What’s your plan for 2021?

by | Oct 14, 2019 | Prime Time

I know the leaders who read this pretty well. Many of you are my friends and our clients. So, I can feel the reaction to my writing a headline about 2021 before many of us have been to our budget meetings for 2020. You’re thinking I’m crazy!!

I want you to spend time in the next 45 days thinking about 2021. Because the time to get ready for 2021 is sooner, rather than later. 2021 is going to be a tougher year. We all know that. Odd numbered years are frequently a challenge, and 2021 might be more challenging than ever. We’ll be post-election and quite possibly in a different economic environment. Chances are better than average that the world will be more challenging in 2021 than it is today. That means thinking about 2021 as you put together your 2020 plan makes a ton of sense.

That’s what great managers do. While many people won’t start thinking about 2021 until after the election NEXT year, great leaders are planning ahead. Realistically, this can be hard for sales managers. We’re so focused on making the quarter that taking a step back and thinking about our team two years from now is really hard. But if you start working on these things next year at this time, it will be way too late to impact a challenging 2021. So, now is the time for figuring out your 2021 plan.

How can you start today to get your team prepared for 2021? I’m a big believer in doing a SWOT exercise for your own sales staff. SWOT stands for STRENGTHS… WEAKNESSES… OPPORTUNITIES… THREATS. It’s the strategic planning technique we used in our company for over 20 years. It’s a powerful tool.

While looking at your Strengths (and trying to determine if you can build on them) is smart, I spend the most planning time looking at Weaknesses and Opportunities.

Be rigorously honest. Don’t sugarcoat your problems. And, get very specific. Your weakness list could have things on it as specific as this:

  • 2-3 members of our team are anemic at new business
  • Our new business churn is high
  • Our digital product mix isn’t giving us the margin we need
  • We have issues with production getting ads on our platforms in a timely way
  • Our new business process isn’t consistent
  • Rep A and Rep B have problems with closing
  • The average 90-day dollars closed (amount per month for first three months) is too low
  • We need _____ more AE’s to help us meet our new business goals

I encourage only having things on this list you have some ability to fix. As the DOS or GSM, you might not have the ability to fix news ratings, but what can you control?

When brainstorming a weakness area, keep asking more questions. Don’t just articulate the problem, That’s a useless exercise that isn’t leadership. Leaders aren’t victims—they work on finding the solution. Questions will help bring out solutions, so keep asking them. Why is new business churn high? Is there a relationship between churn and our smaller average order size? How can we start asking for bigger dollars? What training do our team members need in order to start asking for bigger dollar amounts that reduce churn? Do we have any team members who aren’t strong enough for the new TV business? Do we have enough sellers?

This planning exercise isn’t just about knowing the problems. It’s about digging and probing to determine what the solution might look like.

Once you and your leadership team start looking at solutions, there’s one more step. It’s better to do 2-3 things really well than to try to take on 10 things that won’t get implemented effectively. Less is more.

It’s the same thing with the work on OPPORTUNITIES. Focus on the biggies and do them well. Don’t chase crumbs. Look for opportunities to add big dollars and practice the principle of FOCUS with those as well.

I want to leave a strategic planning SWOT session with a specific plan. If you don’t have a plan, then the time you’ve spent won’t have impact. Some of the things in that plan might require a budget expenditure. That’s why doing some of this now makes sense. But frankly, most of the things on the list above can be fixed with more management focus or the courage to deal with your underperformers. Most improvement isn’t a money issue.

As leaders, most of us, quite naturally, have a short-term focus. “We need $_____ to make October.” That’s appropriate. I want you to make October. Your bosses want you to make October. Make October!!!

But October and the next couple of months are the time to take a longer view. What needs to change to give us the biggest opportunity to go into 2021 with our team in great shape? Work on that now and your job in 2021 will get a lot easier.

Read anything that makes you think? Send me a note a jim@jimdoyle.com. I love hearing from you with your comments.

Do you have Sales Managers who need to get better? I promise, we can help. We’ve designed our Sales Manager’s High Performance Boot Camp around how leaders can create a high-performance culture, recruit and retain superstars, and motivate their teams for extraordinary new business growth. A combination of real-world skills and world-class leadership and culture speakers. January 26-28, 2020 in Tampa (www.jimdoylebootcamp.com)

Ken Marks is a Senior Marketing Consultant for JDA.media.

Ken’s media experience spans 27 years in marketing, sales, and sales management. Working closely with hundreds of small and mid-sized business owners, he’s helped them navigate and leverage the ever-changing media landscape of television, radio, digital and streaming.

Ken started his career in radio advertising in Central Florida. A successful seller and General Sales Manager of several Cox Radio stations, he was recruited across the street by Gross Communications where he eventually became the VP/GM of the company’s radio, print, and digital divisions.

Prior to joining JDA.media, Ken spent nine years as a marketing consultant with the Hearst Corporation at WESH 2 NBC and Hearst Digital in Central Florida.  While there he earned the company’s prestigious Eagle award three times(!), given to the most valuable marketing consultant in each Hearst market annually.

