Media Sales Media Services Clients FAQ Press Blog Careers Contact Us Ads & Ideas Consulting BLOG Thank you! By Jim Elliott, President James G. Elliott Co., Inc. November 19, 2021 Since I started my media sales firm in November 1984, there have been many challenges including wars, a great recession, and a pandemic. But we get by with a little help from our friends, so I wanted to pause for a moment to thank all of our clients, employees, associates and other friends who have made our success possible. We could not have done it without you, and you have my heartfelt thanks. It was a different world in 1984: no Amazon (est. 1994), Google (est. 1998), or Meta (est. 2004). The first iPhone wouldn’t be sold until June 2007. A lot of big things were starting to happen in 1984. Apple launched Macintosh, the first commercial computer to popularize the graphical user interface and the mouse. AT&T was restructured, and communications technology options blossomed. The Internet would soon begin accepting commercial traffic and the stage was set for development of today’s media environment. In 1984, who would have guessed digital technologies would become such a huge part of our lives and that we would all become so comfortable with digital media, eNewsletters, webinars, brand studios, social media, podcasts, OTT/CTV, smart-everything and so much more. We’re eager to discover what new media options the future holds and to move forward with you. Thank you for being with us on this exciting journey. Share Sell Them the Way They Want to be Sold By Jim Elliott, President James G. Elliott Co., Inc. November 16, 2021 You’ve undoubtedly heard someone say, “Do what you love, and the money will follow.” Maybe, but I have found that when we do what the customer loves, the money will follow. There are many selling methodologies in use today: The Challenger Sale, Conceptual Selling, Consultative Selling, Customer-Centric Selling, MEDDIC, NEAT Selling, SNAP Selling, Solution Selling, SPIN Selling, Sandler Selling System, Value Selling Framework, and more. All of these techniques offer tools the seller can use. However, at the Elliott Co. we have found that one simple attitude improves our chance of success whatever method our salespeople might be using: sell our advertisers and their agencies the way they want to be sold. This attitude shifts our focus away from just selling to being a trusted resource: an advisor—not just another media vendor. This approach contributes to our consistent record of success. Sometimes, of course, the way they want to be sold is purely transactional. But we have found that many of our advertiser clients and their agencies are looking for more. It can be about how we can solve a problem, overcome a challenge, or ease a pain point for them. When we see it their way, we are automatically valued more. We and our customers find ourselves working together toward a common goal: their goal. Share Veterans Day 2021 By Jim Elliott, President James G. Elliott Co., Inc. November 9, 2021 Every November 11, our nation celebrates Veterans Day. Originally, Veterans Day was called Armistice Day to celebrate the end of World War I. Beginning in 1919, Americans acknowledged the end of WWI on the 11th day of the 11th month at 11 am, when businesses were to stop operating for two minutes in a moment of silence. Unfortunately, WWI was not the war to end all wars and our country endured WWII. President Eisenhower signed a proclamation changing Armistice Day to Veterans Day. We now continue to honor veterans who fought and sacrificed not only in WWI but WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and the wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan. This Thursday, military and veterans’ organizations will hold parades and events across the nation and hundreds of local and national businesses will recognize veterans by offering discounts and free services. On Veterans Day, millions of red crepe paper poppies—all handmade by veterans as part of their therapeutic rehabilitation—are distributed across the country by the American Legion Auxiliary in exchange for donations that go directly to assist disabled and hospitalized veterans in our communities. “Veterans have given us freedom, security and the greatest nation on earth. It is impossible to put a price on that. We must remember them. We must appreciate them.” John Sharp https://www.legion.org/veteransday/speech The Elliott Company is honored to represent the media for a number of fine organizations dedicated to those who serve—and have served—this country, and those who support them: The American Legion, The American Legion Auxiliary, Military Officers Association of America (MOAA), The National Guard Association of the United States (NGAUS), and Navy League of the United States. Thank you, Veterans! Share Advertising Sales Planning by Jim Elliott, President James G. Elliott Co., Inc. November 3, 2021 Tis the season…the season for planning. For the past few weeks, Elliott Co. media sellers have been working on their advertising sales plans for 2022. Now those plans are finished, and commitments are being made. By reviewing the main features of the past year and anticipating the coming year, our sellers and management create a map to follow. Of course, things don’t always go the way we plan. Nobody expected a pandemic. Nobody expects recessions, supply chain disruptions, bad weather, or earthquakes. Some of these can make it much more difficult to hit the numbers we’ve negotiated. But when we have a clear goal, we have a much better focus and chance of success than if we were to just “do the best we can.” Recently, our blog and newsletter carried the story about one of our clients whose events business was wiped out by Covid-19 in 2020 and 2021. But the sales staff rallied and finished 2021 with higher total sales than they brought in during 2019. How? By putting their efforts toward lead generation products such as webinars and whitepapers. Sales went up! The sales team did great work, and part of the credit must go to the planning they had done. It’s much easier to pivot when you have given a lot of thought about your options. