Latest / Sleeping Barber - A Marketing Podcast / SBP 240: SBP Interview - Target Canada: The Rise and Fall of a Promise, with Omar Roubi

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SBP 240: SBP Interview - Target Canada: The Rise and Fall of a Promise, with Omar Roubi · Sleeping Barber - A Marketing Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Sleeping Baba podcast.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: There is a lack of thought.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's lack of vision.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: This is a classic example of bad decision making.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: And one bad decision begets more bad decisions.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: I feel pretty confident that if I was in the room or the average professional was in the room, they would take a pause at least to see if this is the viable way to enter the Canadian market.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: But that decision that signed their death certificate.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_03: Then it came to Canada, lost billions, and walked away within four years.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_03: Past success doesn't buy you the next market.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_03: This is the story about Big M and Little M marketing.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_03: Little M is the advertising, Big M is everything else.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_03: Think product, price, place, and how the whole business organizes around the customer.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_03: Now Target's advertising was excellent, and so was its promise.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_03: You know, expect more, pay less.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_03: Roger Martin says the promise has to be memorable, valuable, and even deliverable.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_03: Advertising makes it memorable.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_03: We can all agree with that.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_03: Price and place make it valuable.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_03: Product, however, is what makes it deliverable.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_03: Marketing really only owns the first one in this case.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_03: So in Canada, Target broke that promise.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_03: And none of the reasons had anything to do with ads.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_03: So here to really unpack this is Omar Ruby, CPA educator, director of education and content at Lumiku.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_03: He's also an accounting instructor at the University of Colorado in Denver.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_03: He joined us back in episode 93 to talk through financial metrics for marketers, but he's also built that did an affinitive audio case study on Target Canada.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_03: And he also has a personal angle to this story as well.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_03: Omar, welcome back to the show.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: V-Mark, appreciate being here.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me back.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so excited to have you here.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_04: This is such a great conversation and such an amazing case study.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_04: Like there's so much into this totally Target story.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: There's a little bit for everyone.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: I I find like I every time I revisit it, there's a different angle I could go deep on there.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think even the I appreciate the kind words as far as the definitive audio case on Target Canada.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think, you know, I listened back to it in preparation for this, and I think there's so much more we could go into.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many different angles or more depth we could go because as time passes, it's been you know over 10 years uh since this happened, more layers are being are being peeled back and more analysis is done.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: And myself, just my own business acumen has grown as well.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I have different insights now than I did when we worked on this, you know, five plus years ago.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: So but I'm I'm always happy to revisit this and excited to chat about the two of you.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's such a great case study.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I think like Mark said, that there are so many layers to this that I think that's interesting when you think about it from a you know capital M perspective, product price, place, and promotion.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_03: And often, you know, as marketers, we have only focused on the one side, the advertising side.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_03: So I think getting into this, into that kind of depth is gonna be great.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_03: So just quickly, so last time you were on, you were hearing you talked about the language gap between marketing and finance and that abstract that really exists.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_03: This time, you're we're really gonna go into this case study.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_03: So, first of all, how did you end up telling the story originally?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_03: What was that personal collection that you personal connection that you had to it?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like I lived it tangentially, my wife.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: So kind of going back just a little bit.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm from Southern Ontario here, but I went to school in Texas, met my wife there.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: She's American, born and raised in Texas, worked for Target in the U.S., I was a high riser there, was a high performer.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: She was chosen, chosen with a bunch of her colleagues to move to Canada to help launch a Target in Canada.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: And she was in charge of the Toronto area stores, a handful uh there.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: She helped oversee.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: So in 2012, you know, we packed up, we moved.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Also at that time, we just had our first child, Eloise.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: She was three months old when she moved from there.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: So my wife, you know, for me, I was very excited because I had always wanted to come back to Canada.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, my wife had never lived outside of Texas her entire life.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: So not only moving, you know, from state to state, she moved to a different country where she'd spent some time, you know, visiting my family and friends.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: But that's different than living there.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: And especially, you know, we were living in downtown Toronto, and it it was a beast.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're moving from a suburb to a huge city in north in North America.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: It was even for myself, it was overwhelming.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I can only imagine what was going through her mind.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, she helped launch the targets in the area, was involved there.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember when she came home after her first day, she goes to me and she's like, Omar, this is you know, part of my French, this is a shit show.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that was day one.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: Day one.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: Day one.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: That was good.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing was in order.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like there was no real organization.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: And this is just like one store she was dealing with at that time.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like she had just met with the the leadership team there, and you know, there was just no no one was owning the process, I would say is is my interpretation of it.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure she can give you a lot more detail there.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: But that's what sparked, you know, obviously uh the personal connection.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then from the business side, obviously, as things unfolded, it's just rich for analysis.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's great material for myself and other educators and other analysts, as we'll talk about throughout this episode.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, the the the reason I really honed in on this is just because I saw the the impact of bad decision making and how it impacted, you know, one individual that I obviously love more than anything there, but extrapolate that over 17,600 people that you know were taking a chance.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Or and I don't think they even thought it was a chance or a risk there.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was in the career.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's Target.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_04: Target's a juggernaut.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_04: Like they're like, how could they fail?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_04: They're too big to fail.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: Too big to be, yeah, honestly.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Too big to fail.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, obviously you guys come from the marketing side.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think Target needed to spend a dime on marketing, to be honest.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: If they just issue one press release saying, hey, we're opening these stores in these locations, yeah, Zia in 2013.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: That would have done yeah.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, from our end, that's part of what makes this case so interesting because a lot of time we go in with from a marketing lens and try and improve ROI, but don't really know all the mechanisms that are delivering that.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_04: We just kind of go, well, the advertising side is the thing that's delivering the ROI.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_04: So this is a great case study that we're gonna unpack.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_04: But before we get into like the reverse engineering of ROI, from a different perspective, because you teach this case study at at the school that you're at, and like from an account side, is there like a I'm sure there's different versions of takeaways you get, but is there a bigger takeaway that they might get that we don't, we might not as a as a group of marketers?