Marks grew up in St. Louis, Missouri and graduated from Missouri State University.  He played professional racquetball briefly after college, then began his media career.  He and his wife, Jennifer, owned a retail franchise called “Once Upon a Child”, which they sold in 2018.  They also currently own and manage several short and long-term rental properties.

Ken and Jennifer reside in Orlando, Florida and have three children, two boys (a Senior at the US Naval Academy and a Senior at Cornerstone High School), and an amazing eleven-year-old girl in the fifth grade. When not working Ken loves to spend time with his family, boat and fish on Lake Conway, play guitar, piano, and golf.

Brittany Tomjanovich is the Director of Operations at JDA.media.

Brittany has a passion for data and details. That passion, coupled with her healthy respect for broadcast and digital’s powerful marketing platforms, has led to a fun and growing career in media.

In January 2011, Brittany joined Madison’s ABC affiliate, WKOW, as a sales assistant.  Immersing herself quickly into the sales process and organizational flow, she thrived and by the time she moved into a corporate role, she had supported local sales, national sales, and the programming department reporting directly to the station’s General Manager.

As the Broadcast Group Sales Coordinator at Quincy Media Inc., her role consisted of training and supporting the sales support staff in Quincy’s 16 markets.  She also handled communication and reports for the company’s VP of Sales.

Brittany is a quirky, creative, introverted-extrovert, focused on solving problems and dedicated to producing high-quality results.

Brittany is a graduate of The University of Wisconsin – Madison (On Wisconsin!), and currently lives in Blue Mounds, WI with her husband, Tyler, and two children, Hailey and Mason.

When she’s not behind her computer, you can find her spending time outdoors with her family.  She enjoys camping, kayaking, fishing, crafting and growing food in their backyard garden.

 

 

 

Kathrine Glass is a JDA.media Senior Marketing Consultant.

Kathrine Glass, PMP, ACC has been inspiring individuals and leading teams for over 25 years with her “we can make it happen” attitude. She is a successful entrepreneur, sales and marketing expert, Project Management Institute certified Project Management Professional, and International Coaching Federation certified coach.

Kathrine is an idea person with the resourcefulness and grit to get things done. For much of her career, she has worked on behalf of local broadcast stations to develop campaigns and sponsorships for clients of all sizes. Having served in production, marketing, sales, events, and syndication, she has a unique perspective that stations and clients welcome. In addition, she has worked side by side with sellers across the country, helping them create new revenue streams by identifying non-traditional marketing decision-makers.

She started her career producing commercials, music videos, and corporate films. And was soon recruited by The Dallas Morning News, an A.H. Belo newspaper, to run a multi-million-dollar advertising budget.

After fine-tuning her marketing chops, she moved to oversee business development, equipping sellers with tools and ideas to secure incremental local and regional advertising dollars. It was in this role Kathrine had the ability to employ all platforms in Dallas-Ft. Worth owned by Belo with new advertisers ... from local broadcast (television) to cable to digital platforms including extension products like weather.com and cars.com.

In 2005, she founded C&S Creative Solutions, Inc., an innovative project management and marketing firm and one of her first clients was WFAA-TV, the Dallas ABC affiliate. Since then, Kathrine has worked with a myriad of local broadcast stations across the country, both television and radio, in the generation of new and incremental revenue on all their platforms. Joining JDA.media was a natural fit for Kathrine, her station partners and their advertiser clients have embraced her collaborative style and results oriented thinking.

Kathrine is a graduate from St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, and received a Graduate Marketing Certificate from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. She is an avid dog lover and fosters pups in need. In addition, she and her husband are foodies and love to travel. They currently reside in Dallas, Texas.

 

 

 

 

Margie Chilson is a Senior Marketing Consultant for JDA.media.

Her vast experience includes nearly three decades in broadcast television and digital sales marketing, working in and with multiple markets and affiliations including Dallas-Fort Worth at WFAA, Denver at KUSA-KTVD, KMGH, KWGN, and as a team manager at Millennium Television Sales.

Margie’s years as a local seller were award-winning and inspiration for her jump to JDA.media. She exceeded new business and digital goals on a consistent basis at Belo Corp., Scripps, Tribune, and TEGNA Inc. stations. A true innovator, Margie pioneered job-sharing positions in Dallas and Denver, balancing hectic work schedules and family, paving the way for working parents with careers in media sales.

Margie is well known and respected for her diligence, drive, and new business results. Due to her years in the business as an account executive and sales leader, she knows the station environment well and can easily relate to local sellers as well as the most senior managers.

An alum of Oklahoma State University who graduated with Honors in Journalism Advertising, Margie boasts an outstanding track record of helping business owners strategically grow their revenue through broadcast, streaming and digital solutions.

Margie and her husband Tim have been married for 23 years. The couple and their two children live in Littleton, CO, a suburb of Denver. Their son, Ryan, attends the University of Colorado Boulder, and their daughter, Mary, is in high school.  In their spare time, the Chilsons enjoy travel, hiking in the picturesque Rocky Mountains, cooking, watching movies, and cheering on their kids in various sporting events.

