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calvin, how does that one work when i wander into a GW to buy something shiney and get 24 bloodcrushers?

is it commission based sales?

No, there is no sales bonus (or indeed a bonus of any kind - the pay is s#17!)

What happened there was the staffer simply saw the skull rune of Khorne branded into your forehead and pointed you in the appropriate direction.

Its called 'customer empathy'...

In my store it really depends on who is helping you or manning the till. Some just let you go about your own business while others (them newbies) will shove the latest releases under your nose or make "friendly suggestions" on what you need for that army. You know the drill: you go in to get a pot of paint and they try to make you leave with the entire case of paints.

Does the love of the Space Emperor count as commission?

Nobody works at GW for the money.

what kind of bloody incentive is that? :(
should be paid commission.


hah, in the portsmouth store they know me pretty well, usually due to scaring people with random things
(last oh which was 3 old style plastic dragons and 9 fex's)
which then got turned, chopped and converted into 6 fex's and 3 trygons

If you want a commission you should work for Dixons.

i know, but it must be annoying at times to see someone buying £300+ worth of stuff and you wont see any of that ontop of your wages.

I'm glad GW doesn't hand out commissions because then a lot of the employees would be really persistent in their advises and chase away more potential new customers.

i know, but they get to know regular people
in portsmouth they are mainly sat painting lol.

Chimea Calvin speaks the truthzorz!

Far as I'm concerned getting to know the parents is the key to success. Go to show them the Hobby side and the benefits it can bring (increased mental arithmetic, reading comprehension and believe it or not social skills, as well as patience!).

If you ask me, only Noobs and idiots go for the big sale everytime. Thats no way to get a Core gamer. All you achieve there is an artificially high average sale which you stand no chance of maintaining. Of course, some bigger things sell themselves. During the interview, we did some Roleplays. One was a mumsie in to buy 'Green Robots'. So I went about visual identification of the 'Green Robots' which I assumed, seemingly correctly, to be Dark Angels. Avoiding the technical side of things, I winkled out enough information to sell her a box of Devastators, and a box of Assault Marines. Explain although not green, they are the right models just in a different colour (she doesn't need to know there are Chapters, that they are actually men in Suits etc) all with the guarantee if they aren't what he was after, we'd happily exchange them for what her son wants, as long as the receipt is present and they haven't been opened. Bingo, one sale of £30 or so. Also promoted BEginners Sunday and free painting etc, giving her an invite in her sons name to come down and play.

Second one was a businessman in for a browse, who went straight over to the Fantasy section. Quick hello and a leading question or two, and I'd established he was a lapsed gamer, who last played during the Drastic Plastic phase leading up to 4th Edition. Chinwag about the difference between then and now, bigged up Veterans night (including pointing out we tend to go the pub afterwards, which I thought was a nice, denerdifying touch). He was contemplative of getting some Orc's to paint, and I bagged a sale of a Batallion, pusing it's extra value and the appeal of it's broad contents. Finished the sale with giving him a note about Vets nights, when and where essentially.

So, yeah. I'm all about growing the hobby, rather than just the sales.

JD...this is the sort of job you do out of love for your hobby. And the discount. The discount doesn't hurt one bit!

doc, in that 1st phrase you missed out a key point.

in doing so and starting gaming it does keep them away from the whole drink and drugs side of life.
i think parents would prefer thier kids to spend money on this than to be spending it on other things.

True enough! Also, for the less Sports inclined, it's a good way to instil a little healthy competitiveness in the kids. Like it or not, you do need to be competitive in this day and age.

Plus, running a Schools League (I've been CRB'd 4 times now, possibly more as they need to do it fairly regularly to keep tabs, so thats no worry to me) means the Geeky kids can put some silverware in the school cabinet. Is that not genius? Can you feel the glimmer of self esteem flaring up in them?

I wonder how much one of those Wooden Shields would set me back? Can't be that expensive, surely? http://www.a1trophies.com/product.asp?pID=726&cID=34 Didn't think so! Definitely need to pick one of those up at some point if this goes ahead. The bigger the trophy, the bigger the honour after all!

School's league is a good idea.

Next time the area manager drops in see if he can arrange for the winner to get a bye into the national schools league or something like that.

As soon as you mention 'National Competition' within earshot of a school headmaster their little beady eyes light up at the prospect of some good press (yes, I was a teacher before I was a GW staffer - its been a varied career...)

