Live from the Local Media Association/Blinder Group/Florida Press Association Revenue Summit
By Al Cupo, Vice President, Local Media Association
From the presentation ‘Boost Your Revenues by Turning-on Your Sales People’
Presented by: Pason Gaddis, President & Group Publisher, Florida Weekly
Pason Gaddis4 Simple Steps to Creating a World Class Team
- Culture - Create an entrepreneurial atmosphere.
- Allow your self-starters to grow.
- Be a champion of team work.
- Provide the support necessary for sales staff to be successful.
- Education - Train every single week.
- Your sales staff must be educated for today’s media buyers
- Ask yourself...Do you run a feature driven organization or a benefit driven organization?
- Fact...customers buy benefits; train your staff to sell benefits.
- Watch QVC for great examples of benefit selling.
- Talent - Employ a salesperson, not a ‘tellsperson’.
- Salespeople sell benefits; tellspeople sell features.
- Salespeople work 24/7 and are always ‘on’; tellspeople are nine-to-fivers.
- Salespeople are risk takers; tellspeople are risk adverse.
- Allow top performers to grow with their work ethics and talents.
- Revenue Share – Top performing salespeople should have unlimited earning potential.
- Compensation plan before goal: 80% to house / 12% to rep / 8% to sales manager.
- Compensation after goal: 75% to house / 15% to rep / 10% to sales manager.
- No geo territories for the staff. Geographical territories limit referrals and are restrictive to building relationships with advertisers throughout the market. Sales manager provides oversight.