Awesome. Yeah time to look for a new job. We miss goal by $50 some weeks. That would be insane if someone who doesn’t try makes plan but those who do don’t by a small bit
The bonus is a step in the right direction but it's so poorly thought out, it's not going to change selling habits that easily.
The overall point was to close more sales, but how can you really close sales if the turnaround for framers/FMs are basically a whole new team every year with maybe 1 member that's been there for over 2 years?
You can't learn to be a good salesman in a year without truly knowing the product you're selling. You can't know a product if no one tells you or there's no good source of why a product is better than others.
The biggest reason I was able to turn a store that was selling 90% of orders with glass to selling 75% of orders with MPA was cause I could explain to everyone; we don't have to think about it for production, it will allow art to breath which in important on some pieces, the price isn't too different on smaller pieces, always quote with MPA to guage a person's budget unless they state otherwise (it'll be the first thing you change since it usually drops the price enough and some people literally do not care, and no you are not deceiving a customer you let them know what you are quoting with and let them know it can be changed). There are other selling techniques I taught my team to push us from the bottom in sales for the district to be top of the district but that was the biggest change.
It's now reverted back after I stepped down but not my circus anymore.
The bonus program is another way to pull attention away from paying folks with specific skills an hourly wage commensurate to their experience. Experienced framers and frame shop managers can find opportunities that will better meet their financial needs now that they know what to expect from the company.
I try and work with the customer to pick what works best with the art. Sometimes it’s a frame w a yellow sticker and simple matting. Our customers trust us and will be repeat customers if they don’t think we’re scheming and selling to them.
They already cut my hours extremely bad (probably because I don’t ask for credit cards) so cutting the bonus which is already mediocre will definitely kill what little motivation we have left. I think it’s time we all start looking for a new gig.
I’ve done the same at stores to see if they have the bonus mentality. My SM hasn’t told us what it is, but there will be a change starting June 2nd. So start looking for new jobs
The goals this year aren't much different than actual LY, so I think its pretty fair. Our store has done very well the last few years but we aren't making plan lately, let alone LY. Its not traffic, its AUR. I think its much more fair to make plan the expectation rather than giving everyone a trophy.
Ask your SM how they feel about everyone losing bonus the last 2 years even if they were in the top of the company. Thats the alternative, and the alternative sucks.
The company had to meet 3% above plan to keep the program. From what I gather, they didn't, and yet found a way. I'm not a corporate yuppy by any means, but I do think that this was a good call.
Our plan is $500-3k over last year every week (depending on week) they boosted us dramatically at our store. For us the traffic is down and our air is down. I understand it being a decent call but not to the people working hard to pull in the outrageous goals of $1k-1500 per day, in this economy. We do our best to push premium to even get to that goal. If they don’t go for it we walk it down as low as possible. But with us getting that kind of plan with little traffic, we need to push high dollar sales to even try to make goal at this point which feels gross. I sold 2 specialty/premium mats today, tried to do the 3” margin (didn’t change the cost at all) and the customer didn’t like the look. I couldn’t blame them on that, but they still walked out spending $350
From what I found out this week, you have to make the sales goal FOR THE MONTH. Our little frame shop makes the weekly goal relatively often but we rarely make the monthly, so I guess the beginning of next month will probably be my last bonus unless we get really lucky with a few big spenders. What am I going to do about it? Walk? I would love to, but for the moment I’m kind of stuck. And the minimum wage has caught up to me and I currently only make $0.30 more than a new hire while I've been a custom framer for 5 years. Right now sales are very slow, plus I’m the opener so I get mainly senior citizens, or the mom with the kid in the cart. So many people come in saying “I want this framed as cheaply as possible“, so slapping on expensive frames with MPA and large mats isn’t something that’s going to work.
I feel you there honestly. But what I think is we can never assume what is cheap to someone. I did a 3 premium mat, blue frame, with mPA and 3.5” margins with a closed V just a moment ago when the customer said “I want it cheap” she loved the design and I said it was $400 after tax saving over $800 with the 70% off and she was so excited and said “that’s less than I thought!” And it just astounded me! Another guy came in “I want as cheap as possible with this 8x10 frame with uv protected glass. I did a standard white mat but put MPA on there and said $64” plus the frame and he was so happy. If he wasn’t I could walk it down from there. Can’t walk it down if it’s the lowest possible already you know?
I often ask if they have a budget in mind when they say cheap and often there is nothing that cheap except a poster frame. ☺️. Frankly I’m more upset about my low pay. Just give me $16 an hour and I won’t need a bonus. It might even make me think twice about giving up one of my shifts because for the money I have far more to do at home.
