Editors Note: Joe has been a valued member of this industry for a long time. His credentials are impeccable and significant (see summary at end of article). I asked Joe to provide some comments on the concept of selling “value”. At recent industry events I heard a lot of people talk about returning to the concept of selling value. So what is that? What is “value”? The following article is the first in a series on what it means to sell “value”. Enjoy.

The entire Yellow Pages industry is facing a challenge – is our print product worth the dollars that customers spend for their advertising? This question often gets buried in the cacophony of the comments on the spectacular growth of on-line advertising and the obsession with the falling stock price of some major publishers.

For years our conversations regarding directory advertising have centered on the term “value”. It, and other forms of it, are part of many sales training courses. The “proving ROI” process is simply a way to confirm to prospective clients that dollars spent return greater-than-equal-value to their businesses.

Perhaps we’ve been obsessing over ROI and forgetting the bigger picture – the exceptional benefits that the Yellow Pages bring to their advertisers. The print product has never been…..

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http://www.yptalk.com/articles.cfm?CatID=1

In this article we bring you a summary of the most recent personnel announcements for the industry.

If you have news you want to share about someone that is involved in the Yellow Pages industry (including retirees) that we should be published, drop us a line and tell us how they are doing. Send your submissions to people@yptalk.com.

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http://www.yptalk.com/articles.cfm?CatID=8

Does the word "restaurant" have two "e's" or one? And where does that "u" go? Ok. I admit it – I am a creative speller. Actually, I can’t spell most things correctly at all, which is not a good thing for a newsletter writer to admit. It’s so bad my old high school English teacher would be horrified.

One real world example -- a good friend runs an independent insurance agency – the Earll Insurance Agency. To be on the safe side, for his print advertising he always buys a few extra bold listings and in-column ads using spellings like “Earl”, “Early”, “Pearl”, and a couple of others. He recently has done the same in his online programs. Sadly, he reports that over a quarter of the contacts he receives are from these misspelled listings.

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http://www.yptalk.com/articles.cfm?CatID=6