Thread by @minethatdata

This applies to retail and e-commerce as well.

The other night on Clubhouse a guy gets invited to speak, and immediately begins the "RETAIL BRANDS ARE STUPID, THEY DON"T TAKE RISKS" mantra that vendor-centric folks leverage to sound like a Thought Leader. Just endless emptiness.

https://twitter.com/rmayemsinger/status/1369912887741837317

1 - Ok, let me share a story with you along these lines.

I spent one year (2000) working for a company called Avenue A ... one of the early inventors of the retargeting industry.

2 - We served a lot of retail brands, so it didn't surprise me that an employee wanted to spend a few hours learning how retail brands "worked from the inside".

So I spent time with the guy.

He took copious and detailed notes.

3 - A few weeks later he announces that he was leaving the company ... to become the CRM Manager at Nordstrom.

Which was interesting on two fronts.

a) He had none (zero) retail experience.

b) What in the name of all that is Holy was Nordstrom doing hiring somebody like this?

4 - This was July or August.

In December, the new President of the Online Division at Nordstrom asked me to become the VP of Database Marketing.

That was a no-brainer ... of course I'll take that job.

5 - Well, I get my org chart a few days prior to beginning work, and guess what? There's my former co-worker from Avenue A. He's reporting directly to ... me.

Oh oh.

6 - On my first day of work, I ask HR to arrange a meeting with my department at 9:00am. This department was the most dysfunctional team of alleged Professionals you've ever seen.

I had to lay down the law in this meeting, setting high standards and high expectations.

7 - Well, that meeting didn't go well. About half of my department quit within a month.

About five minutes after the meeting, the guy and his previous boss enter my office. They close the door. They ask me to fire a woman. We'd been working together for five minutes.

8 - Now, what they didn't know was that HR gave me notes about all of the issues my new team had over the past six months. So I knew all about this staffer. Did this Professional misbehave? Yes. Was she suffering from a lack of Leadership? Much more so, yes!!

9 - About ten minutes later, the woman walks into my office.

She has tears in her eyes.

She says, "Please fix this department".

10 - Now, I know we're not supposed to succumb to first impressions.

But which first impression makes more of an "impression" upon you?

The guy who faked his way into a job he knew nothing about?

Or the woman who asks to have the department fixed?

11 - The woman was with me for the entire 6.5 year run I had at Nordstrom.

Now about the guy who faked his way into his job ...

12 - I gave this guy every benefit of the doubt. My Directors and I tried really, really hard to TEACH this person the job he faked his way into getting.

It was an enormous mistake on my part.

13 - The employee didn't have vendor hiring authority ... but whenever we'd assign him some menial task (like selecting names to receive a postcard), he'd bring vendors in and pitch the project to vendors.

14 - Once I asked him to put together a presentation on email marketing (if I remember correctly).

His presentation looked pretty good.

But when he presented the slides, he couldn't go farther than reading the slides. No depth of knowledge.

15 - A few days later, an employee is in my office, crying. Why? Because this employee created the presentation for the guy and couldn't understand why she didn't get credit for it and/or didn't get to present it to Management.

I was gobsmacked.

16 - When I asked him about the presentation, he (of course) lied.

He'd been lying for years.

He could say the words.

He couldn't do the work.

So that was the end of the line.

17 - The sad thing is that people like this exist everywhere in retail and e-commerce.

They have megaphones.

They tell retail "brands" (i.e. the employees working at retail brands) how stupid they are.

Go out on Clubhouse any evening, you'll hear it endlessly.

18 - Read anything out here, you'll read it incessantly.

You have to ferret out the con men from those who just want to be perceived as being thought leaders.

It's not easy to do.

19 - But the end result isn't fundamentally different.

Neither party is able to help you, the hard-working retail or e-commerce employee who is just trying to do good work.

20 - Always ask questions of the con-men and thought leader wannabes.

Do they give detailed, specific, crisp answers without buzzwords? Do they have a track record of success? Do they balance alleged best practices with genuine innovation (this is always important)?

21 - In reality, the vast majority of people are hard working, kind, and honest.

The problem is that those people don't pick up a megaphone and scream at everybody. The voices you hear come from a significant minority of the population. This applies to Clubhouse and Twitter.

22 - Ok, any questions?