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe World War II and later the US President, said his experience taught him that “plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” We agree. The year 2022 won’t turn out the way we planned it, but we’ve taken inventory, we know what we have to accomplish, and we’re ready. Bring it! “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” — General Dwight D. Eisenhower Share Why We Still Send Out a Printed Newsletter by Jim Elliott, President James G. Elliott Co., Inc. October 27, 2021 Recently, a media company CEO asked me why we go to the expense of printing and mailing thousands of copies of my company’s quarterly newsletter, Ads&IDEAS®. I asked him how he knows we send them out. He said, “well, I read it.” Then I asked him how many other printed newsletters he reads. His response? “None.” Our first-class mailings cut through the clutter and make an impression. Yes, digital communications are much faster and cheaper. Of course, we use them too, depending on the job to be done. But open rates are low for most digital newsletters and blogs, and busy people often delete dozens of emails at a time without ever seeing anything but the subject line. When it’s important that our companies be noticed, we send a physical object. It’s kind of like a handwritten note. When you receive a handwritten note, doesn’t it stand out compared to an email? Most people get so few that they notice each one. You might be surprised how often I meet with someone in the industry who will recognize me from my picture in the newsletter. It’s even more gratifying when that person reaches into a desk drawer and pulls out the latest issue or I see it pinned to their bulletin board. We post our newsletters on our website, adsandideas.com, at the same time we mail them. If you would like to be notified by email when our new issues are ready, please “subscribe” on this site. Share Perfect is the Enemy of Good by Jim Elliott, President James G. Elliott Co., Inc. October 20, 2021 For centuries, leaders have known that perfect is the enemy of good. When conditions are changing rapidly, too much time spent planning is counterproductive. General George S. Patton said, “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.” His bias toward action based on a good plan, not a perfect plan, achieved spectacular results. Today, we find ourselves coping with changes that can upend our businesses in just one or two quarters. The perfectionist, trying to get every little detail of the plan just right, often will be faced with new conditions that may render the plan useless before any good can come of it. The leader who begins to act before the paint is dry has a much better chance of success than one who waits until every last detail is in place. In the 37 years since I founded my company, we have seen some incredible events, including technological revolution, economic recession, war, political upheaval and now, pandemic. The whole media industry has changed, almost beyond belief. We survived and even prospered because we acted quickly to implement good plans, understanding that we might have to change course rapidly. Share Lead Gen Programs Can Benefit from Impact of Covid Dennis Connaughton, General Manager James G. Elliott Co., Inc. September 10, 2021 The last 18 months of the COVID‐shaped advertising environment has actually accelerated change that was already taking place in the ad market. For example, according to MediaRadar (MR), the more than 1,400 B2B magazines that they track produced 11% fewer total ad pages in 2019 than they did in 2018. This was long before COVID became a household word. Fact is, print advertising has been in decline in the B2B segment for the last half dozen years, some categories longer, and the more recent COVID challenge has simply pushed publications to ad page counts few would have believed possible. However, the COVID‐related impact across all areas of marketing have produced some monetary benefit to certain digital products, specifically those related to lead generation. Due to travel and crowd restrictions put in place at the start of the pandemic, companies were forced to turn their sales forces into professional Zoomers and eliminate trade shows altogether from their marketing mix. These two events drove the need for qualified sales leads sky high and publishers who had quality lead gen products have enjoyed a sales boom. One of our clients is a perfect case study on this situation. When we started representing them in 2015, we sold roughly 60 webinars, a number considered at the upper limit of demand and their production capacity at the time. This year—2021—we will have sold over twice as many webinars for that client, a number we now consider the maximum due to response / performance considerations. Also, greatly increased success with white papers, eBooks, and other lead gen products have led to our best revenue year ever with that client. We believe there will be a temptation for publishers to consider the 2020‐2021 period as a one‐time‐only situation which will soon evaporate as customers gradually return to pre‐ COVID practices. We disagree with this thinking for three reasons. • First, marketers have learned, forcibly