What are the biggest challenges facing todays newspaper advertising manager?
Cargill: Today’s newspaper advertising manager’s biggest challenge is probably finding good talent. I’m concerned that there aren’t any schools around today teaching people how to sell as there were back in my day. I started selling in 1970. At that time, IBM, Xerox, Hewlett Packard, an entire plethora of large account offered a range of full-time sales skills training. Smaller organizations could recruit from those organizations, people who had good selling skills. Today, that pool of talent doesn’t exist. I’m concerned that pretty soon we’re going to have to have an ability to recruit, hire, and train good salespeople from ground zero. API: Of the successful sales departments you’ve seen, what traits do they have? What are they doing right that you wish more people would do? Cargill: The best of the best always manage with leading indicators. They manage by the numbers. They attract and retained good people, not through compensation, but by offering a balance of compensation, work ex
