The Team’s the Thing

Success is a team accomplishment. At Personal Selling Power, we think of what we do as more than just a job. We think of it as a way to help people do better and feel better about what they do. Although Gerhard’s vision and market knowledge launched the magazine 15 year’s ago, today it’s the whole team that keeps it going and growing. The PSP team falls into three categories – sales, customer services and production. Sales encompasses both subscription and advertising sales. Either in person or over the phone, the subscription salespeople call on companies to introduce the idea of a corporate subscription. Personal Selling Power pioneered this concept with the very first issue 15 years ago. Ever since PSP began accepting advertising it has always been our theory that advertisers will want to be in an environment with a loyal and continually growing readership. Our salespeople walk the PSP talk every day. They know what a tough job selling is and they are top professionals in every way.

Many magazines just manage the editorial and advertising sales and leave the business of fulfilling subscriptions, changing addresses and fielding reader requests for service to outside bureaus. But PSP readers know that they can call our office and get answers to questions about subscriptions, billing or anything else pertaining to their subscriptions on the spot. They also know they will receive orders extra fast from our hard-working shipping department. We have the best customer services staff anywhere. They are always courteous and helpful with subscribers and they have infinite patience when juggling phone calls, requests for information, new orders and whatever situations crop up during a typical day.

The third category – production – is close to my heart because it’s where I spend my days. I feel it’s the heartbeat of the business because all the other departments depend on a good product for their bread and butter. When we put together an issue, it starts with the editorial calendar for the year, then moves to each issue’s editorial mix. The contributing experts, writers and editors at PSP always go back to one basic question for preparing articles: Does this article help train, educate or motivate salespeople? If they can’t answer yes to that question, the article has no place in PSP.

When we go into production on an issue, the design team works long hours to create a visual package that both pleases the eye and enhances the editorial message. Over the years PSP has made it a rule to improve the magazine with every issue. That’s why it always seems to be in a growth rather than a stagnant state. With every issue we survey our subscribers and use your feed-back to drive the on-going improvement process.

To us sales is not an abstract. To us, sales is as much a livelihood as it is for our subscribers. We know how difficult selling is and how necessary. At PSP we all depend on our salespeople to provide customers, on our service staff to fulfill their needs and on production to create a great product – Personal Selling Power.

After 15 years of growth and success I want to thank the whole team for efforts above and beyond the call. You’ve done a terrific job and 200,000 readers seem to agree!