to be sure, that there are far, far more efficient means to generate leads for a sales force than to create a very expensive, very time‐ consuming year‐long trade show caravan. And increased show expenses apparently await. Just two weeks ago an advertiser bitterly complained to one of our sellers at a trade show that she just received an additional $14,000 shipping upcharge for an exhibit that was sent on a Boston to Philadelphia round trip. And it wasn’t an enormous exhibit. • Second, trade shows may soon return but trade show attendees may not. We know COVID‐ related concerns still affect how people work and plan. Moreover, we saw that the trade show mentioned above attracted only one‐third the number of visitors it did in the years before COVID. Same show, same city/location, one‐third the visitors. We don’t believe that people will have spent the better part of two years avoiding all physically compromising situations and then suddenly rush out to a trade show to stand shoulder to shoulder with 10,000 or more strangers. In our view, trade show attendance will return very gradually, likely over years. Marketers will have to find those lost attendees elsewhere—through webinars, white papers, and other proven media devices. • Third, corporate learning is slow but so is corporate forgetfulness. No sales manager ever born would have had the nerve to cancel all trade show participation on the unproven belief that there is a better, more efficient way to produce leads for the sales force. But the entire universe of sales managers was forced into that experience. Not just for six months. It will be closer to two years for most and in that time, they discovered and created new strategies and tactics that worked. For example, we produced some webinars this past year that had over 1,200 registrants for a tiny fraction of the time and cost those companies would have spent for similar results at a trade show. That kind of success isn’t easily forgotten. Share Managing the sales force during the rebound This article was originally published on Fipp.com 26 AUGUST 2021 3-part mini-series on managing the sales force during the rebound By Jamie Gavin Global Media Tech Reporter | FIPP Last month, FIPP ran a popular Insider webinar series on Managing the Sales Force During the Rebound, which you can now view freely on our YouTube channel. Introduced by FIPP President & CEO, James Hewes, the series was hosted by media industry leaders Jim Elliott and John French, who interviewed other experts in the space. The three short 15 minute sessions looked at how salespeople are beginning to get back in-front of customers following lockdown, plans for returning to the office, what’s happening with hiring and onboarding, and the effects of various technologies including sales empowerment software and video conferencing. We here pick out some highlights from the programme, as well as the links to each individual session video. Episode 1: Kate Spellman, CMO of Questex, on handling the return to live events: “It’s been a rollercoaster of a ride… it depends on the state, and if that state is opening. For example, we have two shows in May, one of which was initially scheduled for California, but we moved to Arizona because California wasn’t open. It’s been a lot of that back and fourth.” “And then at the same time literally daily discussions on safety. So we’ve launched a programme across Questex called Be Safe, and although we’re not requiring vaccinations we are going to be doing a lot of safety precautions. For example, for our first show, which is a meetings planning show, everyone will be tested before they go into the building.” You can view the full episode here. Episode 2: Simon Leslie, Co-Founder and CEO, Ink Global, on morale amongst the salesforce today: “It’s been a little bit like breaking up relationships over the last say 20 weeks. Every day somebody else comes along and says it’s not you it’s me, and I’ve got to go on. Because they haven’t had the opportunity to be making the money that they had over the previous decade I guess. So we’ve lost a lot of staff… we probably went from 150 sellers to maybe 55-60 and we’re now re-recruiting again.” “In the states it’s been a little bit less challenging, because the markets have remained quite buoyant and the airlines have continued to fly. In Europe, all our airlines have been pretty much grounded and in Asia same again. So keeping them all engaged at different times, keeping the messaging right for depending where they are in the cycle has been a real challenge.” You can view the full episode here. Episode 3: Steve Grossman, President, Steve Grossman & Associates, on looking ahead to what travel budgets might look like as we begin to move out of the pandemic: “I guess the only answer I can give with any confidence is we’re gonna be hybrid. But what we started seeing right from the beginning, and I think that it’s continuing, is the efficiency at both ends of the sales equation to doing things virtually. So not getting on planes as often as we used to – we used to get on a plane really at the drop of a hat for a one hour meeting, and therefore spend 8hrs in the air.” “And looking back that was nuts. It was nuts from both a time efficiency and cost efficiency standpoint. So I think it’s going to settle in on, you’ll still have the face to face, but that will likely be after you’ve had a series of virtual calls… face to face meetings will then come if there’s a real need to literally go in and do whiteboarding or have a dinner with people or something.” You can view the full episode here. Share FIPP Insider Webinar with Steve Grossman: Managing the Sales Force during the Rebound – Episode 3 By