Poynter Online - Big Idea: Sales Force of the Future

By Steve Gray, Full-time consultant, Morris Communications

Mobilizing for strategic innovation/Sales Force of the Future

The idea: Create a process that 1.) brings a newspaper company's corporate leaders, publishers, resources and energy into alignment regarding the most urgent innovation strategies and 2.) drives successfully to execution.

The process:

Convene corporate leadership and key publishers for a one-day strategy retreat, producing group consensus on a short list of high-potential, high-urgency strategies for transformation. Result: Six strategies.
Form six strategy teams to turn the strategies into projects, initiatives and products; assign participants into the groups that most excite them.
Each group develops a proposal (in two weeks) for initial projects, then an action plan (in three weeks) for execution.
Groups continue to own and manage the work on their initiatives, with regular group meetings (mostly by phone) and leadership checkpoint calls.

The strategies we chose at Morris Communications:

Sales Force of the Future: Develop best-in-class multimedia sales forces that give us a market-dominating competitive advantage and a culture of execution for quickly bringing market an array of new solutions to meet businesses' needs. Be seen as a respected independent solutions provider, selling profitably whatever works for the customer: our solutions or competitors', local solutions or national, through internal development, partnering, creating networks, brokering up or down, etc.
SMBs (small and medium businesses): Develop powerful advertising/marketing solutions and sales channels to meet the needs of small and medium-sized businesses. Set and achieve significantly higher sales penetration levels among SMBs.
Audience/355�: Massively expand audience, traffic and engagement by meeting needs in the other 355� of the consumer�s life (beyond the 5� of news). Establish ourselves as the preeminent local provider of the information, tools, solutions and knowledge people need most often in their daily lives in this community. (Inside this strategy is another Big Idea: a Web offering we call the Consumer Console.)
News: Develop a plan to shape the coverage and dissemination of news to meet the needs and fit the lives of 21st century readers.
Core Business: Plan ahead and execute proactively the changes that will be required in the functions and structures of the core business.
Communications: Develop a strong internal and external communications program to position this company and its business units correctly with employees, consumers and businesses as moving aggressively to be "in and of the future," not obsolete, stagnant or outmoded.

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