FCPNY

FCPNY
Serving free paper publishers, sales managers and salespeople in NY state

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Numbers are changing but it's still a numbers game


Wish me a happy anniversary. Three years ago today, May 15, I was ordained a permanent deacon here in the Catholic Diocese of Syracuse. It's a wonderful part of my life, a real blessing. What does it have to do with sales training? I thought you'd never ask.

Driving to the office this morning I had the Catholic Channel on satellite radio. To be honest, it's not one of my favorite channels (classic rock'n'roll!) but, just by chance, I happened to hear the host talking about a study of the young men who are going to be ordained as priests this spring. Fascinating stuff considering the shortage of priests is one of the biggest challenges facing the American church today. I'll be the first to agree that the Church typically doesn't move too quickly, but here was a report on trends and stats for a group of 2013 people. Extremely current stuff. They knew more about these guys than one would ever have imagined. Four percent of them have been home schooled compared to less than 2% of the general population. Thirty-one percent of them had grown up in families that traveled with the military. That's a huge number.

Timely, statistically significant information about a big problem that needs solving.

That's a big part of what a successful media sales group has to bring to the client's table today, more than ever before. With all respect, if a church gets that than you and I had better get it, too.

Google "newspaper readership demographics" and gobs of goodies come up in your search results from respected companies like Pew Research and others. All for free. Subscribe to (and actually use) services like AdMall that give you great local information on business trends and demographics. Understand the information and use it to your advantage. If you are an FCPNY member, call me (315-472-6007) or email me (tcuskey@fcpny.com) to arrange for in-house training on these topics and more.  Use the numbers to help build the most important numbers of all: profitability and cash flow.

Thanks for reading!

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