Quick Take: Highlights from The 5th Annual Media Sales Report

In this Quick Take episode, we’re kicking off our season-long exploration of The Center for Sales Strategy’s 5th Annual Media Sales Report by highlighting some of this year’s most eye-catching findings.  

In other words, by the end of this short episode, you’ll have a good idea of how salespeople and sales managers are currently feeling about their own organizations as well as the entire media sales industry.

Links:

The 5th Annual Media Sales Report

Matt Sunshine

The Center for Sales Strategy

Transcript

Matt Sunshine 0:15

Welcome to Improving Sales Performance , a podcast highlighting tips and insights aimed at helping sales organizations realize , and maybe even exceed , their goals .

Matt Sunshine 0:25

Here we chat with thought leaders , experts and gurus who have years of sales experience from a wide range of industries . I'm your host , Matt Sunshine , CEO at The Center for Sales Strategy , a sales performance consulting company . In this Quick Take episode , we're kicking off our season-long exploration of the Center for Sales Strategy's fifth annual media sales report by highlighting some of this year's most eye-catching findings . In other words , by the end of this short episode , you'll have a good idea of how sales people and sales managers are currently feeling about their own organizations , as well as the entire media industry . With that , let's dive in . So I'm excited for this sort of framework of a podcast to just kind of show my thoughts on what I saw in the media sales report this year . This is the fifth year doing the media sales report and , having had the opportunity to really study all the years , I have some perspective and I have some maybe some additional insight that I can share . So what I did is I pulled out some things I wanted to reference . So the first thing that I want to share with everybody is achieving organizational goals . Achieving organizational goals is 81% harder than last year , according to the sales managers . So media sales managers answered the question 81% said achieving organizational goals is harder than last year . I think that says something right . I mean , I think that we all kind of know that , but when four out of five sales managers say , oh yeah , it is harder , what it says is not very many people are looking at 2024 and saying you know what ? This is going to be an easy year for us . We have tailwinds behind us , and this is going to be easy Doesn't mean that the goals are not achievable . It just means that our work is cut out for us , and I think that's good . I think a good , healthy dose of understanding what's ahead and what you're going to have to do to be successful is super important . So knowing that , knowing that the year ahead is going to be going to be more achieving organization , is going to be harder than last year . Let's dig in a little bit deeper .

Matt Sunshine 3:10

90% of salespeople and 74% of sales managers want some sort of a hybrid work schedule . This is going to become a bigger and bigger topic . I know that the CSS consultants are talking to their clients regularly , weekly about this . There is a little bit of a chasm right . Corporates , the C-suite , the executives want people in the office daily , every day , or four out of five days a week . A lot , a lot . And salespeople and really I mean 90% of salespeople and 74% of sales managers so three out of four sales managers and nine out of 10 salespeople want some sort of a hybrid work environment . Notice that . Nobody our data would support that . Really nobody wants to be in the office full time every single day and , on the flip side , nobody wants to be 100% remote at all . Nobody is saying they want to be 100% remote , nobody at least of the salespeople and sales managers in the media sales report . Nobody is saying they want to work 100% from home or 100% of the office , but some sort of hybrid . And what I've seen the most successful organizations do is to be very transparent and say well , here at this company , these are our ground rules , this is how we do it , we do two days a week , we do three days a week , we do four days week . They don't leave it loosey goosey . They actually say this is how we do it and we're sticking to it , and I think that sort of guidance from leadership is really important goes a long , long way .

Matt Sunshine 5:04

Let me hit another . Another stat kind of jumped out to me and I've been talking about this one for years and years and years , and those of you watching or listening to this that know me will know that I've been saying this . Seventy five percent of sales managers say that less than forty percent of their team , less than forty percent of their sales people , are superstars . In my opinion , all your people should be superstars . You should have a hundred percent of your people should be superstars . The fact that that Six out of ten or not , the fact that less than four out of ten are superstars , I think is the problem . I mean , let's face it , a talent beats out C talent . Every day , you want the most talented , most skilled , best sales people . You want superstars . And , and when you have a conversation and you look at your team and you think you know what , I got a bunch of players , b players , c players . The question has to be why are you tolerating that A's don't want to be surrounded by B's and C's ? A's want to be surrounded by A's ?

