Sunday, December 9, 2007

Place Review: Franklin Covey Store, Lake Mary, FL

The year is almost over and it's time for 2008 planner pages. I've been a SevenHabitest for about ten years now, so my obvious choice is the Franklin Covey Day Planner. I've been using the 7 Habits planning pages for years and they've worked great. Recently, though, I converted to Morgensternism (Julie Morgenstern, Time Management from the Inside Out), and I was worried because the 7 Habits pages don't necessarily fit with how I want to implement some of Morgenstern's suggestions.

Long story short, Morgensternism happens to be a sect of SevenHabitism and Ms. Morgenstern has designed planning pages which are available at the Franklin Covey store right here in Lake Mary at the Seminole Town Center. Could life get better than this?!

I walked into Franklin Covey last week and noticed that, hey, it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas. There were classy, and strategically secular, decorations sparsely placed in key locations and the store was cleverly arranged to highlight their extensive "afterthought" items such as pens and planner markers.

Most of all, though, what made it really look a lot like Christmas were completely inexperienced staff members who were clearly trying to earn an extra buck for Christmas shopping lists. This was one of the most annoying, wasteful and, yes, inefficient, shopping experiences I have had since I haggled some imitation mother of pearl coffee table coasters from a kid in front of the Taj Mahal.

When I asked for the Morgenstern product, I was handed a "demo." I asked two or three questions, each of which was answered with a blank look and half hearted gesture towards the "demo." The problem was, and I found this after I bought the pages, that the demo planner was incomplete. As a result, I ended up buying duplicate items thinking they were not included in the package I wanted to buy. After all, every time I asked a question, I was referred to the all mighty and powerful "demo."

What was most annoying about this experience is that all this happened not at Wal-Mart, but at Franklin Covey, paragon and lasting symbol of the 20th century paradigm shift, integrative business practices and the famed "First things first" philosphy. They should be training their store employees to be effective before they sell items intended to make others effective. How's that for putting first things first, Steve?

Money wasted on non-returnable duplicates: $15.
Gas driving back and forth from the mall: $2

Satisfaction knowing that I can buy these products on the Internet next year, thereby avoiding the hassle of having to deal with a totally incompetent sales staff: Priceless.

Labels:

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home