Time to apply the power of prospecting

By Bob Davis

I was having dinner with a group of some of the best sales people in the world. The occasion was an awards dinner for the best sales people who worked at Morgan Stanley. I was the guess speaker, but as is often the case, I learned more from my audience than they did from me.

I sat next to one of the best of the best. Pete earned more than two million dollars in commissions in 2009, which was a tough year for most sales people, and particularly tough for the financial services industry. I had to ask, “What is the secret of your success?”

The answer came back in one word—prospecting. Although Pete has a large book of business and could spend most of his time servicing it as most of his contemporaries do, he disciplines himself to spend only 50 percent of his time servicing his existing customers. When he does talk to his existing customers, he always asks for referrals.

Pete spends the rest of his time prospecting. He told me this takes a lot of discipline, because there is plenty he could do each day other than prospecting. He also knows that without prospecting he will be just another average performer in the sales world.

The thought occurs to me that the same principles apply to the advertising department in the newspaper industry. Most sales reps spend most of their time servicing existing accounts and too little time prospecting for new business. What would happen if your people started spending 50 percent of their time prospecting for new business? I bet there would be explosive growth in your advertising revenue.

This is not going to happen without your leadership. People just don’t develop that kind of discipline by themselves.

They need you to set the expectations around prospecting activity and around prospecting results. What would happen if you:

• Required your sales reps to call 30 new prospects each day?

• Expected one appointment set with a non-advertiser each day?

• Expected one third of each rep’s revenue per month to be new revenue?

I believe that when you receive this level of prospecting in your organization, your ad revenues will be back to 2007 levels.

Bob Davis is the president of Robert C. Davis and Associates (www.robertcdavis.net). He specializes in creating custom programs that deliver measurable results for the newspaper industry. Bob is also co-founder of Surpass (www.surpasscalls.com), an outsource call center serving the needs of newspapers across the country.

The task before the newspaper industry:Our own moon shot

By Bob Davis

In September 1962, John F. Kennedy was given a tour of Cape Canaveral. During the tour, he stopped to ask a custodian who was vigorously pushing a broom what he was up to. The custodian replied, “I am working to put a man on the moon!” The noble cause for NASA had been clearly communicated. Everyone including the janitor was motivated by the challenge.

We are at a crossroads in the newspaper industry. The challenges we face are as large as the challenge of putting a man on the moon. We need to rebuild on many levels, including ad revenue, circulation and the morale of our people. The latter may be the biggest job of all, because unless we rebuild morale, we are never going to accomplish the other important jobs.

On May 25, 1961, when John F. Kennedy said to Congress, “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth,” he showed great leadership. He put in motion a noble cause that the entire country rallied around. And, of course, we know the successful results.

The newspapers’ noble cause
Job one for newspaper leadership is to establish a noble cause. Maybe the noble cause is protecting our free democracy by promoting a free and prosperous newspaper. Maybe it is growing ad revenue in spite of the economy. Or maybe it is growing circulation at a time when other papers have accepted limiting circulation loss as the goal. Or maybe it is expanding audience from traditional print to other platforms.

As a leader, if you set the goal just as Kennedy did, the organization will follow.

The value of listening
Now more than ever is the time to listen to your people. Hold roundtable discussion where you invite in seven to nine employees to have an informal discussion with you. Listen to how they are feeling about things. Get their feedback on your thoughts about noble cause. See if your ideas resonate with them. Most importantly, really listen to understand what it is going to take to rebuild their morale.

How core values fit in
Next comes re-commitment to the core values from the top down. This is critical given developments of recent years within the industry. Ask yourself, what does your newspaper stand for? Is it fairness, accuracy, integrity and continuous improvement? Will you get 100 percent of the papers delivered in a readable condition every day by 6:30am without fail? What do your departments stand for? What values would you not violate, even if it meant shutting down the newspaper? These are also great questions for your roundtable discussions. Get your people involved in helping your fine tune the core values of the company.

I was recently leading a leadership seminar for a group of newspaper executives and asked the group to share with each other the values they observed and valued with the others on the team. The results were intense. It was clear, based on the mutual respect these executives displayed, that everyone is beginning to recover from the last two years. This is the mindset needed for what’s next: getting to work on solutions.

The value of goal setting in motivating your people
In his book One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way, Dr. Robert Mauer says, “the way to bypass fear is to break goals down into tiny manageable actions.”

Think about what your people have been going through for the last two years. Think of how furloughs, layoffs, wage and pension freezes have affected them! They are expected to do more with less. They are still dwelling in the past and what has happened to them, and not thinking too much about the future. By getting your people to recommit to core values, you can re-engage them.

Have your team look at all the jobs that need to be done. Have them lay out the plan for how it will be accomplished and who will do it. This will start the process of turning your people from helpless victims to empowered problem solvers. Give teams jobs that are too big for just one person to do. This will start the rebuilding process. Set big goals—big enough goals to take their breath away.

What matters most to your people
The Gallup organization has researched and found the things that matter most to your people. As you read some of the items on the list below, consider whether they would consider them true statements:

• I know what is expected of me at work.

• In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.

• My supervisor seems to care about me as a person.

• At work my opinions seem to count.

• The mission or purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important.

Given all the rebuilding the must take place, it is important to confirm that each member of your team considers the above statements true. When they do, they will be ready to respond to your leadership, work together, and make our moon shot successful.

Bob Davis is the president of Robert C. Davis and Associates (www.robertcdavis.net). He specializes in creating custom programs that deliver measurable results for the newspaper industry. Bob is also co-founder of Surpass (www.surpasscalls.com), an outsource call center serving the needs of newspapers across the country.