Bring yourself and your troops to the

Bob Munn

When asked about coaching sales teams for today’s challenges, Bob Munn is deadly serious,  “If I go back on the street today with the skill set that got me through most of my career, I starve to death.”

Munn didn’t do much starving during nearly forty years of community publishing. He claims both the resume and the waistline to prove it. From a background in virtually every department of a family-owned shopping guide to publishing award winning publications within a national chain of daily newspapers, he made sales presentations in board rooms, at front counters, and on the hoods of used cars….sometimes during the same day.

“I joke about my career beginning when dinosaurs roamed the earth, but dinosaurs walk the earth today. They are awkward, lumbering, confused and bound for extinction. They are sales people who do things the way we used to do them.”

Munn titled his training the Walk Them In The Sun™ sales process after an expression of his father, one of community publishing’s early entrepreneurs. “Dad used to say, ‘You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink……unless you walk him in the sun first.’  Trouble was, as it too often is with fathers and sons, I took longer than I might have to understand his wisdom.”

He looks forward to showcasing his program, through the joint efforts of the Independent Free Papers of America and the Mid-Atlantic Community Publishers Association, at the MACPA Spring Conference in April.

“For over thirty years, IFPA has sustained a mission to advance our industry through programs of training and education,” Munn, a past-president of that international organization reflected. “It is both exciting and humbling that the current IFPA board of directors chose to support this approach and help bring it to MACPA

Surprisingly for someone focused upon training outbound sales representatives, he believes the biggest beneficiary will be the sales managers. Describing them as the most over-extended, multi-tasked individuals in the community publishing world—hastening to add that, “The only ones stretched thinner are the publishers, who do it like I did and act as their own sales managers. But at least they don’t have to write reports to themselves.”

“Sales managers answer to general managers and publishers. They’re in charge of promotions. They’re responsible for the care and feeding of the sales team and all the drama that comes with that. If a customer is unhappy, they get the call. If someone gets in a snit with the art department or accounting, they have to mediate. If someone gets sick, they handle their customers. More than likely, they also have their own account list, as well. Did I mention channeling sales leads and reviewing call reports?”

“And somewhere in there, they’re supposed to train the sales team to meet today’s challenges.”

“We can help them with the Walk Them In The Sun™ sales process,” Munn says with confidence. And that’s why I’m looking forward to getting back together with my friends at MACPA in Harrisburg on April 7 -9.

David Crawford

Account Manager, SRDS

David Crawford has made print media his career. He is currently a Regional Account Manager at SRDS, but prior to that, he enjoyed over ten years as a print media buyer and planner, working for agencies like Strategic Print  Marketing, Newspaper Services of America and The Newspaper Network. The Account Roster he helped manage is a who’s who of newspaper advertisers: Circuit City, Home Depot, Bed Bath and Beyond, JCPenney. He also worked on National campaigns for the likes of Coca Cola and Turtle Wax. He has worked day-to-day with the young media buyers and planners (managing a staff of 15 with the average age of 24 during his agency days).

He understands what it takes to get a planner’s attention and what information motivates them to look deeper within a market. His experiences buying and managing staffs of advertising decision makers have made David an asset to his media partners. David currently lives in suburban Atlanta with his wife, Juli, and two daughters, Lily and Miranda.

Jim Busch

Owner of Ideas and Eyeballs

Jim Busch attended the University of Pittsburgh earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. After graduation in 1974, He worked at a number of sales and management positions in several industries. In 1983 Jim began his advertising career as a sales representative with Donnelley Directory, the yellow pages division of the Dun & Bradstreet Corporation. During his 12 year tenure with Donnelley he earned six promotions and worked in a number of sales, sales management and training positions winning numerous local, regional and national sales awards. At Donnelley he was exposed to a wide range of corporate training programs and was selected to be part of the marketing team that developed and executed the first proprietary directory project in company history.

In 1995 Jim joined the Pennysaver as the telephone sales manager. In addition to managing the telephone operation, he has served as a District Sales Manager on several occasions and as the Gateway Newspaper Telephone Sales Manager. In 2001 Jim was promoted to Director of Research and Training, a position he believes to be vital to the success of the Pennysaver corporate mission and personally gratifying.

Jim’s greatest strengths are his creative problem solving skills and the ability to motivate others by building their skill set and confidence. His dedication to life-long learning serves him well in his current position and he has made it his personal goal to create a “learning” culture at the Pennysaver.

Jim lives in White Oak, Pennsylvania with his wife Glenda. Jim & Glenda are the parents of two grown children and have one “very spoiled grandson”.