Jim Elliott, President James G. Elliott Co., Inc. August 12, 2021 FIPP, one of the world’s leading media trade associations, presents the third episode in their mini-series of interviews with prominent voices entitled, “Managing the Sales Force During the Rebound.” In Episode 3, Steve Grossman, a sought-after sales effectiveness and sales compensation consultant who works with top management across many sectors, talks with John French and me about returning to sales activity. In Steve’s view, the much-discussed question of returning to the office is less important than how—and when—salespeople return to personal calls. He talks about the appropriate use of both travel and video conference technologies, and how these technologies can increase efficiencies. Steve also addresses how company cultures will change, as well as the positive and potential negative impacts of sales and marketing automation tools on both salespeople and sales managers. Share FIPP Insider Webinar with Simon Leslie, Co-founder and CEO of Ink Global: Managing the Sales Force during the Rebound – Episode 2 By Jim Elliott, President James G. Elliott Co., Inc. August 4, 2021 FIPP, one of the world’s leading media trade associations, presents the second episode in their mini-series of interviews with prominent voices entitled, “Managing the Sales Force During the Rebound.” In Episode 2, Simon Leslie, CEO of Ink Global, talks with John French and me about returning to the office and rebuilding. He spoke about hiring and training new people during the pandemic, and structural changes that will benefit new hires in the future. Other topics include sales force morale, recruiting, face-to-face meetings, video meetings, and the downside of working from home. Ink Global’s product mix is evolving towards more digital and video, which will require new skill sets from salespeople and sales leaders. https://youtu.be/iIA_ePQ83sE. (Duration-12:58) Share FIPP Insider Webinar with Kate Spellman, CMO of Questex: Managing the Sales Force during the Rebound – Episode 1 By Jim Elliott, President James G. Elliott Co., Inc. July 22, 2021 Today, FIPP, one of the world’s leading media trade associations, released the first episode in their mini-series of interviews with prominent voices entitled, “Managing the Sales Force During the Rebound.” In Episode 1, Kate Spellman, CMO of Questex, talks with John French and me about recent and upcoming events. In this 14:30 minute segment, she shares how Questex is approaching reopening, how video platforms like Zoom and Teams have benefitted Questex, new approaches to sales training, and more. Share John French Has Joined Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips as Senior Advisor By Jim Elliott, President James G. Elliott Co., Inc. July 20, 2021 I am pleased to congratulate John French on his new role as Senior Advisor at Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips. John is a good friend and a real star in the media business. This relationship makes good sense and should be very successful. Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips, the investment bank focused on the media, marketing, information, and technology industries, is pleased to announce that John French has joined the firm as Senior Advisor. John was one of the B2B media industry’s most prominent and successful CEOs. He was President of PRIMEDIA’s B2B division when it was sold to Wasserstein & Co. and remained in that role when the company was renamed Prism Business Media. During his time at PRIMEDIA and Prism he oversaw average CAGR digital growth of 50% a year. Later, when Prism acquired Penton Media, John became CEO of the industry’s largest company, Penton Media. His next role after running Penton Media was as CEO of Cygnus Business Media, where he created digital platforms for each of the brands and then successfully sold the company in several parts. Earlier in his career, he spent time working for some of the other major players in B2B media, including IDG, PennWell and CMP Publications. Now John advises senior managers on business transformation and other important issues. He has done this for the past six years at French LLC in partnership with his wife, Nancy, the company’s COO. He will continue in his advisory role with the clients of French LLC. John is a graduate of Boston College and he completed the Executive Management Program at Columbia Business School and the Publishing Executive Program at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Reed Phillips, Managing Partner of Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips said, “John has been CEO of some of the world’s largest B2B media companies where he excelled in creating value for investors. His expertise extends beyond media to include marketing services, events, technology, SaaS and data/analytics. We are delighted he is joining us. His experience and skills will be valuable additions to our M&A expertise.” You can contact John French at j.french@dp.oaklins.com or 201-513-1000. Source: Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips https://dp.oaklins.com/ Share Celebrating Our Clients' Success! By Jim Elliott, President James G. Elliott Co., Inc. June 29, 2021 It is always a pleasure to congratulate people we like who are recognized for the contributions they make. This month, we have had two opportunities to do just that. On June 9, 2021, Dr. Bibiana Campos Seijo, VP, C&EN Media Group and Editor in Chief, Chemical & Engineering News at the American Chemical Society was selected as the winner of the 53rd Annual G.D. Crain Jr. Award. This award is given annually to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the development of editorial