Why Do Some Professionals Need So Much Moral Support?

It was 3pm on a beautiful fall Friday, 75 degrees, no wind. The leaves were changing color. All was calm and right with the world. I had had a very productive week; I had increased my sales for the month by over 25% in four days. I took it upon myself to pat my own back, because I do not receive any “job well done pats” at the office.

I was lining up my first shot off the tee box. I felt good, calm, fluid. This was going to be a great game. I reach the top of my back swing, my phone rings. I ignore it, it rings again, I answer.

It was the GM, “Huff, I need you to help me, send the new, hold on, the phone is ringing, rate card to the other office right now, hack hack. I am swamped. I have so much to do (she rattled off a long list of things I did not listen to because they were not important). I am here all by wheeze hack sniff, myself.” (If you think her dialogue is hard to read, imagine listening to her.)

“The rates have not changed, just the layout of the card. Have the other office use the old rate card for the rest of the day.”

“They hack need it now, hack, cough.”

“OK.”

When I call the other office, and tell them to download it from the website, they were shocked to hear from me. They needed the rate card “at some point”, not this afternoon.

This had happened earlier in the week to, major interruptions for minor “problems.” I dared to be out on sales calls while The GM just wanted someone there. There was nothing I could help her with at the office. She just wanted me there, for moral support.

I tee back up. My zen is gone. I will not share my score.

I can only hold your hand so much!

I have a little saying… “I can only hold your hand so much.” I probably say it too often, but people need to hear it. Almost every person I talk to while I am on the clock needs to hear it; new advertisers, seasoned advertisers, large businesses, small businesses, Production, The GM, etc. It seems like no one can make any type of decision, let alone do their job. If its like this everywhere, I really do not understand how the country continues to run.

I was in a meeting with a client the other day, and I got him to make a decision. I know, this was huge. We had everything figured out; I was taking care of ALL of it. All he needed to do was send me the menu for the ad (he runs a restaurant). I know what you are thinking, “Man, she asks a lot from her clients”. But I had to; I could not just make up what they were serving (actually, I may try that next time).

The menu kept not coming, no matter how much “hand holding” I did. I called, I emailed, I stopped in. Finally, it was too late, the paper actually printed; the ad could not run because the advertiser did not tell us what to say.

The advertiser was SO pissed that his ad did not run. No joke. He was actually upset.

At this point he sent the menu, we were going to try for the next week. I handed the layout to Production, with major detail; I had done everything except build the ad. Of course production was miffed. I have never heard so many questions, or seen someone so confused.

That is when I lost it. “What more do you want? I cannot do your job for you, if I could, I would, because it would be faster. I can only hold your hand so much.”

These sorts of outbursts might be why Production is so gun shy.

New Account!?

I scored a rock’n awesome account last week. It was handed to me in shambles, but the point is that it is mine! I had been cultivating this fabulous account for two years, TWO YEARS! I had been the Bestest of Reps (I capitalized this on purpose, I will be referring to myself as “The Bestest of Reps” from now on), a Publisher could ever have asked for. I had a great idea for a client, and I pursued them, and kept pursuing them thorough 4 different marketing minions. And just when I was about to land the deal, another Rep swooped in and yanked the account out from under me (I actually broke ribs from the fall, it was that hard).

I do have to admit, it is hard to keep track of who’s account is who’s when you only have 15 “OFFICAL PROTECTED CLIENT LIST” posted around the offices. Suffering bodily harm from the loss of an account is fine (I do have Workman’s Compensation Insurance), especially because you expect it to be made right by your “all knowing and loving” Publisher. I am sure if you have read any other entries of mine you surmised from my thoughts that I probably suffered a concussion, along with the broken ribs.

Why would he stand up for his Reps, why would he enforce the “Rules of Engagement”, his goal is to always go against the obvious correct answer. Why would he easily tip toe across the pool with a Mai- Tai in hand, when he could dive into the “I am a retard and cannot swim end”? So… The Publisher did not stand up for me until (dun-dun-dunnn) the account was so messed up by the other Rep that she could not fix it. Then it was handed to The Bestest of Reps, to fix.

Yeah!!! I got a new account!

Delivery day!

So… remember my post about distribution? Well, yesterday was delivery day. That girl-friend I mentioned texted me a fabulous pic of her paper, lovingly nestled between her trash cans and recycling bins. Granted, we do have progress, it is not IN the trash this time. But it is very close, and knee-slappingly funny enough to post.

Negotiation? What Negotiation?

One of our clients asked for a meeting the other day. They were interested in partnering with us on a recycling project and the campaign would last 6 months.

On the morning of this fairly important meeting I am so excited that I wore a suit, something I rarely do. Are you getting that this is an important meeting? The GM gets excited too. She decides this is just the type of meeting a GM should be involved in; she wore Crocs.

I get a little nervous. It’s never good when The GM gets involved in a negotiation. She has been known to give away our pot of money.

We walk into the meeting and I am in good spirits because I know we have the upper hand. The conversation begins with The City is pitching their idea. It is really good and we could get a great deal of exposure. And that’s when it happened. The GM said “What I am thinking is 50% off of all ads, with free color, in all of our papers, for as long as you want.” I am paraphrasing, but essentially that is exactly what she said.

