By Deb Shaw
Unless you’ve been seriously not paying attention to your inbox you know by now
that one of the major 2009 initiatives from SNA for its members is a commitment
to ongoing training via frequent and mostly free webinars. From the get-go of the
New Year, SNA has offered numerous webinars each month covering an expansive array
of topics across all the disciplines — editorial, new media, retail and classified
advertising, circulation and operations. Fear not if you’ve missed those of interest
— all of the completed webinars have been recorded, archived
and are available on-demand.
Toni Malanaphy-Sorg
Last month, Toni Malanaphy-Sorg and Linda Rabagliati of Alliant Consulting took
center stage for a webinar that focused on overcoming the Five Core Threats to Media
Revenue Growth. Drawing on her 20 years of service to the newspaper industry, Alliant
President and CEO Malanaphy-Sorg was able to combine both the historical aspects
of advertising sales with the current need to embrace the new media realities and
guide participants to think anew about sales practices, processes and management
ideology.
Self Fulfilling Prophecy
Malanaphy-Sorg says the first order of business is to focus on those things which
you can control and to stop lamenting the external influences that are beyond your
ability to change. External threats are real but they are out of your sphere of
control. Instead, address the internal threats to mitigate their impact. For starters,
stop lamenting the loss of page after page of high margin classified listings. Most
have shifted to online platforms and are not coming back to print. Instead, focus
on what it takes now in the new world of multiple print and digital products to
create professional, relationship-based sales reps and the infrastructure to support
them. By doing so, you will evolve your sales models to more effectively compete
in today’s much different universe.
Another key basic element may sound a bit pie-in-the-sky yet is a critical component
to success in today’s selling atmosphere: you must manage expectations and help
your sales department overcome the self fulfilling prophecy of a negative outcome.
Expectations, whether valid or not, drive behaviors. And those behaviors, which
are often unconscious, drive results.
“The key is to consciously take action based on an expectation of a positive outcome,”
according to Malanaphy-Sorg. “You must manage the expectations for a positive outcome.
What happens when we do this is we behave differently and guess what happens then?
A change for the better.” She added that everyday your reps will set an expectation
whether you manage the behavior or not so take advantage of this basic human habit
and actively work to set a positive mindset.
Another basic premise is that while there are many shifts underway — among
them, demographics, technology and the retail landscape changes due to mergers and
downsizing — at the end of the day, all generations and types of customers
want to do business with those who care about and meet their needs. Businesses who
demonstrate that care most effectively will capture the business.
Malanaphy-Sorg reminds that the hometown newspaper has held that franchise for a
long time — with both advertisers and citizens — and they can continue
to hold it for a long time to come if they can manage the ‘Self Fulfilling Prophecy’
factor. She’s so focused on this element that she refers to it as the SFP. The air
of negativity that is currently swirling about “old media” must be overcome by managing
for an outcome of success.
The Five Core Threats and Solutions for Overcoming Them
#1. Disconnection from the marketplace.
Ask yourself the following questions to test how well you connect with your market:
- Do sales managers help sales people incorporate market information into sales call
plans?
- Do sales people know their customers’ position in the market?
- Do sales people know who their customers are targeting and why?
- Do sales people know what is being advertised through competitive media?
Market information is derived from many sources such as proprietary research, public
records, business associations, etc. Malanaphy-Sorg recommends checking City/County/State
Sites and search for the Office/Department of Economic Development (often found
under a “business” header), local Visitor’s Bureau and Chamber of Commerce for relevant
data. Caution: be sure to check dates of information posted.
Nearly every city/town has some sort of economic development entity and they generally
have residential and commercial growth and demographics information summarized.
If it is not right up front, check meeting notes/reports and or call them.
For free audience statistics related to your website(s): www.quantcast.com; for stats about who uses the Internet:
www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0873826.html.
Other means to capture info is through regular conversations and observations. Polling
reps about what they’re hearing in the marketplace and providing a central place
for folks to post and share what they’re hearing are useful tools.
Gear your market data so that reps can use it to help their advertisers connect
with their target audiences.
Make sure your reps are incorporating marketplace info into their sales plans. Talk
to your reps about not just the proposals they’re making but also about how they
are helping clients understand the market.
When you are having discussion about what’s happening in your market, focus on opportunities.
Don’t spend time on business you can’t get.
Schedule planning sessions for major events or changes in the market. Involve lots
of people. You’ll get more creative ideas that way.
Territory and category knowledge should be expected from your reps.
