tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-817503750343460336.post998424955769009968..comments2023-10-10T08:27:28.524-05:00Comments on Men Are Not Potatoes: Does Anything Get To Fail Anymore?MeatAxehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03477536538497998805noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-817503750343460336.post-18254336377943989692008-12-02T17:17:00.000-06:002008-12-02T17:17:00.000-06:00http://www.portfolio.com/executives/features/2008/...http://www.portfolio.com/executives/features/2008/11/24/Sam-Zell-Talks-with-Joanne-Lipman?TID=email/news/careers<BR/><BR/>Here's one response that stood out to me <BR/><BR/>JOANNE: So what is the new model? Have you figured that out yet, or are you cutting your way to…?<BR/><BR/>SAM: I think the answer is we are testing and testing and changing. We've reformatted all eight newspapers. Among other things, we shrunk the size of the newspapers by an inch. And then we responded to our customers. Our customers have an enormous interest in our newspaper on Sunday; have almost no interest on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday; Thursday and Friday, they're more interested; and Saturday might as well be in the desert. So we did something that was really extraordinary. It kind of came out of Econ 101. We looked at demand and we said, "Gee, we ought to reduce supply when demand is weak"—a very shocking concept, particularly for the newspaper industry. So, we've now done that across all of our newspapers.<BR/><BR/>We did not have a single salesperson on commission. In other words, every single newspaper had a cadre of salaried salesman. Now, you know, I'm just a businessman, but I've never seen any kind of a sales force that was effective if, in fact, they had no incentives. Now, part of the reason is that historically, because it was a monopoly, newspapers heavily depended, and still do, on national advertising, where the salesman is an order taker. When the guy from Macy's calls and says, "We want six pages," you don't say to him, "Well, how about nine." You just say, "Yes, sir. Send me the check and we're on." But, among other things, what that led to was a massive abdication of potential advertisers within the local markets using zones, so that, in effect, the zone belongs to the salesman. Nobody else can go in there. Even if nobody has bought anything in that zone for 20 years, it's still his territory.<BR/><BR/>I mean, this is nutty stuff. And, in effect, what we're trying to do is address the newspaper business like a business.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-817503750343460336.post-41259880799493825782008-12-02T15:08:00.000-06:002008-12-02T15:08:00.000-06:00Nobody's asking for a bailout. Those pushing for s...Nobody's asking for a bailout. Those pushing for state help are simply seeking the state's assistance to find a new owner and to make sure the new owner knows about any programs that would help. That's the same thing Connecticut would do for any business.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com