Discussion 5.1 Objections and Obtaining Commitment

You work as a graphic designer for a small local newspaper. You have been a loyal employee since you moved to the area 7 years ago, and you have regularly earned additional pay and responsibilities for your hard work. There are 5 other full-time employees at the newspaper.

The sales position at the newspaper has become somewhat of a revolving door; the newspaper has gone through three employees in that position in the past two years, and the position will be vacant again in two weeks.

You are interested in the sales job, and are thinking of asking your manager to redesign your job so that the sales position is combined with your designer position. You hope for a long career in the newspaper industry, and see this as a chance to learn a new aspect of the business. The combination of the two positions has not been attempted in other local paper offices, but you think that it is realistic to handle the duties of both positions, and that each position's duties would complement the other. As the paper's designer, you typically work closely with the sales staff to lay out ads and promotions, so you are familiar with the types of ads that your paper can sell. Since you have been there for a long time, you know many of the regular advertisers on a first-name basis, and you are familiar with how they want their ads to look. You have even sold advertisers up to larger ad spaces on a number of occasions.

Your job as a designer is salaried; the sales job offers a small hourly base wage plus a bonus of 15% of ad sales if targets are met each month.

Questions:

1. What objections do you think are likely to be raised? How would you helpfully respond to each one? [Make any needed assumptions.] Time Management – this will be the immediate question being that if you should attempt both, the more successful that