For more than 10 years the Media Management Center has been working with newspapers in Canada, the United States, and Latin America to enhance profitable advertising revenue. We have been singularly successful in this effort.

Professors Hervey Juris and Hazel Reinhardt lead the team's investigation into the structure, activities, and management of the advertising sales force. They make recommendations that have led to increased profitability for every partner in the program.This is accomplished by the reallocation of the existing sales force to areas that are underserved and away from accounts that are not profitable. We have two approaches -- one quantitative and one qualitative -- which are then merged to produce our recommendations. This is how it works:

Quantitative initiatives
We value a market showing how many advertising dollars should be spent in the market and where those dollars are being spent (TV, cable, print, radio, direct mail, internet, etc.).

We also help the newspaper create a database of all the accounts carried by sales representatives over the last two years. We help them review these accounts and help them determine what percentages of accounts bring in what percent of revenue. Typically the smallest two quintiles contain 80 percent of the accounts and bring in less that 10 percent of the revenue. We also break the database into categories. Using the database and the data from the market valuation discussed above, we can then reallocate sales force effort to categories that are underserved and to categories where money is on the table.

Qualitative initiatives
We interview managers to get a handle on the issues they see at the newspaper. We ride with territory and classified sales representatives to see how they spend their time and to get their perspectives. We interview advertisers as to their relationship with the newspaper. And we survey advertising department employees to learn more about the issues raised in the interviews. From this information we can make recommendations about the management and compensation of the sales force as well as recommendations for the sales assistants and management of the production process. These recommendations can increase the time sales representatives spend face to face with customers from 25 percent of their day to 50 percent of their day.

Results
We expect 2 to 7 percent increases in profitable revenue over one to three years when our recommendations are implemented. One metro newspaper achieved an extra $7 million in revenue the first year by implementing simple changes in compensation, which reduced turnover among the territorial sales force.

Typically, as a result of our recommendations, a newspaper will restructure the territorial sales force, induce turnover among the lower performers and some managers, get managers out of the office and into the field to coach, sell, and lead, and hold retail and inside and outside classified managers more accountable for results.

If you would like to know more about our sales force programs, please contact Hervey Juris at h-juris@northwestern.edu.