The ‘Daily Download’

What keeps Apple Store cranking? A daily all-hands briefing that any retail merchant ought to consider.

The Company:

Apple Retail Stores of Apple Inc.

The Practice:

Each morning before the opening shift at most Apple Retail Stores, store managers call staffers together for a short, all-hands briefing called the “Daily Download.” Managers call out highlights and star performers from the previous day, and hand out new assignments to mobilize staff around key goals.

The Formula:

1. Keep it quick, with a hard stop.

   The store manager typically calls the meeting 10 or 15 minutes before the doors first open, so there’s no time for idle chatter. Everyone — cashiers, inventory folks, managers, orange-shirted concierges, Mac “Geni” — gathers out in the open, on the floor, and not always in the same spot. “It’s informal,” says one former Apple Retail Store employee, “and some folks are standing and others are sitting. But everyone is paying attention.”

2. Celebrate and track achievements from the previous day.

   The manager kicks off the meeting by recounting a few store highlights from the previous day, and briefs everyone on how the store is tracking against important goals -- whether it’s sales of iPhones, iPods, iMacs, ProCare memberships, or other products. Next, the manager chalks off a few minutes calling out staffers who notched noteworthy individual achievements. Most are about top sales performers, but others are about service -- life-changing customer testimonials, for example, which often get passed up to Steve Jobs. Apple Retail employees don’t work on commission, so daily recognition of the store’s top performers makes the Daily Download a big draw. It also breeds healthy competition. Says the former staffer: “Everyone knows who the rock stars are so they’ll often come up to you later and ask how you did it.”

3. Announce your staff lineup for the day.

   Next, the store manager reads off a clipboard and hands out assignments, roll-call style, to every employee by name. Wherever manpower is needed that day — the iPhone tables during a rush, for example, or the Genius Bar after a new Apple OS debuts — the assignments have two goals: First is load-balance the staff to handle customer traffic where it’s spiking; second is to place the store’s real sales stars where they are most likely to shine. And for the employees who don’t work the opening shift? Apple puts the meeting highlights up on a large Apple display in the breakroom — running Keynote, of course, not PowerPoint.

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