The art of new business development
Friday, November 9, 2007 12:04 PM CST
After some 30 years in sales, George Easley is fairly confident he knows how best to help his customers find success. With a recent change of his duties, he’s ready to apply those skills in a hands-on way to specifically help the business community.
New Business Development Coordinator is the moniker of Easley’s new role with Lee Enterprises, formerly Pulitzer. He’s responsible for developing working relationships with new clients to “prove” to them the benefits of putting their advertising dollars in print media.
“I’ll be working with the business people and advertising staff at the (Daily Journal/Business Ledger/Farmington Press/Democrat News) to find solutions for business owners and managers to grow their businesses,” Easley explained.
One of the tools in the arsenal to pinpoint exactly how to target potential customers for clients is a recent market study which goes into extreme detail outlining the shopping and spending habits of people in Southeast Missouri. Additionally, Easley has a good ear to listen to what his clients are telling him about their understanding of their particular customer base.
BACKGROUND IN DELIVERING RESULTS
The first real job young George Easley ever had was working in a meatpacking plant in northwest Tennessee, where he grew up. His dad worked in the business office at Reelfoot. After a couple years of showing a good work ethic in the plant, George was eventually promoted to route sales truck driver in the mid-1970s. That’s when he began developing his first customer relations skills.
“I worked 40 hours a week in my senior year in high school,” Easley said. “That’s when I started dealing with customers.”
By 1981, Easley had moved on to a sales position with Reelfoot. He moved to Farmington to oversee a territory including Southern Illinois and Southeast Missouri. The territory in the Show Me State alone ranged from St. Louis southwest to Van Buren, southeast to Fruitland and east to the Mississippi River.
“I drove about 1,000 miles a week. I dealt with grocery stores, restaurants and food distributors,” Easley explains. His job was to provide a wide variety of meats and related products at the best price to the customer. Reelfoot was a family-owned company — albeit with about 700 employees — which took pride in providing “the best product at a fair price.”
The large territory meant handing stores and restaurants ranging from large chain-type grocers to sole proprietorship small town grocery stores. Some of his customers made decisions about products by way of a department manager relaying product information up the line to a corporate decision maker. Other contacts meant walking into a small neighborhood store to discuss products and specials with the store owner who was standing behind the meat counter wearing a white apron. Looking back, Easley says dealing with that diverse range of customers gave him some valuable insight into what business people on any level expect of outsourcers and anyone who provides them with a helpful service.
Easley went on to be employed by Con Agra, one of the nation’s largest food product suppliers. He covered a territory including portions of five states. When the time came that he was asked to relocate for the company, he politely declined and began looking for a job close to the home he had made with his wife Debbie, a school teacher at St. Paul Lutheran School in Farmington.
About that time Easley met Dave Buerck, then business manager for Pulitzer Missouri’s group of newspapers. The two men talked a couple times and Easley started to realize that newspaper sales and a lengthy career in route sales was not that far removed. The goal of an effective advertising salesperson is to: 1) learn what the client needs to help their business succeed; 2) explain which products will be the most beneficial; and 3) deliver the agreed on products in a timely manner at the best price possible. It’s the same time-honored goal of delivering “the best product at a fair price.”
REFINING PRODUCT KNOWLEDGE
Easley has now spent seven years in the newspaper/printing business. “I’ve learned a lot about the newspaper industry, and I’m still learning,” he admits.
He knows business owners are concerned with instilling “top of mind awareness”, or TOMA, into potential customers. It’s the process of making a business “branded” to the point that when a customer needs a particular product of service they will think of a specific business name to call or visit.
The second key is to work to build each client’s base of customers or clients.
“I haven’t found a business that doesn’t need to do more,” Easley says. He explains that every business can benefit from making their business grow, and the key is often more advertising that works.
“I’m looking forward to working with business owners in the market area and helping develop new and innovative ways to grow their businesses. That includes informing them how to reach the market,” he adds.
A tool which Easley has found very useful for refining a targeted advertising plan for his clients is a Pulse® Market Study done in 2005. The survey took months to gather data through personal surveys of shoppers across Southeast Missouri — more specifically the area covered by Pulitzer Missouri’s group of publications.
Results from the survey show specifics of how and why people shop, and where. For example, Easley can use the research data to show what percentage of people (with demographics about the group) intended to purchase new tires for a vehicle. The results show what percentage intended to buy locally, and how many planned to go outside the immediate area to shop for a deal. The same kind of information is available for people searching for appliances, homes, automobiles, hunting and fishing gear, clothing, jewelry, sporting equipment, and health care.
Along with promoting the company’s print capabilities, Easley is also free to develop plans for customers which include online marketing, commercial printing and inclusion in the group of newspapers and the area’s largest free publication.
The Pulse® study showed the second most popular shopping destination for consumers living in the Parkland and surrounding areas was the South County mall business district. “Businesses need to keep people here,” Easley states.
Of course the best course of action for catching and holding the attention of a customer base is print media, Easley believes. He argues that satellite radio and cable television has created what is often referred to as “Advertising Avoidance Technology”, or the ability for customers to listen to their favorite music or watch shows of interest without hearing or seeing an advertiser’s commercials. Tests have shown that motorists have only between eight to 10 seconds to catch a glance of a billboard as they speed down the highway. But, for instance, visitors to dailyjournalonline.com spend upwards to 10 minutes viewing the site. An even larger percentage of adult consumers still turn to newspapers and publications of interest for relaxation and to catch up on what’s happening in the world around them.
“Business owners must be able to remain focused on doing what they do best ... their business,” Easley sums up. “It’s my job to help provide them with a great advertising method (or package) that will draw an ever-growing group of consumers to their products or services, and at the best price possible. That’s what I look forward to helping them do.”
