Who Will Save Your Souls?
by Nick Coston, OOH, DOOH, pDOOH Professional; Industry Writer
We all hear the constant chatter—the U.S. needs to find ways to surpass the 4 percent market share of advertising that OOH seems to be stuck on for, oh, I don’t know, 20 years or so. Nobody has an answer, just a bunch of shortly worded critiques pointing out the obvious. Nobody has found a cure.
So what happens if we don’t get above 4 percent and continue to make much smaller gains each year? What’s wrong with trending in a positive direction? Maybe it’s not the product, maybe it’s the way the OOH companies manage them sales operations.
Every time I read about ways to increase our share of the advertising spend, it reminds me of the 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto Principle. It goes something like this: 80 percent of your sales come from 20 percent of the salespeople. Therefore, you should identify and prioritize the 20 percent who produce the highest sales, understand why they're successful, and get the other 80 percent to tag along. Otherwise, make some personnel changes. It’s a great way to narrow where your strengths are comprised, and where your weaknesses lie.
And don’t think for a minute that the guy who this rule is named after, Vilfredo de Pareto, was some sharp Italian businessman wearing sharkskin suits and smoking unfiltered Camels. He was an 18th-century sociologist who figured out this rule applies to other aspects of society. We all remember how darn boring sociology classes were in college.
I have long argued that most outdoor divisions with larger companies had way too many salespeople in every market. Let's say 3 out of 10 salespeople bring in 80 percent of the business and you’re only increasing business 2 to 4 percent each year. Sound familiar? Why do you need all those salespeople?
Why not go with five specially trained, incredibly professional sharpshooters you treat with respect, pay handsomely, and reward for making their numbers? Do not dilute their account base because they’re making too much money. Have fewer people to manage a lower constant overhead with the same or better results. This radio-style method of turning and churning half of your sales staff on a yearly basis is grossly outdated.
And here’s another saying I like: “Those that can, do. Those that can’t, manage.” If you have decent salespeople but a weak manager who has never been a successful seller, you are doomed for failure, especially if you're overloaded with underperforming staff. OOH companies with larger sales staffs tend to look outside their company, pining the blame elsewhere for their slow growth. They blame the economy, they blame local zoning restrictions, they blame fears of a recession. They refuse to look inward and reimagine an efficient sales staff.
Maybe some companies don’t need all that upper management dictating how professionals should be selling when, in reality, they’ve hardly sold that product successfully. That’s another reason I’ve always been a proponent of sales managers and general managers having their own book of business. That way, they know what it’s like in the field, and perhaps they could show their salespeople how to be more successful. Some companies, especially Outfront Media, excel at this method.
Most of the unrest in growing revenues comes from the pontification of so-called outdoor specialists, who love to criticize the associations, rating systems, and lack of imaginative advertising copy. There are some truths to these criticisms since they could be improved. But at the same time, our industry needs to manage its sales staff better. So much time is wasted on meetings, flow charts, paperwork, and correctly filling in their complex CRMs, which I can say from first-hand experience was the downfall of many salespersons.
You’re making it too busy for your sales staff to sell efficiently. It’s inherent in a salesperson’s makeup to keep them moving forward and having a good income. Like sharks that need to swim to stay alive, the same applies to the sales staff.
Why are companies making it so hard for them to succeed? A sure-fire recipe for stagnation is continuing to run your sales staff the same way as 15 years ago.
Don’t blame outside forces, this could be solved on your own.
Note: I just returned to media sales and strategy. My goal is to do what I preach, so let’s see where we are a year from now.
Nick Coston has been in the advertising industry for over 35 years. He’s worked at newspapers, magazines, OOH/DOOH companies, programmatic platforms, and ground-breaking ad tech companies, including Washingtonian, Washington Times, New Republic, USA Today Weekend, Clear Channel Outdoor, and The Neuron and Hypercell. He’s also spent 10 years buying OOH for a top 10 national advertiser. Nick resides with his family in Dayton, Maryland. He has been musing about the Outdoor Media industry for over five years.