Lets be clear. The City had not asked for a discount, they had asked for a partnership. Our name would be on everything they did related to this recycling campaign and all they asked us for was 25% of printing costs for the billboards (there were billboards!!!). Now here I give The City a ton of credit. They responded by attempting to give her a way out of the gaffe by saying, “What about the other promotional material around town?” To which The GM responded, “We are not interested.” My jaw bounced off of the conference room table 3 times before I could stop it!

Lets recap:
1) We are getting only 50% of the advertising revenue, when we could have gotten 100%. and
2) We will not be included in any of the massive publicity all over the city for the next 6 months.

Smooth… that was wickedly smooth.

If we had charged 100% for the ads, it would have more than paid for the billboards. As we walked out of the meeting The GM remarked on how wondefully the meeting had gone. I should really pay more attention to my boss and her mad negotiation skills.

No Means No!

I slinked in the front door of the office yesterday morning, trying to lay low, head down, stepping quietly. Mondays are the worst. It usually takes me a good 15 minutes to get to my desk on any other day of the week, but on Mondays it takes a good 40. I stand with bags and files hanging off of me, blank eyes, coffee cup empty, as I listen to never ending worthless stories, until the phone finally rings, or there is another distraction and I can continue my stealthy belly-crawl to my desk.

I make it past the GM’s office door, I am home free, I lift my head, start to walk a little faster, I am almost to the hall! Then, the little troll of a GM leaps out from behind a cubical divider, scaring me half to death:

“Have you checked your email yet?”

“No. Why?” (remember, I had just walked in the door)

“Do you have any last minute election ads?”

“No. Not that I know of”

“Well, you should. Have you called everyone?”

“Yes, on Friday, I have everyone scheduled that would like to run.”

“You should call them again.”

“NO MEANS NO!” (I did not scream this, but I wanted to)

Really? You want your Reps to waste all of their valuable time re-calling clients who have already stated they do not want to run? Just a thought, but it maybe more efficient to have your Reps call clients who may still be interested in advertising. Just a thought.

Why do we Grow?

Businesses should not grow, simply for the sake of growing. Healthy businesses grow for many reasons; to take advantage of economies of scale, to eliminate competition, etc. There needs to be a reason, and a method. The Company grows for the sake of growing.

Two years ago The Company bought another thriving little newspaper group (this lovely and successful group is where I came from). Over these 2 years nothing has been integrated, NOTHING! We are still in separate offices, we still pay 2 salaries for positions such as: the GM, the Production Manager, the Editor, the Sports Editor, the Advertising Manager, the Classified Manger, etc. We still even have separate accounts at Office Depot! And guess what, the increased overhead is killing us. We cannot even afford to maintain the computer networks (take note, we do not have an IT guy, let alone a duplicate).

Why double the size of your business if you do not plan to take advantage of those wonderful perks offered to larger businesses, like cheaper cost per square foot rent? That’s right, I forgot, because we grow for the sake of growing. 

Because this new growth is threatening to swamp the ship more and more things are being cut, like coffee, and the paper routes of 400 kids who use the money to buy penny candy. I actually had a stern talking to about making a fresh pot of coffee the other day, because we need to keep office costs to a minimum. I know it is wasteful, but I just could not stand the idea of drinking day old, re-heated, cheap ass, oxidized coffee (I am actually grimacing as I write this). Coffee really is the only thing that keeps me happy at the office, and they are trying to take that away!

We cannot afford to spend $0.20 per day of fresh coffee, but we can afford to offer free ads to clients so they can put their Pot of Money on back of a bus.

Distribution

I got a call from a girlfriend the other day. Her paper is delivered on trash day, and it is no longer making it to her doorstep, instead, whoever delivers it is slam-dunking it into her trashcan!

We have a few newspapers in the group, and they are delivered in one of two ways; by neighborhood kids or by drivers. The papers the kids deliver outshine the other papers, the community loves them! On our “do not deliver list” it only lists .008% of homes! The kids do a great job, they get the paper to the doorstep, they smile and look cute, they make a little cash, and their parents love that they have a job and therefore love the paper. All-in-all a pretty kick ass PR move on our part.

So… we had to f*** it up. All of the papers are now delivered by a driver who does not care about his job, who does not smile or look cute, and who’s parents are disappointed about what a loser job he has. Oh, and we fired all 400 kids. All-in-all a pretty sad ass PR move on our part.

Pot of Money Theory

Last Friday I had a conversation with The Mentor about the “Pot of Money Theory”. Every company has a pot of money to spend on advertising. The goal of the Ad Rep is to get as much of that pot as possible.

At the end of the day I drove downtown. If you know me, you know driving downtown is a feat in and of its self. I, being the genius that I am, was also multi-tasking. When I came to the realization that I could not take notes, while driving, talking on the phone to a client, looking for a girlfriend, while lost; I pulled over. Luckily, just in time to miss getting taken out by one of the city’s many fine buses.  Three other buses come close to broadsiding me. I up the anti on multi-tasking (now that I am pulled over and all) I start to think… each one of those buses had a very expensive ad on the back of it. The ad was for an advertiser of ours, who runs weekly full-page ads with The Company, pro-bono. No trade, no tickets, no promotion at their events, pro-bono, because they cannot afford to advertise.

As my girlfriend climbs into the passenger seat I watch another pot of money drive away, dirtied by exhaust. Man, am I glad that advertiser is not in my territory.