Karla Steele is an independent out of home sales rep in the midwest. Steele recently formed K Steele Solutions to help smaller out of home companies create marketing tools and help with data organization. She has experience with land leases and permits as well. Insider talked with Steele last week.
How did you get into the out of home industry?
CK Outdoor took a chance on me without any previous billboard experience, just sales experience. I, like many others in the industry, grew to love selling out of home media.
What’s the out of home sale you are most proud of?
We had a great location on I-80, a 20’x80’, back to back board, that was on the edge of a property. The property next door to our landowner built a large building that blocked half of one face when viewing at a certain angle from I-80. The restaurant advertiser at the time was not happy and left once the contract ended. The building blocking the view happened to be owned by a seed company. A competitive seed company was renting the opposite face of this board. I approached the seed company whose building blocked our board about contracting the location and their home office passed on the offer. Their competition jumped at the chance and I sold both sides to their competitor. Once the competitor’s vinyl went up, the seed company who passed called and wanted to be notified as soon as the competition’s contract expired. I eventually sold it to the seed company whose building blocked our board and the value of the board was reinstated.
What are the five most important questions to ask during the sales process?
- How’s your day going?
- What are your advertising goals?
- What locations are you considering?
- When are you wanting to start?
- Do you have in house artwork?
What’s a reasonable sales commission for an out of home company to pay a sales rep?
I think there are many variables that need to be considered. To be fair to your sales rep, a decent base salary helps a sales rep in the beginning stages. How a base salary is calculated and how much commissions are paid are going to be unique to each company. If you have several A+ locations that advertisers are willing to pay top dollar for, or rural boards that take more time selling, compensation needs to reflect the variables of a company’s inventory.
What markets are you handling?
The Omaha and Central Nebraska areas.
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