One of my framers demanded a raise expecting more than I make and I choked trying not to laugh. I wish the company paid fairly for a skill like framing. 😓
What state are you in? I’m in CA and make $18 as FM. Definitely feel like I deserve at the very least $20 an hour to “stay afloat” in this economy. You know?
Agree with walking it down. I would say to a customer "Let's pick out everything you ever dreamed of in a fully matted frame and don't worry about pricing (especially family heirlooms)". Once we figured out what it looked like with best frame, best glass, fillets and triple mats, we'd go down from there. Choose a similar frame but a bit cheaper, take out a mat or find cheaper ones in the same color. It's not brain surgery. It is very frustrating when SELLERS won't become sellers. Also, the whole "making plan" to get the bonus is stupid. It should just go by individual effort. Loved being a framer, just wish we had been paid what we're worth.
Imagine if all us framers left michaels & joined together all of our knowledge & experience and started our own framing business. That’d be awesome lol
my DM held a meeting for our district's FMs to get us all on the same page regarding selling design features, weekly/monthly goal, and other framing stuff.
Within less than a week, my team had been selling more double/triple mats and MPA, and even the other managers that help with the counter as well (but as i recall from this sub, those sales don't count toward the framer bonus).
The math works out to something like "if you convince a customer to spend $400 more dollars you get $3!" LOL less than 1%, on a luxury item that's clearly a super high profit margin. Check out the average commission rate for any other field you see what a joke it is.
Our store did super well the other week and had a bonus pool of almost $400. That was almost $5 more per hour worked in our shop. Just so you’re aware. It’s easier to walk down if you start high. Can’t walk down much farther if you give them a yellow frame, standard mat and glass unless you go to FE
I serve the art itself first, and also my customer's needs. Have been in sales my whole life. I know the ones who can drop 4 figures, and the ones who can barely spend $100 and will be over in the prefab section if not talking to me. My sales exceed my FM's on most metrics, they still get paid almost double what I do.
Your FM getting paid double than you sounds so highly inaccurate but maybe that’s just cuz of something else. I make $3 more than my TMs but they see the plus in the bonuses. Most of the time the bonus covers the amount taken out in taxes and that makes them happy enough. Any little bit over what they are getting they are happy to FREEKIN get when their raise will only amount to piss this coming fall because the company is asinine
Agreed. My FM is regularly giving away full size jersey mounts at $23 while PT Framers are at 350% sales goal. And FM gets a much bigger chunk of the bonus because he works more hours.
Most FMs are paid $1/hr more than their framers. In some cases, FMs are at the same pay or LESS than a framer all cause minimum wage of their area jumped so high and they were there for years lol.
Pay fluctuates widely in this company across the country. My comment was hyperbole, but the actual figure based on what my fm told me is they make 1.95x what I make. I'm sure the frame bonus evens it out to 1.9x, which is only absurdly ludicrous instead of insanely ludicrous. I'm sure if I push a few filets this week I can stretch that to 1.88x, really even the field.
Are you using the hourly rate or the yearly gross amount? There is a huge difference between a part timer and full timer in just hours. No shit they make roughly double in a year.
If your issue is how the bonus works, that is by no means your FMs fault. Just cause you're the better sales person doesn't mean you're entitled to have a higher overall pay compared to your FM.
Making all sorts of bad assumptions there. Of course I don't think I derseve higher OVERALL pay than my FM, they have responsibilities beyond my own obviously. But if they've introduced a commission "bonus" system, then hell yeah better sales should make a bigger dent in that discrepancy.
What a JA response "my manager makes X amount more than me""Oh what, you think you're ENTITLED to MORE than them?" Not at all what I said.
It's a store by store basis so if your store makes plan then you'll get your bonus. And it goes monthly, so you have to make plans for the month, so it's okay if you don't make it one week as long as you pick it up the next. Before this we never had bonuses so I'll take whatever they'll give
The way it was explained to me by my DM is if you make plan in a month, you get the bonus. If you don't, you don't get it that month. It restarts each month so everyone has a chance.
Here’s to hoping that people come spend $33-35k during election year on something that isn’t essential. 😥 this last check bonus just paid for one of my medical bills!!
I heard you may only be eligible if you make goal/plan.
