Take the quiz: Development of an agency model, are you there yet?

In the past month I've interviewed about 15 of the most successful local interactive executives around the country in conjunction with a soon-to-be-released study on sales force insights for American Press Insititute and ItzBelden.

In the process, we've spent a lot of time talking about what the benchmarks are and/or ought to be for using the "agency model" in a legacy media sales organization. Some of the questions go deeper than sales strategies. Here's my take, with a quick way to rate your own organization's progress on a scale of one to ten:

•The sales department has been re-named and branded as offering media agnostic products and services. ____

•Sales representatives strive for for "share of customer," providing a variety of products and services owned and not-owned by the company.____

•Reorganization of sales teams and compensation has been adjusted to support digital sales.____

•Stand-alone local niche sites and channels that serve hyper-local constituencies are deployed at the rate of a few per year per market. ____

•On-going digital training programs incorporate full-day classroom-style training, short reveiws at sales meetings, testing and four-legged calls.____

•Sales representatives know expected conversion rates and ROI for most of their customers. ____

•Creative services for digital advertising and e-mail services report through the revenue side of the company._____

•Digital campaign statistics are routinely shared in joint meetings with Sales and Creative Services to increase collective intelligence about "what works" in design, ad types and offers. ____

•Direct anecdotal evidence and regular field surveys are used to match investment in digital initiatives with demand from advertisers and customers.____

•Publishers and interactive directors feel empowered to create and deploy digital initiatives in a reasonable time period. ___

Bonus question: Long term strategies seek to create or inve

There's a total of 110 points, but count the score as against 100 potential points, since one is a bonus question, and give your company, roughly an A, B or C for 90+ points, 80+ points, and 70+ respectively. Where do you plan to be on this scale by the end of 2010?

This site supplies tactical tools, new initiatives and products. These will be here every Monday for you to use and share. 

One last note: we are pleased to be getting some great Top Performing Digital Ads on this the site where they can be shared collectively other sales teams. If your organization wants to participate in this program Top Performing Digital Ad Campaigns, please send me an e-mail at alisacromer@gmail.com.