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: I I think the I you know I focus in on a lot of the inventory-related issues when I'm teaching it from a technical standpoint because that's just the most applicable to the students.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: So, full disclosure, I teach this to like upper level costs managerial accounting class.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Though, you know, managerial accounting is about using accounting information to make decisions.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's ultimately but that is.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: So from a technical standpoint, look at some of the inventory issues and how that manifests on the on the financials, the how that drags down Target's performance in this case.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: But like I said off the top, there's so many different angles here.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: This is a management story as far as organizational behavior.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: This is a marketing, you know.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if the like the marketing I thought was was great.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: It was a great, it's a it's a good story from a marketing standpoint.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: They built up the hype and the hysteria aro around Target's launch there.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: Supply chain logistics is a huge element here.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: So this can be taught anywhere.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: But as far as like what I the the bigger takeaway I have that I think would apply to any professional is again, there was a lack of thought.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: There was lack of vision.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is a classic example of bad decision making.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: And one bad decision begets more bad decisions.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think I even say that in the the audio case study we did at Lunicure.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: There, they made one bad decision as far as jumping into these leases.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think they really put enough thought into it.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: We can it's easy for us to relitigate after the fact.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I I feel pretty confident that if I was in the room or the average professional is in the room, they would take a pause at least to see if this is the viable way to enter the Canadian market.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: But that decision that signed their death certificate because it put such a time crunch, put such a capital constraint on them there.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I I really preach to my students, make sure you have the necessary relevant information at your hands before you make a huge decision, like, hey, we're gonna open 133 stores in 12 months in a different geographic location.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: If nothing else, I hope I hope they see that there's some merit to that.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_04: If there's ones they could take away today.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: When you have billions on the line, take a pause before you just you just you sign that dotted line.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_03: Well, let how about let let's go back to the start.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_03: So from our understanding, it was the real estate deal that kicked off this whole cascade of maybe bad decisions, uh, etc.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_03: Can you walk us through that deal?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so at the time, Zellar, you know, HBC owned all these Zellers leases and they were looking to offload them in a real estate uh play, essentially.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: And actually Walmart was the one that was looking at and they were pretty close to purchasing those leases uh to expand their footprint in Canada.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_04: Sorry, can I just interrupt for a sec?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_04: Omar, the in case people don't know Zellers, it's like a discount apartment store.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_04: Would you like is that how you phrase it?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: I I think like, you know, you you have your Walmarts and your targets are up, you know, up here, Zellars would be below that, you know.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: What was it?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Everyday is the law or something.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember what their slogan uh was or something there.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it was definitely a discount uh retailer.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: It had clothing, it had apparel, soft lines, hard lines.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it didn't have grocery, I don't believe.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, like it wasn't it's not quite dollar, but it's a level up of some dollar rama and a little bit below Walmart.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's a great way to put it.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: But Richard Baker, I believe, was the the owner at the time or the president, he decided to contact Target.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: There had been rumors for years Target wanted to enter the Canadian market.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Tar tar and it's funny, I you know, Target's presence in the US was so measured.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: And even though they had 1,700 stores in the US, that sounds like a lot, and it is, but they never, you know, tried international expansion.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: They were never aggressive as far as increasing their own footprint.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: So then it that's why this is so out of character, uh, in my opinion.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: But then, yeah, uh, eventually Target agreed to purchase you know 220 Zeller sites for about$1.8 billion paid into installments with the promise as well, excuse me, that they would open at least 130-ish stores within 12 months of that signed agreement there to ensure that like the tenant holders, the the landlords where those sites were, you know, had an anchor in place.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, on on the surface, it was inevitable that Target was going to enter Canada.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: The way they did it, you know, we'll we'll we'll talk about throughout here, but obviously was much more aggressive than their normal, you know, modus operanda, I would say.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: And and again, you know, something I've learned helping build a startup is you really have to stay focused and you have to stay true to your organizational values and and the way you do things there.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: As soon as you pivot and you get distracted, that's where things can, you know, the risk of things going south increases substantially.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, Target Canada is the extreme example, obviously.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they they built fast, they rose fast, uh, but they died fast as well.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_04: So for the Zellers, like we talk about location, location, location.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_04: But and when there's anything to do with real estate, and then what what what did where were the Zellers stores?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_04: Like in what role, and we're like overall, we're talking about place in this section, but what role did the location of the Zellar stores play in in terms of the access to the market for for Target?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like you know, Zellers, as you mentioned, it's between a Dollar Rama and a Walmart and Target.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: So already off the bat, the type of customer that a Zellers was targeting and therefore built sites on, you know, they're targeting a different customer than Target was.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry to keep using the word target.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: But they're aiming, they're marketing, they're the build building near their clientele, which weren't necessarily Target clientele.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Now that being said, I think as Canadians, we're used to traveling a bit when it comes to shopping, if if needed.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I didn't think that necessarily in and of itself was a huge impediment to Target success.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't ideal, but again, if they wanted to get into Canada quickly with some already built-in infrastructure, that was you know smart play on that part.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and I can I can understand the logic of taking over those Zellers sites.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: The issue, though, becomes then, okay, you're putting more of a burden on the customer who's excited to see you, but then so they have to travel a little bit further, maybe in areas of town where they're not used to going or they don't want to be in.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like, let's be frank, Zellers is aimed at a lower income level than a target is there.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: So you're already having clientele coming into parts of town that they're not used to, it's maybe a little bit further away, so you're already putting that burden on them.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then when they get there, the experience that they had has to over, you know, over deliver in that case.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: And as again, as we saw with empty shelves, pricing expectations versus the reality, that experience was not met there.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: And how many times can you, you know, fool a customer to make a longer trek to your store and expect them to come back when they have a negative or at the very least, a neutral experience, plus all that additional work it took them to get there and the inconvenience.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, re retail is so competitive.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: And this is back in 2011, but by then still Amazon was a huge player with Prime.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's only grown there.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: You have to be thinking 360 as far as the customer experience goes there.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: And you want to make it you want to make you want to spoon feed your customer as much as you can.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: You want to make that experience as enjoyable as you can.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: And and clearly the location site wasn't the only reason that Target failed, but it attributed to that, I I think materially.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_04: Even at that, like there's when you were talking about the focus part, I'm like, yeah, like you can you can picture that the decision making of like, okay, well, we've got this amazing opportunity to acquire all these places, we'll we'll they're already there in Canada, like never mind the specific location, but we're in Canada that gets us in.