(Michael P. Smith)

It is always great when the student becomes the teacher. Alex Galvis-Blanco, the publisher of the newspaper Vanguardia Liberal in Bucaramanga, Colombia, studied in the United States and attended the Media Management Center's Advanced Executive Program.

Part of the AEP curriculum focuses on advertising sales force management based upon a program of research and consulting conducted by MMC professors Hervey Juris and Hazel Reinhardt. Juris and Reinhardt have never failed to help an American or Canadian client make money after they have instituted the MMC approach.

In 2004, Galvis-Blanco invited Juris to visit Bucaramanga and advise Vanguardia Liberal on reengineering its sales force. One answer we were interested in discovering was whether the North American business model would work in a struggling country like Colombia. Would the MMC approach generate the same large increases in revenue?

Juris tailored the sales force management model for Vanguardia. He explains: "Working with Alex and the leadership of Vanguardia's advertising department, we were able to identify the important current and potential sources of revenue in the community and identify existing weaknesses in the management and deployment of the sales force."

The program also included a performance management mindset for the leadership of Vanguardia and the sales teams. "We talked about consequences for consistent failure to perform and more positive rewards for success," says Juris. The results are the talk of Colombia and the profit margins would be the envy of American newspapers. Galvis-Blanco, the former student is now leading sessions in MMC's Spanish-language programs on how to build, manage and grow the ad team -- and do it profitably. He gives credit to MMC and Juris.

Juris shares the praise: "Talk is cheap. The success of Vanguardia over the last three years is due to the implementation of those suggestions by Alex and his team and the extension of those ideas beyond anything that the Center team recommended."