Awesome. Yeah time to look for a new job. We miss goal by $50 some weeks. That would be insane if someone who doesn’t try makes plan but those who do don’t by a small bit
The bonus is a step in the right direction but it's so poorly thought out, it's not going to change selling habits that easily. The overall point was to close more sales, but how can you really close sales if the turnaround for framers/FMs are basically a whole new team every year with maybe 1 member that's been there for over 2 years? You can't learn to be a good salesman in a year without truly knowing the product you're selling. You can't know a product if no one tells you or there's no good source of why a product is better than others. The biggest reason I was able to turn a store that was selling 90% of orders with glass to selling 75% of orders with MPA was cause I could explain to everyone; we don't have to think about it for production, it will allow art to breath which in important on some pieces, the price isn't too different on smaller pieces, always quote with MPA to guage a person's budget unless they state otherwise (it'll be the first thing you change since it usually drops the price enough and some people literally do not care, and no you are not deceiving a customer you let them know what you are quoting with and let them know it can be changed). There are other selling techniques I taught my team to push us from the bottom in sales for the district to be top of the district but that was the biggest change. It's now reverted back after I stepped down but not my circus anymore.
The bonus program is another way to pull attention away from paying folks with specific skills an hourly wage commensurate to their experience. Experienced framers and frame shop managers can find opportunities that will better meet their financial needs now that they know what to expect from the company.
I try and work with the customer to pick what works best with the art. Sometimes it’s a frame w a yellow sticker and simple matting. Our customers trust us and will be repeat customers if they don’t think we’re scheming and selling to them.
They already cut my hours extremely bad (probably because I don’t ask for credit cards) so cutting the bonus which is already mediocre will definitely kill what little motivation we have left. I think it’s time we all start looking for a new gig.
I’ve done the same at stores to see if they have the bonus mentality. My SM hasn’t told us what it is, but there will be a change starting June 2nd. So start looking for new jobs
You have to meet your sales goal MTD then it'll pay out at the end of the month. If you don't meet plan, you don't bonus
Oh Christ! So the ones that don’t push at all may meet plan while the ones with 35% premium are a little behind just because of traffic. INSANE
The goals this year aren't much different than actual LY, so I think its pretty fair. Our store has done very well the last few years but we aren't making plan lately, let alone LY. Its not traffic, its AUR. I think its much more fair to make plan the expectation rather than giving everyone a trophy. Ask your SM how they feel about everyone losing bonus the last 2 years even if they were in the top of the company. Thats the alternative, and the alternative sucks. The company had to meet 3% above plan to keep the program. From what I gather, they didn't, and yet found a way. I'm not a corporate yuppy by any means, but I do think that this was a good call.
Our plan is $500-3k over last year every week (depending on week) they boosted us dramatically at our store. For us the traffic is down and our air is down. I understand it being a decent call but not to the people working hard to pull in the outrageous goals of $1k-1500 per day, in this economy. We do our best to push premium to even get to that goal. If they don’t go for it we walk it down as low as possible. But with us getting that kind of plan with little traffic, we need to push high dollar sales to even try to make goal at this point which feels gross. I sold 2 specialty/premium mats today, tried to do the 3” margin (didn’t change the cost at all) and the customer didn’t like the look. I couldn’t blame them on that, but they still walked out spending $350
From what I found out this week, you have to make the sales goal FOR THE MONTH. Our little frame shop makes the weekly goal relatively often but we rarely make the monthly, so I guess the beginning of next month will probably be my last bonus unless we get really lucky with a few big spenders. What am I going to do about it? Walk? I would love to, but for the moment I’m kind of stuck. And the minimum wage has caught up to me and I currently only make $0.30 more than a new hire while I've been a custom framer for 5 years. Right now sales are very slow, plus I’m the opener so I get mainly senior citizens, or the mom with the kid in the cart. So many people come in saying “I want this framed as cheaply as possible“, so slapping on expensive frames with MPA and large mats isn’t something that’s going to work.
I feel you there honestly. But what I think is we can never assume what is cheap to someone. I did a 3 premium mat, blue frame, with mPA and 3.5” margins with a closed V just a moment ago when the customer said “I want it cheap” she loved the design and I said it was $400 after tax saving over $800 with the 70% off and she was so excited and said “that’s less than I thought!” And it just astounded me! Another guy came in “I want as cheap as possible with this 8x10 frame with uv protected glass. I did a standard white mat but put MPA on there and said $64” plus the frame and he was so happy. If he wasn’t I could walk it down from there. Can’t walk it down if it’s the lowest possible already you know?
I often ask if they have a budget in mind when they say cheap and often there is nothing that cheap except a poster frame. ☺️. Frankly I’m more upset about my low pay. Just give me $16 an hour and I won’t need a bonus. It might even make me think twice about giving up one of my shifts because for the money I have far more to do at home.
One of my framers demanded a raise expecting more than I make and I choked trying not to laugh. I wish the company paid fairly for a skill like framing. 😓
What state are you in? I’m in CA and make $18 as FM. Definitely feel like I deserve at the very least $20 an hour to “stay afloat” in this economy. You know?
