All’s fair in love and sales
GLENDA NEVILL finds out how salespeople have helped themselves, their coworkers and their clients to cope in difficult, uncertain times.
I
t is said great media sales people have certain qualities. They’re confident and extroverted. They’re ‘always on’. They’re resilient, good listeners and optimistic. They’re focused, are great multitaskers and are persistent. And they know how to read the room and the people with whom they’re negotiating. Face-to-face is how they operate and engage best. But when South Africa locked down at the end of March 2020, things changed. Printers closed down for all but the most essential newspapers. Journalists, agency professionals and sales teams were sent home. Advertising took a dive. And we all learned how to Zoom. Quickly. On 17 March 2020, ahead of news that South Africa would go into lockdown by month-end, The Media Online published an article by Park Advertising’s Chris Botha on 25 ways Covid-19 would impact the media environment. Botha said: “Media owners will be making less money. The result? Either offering more discount to get their share of the pie, or severe margin protection – where the clamp will Bridgette come down on Manamela clients looking to cut spend. Relationships 10 I T H E M E D I A
10-13_TheMedia_June2021_MediaSales.indd 10
between media owners, media agencies and clients will be tested around the negotiation tables.” He was so right. To that end, we asked senior sales personnel at Spark Media, Media24, Tractor Outdoor and Mediamark how they rallied their teams and learned to survive in what are the most challenging circumstances they’ve ever had to deal with.
BRIDGETTE MANAMELA: KEY ACCOUNT MANAGER AT SPARK MEDIA As media owners, we had to take stock of what lockdown meant for the category of local newspapers. As an essential service, local news has a major responsibility to provide potentially life-saving information to the various clusters of South Africa. As a team, it was pertinent to recognise that as an essential news provider, we had a major role to play in informing the citizenry of what the pandemic meant to
each and every community we serve. Only a selected number of newspapers could be printed during level 5, our commercial printing factories were halted and no inserts could be produced. The team worked hard to communicate the frequent fluctuations in our newspaper print orders to busy and stressed clients and agencies. We promoted the crucial role of local news in a pandemic, and worked hard to remain relevant, top of mind and easy to work with for advertisers’ future campaigns. Our strategy was based on empathy, being in it together, finding solutions, and understanding the gravity of the situation and the need to be partners through this uncharted journey. We could empathise with the restrictions, limitations and uncertainty. The clients and agencies we work with in the retail industry were limited to essential items in various lockdown levels, they had stock issues that needed to be taken into consideration when advertising, and they had the responsibility of ensuring precautions were in place to protect their staff and that customers were advised of their safety measures. Knowing that every client and agency we worked with was dealing with this unprecedented time too,
WE COULD EMPATHISE WITH THE RESTRICTIONS, LIMITATIONS AND UNCERTAINTY themediaonline.co.za
30.06.21 11:57
