Apprentice Task 1

BlueFlamme

Senior member
Nov 3, 2005
565
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Curious as to how creative the people on ATOT would have been.

The Task:
Promote New Sam's Club Memberships

The Teams:
Synergy - Gave away free manicure/massages
Gold Rush - Gave away free duffle bags/promoted "its a BIG DEAL"

What I would have done:
A) Use about 20% of the funds available to offer a small business seminar to promote upgrading to a business membership/business plus memership (using their slogan "we are in business, for small business")

B) Use 40-60% of the funds (depends on advertising costs later) to either:
1) Offer X free memberships (if this counts towards your quota)
2) Offer free one year upgrade to Plus membership to the first X new members

C) Advertise based on the two themes, "We are in business, for small business" and "free membership/Plus upgrade to the first X Customers"

I honestly thought the 43/40 new membership per club was a bit low. Their advertising appeared to be restricted to the Blimp which is kind of lame. Unless you're giving away something good, why would a non-member looking at the blimp decide to up and go to Sam's Club?

D) Split the "sales" group up between those focusing on what Sam's offers to small businesses and what it offers to regular members (completely different approach for someone buying crates of stuff versus people who use it for much smaller quantity items such as a family who uses it as a cheaper option on groceries, clothing, books, movies, pictures, prescriptions, etc.)


What would y'all have done? And do you think my plan would have worked better than what the two teams did?
 

GasX

Lifer
Feb 8, 2001
29,033
6
81
It was a sales task pure and simple - no more no less.

The blimp was worthless and probably contributed to zero memberships for both teams. Synergy was smart in that they have a nice gimmicky hook that created a captive audience for them to give their pitch too. Gold Rush was completely lame. The fact that this was purely a sales task is why they came close. Ultimately both teams had the same number of people trying to charm the customers and convince them to get a membership.

The problem with your plan is that it doesn't address the issue that NOONE is going to buy a membership from you without a reason. Your sales staff has to give it to them.
 

Strk

Lifer
Nov 23, 2003
10,197
4
76
All I know is that Mensa guy is screwed. He is more or less guaranteed to get fired in the future.
 

coomar

Banned
Apr 4, 2005
2,431
0
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Originally posted by: Strk
All I know is that Mensa guy is screwed. He is more or less guaranteed to get fired in the future.

though trump now has low expectations of him

still in the back of the trumps mind, he's pretty much eliminated