The internal challenges for advertising sales teams in 2017

Jan 5, 2017

By Bob Berting
Sales Advice

Newspaper publication ad sales can be a tough profession. These salespeople do everything possible to have a positive attitude, to be creative, to help their customers in every way possible and to really care about the business community they serve. Because of the troubling economy, it’s important to focus on improving the performance of the sales team in 2017. Many sales managers will lament about their sales force and their ability to dramatically build sales. The critical problems in most cases is that their salespeople are either not motivated or don’t feel they have the expertise to present new packages, which involve all the latest bells and whistles of digital audience extension programs.

The power of enthusiasm

We always like to be around people who truly enjoy what they do. Your customers enjoy working with your advertising salespeople when they are enthusiastic. Enthusiasm is an emotion people can trust, however, enthusiasm should radiate from newspaper management. If these people are low-key, aloof, and too reserved, this could affect the enthusiasm of the entire sales team.

Greater self worth is created from self-esteem

This is probably one of the greatest assets of a successful publication sales team. They believe in themselves. Management always has to keep the self-esteem of the sales team at the highest level. This can only be done by respecting the sales force as professionals and constantly working with them to help achieve their goals. Sales management has to instill a good team attitude every day. If he or she is someone who is preoccupied with worry and negative beliefs, this could have a negative effect on the attitudes of their salespeople.

Investing in the knowledge

of the sales team

Positive thoughts need to be projected to the sales team every day, and this can be done with the development of a reference library of self-help books, podcasts and videos. Although a lot of instruction can be gathered on the internet, it is more apparent to management when they see their salespeople handling the reference materials in person. Also, listening to audio CDs while driving between sales calls is an excellent way to develop “spaced repetition” learning.

Having more fun in 2017

Probably the most important way to have fun is the use of humor in advertising. This is powerful, and the sales team needs to brainstorm how to effectively create more humor in their customers’ ad campaigns. The readership of a publication can be greatly enhanced by the overall strategy of more provocative and clever headlines in the ads. Readers gravitate to that type of advertising because they are intrigued by that approach and want to see what will happen in continuing campaigns, every week. © Bob Berting 2017

Bob Berting is a professional speaker, advertising sales trainer and publisher marketing consultant who has conducted over 1500 live seminars, tele-seminars and webinars for newspaper sales staffs, their customers, and print media associations in the U.S. and Canada. His newest offer for the newspaper industry is a package of his two e-books “ Dynamic Advertising Sales and Image Power’ and “Advanced Selling Skills For The Advertising Sales Pro”. Both books can be ordered on his website www.bobberting.com individually for 19.95 or both for 35.00. Contact Bob at bob@bobberting.com or 800-536-5408. He is located at 6330 Woburn Drive, Indianapolis, IN 46250.