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_04: And then, you know, people are, and this is the lack of focus, maybe, that people come to K to the US to f to Target all the time.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_04: And so they travel, so you know, what is an extra five or ten kilometers?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_04: But it's not the majority of people that are coming all the time to K.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_04: So there is some small portion of people that would go to Target when they go to the US, but not everybody.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_04: So it's kind of yeah, it's interesting thinking about the location playing into that the willingness to drive or the yeah, the the distance they're willing to go for for different things.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like, like I grew up, you know, I I'm in southern Ontario.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: We're 20 minutes from the U.S.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: border.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: As kids, we'd always go over the border to shop.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we go to the outlet mall there.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Your your parents make you wear your oldest clothes, dingiest clothes, because then you go there, you buy new stuff, and you leave your old stuff there.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: You would see in the in those malls, the garbages are full of old shoes and clothing because Canadians will go over the border to buy stuff from whether it's Target or or whatever there.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: So we're used, it's ingrained in our consumer behavior to some extent.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, as we know the population, the vast, vast majority of it lives relatively close to the U.S.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: border.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: So that's we're we're used to that to some extent.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: We know that there's more options in the U.S.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: and everything.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: So we're when needed, we're willing to travel there.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: This again, it just makes the this failure so dumbfounding.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like I keep thinking about it, I keep coming to how easy this should have been there.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like we were begging for a competitor to Walmart, we're begging for more options just in general there.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: And the again, I I just yeah, I I'm almost you know short for words sometimes when I keep thinking about it because I my head's just spinning and everything there.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: But we're used to that travel uh to some extent.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: There is ingrained in our consumer behavior to some extent, but you have to deliver when you get there, and the store has to deliver when the consumer arrives there, and and obviously that was a shortcoming with Target Canada.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and that it also has to be something there because they inherited these locations instead of essentially going out and choosing their own.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_03: Because one would argue you could go in, I want to do two pilot stores and two big cities, Montreal and and Toronto, and you find a couple locations and you kind of launch.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_03: They just went all out right from the beginning, which I think you're right.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_03: Like that does feel a little odd when it is genuinely a new market that does behave.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_03: There are similarities to us in the US, shopping behaviors and things like that, but there are nuances as well.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I I think you know, you can do there there is I I from what I could tell, there wasn't a lot of due diligence on the Canadian market from a consumer behavior standpoint being done.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: They it's like they bought the building first and then they decided to build the business after the fact, which is obviously not ideal as far as order of operations goes there.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: That being said, to your point, V, there is a lot of similarities between Canada and U.S.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: We are an extension of them to some extent.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: We're influenced by their media, their consumer behavior, their their the goods that they they produce and and and sell and everything there.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not one-to-one, but there is a lot of overlap.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: So just like the small things that they overlooked, or small to you know, common things that the three of us would take for granted, but they overlooked their, you know, the imperial metric conversion, not understanding the geography of the country there and having only three distribution centers across what is it, like almost 6,000 kilometers uh wide.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like that seems insane.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: But that's what they did.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, these are highly intelligent, highly paid, highly compensated individuals that are making these decisions, and it is just it's it's shocking.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think that I think that's also what this story is quite shocking as far as all these smart people not seeing a lot of these issues.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_04: So before we get into the product in the warehouse stuff, I uh just as a there's so they bought these locations, they weren't in a great place, and then there were some promises made, I think, to investors, but also the Canadian government in terms of like hiring a certain number of people.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_04: So there's this clock, and when your wife showed up on day one, it's probably it sounds like that's a bit of what was uh that clock was the thing that was kind of causing that shit show to some degree, because but can you just talk about what was going on with that clock?
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_04: Like there was a countdown timer as soon as they had access to the stores.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, you're you're you suddenly have$1.8 billion of leases on your balance sheet and they're not generating a return at minimum for 12 months, or or no, that's not the case.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: But like they, you know, they purchased these leases, they're on the balance sheet.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a ticking time bomb as far as when do we want to start seeing a return on that.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: The promises to investors to the Canadian government, you know, we're gonna create 20 to 25,000 jobs.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: They got close, they got to 17,600 because they didn't fully ramp up by the time they they exited the country, but they were all well on their way to that part.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: They were also promising that stores would perform at similar levels of profitability and efficiency as US as U.S.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: counterparts, which is I I I don't know how they agreed to that.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Even the, you know, sensitize it 90% there.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: Say you you would you would achieve 90% of the results you would in the US, like be a little conservative in that front there.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: Plus the promise within the lease agreement that you had to open 130-ish whatever stores within 12 months of that date, that time pressure doesn't allow time for fully onboarding, hiring, training, setting up your infrastructure, your ERP.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_04: Converting the stores.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: Converting the store.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: These are the construction part.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: The construction part.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm not a construction expert, but to overhaul a Zellers into a Target, we had one here in town that was one of like the phase two or three releases, and that was under construction for quite a bit of time of that 12 month period.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: It had to have been under construction for the vast, vast majority of that time.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: So even think of it like this if you know Target is hiring brand new hires or people that have never worked out of Target there.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Ideally, when you're training, you could do it in the facility that you'll be working in.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: You're training off-site for the majority of the time.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then the first time you're in the store, it's like maybe the a day or two before opening there.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: These stores are massive.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: These are not like little offices that you can just drop your laptop in, set up your desk, and then you're you can start, you can start working there.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't work like that in retail in these huge big box department stores there.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: So there was no time to transition.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's no time to get acquainted with the space, to understand, you know, get your bearings essentially there, all because of the, you know, this time crunch.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure if they didn't have that time pressure, I'd be curious to see what their rollout strategy would have been at that point.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure they still would have been pressured to be somewhat aggressive in the opening of the stores, and then obviously all the downstream decisions that come with that.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: But surely they would have, you know, done a few to your point V, do a pilot store or two in certain locations, see how.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Cut goes, learn what they're doing well, what they're not doing well, iterate, you know, refine, and then do better on the next phase.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: And but that wasn't the case because Mark, to your point, that time crunch what was just looming and and that the lack of time creates that pressure and the increased risk or increased potential of bad decisions being made, it it just increases exponentially.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's a perfect jumping off point to start unpacking a little bit the second P that we have here, which is product.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_03: So the stores themselves, so the ones that did open, they opened with empty shelves, and the back the backrooms were full of inventory at the same time.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: What was happening there?