excellence in business media over the course of a career. Well done, Dr. Campos Seijo! And, on June 16, SIIA recognized several of our clients in many different categories of the EXCEL Awards. We are delighted to congratulate the American Chemical Society (ACS), Military Officers Association of America (MOAA), Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), and the American Institute of Physics (AIP)! You can see the entire list of EXCEL Award Winners here: https://siia.net/excel/2021-excel-winners/ Congratulations! Share Now You're Cooking--Cooking with Gas! By Jim Elliott, President James G. Elliott Co., Inc. June 23, 2021 If you like to cook or if you are good friends with someone who does, we have something special for you this week. Our colleagues from the James G. Elliott Co. pooled their culinary talents and assembled a collection of our favorite recipes that helped us endure the Pandemic of 2020. This was the brainchild of John Day, who edited the collection into book form, Covid Coast-to-Coast Cookbook . Family recipes are original. Those from other sources are identified as such. No copyright is claimed since this is a not-for-sale, vanity project produced in the spirit of open-source publishing. We hope you enjoy and share these recipes with family and friends. Now fire up that stove and let’s start cooking! Share Do What You Do Best and Outsource The Rest By Jim Elliott, President James G. Elliott Co., Inc. June 8, 2021 Peter Drucker once said, “Do what you do best and outsource the rest.” As far as I know, the “Father of Modern Management” wasn’t talking directly to media owners, but his advice certainly is still on target. Most publishers of any size could benefit by seriously considering outsourcing their advertising sales because sales and sales management are often not what publishers and editors do best. By delegating sales functions to experts with broader experience and infrastructure in place, media owners and operators can achieve more with less wasted effort. My company has delivered more than $650,000,000 of net revenue to our clients. Along the way, we have learned a lot about what works. We know that it is crucial to set up the relationship properly from the beginning. Senior management at the client must not only approve the general idea of outsourcing sales but also must sign off on the firm selected. We have found that periodic meetings of senior management of both companies has been an important part of our most successful relationships. A successful outsourcing relationship is based on trust, which the sales team must earn by communicating frequently and truthfully with client management. That communication should go beyond data about specific accounts and extend to information about market conditions and trends. We believe in constantly studying the market and the products offered by our clients and the competition and providing our clients with feedback so that we can plan intelligently. In fact, each of our sellers creates a written sales plan for his or her area of responsibility every year, which is shared with our clients. When we reach agreement on the strategy, we execute the plan. Since I founded my company in 1984, I’ve been saying to my clients, “We manage the process; you manage the results.” If you would like to find out how that might work for you, please feel free to give me a call at 213-624-0900, ext. 1514 or email j.elliott@jgeco.com Share WFH? The Tax Authorities May Have a Surprise for YOU! By Jim Elliott, President James G. Elliott Co., Inc. June 1, 2021 With the help of our HR, tax, and legal advisors, we have been investigating some of the unexpected implications of staff working from home instead of an office. There may be serious tax consequences for both employers and employees. Here’s just one example: An article dated December 11, 2020 in the Journal of Accountancy reports that 55% of respondents who worked remotely in 2020 were not aware of potential tax consequences. A survey conducted for the AICPA by the Harris Poll also revealed that 47% don’t realize that each state has its own laws about remote work. With offices in three states, we must learn about the pertinent laws in each. “New York, for example, has already issued guidance in FAQs saying that out-of-state telecommuters working for Empire State employers will still be considered as working in New York for state tax purposes unless the employer ‘has established a bona fide employer office at your telecommuting location.’ “ https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/news/2020/dec/surprise-tax-bills-for-some-teleworkers.html I strongly urge you to learn about these issues before they affect you-- and your people-- unexpectedly. Share At Questex Events, the Emphasis is on Safety By Jim Elliott, President James G. Elliott Co., Inc. May 25, 2021 In the next two weeks, FIPP Insider Webinars will feature Kate Spellman, CMO of Questex, Simon Leslie, CEO of INK Global, and Steve Grossman of Steve Grossman & Associates, a prominent sales consultant, in a webinar hosted by John French of French LLC and me, to talk about managing sales forces as we rebound from the pandemic. To receive notice when this webinar is scheduled, just sign up to receive emails from James G. Elliott Co. using the form to the right. When asked about how Questex will handle the return to live events, Kate Spellman talked about her company’s Global Meeting & Incentive Travel Exchange (GMITE), held May 10-13, 2021. GMITE brings top meeting planners and incentive buyers together with global industry suppliers for three days of pre-scheduled 1-to-1 meetings. Kate says the environment was almost a bubble; the 1-to-1 meetings were held