New Business Development Coordinator is the moniker of Easley’s new role with Lee Enterprises, formerly Pulitzer. He’s responsible for developing working relationships with new clients to “prove” to them the benefits of putting their advertising dollars in print media.
“I’ll be working with the business people and advertising staff at the (Daily Journal/Business Ledger/Farmington Press/Democrat News) to find solutions for business owners and managers to grow their businesses,” Easley explained.
One of the tools in the arsenal to pinpoint exactly how to target potential customers for clients is a recent market study which goes into extreme detail outlining the shopping and spending habits of people in Southeast Missouri. Additionally, Easley has a good ear to listen to what his clients are telling him about their understanding of their particular customer base.
BACKGROUND IN DELIVERING RESULTS
The first real job young George Easley ever had was working in a meatpacking plant in northwest Tennessee, where he grew up. His dad worked in the business office at Reelfoot. After a couple years of showing a good work ethic in the plant, George was eventually promoted to route sales truck driver in the mid-1970s. That’s when he began developing his first customer relations skills.
“I worked 40 hours a week in my senior year in high school,” Easley said. “That’s when I started dealing with customers.”
By 1981, Easley had moved on to a sales position with Reelfoot. He moved to Farmington to oversee a territory including Southern Illinois and Southeast Missouri. The territory in the Show Me State alone ranged from St. Louis southwest to Van Buren, southeast to Fruitland and east to the Mississippi River.
“I drove about 1,000 miles a week. I dealt with grocery stores, restaurants and food distributors,” Easley explains. His job was to provide a wide variety of meats and related products at the best price to the customer. Reelfoot was a family-owned company — albeit with about 700 employees — which took pride in providing “the best product at a fair price.”
The large territory meant handing stores and restaurants ranging from large chain-type grocers to sole proprietorship small town grocery stores. Some of his customers made decisions about products by way of a department manager relaying product information up the line to a corporate decision maker. Other contacts meant walking into a small neighborhood store to discuss products and specials with the store owner who was standing behind the meat counter wearing a white apron. Looking back, Easley says dealing with that diverse range of customers gave him some valuable insight into what business people on any level expect of outsourcers and anyone who provides them with a helpful service.
Easley went on to be employed by Con Agra, one of the nation’s largest food product suppliers. He covered a territory including portions of five states. When the time came that he was asked to relocate for the company, he politely declined and began looking for a job close to the home he had made with his wife Debbie, a school teacher at St. Paul Lutheran School in Farmington.
About that time Easley met Dave Buerck, then business manager for Pulitzer Missouri’s group of newspapers. The two men talked a couple times and Easley started to realize that newspaper sales and a lengthy career in route sales was not that far removed. The goal of an effective advertising salesperson is to: 1) learn what the client needs to help their business succeed; 2) explain which products will be the most beneficial; and 3) deliver the agreed on products in a timely manner at the best price possible. It’s the same time-honored goal of delivering “the best product at a fair price.”
REFINING PRODUCT KNOWLEDGE
Easley has now spent seven years in the newspaper/printing business. “I’ve learned a lot about the newspaper industry, and I’m still learning,” he admits.
He knows business owners are concerned with instilling “top of mind awareness”, or TOMA, into potential customers. It’s the process of making a business “branded” to the point that when a customer needs a particular product of service they will think of a specific business name to call or visit.
The second key is to work to build each client’s base of customers or clients.
“I haven’t found a business that doesn’t need to do more,” Easley says. He explains that every business can benefit from making their business grow, and the key is often more advertising that works.
“I’m looking forward to working with business owners in the market area and helping develop new and innovative ways to grow their businesses. That includes informing them how to reach the market,” he adds.
A tool which Easley has found very useful for refining a targeted advertising plan for his clients is a Pulse® Market Study done in 2005. The survey took months to gather data through personal surveys of shoppers across Southeast Missouri — more specifically the area covered by Pulitzer Missouri’s group of publications.
Results from the survey show specifics of how and why people shop, and where. For example, Easley can use the research data to show what percentage of people (with demographics about the group) intended to purchase new tires for a vehicle. The results show what percentage intended to buy locally, and how many planned to go outside the immediate area to shop for a deal. The same kind of information is available for people searching for appliances, homes, automobiles, hunting and fishing gear, clothing, jewelry, sporting equipment, and health care.
Along with promoting the company’s print capabilities, Easley is also free to develop plans for customers which include online marketing, commercial printing and inclusion in the group of newspapers and the area’s largest free publication.
The Pulse® study showed the second most popular shopping destination for consumers living in the Parkland and surrounding areas was the South County mall business district. “Businesses need to keep people here,” Easley states.
Of course the best course of action for catching and holding the attention of a customer base is print media, Easley believes. He argues that satellite radio and cable television has created what is often referred to as “Advertising Avoidance Technology”, or the ability for customers to listen to their favorite music or watch shows of interest without hearing or seeing an advertiser’s commercials. Tests have shown that motorists have only between eight to 10 seconds to catch a glance of a billboard as they speed down the highway. But, for instance, visitors to dailyjournalonline.com spend upwards to 10 minutes viewing the site. An even larger percentage of adult consumers still turn to newspapers and publications of interest for relaxation and to catch up on what’s happening in the world around them.
“Business owners must be able to remain focused on doing what they do best ... their business,” Easley sums up. “It’s my job to help provide them with a great advertising method (or package) that will draw an ever-growing group of consumers to their products or services, and at the best price possible. That’s what I look forward to helping them do.”
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