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: There's miscommunication.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: The backrooms were full, but they were full of stuff that wasn't needed or wasn't planned for to be on the shelves at that time.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: There's a disconnect between the different, you know, inventory systems, their different internal, you know, their information systems.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: They're their S P and their JD JDA, I think, was their forecasting uh tool, and S P was their ERP for inventory.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: Their logistics was confusing there.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: I uh you know, in in the the story we published, there's a one of the business analysts spoke about he visited a store, he dealt with like this certain product line, and he knew for certain that there was all these sweaters in the back room of the store.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: But when he went to the store itself, the table was empty.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then he he flagged an employee and he's like, I I assure you, they they are back there.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: The employee went back and then finally found it.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: But again, that's just one product line at one store where there's that miscommunication of what do we have versus what we need out on the shelf out on the shelves on the store floor.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: They're now extrapolate that over 130 stores, over thousands of product lines.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: There, there's no chance uh for a company to succeed at being that inefficient when it comes to inventory management.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that and this is the part where as a CPA, as a managerial accounting professor there that I really hone in on with my students, um, because with any retail business, I always tell them inventory is a necessary evil, but um it there's so much risk associated with it.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: And especially with a lot of the products and SKUs that Target was selling, having seasonality added to it there, you only have a certain time frame to sell sweaters.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: You can't sell sweaters in July in most jurisdictions in Canada there.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: You can't sell barbecues in December, which I bought because Target they had all these barbecues on the shelves in December, but obviously we're not looking to buy that as Canadians there.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I got a really nice one for like a hundred bucks.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: So at least I at least I got a a decent deal there.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: But but it's bonus.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was it made it all worth it.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, no, of course not.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: But but uh like that's just examples of like the the miscommunication and the lack of organization, the bad data uh that was put into their SP.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: I could keep going on and on, but yeah, I'm just belaboring the point, I think.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_04: There's there's like we talk a lot about one of the marketing models, it's not I guess just marketing, but one of the models for growth is mental and physical availability.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_04: Mental availability aside, we'll talk about that later, but the physical availability, it's it's it's such an interesting case study because you've got, like you said, products that are on the sh on the floor at for changeover at the wrong time, like misseasoned products, like the barbecues in the winter and the sweaters in the summer, in part because they couldn't find them.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_04: But in either case, like when they could be making hay, there's just not product there, and there's this crazy little glitch.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_04: I can't remember if it was mismeasurement or if it was the way the SAP system was set up, but like some of the reason the product wasn't on the shelf, aside from just the distribution logistics issues, which we'll talk about, was that their measurements were imprecise because they were measuring in Imperial on one side and then and metric on the other, and then the product didn't fit.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_04: And so, like, just from a like an access to market point of view, like it's can you maybe just talk about little things like that?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_04: Like, how important is it for like the physical availability of a product in order for people to buy it?
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, you this is not Amazon where you're scrolling on your phone.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: Amazon doesn't have to worry about planograms, they don't have to worry about the layout of uh store store floor or anything like that.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: If Amazon's warehouse, let's say, let's let's be very simplistic here.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say Amazon has one warehouse where all their inventory is.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: However disorganized that inventory is, myself as the consumer would not see that, it would not impede me from purchasing from there because I have no idea of it.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: I can scroll on my phone as long as it shows that it's available on you know Prime or whatever, I can click and order it.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it takes a little bit longer to get here, but I'm probably not as perturbed in that shopping experience.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas with retail, with physical retail, if I go into a Target and I don't see it, I can't buy it.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like I'm have a catalog.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't like Sears back in the 90s, where I have a catalog and I'm ordering from there or anything like that.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm looking, I'm going in the store to shop, to buy things that I see there.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: I might have a list, I might know what I'm looking for.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: And if I don't see it there, I can't buy it.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: They're not gonna order it for me.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: They're not gonna, I'm not gonna probably also try and find someone out and be like, hey, I know that sweater is supposed to be here.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because how would I, as the customer, know that?
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: So without that access to the actual inventory itself, that's like a basic tenant, I would think, of uh of retail.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: There has to be product for someone to to buy there.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it's those, those examples.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like if I'm a leader of an organization and I make a bet, like, hey, we want to expand to Canada.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: And if I do everything right and we still fail, whatever.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's there's that's out of their control at that point.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: But it's these little things, whether it's the leader's fault, it's someone else's fault, it doesn't matter.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: It falls at the feet of the leader, the CEO of Steinhoffel at this point.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's these little things that are like 101.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not a logistics expert, but I would imagine part of that is understanding what's the dimension that I'm measuring in, my my store floor, my inventory, what am I entering into my SP system there?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like these seem like basic decisions that you know you're I I was talking about this in preparation with my 14-year-old daughter.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: She was listening to the Target Canada episode with me, and she's just looking at me like, is that serious?
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like, do is that a hard thing for someone not to know?
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, you know, maybe for some people, but for the average listener or the average business professional, a lot of these things should be pretty common sense there.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what makes this story again just so almost like surreal.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like this shouldn't have happened.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: And now that it's we were so far removed from it, it almost feels like a fever dream.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like, did this actually happen?
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I have to that's why I go back and listen to this episode every once in a while, just to make, you know, refresh myself on though.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: This is all this all happened.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: This is true.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: This is, you know, multi-bridge preparation.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_04: What's that?
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_04: Like, I I get the pressure part, I keep coming back to that because there's there is this constant ticking clock going on, a countdown timer.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_04: And so, like, I I'm imagining like your wife and all the other people that showed up on day one, like they want to see this thing succeed, and so they're trying to make it work as best they can, but it isn't it's like square peg round hole from the beginning.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_04: Like, no matter how much you like saw off the corners, it's still not gonna fit perfect.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_04: And it's just like the compounding, all the problems just start compounding at that point.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: Target was very well known for their work culture.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was a place people wanted to go work.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like, retail gets a bad rap, let's be honest here.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the most enjoyable experience.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: But Target was one of the few retailers where people actually wanted to go and work.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: And to your point, Mark, people wanted this to succeed.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: People left jobs in different countries or in different organizations here in Canada, thinking, okay, I'm gonna attach myself to this rocket ship that is Target.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's no chance of fail failure there.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: So people at the store level, at the corporate level, they were all in.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: They they they they were atch, you know, attaching their horse to that wagon there.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: And again, it's just these in hindsight, sure, yeah, it's easy for me to criticize and say these were simple decisions.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I think in the moment, too, I would hope there's someone in the room, or I wish there were someone in the room being like, hey, can we just check on this or confirm this, sensitize this?
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't know who's in the room.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: I would love to chat with, you know, who whomever that was there just to get a sense of what were those conversations, what was being discussed and what was being, you know, pushed to the side.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_03: Can only imagine, you know, you're walking in maybe we've got to step into that way back machine right now, but you know, you're the product's in the building, but it's not on the shelves.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_03: Could you imagine what that consumer did when they walked into the store for the first time, eyes wide open?
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my goodness, Target is here.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_03: I finally get to experience Target.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_03: And what did they walk into?
