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New overtime rule takes effect next year Guest Column:
Right and left brain selling By John Foust
Ar k ansas
ARKANSAS
Publisher Weekly
PRESS ASSOCIATION
Vol. 14 | No. 43 | Thursday, October 24, 2019
Serving Press and State Since 1873
Saline Courier’s circulation director makes the right calls As a newspaper circulation director and a high school football official, Glenn Waits knows plenty about difficult calls.
for the Saline Courier in Benton, there are also the kind of calls he gets in the early mornings from subscribers who may have missed a delivery or have other questions. Follow-up from those calls requires his full attention. It’s focused and consistent customer service that makes the difference in his business, Waits said. “I can’t possibly know if 5,000 people got their paper on a given day so I appreciate any calls I may get,” said Waits, who’s been in newspaper circulation departments for more than three decades.
Glenn Waits
There are those calls under the Friday night lights – holds, pass interference and such that he tries to handle without getting too engaged with coaches or spectators that may disagree. As circulation director
Waits has overseen circulation and the mail room at the Courier for nearly five years. Before that, he ran circulation departments in Hot Springs and Lubbock, Texas, and was a zone manager for the Arkansas DemocratGazette. He got his start in the newspaper
industry in 1987 as a district manager for the Arkansas Democrat in Little Rock. Unlike the calls he makes on the football field as an official, he said his philosophy for boosting circulation sales is to make calls proactively to existing customers to make sure his team his providing the best level of service. Additionally, he’ll spend his work days calling on former subscribers trying to get them back. “Sometimes it’s hard to fit in your day, but you have to do it, and that’s calling your customers before you lose them and calling them afterward to try to get them back into the fold,” he said. Waits uses old-fashioned shoe leather, too, when recruiting new customers. As new subdivisions and developments pop up within his circulation area, he’ll go door-to-door with complimentary copies and information on how to subscribe. While other newspapers may entice new and returning customers with discounted Continued on Page 2
Annual ArkLaMiss conference less than two weeks away The annual ArkLaMiss Circulation, Marketing and Audience Development Conference is less than two weeks away. The conference is scheduled for Nov. 7-8 at the Ameristar Hotel and Casino in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Register now for the conference at arkansaspress.org/2019Arklamiss. Attendees will learn best practices for growing revenue and readership through better marketing techniques and strategies. Gwen Vargo, director of reader revenue for the American
Press Institute, is the featured speaker at the conference. She will give advice in two different sessions about how to understand newspaper readers and how to encourage people to subscribe to newspapers. Participants also will take part in a roundtable discussion and a Hot Ideas Exchange moderated by Dennis Dunn, vice president of operations for the Anniston Star in Anniston, Alabama. Though the deadline to book a room at the conference rate has expired, rooms are still available at the hotel. To reserve a room, call (601) 638-1000.
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