A friend of mine who works for another retail company recently told me that they’re introducing the Friedman Sales technique to their stores and that they’re going to train all the staff in it.
Apparently this Friedman technique is the proverbial bee’s knees, but an internet search turns up little of substance- lots of consultancy pages saying how great the technique is, and how it will magically make everything better for the client’s store, but no details anywhere on what the nuts and bolts actually are.
Since I don’t trust our Head Office not to get wind of this and try and implement it themselves (Everyone in the retail industry talks to everyone else, even at corporate level), I figure forewarned is forearmed.
There’s a bit of info here about the originator of the process - reading around a bit, it sounds like it might actually be profitable for companies to implement, but it does also sound like there’s a significant bullshit component to it, at least as far as the shop floor workers are concerned.
Warning! Warning, Dr. Smith! My Bullshit Alarm is sounding!
The whole thing appears to be an excuse for Corporations to blame their staff for not selling products to customers that aren’t walking through the door and/or failing to meet impossible sales targets.
“Hey, it’s not our fault we don’t spend any money on advertising and as a result you’ve got no customers coming through the door. You’re just not Thinking Optimally™.”
It’s also exactly the sort of thing our Head Office would love. I’ve got a very bad feeling about this…
I’m not sure whether the Friedman Process is a subset of the Optimal Thinking thing, or vice versa, or whether it’s just getting an honourable mention there - it’s unclear. Even if they are mere bedfellows though, it bodes ominous.
I’ve been doing a bit more research on the whole thing, and I’m getting a lot of “Bullshittery” and “Blame the staff” vibes from what I’ve managed to find.
I think Optimal Thinking is a subset of the Friedman Process, or at least tangentially related. As you say though, the whole thing does not appear to bode well…
I’d like more information about this. Specifically, I’d like to know how the Customer Segments are labeled, so if I get the sense that a salesman is trying to Friedman me, I can say, “Dude, I’m in Segment Gamma,” or whichever category translates to “this customer will respond best if you back off, leave him alone, don’t hassle him, and wait for him to come to you with questions on his own schedule.”