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, you know, their whole, you know, in the lead up, and you know, this is part of good marketing.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like they were building up the hype.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: They were the like, you know, the commercials were great.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: The the they had a pop-up location in Toronto, I believe, and some other locations went well.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I forgot about that.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: Really building up the anticipation and and people had already experienced Target in the US or a lot of the customers did.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what they that's what they're anchoring their expectations on, is a well-run machine with you know the the added allure of this new thing, this Canadian moment.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's a big moment for Canada too.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: We we like to be, you know, we people call us, you know, the US's little sibling or or whatever the case is there.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe there's a little bit of inferiority, inferiority, I can't say the word, a complex to some extent to some degree.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's overblown, to be honest.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: But but to to you know, have a US, a huge successful or US organization choose Canada as their first international expansion.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's some pride there and some excitement that we want to be involved in.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: So all you have all that all of that built into the customer's mind, and then you walk in and it's like it looks like it's been over, it's picked, been picked over already.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: So then you're wondering, did everyone already shop here?
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: And like, you know, what it what did I miss something?
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: But then you realize, no, it's it was like that for the next day and the next day, and you know, there's only so many times you get that first impression or that chance to retain that customer there costs so much more to convince someone to come back as opposed to maintain you know their business there.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I I the the amount of disappointment myself, it was a little different going into those stores because I'd had the you know the behind the scenes expectations, but still, whenever I would go to a store, it was shocking because I had the US experience in my mind, and I'm sure that was this the case for a lot of the shoppers, especially initially.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_04: The you know, we were talking about and we'll get into the the brand and marketing in a bit, but just in terms of like price, like the we had talked also before a little bit about warehouse locations and that there's only a few of them.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_04: So you've got this thing where Target talks about expect more, pay less.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_04: I just went last week actually to a place and and my kids freaking love it.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, okay, it's yeah, I know it's not gonna be that expensive.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_04: They're usually pretty good.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_04: We give them a budget and all that kind of stuff.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_04: But they get cool stuff, they're thrilled about it.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_04: And and so then from a price perspective, it's really important that they manage their costs when they're when they're getting the product on the shelves.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_04: In this case, they had a challenge, but even things like warehousing locations, can you just talk a little bit about how what kind of impact that has on their ability to deliver this promise to the customer of of expecting more and paying less?
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if you think of it, you know, think of the SKUs target selling, a lot of it is seasonal.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think they had 75,000 different products they were selling or had entered into their SP.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: There, a lot of it is seasonal.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: So you only have a certain window, you know, the sweaters, the barbecues, those are only really going to be uh of top of mind during certain parts of the year.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if you add in the fact that you have that short demand cycle for those products, and now distribution has to run as efficiently as possible.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: It has to anticipate where those goods are needed and when those goods are needed.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: And if you miss the mark, you're leaving so much revenue on the table there, and therefore obviously, because you're still incurring the costs.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: The costs are gonna be there no matter what.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: You've staffed these stores, you have these leases in place, the rents, the mortgages, whatever there, the costs associated with you employing your workforce, the infrastructure costs, the utilities, whatever, all those costs are gonna be there.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: If your supply chain is running inefficiently and you're missing these windows to sell product at its highest peak demand and therefore peak price, then you're discounting inventory dramatically.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: So that cuts into your margin.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: So there's less to cover.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: There's less left over to cover your costs, or you're ultimately writing it down, or you're shelving it for the next cycle, which is you know, maybe a year from now.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: So now you're holding on to excess inventory, and then there's risks associated with holding on to excess inventory, obsolescence, damage, theft, spoilage, whatever the case is there.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: It manifests so much in both a pure accounting, financial statement standpoint, but also from an operational standpoint there.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: Having, you know, such few, not even just few distribution sites, but the the location, the strategy of where they were there and understanding the the terrain of of Canada and the geography, the topography, whatever the the term is there should help you to run that as efficiently as you as you can to ensure that you're meeting customers where they are and what they need and in what quantity they're I've been yeah, I've been thinking about this because again, as Canadians, many of us have experienced the stores, then you're entering a new market.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_03: I wonder if there's something that changes where who is the customer actually comparing you to, right?
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_03: So you talked about earlier like the place element and you know, Zellers, you're right.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_03: It wasn't like for the affluent, it was definitely targeted for you know lay low-income households.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_03: So you're you're in those areas.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_03: It's going, you're you're going there right now and anticipating um maybe a more premium experience.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_03: It's not happening.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_03: So what do you think mentally happens to the cu to the customer when they're like, well, how do the one not the one hand isn't talking to the other, but like what I anticipate to experience versus what I'm experiencing is the complete opposite.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_03: How do you think that affects everything else downstream?
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, perception is reality in in lots of avenues of life and in business and retail is no different here.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: As you mentioned, you know, consumers are expecting a premium experience.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: Already these stores aren't necessarily in premium locations there, which is fine again.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: I I think that was, again, it will add to the challenges that Target faced from an expectation standpoint, but they weren't insurmountable.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: But then you go into the store and then you have the experience of there's no inventory or there's wrong inventory or there's no one there to help because they're understaffed or overworked, whatever the case is there.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: I I I think that it is almost it is just if you put yourself in the consumer's shoes, the amount of disappointment you've been waiting for this launch, you've been counting it down, you're so excited, and then the reality of the situation hits and it is just deflating there.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like if I'm coming in, if uh if my commute to Target is longer than I normally would to go for my grocery shopping or or my apparel shopping or whatever, am I gonna do that again?
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: Or I might question the next time I'm gonna do that.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: And even that hesitancy causes, you know, reputational risk to target and obviously reputational harm, brain harm to target there.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: As far as like who you know, the the consumer is comparing themselves to, comparing target to, I should say.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: One, they're comparing them to their own expectations, I think first and foremost, which is shaped by their experience with like targeting the US.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: I would think there.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: Target in the US is a well-run machine.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: The prices are are what they are, you know, as far as that perception versus reality when it comes to pricing.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: We can talk about that uh in a little bit there.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: But that that's what they're comparing to.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's what Target Canada was up against.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: They were up against Target US, which is a very interesting dichotomy for the same organization there.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: And there's so many reasons why that that was probably, you know, maybe a bit unfair to Target Canada and the leadership there.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: They had a tough act to follow, essentially, there, but they also shot themselves in the foot many times over.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's a tricky one because I know there was there's some research that was done on like how a basket compares at Target versus competitors in Canada.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_04: But I think you're right, like it's less about a consumer comparing against other competitors and more about against their own experience from Target that they've had before, which was actually higher in price for the same basket.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_04: So it's really yeah, it's go ahead.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_04: Sorry.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: No, I say like that study you bring up too, it it showed that like a basket at Target was comparable to to Walmart there.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I imagine a lot of people were also comparing Target to to Target Canada to Walmart Canada and the experience they had, maybe more so from like a pricing standpoint there.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because I I think it's it's safe to say that Canadians are more economically aware and and you know they they they focus on those things a bit more, especially consumers.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: So that's also probably part of the calculus as far as like who excuse me, who Canadians were comparing themselves against to against uh or sorry, they were comparing Target Canada against there.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: But again, perception is reality in that situation.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, those consumers aren't running, you know, basket checks and comparisons weekly to see see is that true or not.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, their mind is made up uh there.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and in that case, they're they're a lot of target it, I and I haven't gone skew by skew, but it it feels to me like a lot of the tar products in Target were or like either private label for Target because they have collaborations with designers and whatnot.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_04: So it's like the expectation of the expect more part is that it's gonna be really nicely designed stuff at affordable prices and that kind of thing.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_04: But then something you said earlier is like I'm going to the store, it's not that close anymore.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_04: There's nothing on the shelves, the things that are like I thought Target was representing, like the nice design for affordable price.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_04: That's not really meeting my expectations.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_04: So am I really gonna maybe I'll go back one more time?
