Seminars to be Held in April in Hartford and Chicago.

Although most of the salespeople who attended this weekend’s Bob Treadway sales seminar in Chapel Hill, NC, hailed from AAN papers in the Southeast, some came from as far away as Toronto, ON, and Palm Beach County, FL. But regardless of how far they traveled, the participants were overwhelmingly enthusiastic about the benefits of learning from a master like Treadway.

Says Cara Yowell, Ad Director at C-Ville Weekly : “One of the things I found very useful about Bob’s presentation is that it wasn’t a bunch of motivational hype. He gave us very real tools that we can take back to our staff and use in the field.” Yowell says that she didn’t bring her staff to the seminar because she was concerned that it wasn’t going to be industry-specific. But now, having seen Treadway’s presentation, she says, “Next year, I would recommend it.”

Yowell plans to use what she learned at the seminar when she conducts training sessions for her classified and display ad reps, incorporating the follow-up lesson plans that AAN has emailed to each attending sales manager. “I’m excited about using the lesson plans in my Monday morning training sessions,” says Yowell.

Treadway’s seminar is a multimedia learning experience with sound effects, film clips, and a take-home workbook to help participants master topics such as: powerful prospecting, needs discovery and questioning skills, resistance-reducing techniques, powerful presenting skills, overcoming objections, advertising agency techniques and “Closing 101.”

As each topic is covered, participants have the opportunity to share their ideas and concerns with their counterparts at other papers in their region. Meanwhile, extensive role-playing practice sessions immediately following each lesson help put the material into a real-world context.

Ron Kilpatrick, the Publisher and sole attendee from ECHO Weekly in Hamilton, ON, says, “I was very happy with the seminar. If I knew it was going to be this relevant, I would have tried to bring all of my sales staff.”

Local AAN member Independent Weekly sponsored the evening’s festivities at the Chapel Hill seminar. Following the first half-day session, participants were treated to a catered dinner at a nearby restaurant, where they were sated with a four-course meal and imported, microbrewed beer. Later, everyone was escorted to a Chapel Hill bar, the Cave, for an evening of gratis libations. The Cave just happens to be owned by the husband of Independent Weekly’s National Advertising Contact, Gloria Wyly Mock.

As if persuading her spouse to kick in for free drinks wasn’t enough, Mock provided another valuable service as the seminar came to a close by making copies of a contact sheet of the participants’ business cards to ensure that the valuable dialogue and support network formed over the weekend would continue to be a resource for best-practice sharing. It has already been put into place, says Yowell. “In the three days since the seminar ended, I’ve already started dialoguing with the other participants about the issues we all face and how to apply what we learned at the seminar.”

If you’re interested in attending one of Treadway’s sales seminars, there’s still time to register for the two that remain: April 7-8 in Hartford, CT, and April 14-15 in Chicago. For more information on registration, click here.