#2. Lack of clarity regarding product value and proposition
Misunderstanding today’s offerings can hold back many salespeople especially those
who haven’t quite let go of old paradigms. The following questions should be honestly
assessed:
- Do you have an easily referenced portfolio of products describing value proposition
for various customer profiles.
- Are Experts/Information available?
- Do you regularly share ROI success stories?
- Is valid research available and shared?
- Do you know what measures of value are important to your customers?
How do your customers measure success? To some it might be foot traffic or click
throughs while others measure coupon redemption or time spent on their website.
There is no one size fits all solution and reps need to be trained to seek understanding
of the result that each of their clients considers valuable.
Make sure your sales people are apprised of partnerships with Yahoo, Google, other
media and how they work. These are important value propositions for your online
advertisers.
Pay your bonuses based on product mix and rate compliance as well as revenue goal
achievement.
#3. You’re Hard to Do Business With
Keep it simple and consider the following:
- Are your prices and rate cards designed for advertisers or accountants?
- Admitting that there are two schools of thought on this one, Malanaphy-Sorg says
media companies should offer clients a single contact (and a good back-up) to do
business with as opposed to one rep for print and another for online
- Open multiple pathways for clients to easily buy/place an ad i.e., over the phone,
in person sales call, on the web
- Don’t neglect your local ad agencies and PR firms. They are doing business with
your local businesses
Ask for customer feedback at every contact on such things as your products, service
standards, value proposition, creative services, etc. You may get an earful but
you’ll also gain valuable insights about the customer experience with your company.
Be consistent and timely in responding to inquiries. Correct disputes on the first
billing cycle. Track errors and complaints to identify trends and develop training
to overcome problem areas.
Adjust performance goals to meet customer needs as well as competitive performance.
#4. Lack of performance standards that outclass the competition and dazzle advertisers
Relationship based sales must include platinum level service. Is your service performance
a selling point? It should be. Make sure you have:
- Zero tolerance for non-professional behavior
- Clear, consistent standards for client care and contact frequency
- Measurable service standards
- Collaboration between manager and reps; defined goals and accountability for responsibilities.
- Be pro-active. Coach (not cheerlead) and reward above par service performance; balance
with counseling for below-performance standards.
#5. Resisting the “new normal” ...the new media reality
Part of the “new normal” is a flow and process to quickly vet new ideas, and planning
for their launch. Status quo was never a good business model and in today’s fast
moving world management must always be leaning forward — or as Dolph Simons
of The World Company (KS) likes to say, “drive with your brights on.” The focus
must be sharp on business that can be captured, not that which has diminished.
The new normal means warp speed velocity of change. Keep up — you better have
a pretty good infrastructure in place to evaluate new ideas, and a good systematic
approach to getting a new product launched. That said, Malanaphy-Sorg says you must
avoid the destructive evolution of dropping one project and grabbing another. Create
and implement a process for evaluation. Define the project, who needs to know about,
how it will be promoted, how it will be priced & billed, what the launch cycle will
be. Set this infrastructure process and apply it systematically to all new initiatives
and you will be able to move more nimbly once an idea has been vetted.
Clients often tell Malanaphy-Sorg that they have trouble finding people who can
do it all. Her answer is “find good people and build good processes behind them.
Build a training program that makes sense.” Rule of thumb on training — make
it an ongoing event. More is good. Short periods of time frequently.
It’s critical to help reps keep bearings. Conduct individual one-on-one meetings
with reps every two weeks. Review and build two week plan. These should be in depth
conversations lasting 60-90 minutes.
Regularly riding along with reps is important. Between planning meetings and riding
along, sales managers should be spending 40-50% if their time on these events.
All reps need to provide full product choices for customers. Multi-media presentations
should be part of mix. Create bonus plans that pay when combo of product mix/margin/new
business goals are met.
Part of understanding value of product is setting reasonable rates and sticking
to them. If off rate prevails, need to work on that.
Broaden your thought. Embrace new normal — systematically embrace collaboration.
All sales people should be participating. If they’re not in the program, they’re
going to fall behind.
Create ways to get people thinking outside of “how we do things today.” Share knowledge
— set expectations of regular contributions from all.
Set up a Share Point intranet site for employees to post market changes. Build your
organization for collaboration and change.
Bottom Line
Confident that there’s plenty of revenue to be found for both core and auxiliary
products, despite the economy, Malanaphy-Sorg acknowledges that the sermon she’s
preaching with her core threats presentation may seem back to basics but insists
that the threats are all too real and overcoming them is an absolute success factor
in the new media world. “Negative self fulfilling prophecy is going on. Become conscious
of it, don’t buy in — create positive expectations,” she urges.
Contact
Toni at malanaphysorg@alliantconsulting.com