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_04: But if it's not that great, like I'm why am I gonna go there?
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_04: I'll just go to like the price isn't that attractive to me because I can't get the things I want when they're when I want.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_04: And so yeah, then it's just this vicious cycle at that point.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like the first time you go, you're super excited, you're disappointed afterwards.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's fine.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: The next time you you think you're gonna go, it it's more like begrudging at that point.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I can't give up on this.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, maybe it was just opening week jitters, like they're getting their ducks in a row.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: You might give them a chance.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: Not every consumer probably thought like that, but some will, especially the target loyalists.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: They go back a second time and it's still the same experience.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe it's even worse that time.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: And they weren't as amped up to go that time.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: So now they're almost at the point of no, you know, d deference.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: They don't care.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you you would almost rather they be super angry as opposed to just they've given up at that point.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_03: There was also there was also another headwind that that happened around the same time.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_03: And like the first couple of years there, the the dollar had moved, the Canadian dollar moved like 25 cents, right?
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_03: So in actuality, like how much or how much control does one have in pricing at the end of the day?
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I think and and this is you know where we have to give a little leeway to the leadership and to Target Canada as a whole, they don't control FX rates there.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: As you mentioned, I believe when Target first opened, it was essentially at par the Canadian dollar with the US.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think one Canadian dollar was like 97, 98 cents there.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: The good old days.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: The good old, which is like even me saying it right now, it's like that didn't happen.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: That could never have happened.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: But it didn't have to be a good idea.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: That was never amazing.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, it was great.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then like shortly after, you know, within two years, it it dropped to like 72 cents or 75 cents US there.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: So obviously that's going to increase a lot of the costs when it comes to distribution, running the operations here.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's something you know they can't control.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: They can anticipate they could hedge against that.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they build up inventory levels at different pricing levels.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: There, they can hedge against that dip there.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: Now, is that Target Canada's edict?
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like, are they really focused on that?
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think it probably should have been part of their risk profile, their risk program, uh risk management program there.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: But it would that have solved all their issues?
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: I I I don't think not.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: But again, it it's, you know, I I and this is again why this story is so intellectually rich, is there's a lot of big decisions that they made wrong, but then there's also this element of like death by a thousand cuts to it as well, there, where they made these smaller errors or these different headwinds that they couldn't foresee or they couldn't really plan for, or that they maybe should have seen but didn't plan for there.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a it's a it's a combination of the two there.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: But with, you know, again, this if the merchandise or the the inputs are sourced in US dollars during that time, which a lot of them were, that weakening Canadian dollar just only increases the cost to consumers here.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: So you already have a perception of prices being too high in Target Canada, and that's when the dollar is essentially at par with the US dollar.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: This did not this did not help them uh there.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I I don't hold this part against them, but it's again something that they had to deal with, and ultimately it did hurt.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't help at all.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I always think about the terms or the concept of satisficing, which is like the consumers that have a pain in the ass factor, essentially, where they're like they're willing to go to certain lengths but to buy something, but they almost never buy the perfect thing because it costs too much in terms of time, money, energy, or whatever.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_04: And it's so to some point it's good enough.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_04: And then, and I think that's where this kind of thing where you where you talk about target and how it compounds, like we talked about this already, but like it's the experience is getting worse and worse and worse, and eventually they're just gonna satisfy us and go somewhere else because they're just not willing to.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_04: continue to find the perfect thing at Target because they can get something that's good enough at Walmart or at wherever the other department stores, the Bay or whatever the, you know.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: And there's more certainty if I go to a Walmart or Canadian Tire because I know they're going to have what I need.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: I know what the price is going to be.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: I yeah, I might have to travel a little bit further, but I'm used to that because I've been shopping at Walmart or or HBC, whatever, for for a long time.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas with Target, it was like a crapshoot as far as like what you would find.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm looking for certain things there and it's not there, it's there's less, you know, less margin of for error for Target as their goodwill eroded with with consumers.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: There.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it and it I think it propped up a lot of these other retailers like Canadian Tire has been on fire since I think really since then.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: Walmart Canada obviously is a behemoth.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: They've increased their stranglehold I think on the Canadian retail market.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: Other retailers have flourished also almost like using like hey we're not target so it can't be worse.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: There.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: So the opposite playbook.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_03: I the the one last question here just on on the pricing side that we have for you.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_03: So there's there's a number that always gets cited the 5.4 billion figure that everyone talks about.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_03: From what we understand that's that was mostly the the breakdown not money lost in trading.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_03: What's the difference and what and which one should a marketer really care about?
