Let’s face it, selling media and advertising is only getting harder. Besides the rapidly evolving challenges in the lumascape of Ad Tech, sales teams and their leadership are simply not set up to win. There’s higher attrition and lower motivation. Ad Sales Managers lack proper visibility and insights resulting in poor forecasting. On top of that, Ad Sellers spend too much time on admin tasks and not selling, spending 40% less time on core selling activities than their peers across industries(1). Only 38% of Ad Sellers make their quota while managers in Ad Sales spend twice the amount of time coaching than their peers across other industries(1). Ok, maybe it’s not that bad at your company, but does this sound familiar? Your ad sales team runs the weekly forecast call off of “shadow pipeline” spreadsheets that may or may not match the data coming out of the actual CRM tool your sellers spend time populating? Your CRM has at least fifteen variations of Procter & Gamble? Your sellers don’t put in their activities? You’re stuck in the garbage-in garbage-out cycle? It’s that time of year to plan for the annual “improve CRM adoption” project. But what if there was an alternative that allowed you to leap forward instead of another year of limping along? What if you could start solving chronic issues, the ones actually in your control, and give your sales team an advantage in the marketplace; and apply similar quantitative, insightful performance based solutions you provide your customers? Do you know the imperatives all media and advertising businesses should have on their shortlist for 2017?
