I’ve spent May traveling the East Coast of the US from New York to Virginia. I have a lot of friends and relatives I hadn’t seen for years, so decided to take a month and visit.

I’ve had some very good meetings in NY that will result in some real opportunities to expand our AHS service to you, our valued clients, as well.  More to follow on that later…

My 32 year old daughter joined me for a full week of the trip. She and I have not had that kind of time together in more than 14 years.

Being on the road, I’ve been looking at the newspapers along the way. Some of the targeted ones – those that are specific to a group, are full of ads.

I am shocked at how empty most general newspapers are of ads. Most newspapers who are not clients of ours are totally sleeping. I turned page after page without one single ad!

My friend, Scott Wolf told me that newspapers spend 20x what it costs Google to deliver an impression. This is somehow supposed to be an explanation.

I think the sales departments are asleep all across the newspaper industry.

Google would think they’d died and gone to heaven if they could do what a newspaper does: drop a physical ad on a prospect’s doorstep.

Jeff Bezos is no dope. Many say it’s some sort of hobby to have bought the Washington Post. Ha. He can now put a physical ad on a doorstep and if you don’t realize the value that brings, you are missing the point.

In a virtual world, physicality is still preeminent. If you doubt that, imagine kissing your lover virtually compared to the real thing – lip to lip.

When I was in Franklin, Virginia my friend Jim Ellenson said Union Camp shut down the paper mill which killed the town. He said, “no one uses paper anymore.”

Ha. Maybe the little kiddies in college have something against paper but paper production is at 80% of what it was and that is still a huge number. (And don’t worry about the trees — they grow back.).

So what is the problem in the Newspaper business? In radio, we had a rate card based on demand. As more advertisers buy ads the price goes up due to increased volume.

Newspapers need to do the same thing. Drop the price until advertisers buy.

I would love to make a sales call on the local Italian Restaurant in any city saying “we see how over the past few years Subway has been ‘eating your lunch’ so we want you to put a printed ad in our newspaper that says “Bring this coupon in Wednesday from 1:30-3:30 for a business lunch special 79 cents with the purchase of a drink. If it works we want an over the top testimonial.”

Or go to a bar and offer a coupon “Bring your wife in for a Free Drink on Thursday night. Buy one get one free for the less expensive drink. When you pack your bar, I need a testimonial.”

You get the idea. Unless newspaper closes their doors this week, their sales team needs to get some ads in the paper – and newspaper better than any other media delivers a physical ad to the doorstep.

Having spent 16 years helping highly sales driven organizations hire salespeople who can really sell, getting the right applicants to apply is critical. We’ve created this Sales Hiring E-course to help get your company hiring better salespeople.

In the previous section of this Advanced Hiring System E-course you’ve gotten your headline written.

We now want to tell the best sales applicants why your company is the kind of company that values sales superstars. Here’s where we want to talk about the unique benefits of working in your company…

And to tell applicants what makes your company a good place to apply

Make sure your claims are believable and include facts to support your claims

What are the special qualities to your company?

Here are some things top sales performers will want to see to consider your company:

Is your company a recognized industry leader? (Include “According to our J.D. Powers” or “The Wall Street Journal says…” )
Is this a salary position? (Very important to clearly articulate that in your ad.)
Is your company locally-based?
Does your company promote from within?
Does your company have a unique product that with the right sales talent is very hot?
Is your commission structure extremely generous?
Do top performers succeed quickly?

When I write copy I remind myself “Generalities roll off the mind of the prospect, like water off the back of a duck.” Get specific in your ad and give your prospective superstar salesperson reasons to consider your company…

“Last year, despite the economy Acme added clients.”
vs
“Last year, despite the economy Acme increased its client list by 13% including 2 of the Fortune 500.”

“Top compensation”
vs
“According to Salary.com our salespeople earn 20% more than others in our field”

“Highest rated company”
vs
“Recognized by Standard and Poors as #2 rated Insurance company”

Get the idea?

Be specific, it adds to the ad’s impact

Why are we running this ad? Answer: “Our company is a home for top sales performers.
We are committed to making sure your unique skills as a top sales performer are rewarded. We mean that — we pay higher commissions, a bigger base and give a more generous expense account than anyone else.

We believe that in a free market economy great salespeople make great things happen. We want the best salespeople in the world on our team. Sales skills are a talent in short supply and we are always willing to talk if you are a real top performer

Does that make sense?

A philosophy that says top sales talent is worth its weight in gold is what this course is all about.

Top sales talent does not come from training…
Training enhances it…But you either have it or you don’t.

We’ve covered a lot of ground on how to make your ad specific and why that is important.

Stay tuned

In the next section we’re going to get into a trick we’ve been teaching our clients that will amaze you.

In a recent call with a prospect, the question of “outsourcing the sales function” came up.

Rather than answer the question directly, I asked him what he meant by that. He proceeded to tell me that he had read how some companies are outsourcing everything, including their sales effort. However, he said, from his perspective it was not a particularly good idea.

He’s right.

Rather than tell you why outsourcing sales won’t work for most companies, let me tell you where it does work.

One client has been successfully outsourcing their sales effort. They are in the Internet advertising business and are now placing their inventory with brokers. This  company sells  “clicks”. This is a totally generic product. Where one click might be better than another click, it is adjusted through tracking results. Their click and Google’s click are essentially the same thing. If their click is better than Google’s click, the results are all tracked and balanced out. There is no way that Google will get more than his click.

On the other hand, client David W. is moving from a rep strategy for his internationally marketed industrial products. Rep firms are outsourced sales teams. However David is reversing the “outsourcing” because he knows that having his own rep in a territory means better sales focus and better accountability.

Another example is when, ten years ago the radio advertising business got all excited about selling its inventory like Google sells clicks. A former partner created a company to do this and sold it to Google. It was a giant dud. He made millions. Google ended up shutting it down and writing off their investment. Why? Because local advertising is not a commodity. It responds to sales effort and it cannot be tracked the way clicks on the Internet can.

Where its true, in my view, that business has used the excuse of this Crash of 2008 to outsource and downsize, efforts to outsource the sales effort have been a failure. In fact, when the Government stops QE whatever number we’re on, companies who’ve been ramping up sales efforts will prosper. Nothing works better than a great sales team to improve the top and bottom line.

photo credit: markhillary via photopin cc