Being the Top Banana

Becoming the Top Banana

As we look back on 2008 we found so many great folks who love selling media putting a definite spark back into the game and it was wonderful to see. It was great because media is experiencing a chaotic yet necessary metamorphosis driven partially by the tech companies in dire need for newer revenue applications and partially by demanding consumers who want more every step of their way and are willing pay for it. We found great media sales professionals love what they do and want more of the action each day of the year. To them media sales is an exciting way to enter a career, earn great money, a wonderful lifestyle and save a bundle for their future. Not withstanding, there were plenty of ups and downs in the ever-changing media environment of the past three years which shook the stability of the rock pile many times. But overall…those who made the choice of becoming part of what we know is the fastest moving business in the job market today, besides being a trader on the floor in Wall Street, found refuge in having the highest earning potential and were thus rewarded. They are the Top Guns, as media mogul Dan Sullivan calls them, who look to go to work every day, who find cold calling a game of “hide and seek,” collections or receivables a condition of controlling their cash register and treating the building of their long-term local direct business like a growth mutual fund or annuity with guaranteed income payouts. Those sales professionals in media marketing today hold the future of the business in their palms. They are the ones for whom the bell tolls.

As a national media sales trainer for Executive Decision Systems, of Littleton, CO, creator of System 21©, for the last twenty-four years, as well as having the privilege of publishing Retail In$ights, I have witnessed sellers at myriad media companies who wanted to take the easy way out and continue to concentrate on the transactional side of the business instead of developing good paying, long-term, local-direct business to balance their sales portfolios. They continue to play the transactional game without realizing how fast the contest is changing and how clients and agencies are experimenting with other venues with which to reach the ever-mobile and finicky consumer. To me it’s like watching a train wreck coming down the track at breakneck speed and seeing those transactional reps stuck on the track too busy to see the impending tragedy.

For this essay I chose to talk about media’s human resources…those who venture out to sell media during the toughest of times and what will happen to an organization which tolerates employees and managers who have accepted mediocrity as the standard gold of performance. I use a model of behavior described by author Jim Sullivan who discusses the relevance of comparing monkey’s behavioral patterns similar to what are many corporate management business practices. I could have chosen to bring good cheer, happy thoughts and rah-rah-rah to the table…..as a preamble to the New Year 2008, but as a realist….I’d rather create cognitive thought and bring challenges to the forefront. Bear with me tho’ as it’s all for the good.

As we watch sales managers and their sellers in the field, we have found that by accepting mediocrity and poor performance accelerates turnover among the best sellers which leaves companies with the poor salespeople whose inactivity almost always creates chaos in budget attainment and management turnover. It seems to occur mostly when managers compromised standards and accepted poor performance without taking necessary action of” putting a few bullets in the chamber” as my friend Ric Gorman used to say. True, the labor pool has been rather bereft of good talent with which to hire to stabilize the corporation, but the lack of good potential performers often causes managers to quickly hire average sales people and hope that sales "training" will take care of the problem. Another noticeable problem is that many general managers are so busy managing their numbers that their failing to truly recognize poor performers, and their weak performance. Another good friend of mine, Mike Granados has often said "the fish stinks from the head down." Most of the time, general managers have to hire mediocre managers who will not take the time to methodically challenge the sales process and search out the probable causes of what went wrong. Instead, they claim they hired a sales manager or director of sales and that's their job to screen the applicants and their performance levels. Of times new sales managers are dropped off at the end of the pier, so-to-speak and it becomes a matter of sink or swim. And, what we have seen, which has been more of a major problem, is that the general manager as well as their hired director of sales has a difficult problem in their willingness to initiate change or their resistance to it. The result, owners suffer and Wall Street gets in their face and everything become a pressure cooker of unpleasant experiences.

The message is simple: if your top salespeople keep leaving as a result of management’s inability or unwillingness to become change agents and go to competition and then, only the least valuable salespeople remain, a manager must learn to control the balance of previous management behavior and start challenging corporate policies and their processes, which, as a means, made the company most successful in the past. Otherwise, as they say, “You'll get what you always got.”

Jim Sullivan, author of "A Multi-Unit Leadership: The 7 Stages of Building High-and Performing Partnerships and Teams” puts it in a simpler context: him. It's a ‘monkey see monkey do mentality,’ which leads to mediocrity and drives owners bananas. His premise hypothetically, begins with putting five monkeys in a cage. Inside the cage, place one banana on a string and place a ladder under it. Keep a garden hose nearby. Soon, one of the monkeys will spot the banana and start to climb the letter to get it. When he does, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water. Now, replace the banana.

After a while another one of the monkeys will probably go after the banana. Again, spray all the other monkeys with cold water.

Sullivan observes monkeys are relatively smart, so pretty soon, whenever one of the monkeys attempts to climb the ladder, all the other monkeys will try to prevent them from doing so. Naturally! They don’t want to get sprayed with cold water again. When that happens, put away the cold water hose. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. Now hang a new banana over the ladder.

The new monkey will spot the banana and head for the ladder. To his great surprise, all the other monkeys will spontaneously attack him. After several more futile attempts, all of which will result in further beatings, the new monkey will no longer try for the banana.

Remove another of the original monkeys and again replace it with a new one. Now replace the banana. Again, the new monkey will make a grab for it. Like its predecessor, he will be stunned to discover that all the other monkeys attack him. In fact, the previous newcomer monkey will most likely take a particularly enthusiastic role in his replacement’s punishment.

One at a time, gradually replace all of the original monkeys with new ones. Each of the newcomers will go for the banana. Each one will be attacked by the other four. Most of the new monkeys have absolutely no idea why they were not allowed to climb the ladder, or why they are not participating in the assault on the newest monkey.

When all of the original monkeys have been replaced, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, not one of those monkeys ever approaches the ladder. Why not? Because as far as they're concerned, that's the way it has always been done around here.... And that's how corporate culture in the media business and company policy often begins.

Thank you, Jim Sullivan. I was able to share your wonderful piece from your People, Performance and Profits column in “Nation’s Restaurant News.” I truly hope my friends in the media and subscribers to Retail In$ights do not think that their newly hired salespeople are a bunch of monkeys or for that matter, neither are their general managers. It does however cause one to take pause in considering how things began in the media business and how often things remain the same. Change is the new business model. Change, make change or be changed may be the result.

With all the competition gathering and growing about you, one need to reflect on how good business may be done and what type of business gets done the first. We know the agencies and their clients are manifesting change. Local-direct is the future of the business. Those who are trained to get after local-direct business will reap the benefits of their chosen career path as well as enjoy the financial rewards which come from its pursuit. The new business model of the future is all about balance. Balancing ones portfolio with long-term, local-direct business and transactional activities is a good equation for everyone concerned. Media sales as a profession is a most exciting, exhilarating way of doing business, whose rewards mostly go to those who seek better ways of generating new revenue solutions. No more monkey see, monkey do, else the ladder may be pulled from under you and then its back to the jungle and its law of Eat or Be eaten prevails.

The year 2009 is yours for the taking. Go get it and enjoy the fun of the hunt. Make it an adventure.
Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.
LeNoble's Media Business Insights