is this.
Fight for a culture where ideas can come from anywhere.
People seem to accept things that have been broken for a long time. Fixing them can meet massive resistance, and take a strong will to be seen through.
It seems younger generations clearly see, and don’t accept the broken, and take it on themselves to fix it. Not for the money, just because they have better things to do than put up with stuff that doesn’t work.
They are an army of Outliers that will continue to poke the box until they are heard, and it’s solved.
I’m all for it, because their managers that haven’t been paying them attention, will be answering to them before they know it.
I will let you know how his project goes.