New supervisors are anxious to make a good impression, so they try to get all of those things done. Somehow, the business of creating ways to grow revenue gets lost in the act of managing all the processes. The problem is that classified supervisors get most of their day-to-day feedback based on how well all the processes are managed, rather than how much advertising is sold. Managers get into the poor habit of focusing primarily on the processes. All too often, the concept of using ingenuity to maximize revenues either takes a back seat or is lost completely.
Ok, classified supervisors and managers, here’s the deal: “Your number one priority is to grow revenue!” Everything and anything else that isn’t directly focused on growing revenue hurts your sales performance.
The other departments you work with are primarily interested on accomplishing their individual primary objectives. They will siphon off as much of your valuable sales time as you allow them to take. Their objectives are met, which makes them look good. Your sales don’t grow, and may even dip, and upper management wonders if you have the right stuff. You simply cannot let these objectives from other departments keep you from achieving your department’s primary goal of growing sales revenues.
Does this mean that classified doesn’t have to do those “other” tasks? For most, of course you still have to do them. Be willing to work with those other departments, just not under them. The question is the priority. If something is missed because you are short on time, it has to be one of these “other” activities, and never any of your department’s sales activity.
There is a steady supply of people that will do clerical and production duties for less money than most salespeople make. Good salespeople are the hardest employees for any business to find. It just doesn’t make sense to take away from sales time for clerical and production tasks. Keep your sales staff selling. If you have someone in your department that just can’t seem to grasp the concept that their job is sales, give that person all the non-sales duties so the salespeople can spend time selling more ads.
Just to be clear, as a Classified Supervisor, you must accomplish your primary goal of maximizing revenue generation every day, or else you have failed. This is true no matter what else you may have accomplished that day.
This means that Ad-visors always efficiently make the most out of every inbound call. Ad-visors make their renewal callbacks every day; even things are really busy. Clear plans, objectives and schedules for maximizing outbound calling for special pages, promotions and directories must be implemented.
In addition to outbound calling for special items, the department must spend time staying in touch with existing advertisers that haven’t run recently. It doesn’t do much good to add new customers if there is a steady stream of them falling away. The same is true of advertisers that you find in other media that should be advertising in your classified products.
There are many priorities in the classified department, but any that get ahead of selling more advertising are simply out of order. I once saw a sign above a business manager’s desk that read, “A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.” This is pretty sound advice. Another department’s top priority doesn’t change your department’s top priority. If you will make this your philosophy, you can be sure you’ll be rewarded for meeting your primary goal.
Richard Clark’s unique blend of “aw shucks” and “do it or die” delivery of classified advertising advice has brought success to well over 300 classified departments across America. His “Classified Development” program includes rate structuring, sales training and management coaching. To learn more about improving your classified numbers call 423-929-2243, or e-mail classifieddevelopment@yahoo.com.