Doc, if you want a trophy made mate theres a place in Fareham (small town between portsmouth and southampton) call catastrophies.
they do send custom trophies to the states, and they are very cheap, might be worth checking out.

Chimera_Calvin wrote:School's league is a good idea.

Next time the area manager drops in see if he can arrange for the winner to get a bye into the national schools league or something like that.

As soon as you mention 'National Competition' within earshot of a school headmaster their little beady eyes light up at the prospect of some good press (yes, I was a teacher before I was a GW staffer - its been a varied career...)

True, true.

Still, extremely early days at the moment. All I know is that most correspondence between GW's and Schools has to go through Lenton. I guess this is Child Protection type stuff which I am all in favour of. Though this reminds me, I need to phone the other store to arrange my trial day!

good luck with it all doc
if you need any help drop me a PM and ill do what i can for ya.

seconded - I live too far away to give any practical help but if you need any advice I'm happy to help.

Good luck with it all

Thank you guys!

Anyone else have anything to contribute?

windswept313 wrote:

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Lets look at your idea. You want to introduce a game into schools that is notorious for things like idolotry and a large amount of mobid images Guess you didnt think of this. What happens when the first right wing religious parent sees her Johnny playing a game with these images. Hmm better yet hes painting skulls and pointy things, and screaming kill, maim, burn in the basement when he should be at Sunday School sorry wont sit well with the PTA. Dont fuel the argument that these games get kids to bring guns to school.....

Any time you think of introducing something into the school system you should think long and hard about what you are bringing to children. There is a reason GW doesnt recruit at schools becuase they are a mature content game.

You misspelled morbid.

But I agree with the whole introducing models with guns to school. In america, you can get expelled for bringing an army man to school. I don't know about english school policies, but we are overly strict across the atlantic.

The schools clubs are pre-existing, so no problem forseen there.

Plus, it arguably means the parents turning up a little bit before game end, meaning I can establish a rapport with them there and then!

I'm gonna talk a bit about the hobby community. You are the face of GW at your store. How people perceive your store depends on how they perceive you. Your first and most important order of business is to always expand the hobby community by talking to everyone. We used to joke that the first rule of gamer's club was to tell everyone about gamer's club. I think this is exceptionally difficult, because many red shirts have pre-canned responses or have difficulty with rudeness. Your first and most important thing is to talk to everyone and make them feel at ease in the store.

This leads me to my next point. Every gamer is different. Every new player is different. It is up to you as a red shirt to find out what your hobby community wants and give it to them. That means you always have to ask questions and get input all the time about what people think about things. What works, what doesn't. It's not hard to get people into the store...the key is getting them to stay. That takes a lot of trial and error and a lot of talking on your part.

Retention is a matter of both perception (their first impression) and whether or not your store fulfills their needs. The GW handbook talks quite a bit about needs and wants, and the vast majority of red shirts fail at this task. There's been a lot of talk on the boards about a certain someone going to a certain GW store and blowing off the redshirt because the store didn't have what he wanted. That first impression is forever, and enough fails like that will make or break a store.

The standard GW example is the new kid that comes in and complains that he's going to quit the hobby. If you get him to talk and find out why, you hear that he has trouble painting his marines to a certain standard. What he needs is a paint lesson and possibly some modelling help. If you didn't talk to him you wouldn't know that. Many redshirts fail in this regard and continually try to sell people something. If you give him what he needs, you probably will retain that customer. Even if not, his satisfaction affects other people in the store and he might actually tell other people of his positive experience.

I always say, "I'm here for you...I'm not on commission, and I'm not going to pitch something to you unless I think it's a really good idea. I am NOT trying to rip you off or take advantage of you." It's really hard at first to get people to understand that.

It's actually good that there isn't commission. In the used car sales approach, it works because after you rip someone off, they never come back; but who care! You made your money!

However, if you sell a starter box and that person never comes back you failed miserably as a redshirt. There's a wrong and a right way to do things, and commission simply gives red shirts the wrong idea.

Oh, I have one last bit of advice...pace yourself. Spend your first few months getting input. If you have an idea, see if another redshirt has tried something similar and how it worked out for him. Don't burn out. Being a redshirt is a difficult and potentially intense job. You need to set your limits early, or you will burn out on the job.