Not posting your rate card on your web site: Any media that won’t do this is suspect, in my mind, on a number of levels. First is the obvious, what are you trying to hide? Do they have selective rate cards, or is it whatever-the-market will bear pricing? Second, if sneakiness is not a concern, then cleverness is. We all know now that your website must work as hard as it can for you and to not include information to make it easy for the customer to buy, well that’s just plain dumb. Is this an ideal partner?

Not including a section on Advertising on the site. ibid, with one caveat. I wouldn’t want to see “How to Advertise” on a media site if I were on the agency side. “About Us” is cool, but how to advertise is the expertise the agency brings to the equation.

Not including a descriptive, about us statement anywhere on the site. ibid idid

Making me talk to 6 people to get to the right rep. Yeah, I hate when it happens to me and I hate it even more when someone gets tranferred to me and says “You are the 5th person I have spoken with and I still don’t have my answer.” When that happens, I’ll tell the caller, I will get you the info even if I am the wrong person. This issue is not limited to media. (Ever call DMV?) It seems to be a problem of basic customer service, compounded by a difference in structure/nomenclature. You want info about pub x (rate/circ, etc) and they transfer you to subscriptions. They didn’t ask, you didn’t tell. Some of the blame is shared.

Assigning reps by client and not by agency. Well, when agencies assign reps by media…. Agencies assign reps by clients, too. Sometimes one media rep needs 3-4 agency reps for one issue. That door does indeed swing both ways.

Non-”Quantified” sites. Yupper. Waddya got to hide again.

Teasing me with the targeting options. This may also be an indicator of a lack of sophistication and, maybe, performance down the road.

BOTTOM LINE: Rodney King is right. If we start to understand the 3 sides of this ad triangle, what we each need and, most importantly, we all need the CLIENT, then perhaps we can let the relationship develop using client needs as the starting point. When the client wins, agency and media do too.

It ain’t just media, and it ain’t just agency. The client needs us both to win. We just need to learn to play together nicely.

I agree with you and your frustration over the inconsistencies in supporting the media sale.

I can honestly say that the disparity you speak of with respect to reps is something that may never go away. Having been a “sales professional” for over 15 years, it is more indicative of poor sales leadership than anything else. And on top of all that, the Web 2.0 world is actually driving great reps right out the door. Mostly because they don’t understand how to work within this new environment.

I believe that we will see a fundamental shift in the sales force thinking in the next 5 years or less. Most sales leaders are just now beginning to get it. And if they don’t get it…customers will find those who do. And in the end, it really boils down to who provides the best service.

It’s really more of a customer service issue. The media choose how they convey their advertising products and how they allocate their sales force resources. It just that some sites are set up in ways that make them really easy to deal with and some sites are set so that it is a nightmare. In terms of offering great upfront information about their products – that is pretty easy. Many sites need to do a better job at this. The structure of the sales force might be a harder thing to fix. But ultimately what ends up being good for the media planner will be good for the site (in terms of more sales), so it is worth looking into. A lot of these frustrations are par for the course of a media planner’s life, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t get better.

I wonder if the reduction in complexity and frustration that you seek can be created as a new service or offering to the clients and companies you deal with (or want to deal with). Is that even a remote possibility or is this just your professional life by design?