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: I I can talk about it from an accounting standpoint and then I'll get to the the marketer element here in a sec.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: So that$5.4 billion figure, most of that is derived from this$4.8 billion impairment of the assets they had that they had purchased, accumulated, built in their expansion here with Target Canada.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: Once they realized they were not going to get any benefit for those assets, they by definition have to write them down and and in this case they wrote it down by a considerable amount of there almost$5 billion.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: So the vast, vast, vast majority.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: Now that's real dollars they did spend at some point there.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it does hurt their bottom line but it wasn't necessarily to your point the operational losses there.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: But but still like compared to and you know compared to yeah exactly thank you appreciate it.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: But like to target$200 million in losses for for a year period a two year period they they can withhold withstand that obviously it's not a great uh trend but they can withstand that they had some exit costs as well there obviously you know they went through bankruptcy filings.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure there's uh settlement costs associated with that that ran close to like$400 million.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: So of that$5.4 billion bigger only$200 million of it is derived from the actual operations of Target Canada.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's just that in their estimation they didn't think the the investment that they made the nearly$5 billion investment they were going to get back in a suitable time.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: So like those operating losses were going to only increase they were never going to turn a profit or be very slow.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's the more the the calculus as far as the decision to pull out of Canada because you know shareholders are going to want to return on that investment at some point there and$5 billion on the balance sheet is a huge amount as opposed to a$200 million operating loss.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: There.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: As far as like what number of marketers should be concerned with, I I think understanding the impact of marketing on the operations and then seeing what were those operational results, I think again gives credence to the fact that if you know if they could just drop into target into Canada without having to invest in the infrastructure part, there was a viable business here.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: They were turning things around near the end.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: It was just going to take maybe a little bit too long.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: So from a marketing standpoint I think it's still fair to deem that Target Canada, despite all the missteps that they took self-inflicted, there was still a viable business here and marketing obviously aided in that they were involved in the initial hysteria they were involved in the the apology that happened about a year in which is I I just I still cringe that album was pretty wild.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: It is I have never I don't know if I've ever seen anything like that at that scale and that level of transparency and I don't know it's just it's an interesting behavioral discussion or or study there.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah though those losses weren't insurmountable.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_04: So like when we think about marketing we'll so we'll kind of move into the last of the four Ps that the marketing part now a lot of times we start with this idea of like you know I just need budget and I'll make it rain.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_04: And then I'll use ROI, the calculation and so generally like a very simplistic formula of that is the revenue minus like the marketing cost divided by marketing costs.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_04: But it leaves out so many things and we've covered a bunch of them today in this in this session like all the other factors that have nothing to do with marketing that we miss on an ROI calculation like this.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_04: Like when somebody comes to you with an ROI or an idea for like how to prove the value of marketing is ROI the right number like is it is it representative accurately of what we're trying to do and our contribution?
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think if you talk to any leader of an organization, they'll give you two answers.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: They're going to tell you ROI doesn't give me that number when it comes to marketing spend, but I'm still going to use it as the evaluator of the metric because ultimately revenue is the north star for most organizations, which obviously then leads to profitability being that north star.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_01: That being said, revenue, profitability those are lagging indicators.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_01: Those are only going to occur because of operational decisions you've made marketing decisions, campaign strategies, investments you've made in other parts of the business, the infrastructure that you've chosen, vendors you're choosing to work with like there's so many things that go into the the deriving of revenue and ultimately profitability there, but those are the biggest components to ROI is revenue there.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's I we we have this discussion at Lumikue all the time as far as you know how do we evaluate different elements of the business there.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I deal with I I I help out with marketing a lot and I I know like some of the things that they look at is more so like SQMs, qualified leads, warm leads, that sort of thing.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's a different business obviously a SaaS business versus like a retailer there, but you know interests, hype, hysteria, those are more the things I'm I would be more concerned with if I'm evaluating marketing spend and the impact of it engagement with social campaigns, you know, maybe more so even now than what we saw in 2011 and 2012 there.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: Those are the things and that's marketing's marketing's, you know, I I'm not a marketer I would obviously leave that to the two of you but the awareness the excitement the hysteria those just by nature are subjective those are qualitative.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: So trying to quantify it, I know we all want to do that.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: We're all you know data driven now because we have so much at our disposal it's a bit of a fool's error to be honest there to your point.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_01: Just give me a big budget and let me let me cook you know like to to some extent that that that that should be the playbook when it comes to marketing obviously you can't do that forever.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's not sustainable there you want some sort of guardrails associated with and some sort of metrics even just for your own sake like to know if you're on the right track with whatever campaigns or strategies that you have like you need that for yourself there.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: But there has to be a little bit more leeway with evaluating the success of a marketing campaign or a marketing division or segment of a business than you know if I was looking at sales, if I'm evaluating my sales team much easier.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like how many meetings are you taking?
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_01: What's your conversion rate?
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_01: What's your close rate?
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's much more quantifiable.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_03: So if you if you were sitting there as part of the leadership team and back in 2013, you know, how would you evaluate the budget?
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_01: The marketing budget or just budgeting budget.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_01: The marketing budget yeah if I'm evaluating the marketing budget I'd want to know the diversity of channels of strategy there obviously the the types of like who are you trying to target and what are your what are your what is your strategy of trying to target them to target them.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: Does it align with who a target customer is I hate saying again I'm sorry I keep using target uh the verb and the noun it is a target episode episode it is a target episode yeah target I would be more concerned or interested in that element as opposed to how much are you spending there?
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's more the how are you spending it?
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: And does it align with like what we're trying to achieve here?
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like does it align with our strategic objectives?
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_01: Does it align with who our normal clientele is are we trying to expand what a a target Canada clientele is does it align with the locations of the stores that we're in are we trying to attract those people are we trying to attract our more traditional target customer that we would in the US there like those are the questions I would be having.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then how does that obviously ultimately roll up into the budget?
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_04: And you mentioned before like the the employee communication plan that they had and it was an interesting thing because initially they start with this hype we talked about that you know we're coming pop-up stores it's going to be awesome then the experience doesn't match and then some at some point they're like okay actually we need to apologize for this and so they put employees in the apology videos and and not the leadership per se it was just like staff.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm kind of there's this like thing around like how how much should you put on brand versus how much should you put on performance so the balance of that is pretty interesting.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_04: When there's moments like summer let's say and you've got barbecues you want to promote the barbecues and that's like because demand is so high.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_04: But it's almost like a re like a damage control brand campaign at this point.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_04: And so because there is nothing on the shelf or very little on the shelf they're not able to do the traditional performance kind of campaigns because there's nothing really to sell.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_04: So like maybe could you just talk a little bit about like how would you think about the like marketing from a dollars and cents point of view and where you would put brand versus performance if there's nothing there on the shelf and you're trying to save you've got this runway that's kind of like biting at your heels.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well this is where you know any campaign any strategy whether it's marketing strategy it's hiring it's logistics it's sales whatever the case is it has to be a holistic look at our organization and our capabilities.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say you have this great marketing campaign for barbecues in the summer but if you know that our logistics are not up to snuff and we're it's 50-50 whether those barbecues are going to be in the store during that launch, that campaign, then I from your perspective I would think you would want to be a little bit hesitant or you want some assurance that hey logistics are they going to be is that inventory going to be in the store when this campaign goes live?
