A reader asks how big a book should an out of home sales rep have? Billboard Insider put the question to out of home sales expert Kevin Gephart and he said this.
Good question, I think it varies enormously. When I was at Clear Channel Minneapolis/Saint Paul, market rank 16, we billed $34 million with a staff of 12 reps. That is very misleading because a certain percent (I don’t know the exact number) of that was imported sales from other Clear Channel offices (including national) that ran in Minneapolis. Also, we had one rep in particular, in Minneapolis who exported about 30% of the revenue that she generated to other markets. It’s really hard to compare apples to apples.
I would calculate the current average revenue per rep in their company as a reference point. I wouldn’t thwart the ambition level of reps who want to grow a large book of business and still keep all of the other plates spinning, as long as they don’t not drop any plates. Reps often self-identify their book of business is too big when they use “don’t have time” as an excuse for anything.
“Dropped plates” means: not focusing on timely company sales initiatives, not meeting copy deadlines, not attending all sales meetings/training in full, or not following the company’s strategic account management system that defines the contact level for various categories of accounts (I can provide a great strategic account management system if readers don’t have one by contacting me at KevinJGephart@gmail.com) and, MOST CRITICAL, not achieving self-generated new business development activity.
Management should disclose to reps they will begin a “courtesy calling” process whereby management will contact accounts to determine how the company is doing for them; not as a ‘sales rep gotcha” but as a team-approach to assuring client satisfaction. This will illustrate if a rep is being thorough and pro-active.
If reps are meeting all objectives, the size of their book of business is likely immaterial. If they are not meeting those goals, it’s incumbent on management to trim the book of business to the level that reps get to the optimum amount of self-generated new business activity, etc.
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