 

 

 

 

 

 

About Jim Stoos

Jim Stoos is SVP, Revenue Drives at JDA.media.

For over 20 years, Jim has crafted successful marketing programs for hundreds of local businesses.

His expansive media experience includes delivering significant advertising results utilizing broadcast, digital, cable, and radio.

His specialty is helping small-to-medium-sized businesses address sales and marketing challenges while developing game-changing strategies with real-world creative solutions.

Prior to joining JDA.media, Jim held strategic management positions as Regional Vice President, General Manager, and Local Sales Manager at television and cable companies in the Midwest.

His leadership roles give him the opportunity to apply JDA.media principles in helping sellers and media marketers develop campaigns, combining broadcast and digital solutions, to positively impact local business owners’ success.

The media veteran’s skill set also includes web design, email marketing, audience extension and targeting using display or video, as well as OTT and Streaming platforms. This extensive digital background allowed him to launch a suite of digital solutions for an entire sales division.

He lives in Bettendorf, Iowa, with his sweetheart Stacy, and his two sons.

For years Jim has worked as a dedicated member of Iowa’s Big Brothers Big Sisters program. Jim was a multi-sport college athlete and today enjoys running in competitive track meets for “old guys”.

In his spare time Jim enjoys working out with his boys (both scholarship track athletes at St. Ambrose University in Davenport), camping and riding his horses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

holly allenHolly Allen is a JDA.media Senior Marketing Consultant.

With nearly 27-years in the industry, including over five years as President & General Manager of FOX23 and MY41 in Tulsa, OK, Holly has developed a deep expertise in many facets of media. However, her true passion is working directly with clients.

Her “no box” thinking and creative mind allow her to design effective marketing strategies that drive significant results for advertisers.

Holly believes the first step to helping a business grow is to “peel back the layers” to uncover their unique needs, goals, and opportunities.

Next, she formulates and executes a thorough, well-rounded marketing plan that exceeds their expectations.

She enjoys the brainstorming process and seeing clients get enthusiastic when her strategies bring their businesses to unprecedented levels of success.

Experts say the greatest predictor of success is past success, which rings especially true with Holly’s career. Starting as an effective ad agency rep, she quickly moved into broadcast sales and marketing.  Moving up through the sales ranks, Holly eventually became the President & General Manager of a pair of dominant broadcast television stations in Tulsa, OK.

Most recently she founded All-en Media, LLC, where she works with clients in various categories, including auto, banking, retail, and more.

A proud graduate of Oklahoma State University, she lives in Tulsa with her high school aged daughter Lila, while her son Henry attends the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Holly enjoys long walks outdoors, visiting with family and friends, and volunteering her time to local causes whenever possible.

 

John Hillary is a Senior Vice President at JDA.media.

Since 2006, John has worked directly with thousands of small-to-medium-sized businesses, developing fully integrated, results-driven media marketing strategies that have consistently helped meet and exceed client goals.

John began his career with New Revenue Solutions (NRS) in Atlanta, GA. During his tenure with NRS, John consulted for 25 different media outlets in television, digital, radio, cable, and print, throughout the U.S. and Canada. As one of NRS Media’s lead consultants, John helped hundreds of local businesses grow through innovative and creative advertising campaigns.

Due to his success at helping businesses and stations drive revenue, he was recruited to join WCIU-TV in Chicago as an Account Executive. There, he worked with local, regional, and national businesses collaborating on innovative ways to make advertising messages resonate with customers in a large, competitive marketplace.

In 2017 John joined JDA.media as Senior Marketing Consultant, and in 2023 was promoted to Senior Vice President.

John’s energy, passion, creativity, and understanding of results-oriented marketing strategies have consistently made him a vital asset to clients and company colleagues in every phase of his career.

A native of Grand Rapids, Michigan, John graduated from the University of Michigan and remains an avid Wolverine fan.

John and his wife Katie reside in Roswell, GA and are proud parents of daughter Nora and son Henry.

 

Billie Adkins is a Senior Marketing Consultant for JDA.media.

She is an expert at crafting innovative, creative strategies that get dramatic results for advertisers.

Decision-makers appreciate Billie’s unique ability to ask the kind of provocative questions that lead to the development of distinct and effective TV and/or digital creative that gets viewers’ attention and drives consumer action.

Through her 25-plus years in media, Billie has developed an extensive professional portfolio with a depth of experience that includes a variety of management positions in sales, and important posts in news, production, station promotion, and market research.

As a General Sales Manager at WDTN, the NBC affiliate in Dayton, Ohio, she led a multimedia marketing team that specialized in achieving clients’ marketing and operational goals with a client-centric approach.

She embodies all aspects of the JDA.media philosophy recognizing that each business is unique, with its own challenges and opportunities. In order to build a results-driven advertising plan for clients, you must first understand the business and then formulate a strategy to make the company stand out from competitors.

Billie resides in Carlisle, Ohio with her husband and two children. When not traveling the country for JDA.media, helping business owners increase their sales, she enjoys family time, reading, and coaching soccer, often cheering for kids that need a special someone in the stands just for them.