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because if not, we're just shooting ourselves in the foot.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_01: We're we're we're we're we're promising something that we can't deliver.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_01: We're overpromising and under delivering that's the worst case scenario I imagine for for a marketer for any business in general there.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_01: So with that lack of I imagine I I can only imagine the the vibe you know for lack of a more professional term the vibe in headquarters was when things are going off the rails they're trying to get it back on track there, but all these different segments of the business these different divisions whatever the case is there, they probably are somewhat working in a silo because I don't think leadership had a true grasp of of the business as a whole if they did they wouldn't have had these you know shoot yourself in the foot moments there.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_01: There'd have been some alignment across divisions.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, again comparing Lumikue where we're small potatoes to a target there, but when we're making big decisions that are impacting our offering to our consumers, we have stakeholders from every department in mind or involved in the conversations to you know to varying degrees.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like if if product doesn't need to be involved in something we're we'll just make them aware of what we're doing.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_01: That way maybe there is a downstream implication on the work that they're doing.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_01: Now again we're a much smaller organization than a Target and maybe it's difficult to do that.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_01: But also you know to counter that argument Target has so much many resources they have the infrastructure in place and they have a playbook of how they ran things in the U.S.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_01: I imagine in the US it's a much more aligned you know decision making process there.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: There isn't this decentralized uh element to it there.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what I am again I I'm only speculating on that part.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_01: But I imagine that was the case there because the marketing the marketing was the least of Target Canada's worries there.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_01: The marketing was on par.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_01: That was the one thing that they could port over from the US use similar you know even the stylizing of their their ads there was very similar it felt like target in the U.S.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what ultimately people were looking for and from a marketing standpoint Target Canada hit it out of the park.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_01: Everything else they fell short.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah really wanted to ask you this question and putting you back in that LT seat what would have been that first number that you'd look for that would have gave you an inclination that hey something's going south here.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_03: Not something something's not going well.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_01: Just one number?
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_03: I I would let's yeah yeah let's go with one number.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah definitely some sort of obviously you would want to look at some sort of leading indicator revenue sales product line sales whatever like that is a a result of other decisions there.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's the easy one to look at I imagine and no matter what I'm still going to look at that information.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I would want to know okay why are we falling short?
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah so the areas that I would probably focus on there and I and I'll I'll try to get to one number here in a second.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_01: But the the areas that I would evaluate I think are supply chain effectiveness and then customer sentiment.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_01: The supply chain effectiveness because you know what is the rate of stocking what's my stock rate what are my inventory levels per store how empty are the shelves there because that's going to have a direct implication on customer sentiment or customer satisfaction.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think those would be very early warning signs that if they were monitoring, they would tell okay there's something wrong here.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then they would see that manifest in you know lower store traffic, lower sales volumes, lower you know, items per basket, whatever the whatever metric you want to go at that point.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_01: But something in that realm as far as like customer satisfaction and supply chain effectiveness, I think were hand in hand probably early indicators that we have we've gotten off on the wrong foot here.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_04: And I think if if it's interesting hearing your thought process on that like the show your work part of your thing I like that.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_04: It's because it's now that as you're saying it I'm like yeah it's even for an existing business when things go sideways like revenue is often the thing that we're looking at but at that point it's too late.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_04: You're not you're not seeing the cause you're just seeing the result.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_04: Exactly so then you have to reverse engineer how that happens.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_04: So it's interesting thinking about what is the leading indicator the primary it's easy to see it in sp in the case of target because it's an extreme example.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_04: But that's part of the thing I think that is so valuable from learning from it.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I think separates good leadership from great leadership.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's very easy for us to look at oh revenue is down you know 10% over compared to expectations or whatever.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone can make that calculation it's digging in it's asking questions it's seeking out the right input to see okay why is revenue down 10%?
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_01: What is causing it?
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_01: What is dragging it down?
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_01: Is it something that we control?
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_01: Is it something that a perception issue?
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_01: If you to your point, if we can find the true cause then we can you know diagnose that and then hopefully treat that and eventually it will manifest in hopefully you know revenue trending in the right direction and all the downstream implications of that.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_04: So awesome such a great case study and thanks for sharing all this Omar it's like yeah it's such it's such a great story for so many reasons.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean not for Target but for ours right I I tell I tell people whenever I talk about it it's part therapy uh for myself and again I only lived it you know beside my wife she lived it and you know 17,600 uh people lived it as well and that's part of the reason I I try you know you you asked me like what do I want someone to get out of this case study from a technical standpoint again you know bad decision making you know don't make the ask questions take your time in making those decisions especially at scale you know billions of dollars on the line but understand how important it is to do that because there's real world implications not just for the business like the business they're still thriving in the U.S.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously they have their you know they're running into other issues there but ultimately they're still profitable they're still doing well but 1700 families were impacted by this they had left their careers they had left organizations and I I know the toll it took on us and we are one of the lucky ones like you know we've you know it it wasn't a long-term impact or anything my wife actually left so she was on a two year contract it it expired the fall of 2014 she wasn't going to renew so she had already left and then a few months later is when Target uh announced the bankruptcy so her friends were still there and they worked through the end and we would go visit their stores and if you thought the when Target Canada owned Target Canada stores was depressing go into a store that's being liquidated for bankruptcy.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_01: It is it is horrible.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_01: There's no care there's all this yellow tape around the store it's just it's a soulless like I I just my my my skin crawls thinking about that kind of experience and and a lot of people like you know it took a long time probably to recover from losing from losing their their career at Target because you know the Canadian economy can only support so many jobs.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a stigma too and there's a s yeah exactly yeah you have that you know scarlet letter on your your resume now there.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know I know some organizations Canadian Tire Seers stepped up afterwards held career fairs for for these people specifically which is great but again they can't absorb everyone there.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_03: So how can people find out more about you, all the great work that you're doing at Lumacu?
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah check out the website LumikueLearn.com you can sign up for free trial if you'd want to enter into information and what we do is we make podcasts for business professionals for accountants to upskill to say current we don't just do accounting audit and tax topics we do you know things like this like interesting case studies that apply to any business professional in any walk of life that you're you're you're doing there.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then I I'm on LinkedIn you can you can find me at Omar Ruby I I love talk talking education like talking business accounting audit tax whatever the case is there happy to uh chat uh if you have thoughts on on this case study especially I I definitely I it's hard to talk about it but I do enjoy talking about it because there is just so much to it there.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_04: Amazing well appreciate you doing that with us today so that this this has been amazing.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much no thank you guys uh this was a great time I appreciate it