Matt Sunshine 6:21

Now , don't confuse Someone who's in a slump with not being a superstar . Sometimes your superstars go through slumps and that's okay . It's your job as a leader to coach and develop them , so to pull them out of the slump . And also , new people Are future superstars , their future superstars . So don't confuse and go . Well , this person's not a superstar because they've only been here a month , or less than two or three months . Well , they are superstars , for . Are they the very best person that you've ever seen ? With just two months experience , the answers yes , and they are a superstar At what they're , at the level that they're at . So it's discouraging in one sense that most seventy five percent of sales managers are saying that forty percent Less than forty percent of their team are superstars . But it's also a huge opportunity . It's a huge opportunity to say you know what , in two thousand twenty four , my goal is to have all superstars , or I want at least seventy five percent of my team to be what I would consider a superstar , if that's , if you were there , you're gonna , you're gonna , you're gonna blow your budgets away and you're gonna crush it . All right , just a few more .

Matt Sunshine 7:37

And for me to hit on today , virtually all say I love this one . This one just makes you feel good . I think everyone listening , everyone watching , should , should , like this statistic . Virtually all sales people ninety three percent , nine out , better than nine out of ten feel supported by their manager . That's awesome . I love that , love that . Love that , love that because , as a sales leader , it is our job to to grow and develop and to support the people that we work with . So great job , sales leaders . Ninety three percent feel supported by their manager .

Matt Sunshine 8:16

Next , next one that I wanted to touch on is the vast majority of sales managers and sales people . So ninety percent , nine out of ten sales managers and eighty seven percent , almost nine out of ten sales people agree that getting appointments with prospects is harder today than it was five years ago . And boy it was never easy . Five years ago it was not easy , but today it is harder , and that's a trend that we have seen year after year after year , getting harder and harder and harder . It is truly , I believe , one of the hardest things that salespeople have to do . To that end , having sales enablement tools , having lead generation resources , having marketing to assist sales , is something that I think is critical . Full disclosure we have an inbound marketing agency , leadg2 , that helps companies , helps media companies , to drive revenue through lead generation and sales enablement . I think that every media company ought to be investing time and money and resources into having a world-class lead generation and sales enablement a resource for their teams . And the data would support it when 90% of sales managers and 87% of salespeople say getting appointments is harder and harder and harder .

Matt Sunshine 9:45

And then , last one , less than half of salespeople 44% are given feedback around their sales talents on a regular basis , and that's an opportunity . I think One thing that we know is people love to hear feedback on what they're good at , and all salespeople are good at something , but not all salespeople are good at the same thing , so generic feedback is wasted , is lost . Specific feedback on talents that people actually have goes a long , long way , and so , to the extent that your salespeople are feeling supported by their manager , that's awesome . I would say there's an opportunity there for sales leaders to lean in a little bit more and really provide feedback on sales talent . You know , if you're working with a company like the Center for Sales Strategy , you know we have talent analysts that will get on a call with your salespeople or capable to get on a call with a sales leader or salesperson and provide that information , so feedback can be given . If you're not working with the Center for Sales Strategy . Hopefully you're using some sort of talent assessment or talent instrument that allows you the opportunity to provide feedback to the people that you are responsible for growing and developing , because I will tell you , that goes a long , long way .

Matt Sunshine 11:11

So those are some of my highlights . There's some of the things I pulled out of the media sales report . I would love it if you took some time and reviewed the media sales report and maybe share with me some of your key observations . I'd love to hear what , what you're thinking and some of your analysis , and I'll leave . I'll leave it there . Thanks , everyone . This has been improving sales performance . Thanks for listening . If you like what you heard , join us every week by clicking the subscribe button For more on the topics covered in the show . Visit our website , the Center for Sales Strategycom . There you can find helpful resources and content aimed at improving your sales performance .