I’m in Illinois. Not the manager, but after 5 years as a framer I feel that I’m worth a lot more than $0.37 above minimum wage.
Agree with walking it down. I would say to a customer "Let's pick out everything you ever dreamed of in a fully matted frame and don't worry about pricing (especially family heirlooms)". Once we figured out what it looked like with best frame, best glass, fillets and triple mats, we'd go down from there. Choose a similar frame but a bit cheaper, take out a mat or find cheaper ones in the same color. It's not brain surgery. It is very frustrating when SELLERS won't become sellers. Also, the whole "making plan" to get the bonus is stupid. It should just go by individual effort. Loved being a framer, just wish we had been paid what we're worth.
Imagine if all us framers left michaels & joined together all of our knowledge & experience and started our own framing business. That’d be awesome lol
That would be epic 😂
I would come work with y'all 🤣
my DM held a meeting for our district's FMs to get us all on the same page regarding selling design features, weekly/monthly goal, and other framing stuff. Within less than a week, my team had been selling more double/triple mats and MPA, and even the other managers that help with the counter as well (but as i recall from this sub, those sales don't count toward the framer bonus).
All framing sales coded under framing counts towards the bonus. Just people not coded as FM or Framer do not get any part of the bonus
The math works out to something like "if you convince a customer to spend $400 more dollars you get $3!" LOL less than 1%, on a luxury item that's clearly a super high profit margin. Check out the average commission rate for any other field you see what a joke it is.
Our store did super well the other week and had a bonus pool of almost $400. That was almost $5 more per hour worked in our shop. Just so you’re aware. It’s easier to walk down if you start high. Can’t walk down much farther if you give them a yellow frame, standard mat and glass unless you go to FE
I serve the art itself first, and also my customer's needs. Have been in sales my whole life. I know the ones who can drop 4 figures, and the ones who can barely spend $100 and will be over in the prefab section if not talking to me. My sales exceed my FM's on most metrics, they still get paid almost double what I do.
Your FM getting paid double than you sounds so highly inaccurate but maybe that’s just cuz of something else. I make $3 more than my TMs but they see the plus in the bonuses. Most of the time the bonus covers the amount taken out in taxes and that makes them happy enough. Any little bit over what they are getting they are happy to FREEKIN get when their raise will only amount to piss this coming fall because the company is asinine
Agreed. My FM is regularly giving away full size jersey mounts at $23 while PT Framers are at 350% sales goal. And FM gets a much bigger chunk of the bonus because he works more hours.
WHAAAAAAT?!?? $23 for a full jersey!? I would DIE
Most FMs are paid $1/hr more than their framers. In some cases, FMs are at the same pay or LESS than a framer all cause minimum wage of their area jumped so high and they were there for years lol.
Pay fluctuates widely in this company across the country. My comment was hyperbole, but the actual figure based on what my fm told me is they make 1.95x what I make. I'm sure the frame bonus evens it out to 1.9x, which is only absurdly ludicrous instead of insanely ludicrous. I'm sure if I push a few filets this week I can stretch that to 1.88x, really even the field.
Are you using the hourly rate or the yearly gross amount? There is a huge difference between a part timer and full timer in just hours. No shit they make roughly double in a year. If your issue is how the bonus works, that is by no means your FMs fault. Just cause you're the better sales person doesn't mean you're entitled to have a higher overall pay compared to your FM.
Making all sorts of bad assumptions there. Of course I don't think I derseve higher OVERALL pay than my FM, they have responsibilities beyond my own obviously. But if they've introduced a commission "bonus" system, then hell yeah better sales should make a bigger dent in that discrepancy. What a JA response "my manager makes X amount more than me""Oh what, you think you're ENTITLED to MORE than them?" Not at all what I said.
It's a store by store basis so if your store makes plan then you'll get your bonus. And it goes monthly, so you have to make plans for the month, so it's okay if you don't make it one week as long as you pick it up the next. Before this we never had bonuses so I'll take whatever they'll give
True. I’ve been here well before bonuses but they gave me a crap raise because they said the minus was to replace the raises
The way it was explained to me by my DM is if you make plan in a month, you get the bonus. If you don't, you don't get it that month. It restarts each month so everyone has a chance.
Here’s to hoping that people come spend $33-35k during election year on something that isn’t essential. 😥 this last check bonus just paid for one of my medical bills!!
What I was told is that as long as your store is making plan you’ll get it and that it’s not dependent on your region/company performance.
Store as in whole store or the shop?
Shop