in one building at the Arizona Grand Resort & Spa private suites with six-foot tables and Plexiglas barriers. Everyone was tested before they go into the building, and there was a medical team on staff. Immediately after GMITE, Questex hosted SIBEC for the club and fitness industry from May 17-20, 2021 at the same location, following the Questex Be Safe campaign ( https://questex.com/event-safety/ ) . The emphasis at Questex events is on safety. So far, even fully vaccinated Questex employees are not required to attend live events if they are not comfortable. Most have chosen to attend—especially salespeople. I think the measured, thoughtful approach being taken by Questex is laudable. On a personal note, it is wonderful to be thinking—and writing—about live events once again! Share Selling from Home By Jim Elliott, President James G. Elliott Co., Inc. May 18, 2021 Since vaccinations against Covid-19 have become widespread, conversations about the workplace have ramped up. Many offices are reopening and there is much discussion of what a return to work will look like in different industries. Executives of some companies who had considered getting rid of their expensive real estate and housing their employees in their home offices are now having second thoughts. Issues like liability, workers’ comp insurance, and taxation are surfacing; employment lawyers and HR departments are sure to be busy for the next couple of years. Over the past year, we’ve all become more adept at using videoconferencing technologies like Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet. We have learned to do many of our tasks remotely, perhaps just as well as we had done them in offices. But performance of certain job roles may suffer. One of these may be sales. I believe that salespeople need the energy, feedback and encouragement they get from a sales office environment to do their best work. True, salespeople can schedule appointments and make phone calls effectively from home, and they may have more hours available as they avoid long commutes. It’s also true that a seller can make an appointment to meet a customer face-to-face and then return home. However, putting themselves out there day after day and hearing “no” much of the time can be discouraging. I think that salespeople need to be able to return to a positive environment to find motivation and do it all over again each day. Home needs to be the place a salesperson goes to decompress and relax after fighting the good fight all day. In the next two weeks, FIPP Insider Webinars will feature Simon Leslie, CEO of INK Global, Kate Spellman, CMO of Questex, and Steve Grossman of Steve Grossman & Associates, a prominent sales consultant, in a webinar hosted by John French of French LLC and me, talking about managing salesforces as we rebound from the pandemic. To receive notice when this webinar is scheduled, just sign up to receive emails from James G. Elliott Co. using the form to the right. Share Why Size Matters By Dennis Connaughton, General Manager James G. Elliott Co., Inc. May 11, 2021 Some B2B or association brands rely on vertical sales organizations that specialize in the markets served by those brands. Many times, we hear that those publishers would like to carry some near/non-endemic advertising, but their current sellers don’t seem to be able to bring much in. We think the problem is structural. There is one often overlooked benefit in hiring the James G. Elliott Co. – size – in people and geography. It matters in sales. We always have had a lot of salespeople and they are, and always have been, invariably selling across a long list of categories which in turn produces a great deal of sales intelligence that can be shared by all of our sellers. But equally important is the source of the intelligence. We’re geographically scattered because we believe that selling directly to marketers today is far, far more important than chasing their agencies non-stop. The decision makers in most categories are spread across the country. We need to be close to them. Our system – the people and the locations – have always made the difference to our publishers. Share Don’t Overlook the Importance of Fun By Jim Elliott May 4, 2021 Early in the pandemic and lockdown, we initiated weekly company-wide video chats using Google Meetings. We still hold these faithfully, and rarely miss a week. As you might expect, each meeting includes discussions of company business and announcements. We rotate the responsibility for running the meeting among the sales, executive and administrative staff. Each week, a designated person will lead a discussion about issues of concern to them. In addition to the serious part of the meetings, we try to have some fun each week. Most of our staff miss seeing their colleagues and the busy office environment that encourages interactions. So, the designated leader chooses an activity that they think everybody will enjoy. It doesn’t take much time: about 30 minutes a week. Most of the ideas are creative and well-received. For example, the leader of the day recently asked all the participants to name their favorite song and to sing a few lines. The result was hilarious. There was some very good singing, some very elaborate excuses, and many creative ideas aimed at side-stepping the assignment. It turns out that senior executives are among the best at avoiding potential embarrassment. We’ve done what we can to mitigate some of the isolation during the pandemic, and I’m sure these moments of fun will be among the good memories we’ll share when we finally get back together. I highly recommend taking a little time to build in some fun. Share Next ADS&IDEAS™ NEWSLETTER PDF ARCHIVES