I Can’t be as optimistic for you-

I only have a few shares of stock remaining. Reinvested 90% of my Lee
stock in June. Received year end statement yesterday showing a 16% gain.
The business of Lee is changing. Many smart newspaper owners have sold out for massive profits. Lee leadership has jeopardized the franchise by invested in more companies from the same downside industry and expecting upside results.

In the case of Lee, current stock prices on Wall Street are mostly a reflection of the confidence level in current leadership than in the industry.

It cost me dearly to find this out.

10- Repeatedly reassign sales responsibilities to sever cumbersome
partnerships with advertisers.
9- Focus on restoring year-to-date revenue and divert attention from
developing new accounts.
8- Grow capacity to drive revenue under duress by providing
salespeople with obnoxious daily irritations.
7- Formulate a sales culture surrounded by hysteria.
6- Monitor sales efforts using morning and evening reporting methods
that consumes sales activity.
5- Maximize individual sales struggle by devising unattainable sales
plan.
4- Encourage salespeople with a successful sales model that adulates
a “Favorite” for achieving goals because of accounts given them
from others territory.
3- Shift focus of all sales activity daily and or hourly, because of
inadequate sales projects.
2- Inspire salespeople to compensate for inexperienced managers as
they misdirect.
1- Enhance revenue by using “Lee Blitzers” contrived method of sales
reporting.

I know 2008 will be a much better year for all Lee employees as we turn the corner to increasing revenue and look to higher stock prices.

Thank You from a greatful Lee employee.

In light of the recent stock change that reported a doubling of Lee 4-Q profits she neglected to clarify that much of the gain was attributed to a one time benifit of tax changes and other issues, why would she NOT say that?

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has selected the on-demand customer-relationship management platform from Reltionals.com ,Sunnyvale Calif. to streamiline its sales processes, including lead management and targeting, marketing and outreach, opportunity management and advertiser support.

the largest of Lee Enterprises’ 53 dailies , the Post-Dispatch is the center of a media platform that includes 37 weeklies (the largest U.S. group, with a distribution os 1.2 million copies), specialty publications, a large shared-mail ad-delivery progam, and the Web site stltoday.com.

The Post-0Dispatch sought to centralize sales operations to improve customer retention, identify new and missed opportunities, and streamline reporting.

Lee is always exploring new avenues to help upper management function. Hopefully the cost of this venture will be offset by increased revenue streams and improved customer relations in St. Louis. I’am I the only one wondering why the expensive St. Louis upper Ad Management already in place is obviously defaulting on their assignments creating the need for this seemingly unnecessary expenditure.

If you have a territory, what would be your reaction if one of your sales friends landed a big new account in your territory?

What did your manager say about working someone else’s territory?

While you got a new account, which is great, but in someone else’s territory, it seems like cannibalization of a fellow salesman.

I’m not in sales, but this does not seem like a healthy long term sales practice.

I know I’d be HOT if I found out you got a new account in my territory and my sales manager, who I assume would also be your sales manager, knowingly undermined my territory and helped you. Your success came at my expense. Yikes! (And yes I should work my territory harder since obviously there was a new account to be acquired and you got it.)

If the person whose territory should “have known to call on the account” didn’t, then the sales manager should help that person to recognize potential accounts.

Do sales managers ever looked at people’s terriotries and see what kind of obstacles or potential a given territory has? And does the sales manager work with the person to develop accounts in their own territory?

How many accounts are in your territory that you “should have known to call” but haven’t and could be worked on by one of the other sales people in your office?

I’m curious what you think.