An ASTECH InterMedia Reference Article
Structuring the Sales Effort to Drive Revenue
by Jim Hart
Editor's note: This is the first in a series of three articles covering the most important success factors when selling targeted delivery capabilities. In this article, Jim discusses the appropriate structure of your sales effort. Subsequent articles will discuss compensation and goal-setting, then the sales call itself.
In general, the sales effort associated with targeted delivery capability tends to be structured in one of two ways — either as a new capability sold by the existing staff or as a separate product sold by a new staff. Often it is a mix of the two.
The overall positioning of these capabilities within the hierarchy of the company will usually mirror the sales effort. In other words, if there is a director, sales manager or even a new division for the targeted delivery capabilities, then the sale will likely be separate. The degree of separation varies from a totally autonomous (non-newspaper) staff calling on whomever they choose, to a subservient group calling on accounts only with the approval of the newspaper sales rep. The higher the rank of the top person in the new effort, the higher the degree of separation.
If a person working for the existing head of the advertising department develops the new capabilities, the sales effort is usually more integrated than separate. One of the driving forces behind this is the ability, or inability, to set integrated goals (the subject of the next article in this series).
Separation is often an offshoot of economics. The new targeted delivery capabilities were created at some expense with the intent of creating some new revenue streams. As a result, there is a desire to keep those expenses and the resulting revenues in a separate profit and loss statement. This makes it easy to evaluate the return on investment. From an internal perspective, this is eminently logical.
Let's look at it from the advertiser's perspective. The advertiser is trying to find the most cost effective way to initiate and expand relationships with consumers. Some media are best suited for bringing in new customers while other media are best for bringing them back. The merchant is trying to balance its spending against these two goals. Effectively integrating the media for maximum leverage is the key to advertising ROI.
At present, how many different sales reps from your company could possibly be calling on an account? At one paper I visited, a big account heard from the following reps: retail, classified (recruitment), sports and event marketing, online, solo mail, shared mail and coop (I swear I am not exaggerating this to make a point). Not only are each of these areas headed up by an upper-level manager, they are also revenue/expense silos.
This is "the rub." In an effort to make sure each product is successful, we sell products instead of creating solutions. There is precious little integration being proposed as the sales reps are incented to sell only their product.
In an earlier article (The business case for targeted delivery), we covered the concept of strengthening, leveraging and expanding your franchise. The separate selling approach described above does none of these things. It is an effort to gain market share by having as many people as possible grab hold of the advertiser's limbs and start pulling as hard as they can.
A newspaper is in a unique position to assist the advertiser in putting together a powerfully integrated media plan that leverages the cost efficiency of ROP, in-paper insertion and/or shared mail, the targetability and personalization of solo mail and/or email, and the immediacy and efficiency of the Web. When the advertiser, an ad agency or a rep from another medium is left to put the mix together, newspaper advertising will continue to be minimized as an expensive and antiquated mass medium. Newspapers alone can demonstrate the role newspaper advertising can play in a cost-effective media mix designed to attract and retain a targeted population.
This brings us back to the issue of how a newspaper alone can sell this "cost effective media mix," and you probably have some objections:
- Can the sales reps be expert enough to fully maximize every capability the
newspaper has to offer? Not likely, but that's not what we're suggesting.
If you have to bring in a "product specialist" every time
there's a need for something other than in-paper advertising, the selling
process will bog down badly and reps from both sides will be frustrated. I
tried the "four-legged sales call with a specialist" approach
while I was at the
- Don't sales reps already "have enough on their plates" with an ever-expanding set of special sections? Probably, but we believe that if the reps are positioned and trained to sell solutions, they can't have too many bullets in their arsenal.
At the beginning, it might make sense to select a group or category of accounts and have a customer-centric approach to selling only these accounts. The rest of the accounts are business as usual. Grow this approach from the most logical area of your business, refine it and expand it.
Just as we suggest that the goal is to strengthen, leverage and expand the franchise, such is the case with the sales reps. The specialist should be able to position the reps to handle a large percentage of the selling opportunities themselves, allowing the specialists to focus on high-return situations that require custom assistance. Only by leveraging the specialists' knowledge into the daily selling process does the appropriate return get realized.
Finally, the ability for a rep to assess a situation, propose a solution and close the sale on a single call is important. They can sell ROP, inserts and special sections on a single call. If the new capabilities require a process involving multiple calls, it won't get sold as often as it should.
This article was written exclusively for ASTECH InterMedia's web site. Jim Hart is vice president of ASTECH InterMedia. For help in structuring your sales effort, he can be reached at 623.875.3000.
© 2005 ASTECH InterMedia, Inc.
