Thursday, June 6, 2013

We are a month away from starting the second half of the year. So, how'd it go in the first half? Better, I hope, compared to the last couple years but no where near the 3 or 4 years preceeding, right?

Take a moment and do the following early this week:

• Take a good look at your new business from January-June. How many accounts?
• Average order size? Are most of them generated by one or two AEs?
• Examine your attrition. What went away and why? Classify the responses to get a better understanding. Is your attrition driven by two or three categories.
• Compare your categories of advertisers and track growth over prior year Q's 1 & 2. Any surprises? Is automotive up? Financial? What packages and programs worked? What did not?
• Is your NTR calendar laid out for the rest of the year? If not, do it. Now. It's a longer selling cycle and if you're not working on late Q3 and Q4 NTR programs now, they won't get sold.

You get the idea. Follow this path. Take a good hard look at the first half to shine a light on what you can do in the second half.