team building / sales

This is a two for one post. Two separate things are discussed.

This is why I despise teams. The post characterizes what I've shut out of Twitter stream. Embarrass them to what end? 

If the point is to have readers not care anymore then it's working. Twitter is nearly useless presently. It's all this sort of thing, truly bad team building and sales techniques, and any bit of news is repeated a thousand times. Elections bring political types to their basic most elemental worst. 

So that's that. 

We cannot do anything about that except control the flow of it or control our place by the river of it. Think about different things instead. 

A new place opened up called Torchy's. Possibly Torches. After months of remodeling an old Arby's. The redesigned space is not all that much different. Imagine a line of people that extends from the counter in the corner the full length of the open space dining room, a cavern, then wrapping around the wall to the outside and back the full length of the building. In freezing weather. Like this:

At odd hours the crowd is less. I went in today at around 3:30 PM, the cavern was packed with people, and it is noisy, but no line at the counter. I told the young girl I hadn't been in before and asked her to recommend her favorite thing. She did. Then said, "Four dollars and fifty cents." Something like that, a ridiculously low amount. I understood instantly why the place is so popular. 

What comes with it? Oh, that's just a taco. But it's big. You can add beans and rice if you want. She never offered a drink. She is sweet, and she is helpful, she recommended a terrific taco, but she failed her employer by not asking me or selling a drink. I thought it odd that she'd think I'd not need one, or come back for one, or discover on my own their separate bar once I'm in there. 

That is case one of pleasant experience containing a sales fail. 

Then to Floyd's for a haircut. (Named for the fictional barber shop in Mayberry.) Another enthusiastic young girl. I asked her if she's been to Torchy's and what is the dealio with the long lines all the time. She spun out her Torchy's spiel with such fervor it made my head spin. She told me the history of Torchys, its origin as another nearby onetime Denver restaurant that closed and reopened in Texas under another name down there and then came back to Denver with their Tex-Mex BBQ that has its established patronage already from the previous incarnation here and from their fans in Texas. She described their simple menu of excellent fire roasted meat with simple fresh vegetables. Boom. Instant success. And all that is odd because there are already two excellent and authentic Mexican restaurants half a block away in two cardinal directions. She told me everything about the draw of the place except the main thing, it's price. All that for Taco Bell pricing. Plus a bar. A complete winning formula that attracts a student type crowd, a definite mixed minority type crowd, hipster types, frankly, the inside looks like a trailer park. A bus terminal. It is in fact a bus stop on a segment of main thoroughfare where bus routes overlap. She said how much they all love it. How they order all the time, how they're over there every day, call in advance for takeout but sometimes they're too busy for that. I'm impressed with her eager description. Her face lights up. She is true sales person. I say so, "You are a remarkable sales person." 

"I know! But that's because I love it so much." 

But sales fail because she did not mention price. And she doesn't work there, she works here at Floyd's. Her sales work is at Floyd's, not Torchy's. Then when my haircut was done she failed to ask me if I would like to try any hair products. A very large portion of the place's sales comes from merchandise. Her enthusiasm does not extend to her employer. She's not so thrilled about about success of her employer as she is excited about the food and the success of Torchy's.  

Three sales fails in two brief interactions, not selling me a drink with a meal, not mentioning the price at Torchy's as one of their outstanding features, (and she doesn't work there anyway) and not selling me products after my haircut. Both of them should be trained for those specific sales pitches, drink and hair products. 

The girl at Torchy's is not a team member, although pleasant and fun and all the rest. And the girl at Floyd's is not a team member because she's pitching for another business, another team and ignoring her own sales, ignoring her own team. 

I'm not complaining. I enjoyed talking to both girls tremendously. Both were helpful to me. But both are not actual team members and both displayed employment sales fails.