Back around the time of Issue 03, we launched the Small Business Advertising Program to create affordable ad space for indie companies in the print version of Coilhouse. By the time Issue 04 rolled around, the number of advertisers had grown significantly – by this time, we had record labels, jewelry and clothing designers, sculptors, other magazines, web hosts, toy makers and graphic designers advertising in our pages. Click here to see them all. With editorial duties taking up more and more of our time as the weeks go by, the moment has come for us to seek help with the advertising side of running the magazine. We’re looking to hire an Ad Manager for our Small Business Advertising Program, starting with Coilhouse Magazine #05… and possibly subsequent issues.

Full details after the jump!

What We’re Looking For

We’re looking for someone who can devote 2-3 hours per weekday for the next 5-6 weeks to helping us fill up our ad pages with small business ads. The job can be done from anywhere in the world, during whichever hours you prefer.

This job consists of writing emails. LOTS of emails. You’ll be talking to a lot of different folks, answering questions, invoicing via PayPal when you sell an ad (yay!), and making sure people turn in the artwork for ads by a certain deadline. Don’t worry, we’ll show you how to do all that stuff. Sometimes the advertisers will come to you by emailing us through the website – in fact, one of the reasons we’re hiring is that we’re running out of time for answering these types of inquiries. But most of the time, you’ll be reaching out to new businesses yourself.

You don’t need to have any sales experience to apply for this role. Most “salespeople” are just good communicators, people who answer emails on time and give you the facts. There’s no persuasive magic to it. In fact, people who believe that being a good salesperson requires a secret array of “tactics” are usually the worst kinds of salespeople. But you do need to have some skills in order to do this job. We’re looking for:

1. Superb writing skills. Impeccable command of the English language!
2. Someone who isn’t shy about writing to strangers, and doesn’t get discouraged easily. Because plenty of people will tell you “no.” You’ll send out a lot of emails that people don’t respond to. The important thing is focusing on the people who do respond.
3. Someone with great bookkeeping/account management skills. You’ll be keeping track of where each advertiser’s at as the process goes on, checking in with them to make sure everyone has what they need. (How many issues did they sign up for? Did they submit artwork? If they did, did they provide all the materials we need? Have you invoiced them? Do you see their payment in PayPal? Did they see a proof of their ad before it goes to print? Did they approve it, or are there revisions? Etc.) It’s up to you how you want to organize – we used color-coding in Gmail to keep track of where each advertiser was in the process, and kept the final tally in Excel.
4. Someone who gets our audience, gets the magazine, someone who will know what kind of businesses will be a perfect fit for us. You need to have a working knowledge of Etsy, clothing companies, art galleries, etc. It’s worth mentioning that not every small business needs an ad. We don’t want to be bothering fledgling businesses who’ve only had 7 sales on Etsy in their whole existence. You need to have a talent for spotting healthy, thriving, established or up-and-coming businesses or individuals that need help furthering their brand or their work.
5. Photoshop skills are not essential,  but a big plus. Sometimes, when advertisers send over their images, we need to help crop them, convert them to CMYK, etc.

If you get this job, you’ll receive lots of training by email and by phone, and we’ll be around to answer all of your questions as the weeks goes on. Of course, we’d love to have someone who brings us new ideas, ways to improve the process above, etc.

Compensation

This is a gig for the next 5-6 weeks that you’ll devote a couple of hours to each day, just for Issue 05 (as a trial period for both you and us, with the hope to grow together during the course of future issues if we’re successful with Issue 05). The below rate is based on our current prices for ads, which range from $99-150, depending on how many issues an advertiser commits to. Your commission will be based on how many new advertisers you signed up. In total, you will receive:

• A $500 base rate for taking the time, regardless of how many sales you make (or don’t make)
• A $20 commission for every new business that you bring into the fold

So, to make a $1,000 for your work on this next issue, you’d need to bring us 25 new advertisers. As mentioned above, we’re not looking to sell ads to anybody who doesn’t truly need one. This isn’t the used-car business – we don’t look at it in terms of how much money we can make from as many people as can we somehow convince/hypnotize into advertising with us, but in terms of how many mutually-beneficial partnerships we can build with businesses we greatly admire/already shop from anyway!

We can’t predict how much money you’ll make. We’ve never had anybody work at it every day – just one harried co-editor sporadically emailing with interested advertisers and making occasional cold-calls between juggling the blog and the print magazine, as time permitted. So we don’t know how much opportunity there is, or if this can turn into somebody’s sweet part-time job. We do know that it’s how other magazines were able to grow and prosper, so this seems like the next logical step, and one we’ve been wanting to take for a long time.

How to Apply

Send us an email. You don’t need to include a resume. Just introduce yourself and tell us why you’re interested in this opportunity. In addition to this, send us the following two items so that we can assess your skill:

• Make a list of the first 15 advertisers you’d contact if you got this job. No, this isn’t some clever way for us to farm potential contacts – it’s a way for us to determine whether you understand our demographic, and if you’d reach out to the right types of businesses on our behalf. Refer to the current list of small-business advertisers for ideas.
• Pick one of the advertisers in your list and write up a sample letter of what you’d say to them in your initial, introductory email. Assume that they have never heard of us before. Describe the magazine in a few sentences, explain what the Small Business Advertising Program is all about (in brief), explain why you think it would be a good fit, and offer to send them the media kit. The entire email should be under 500 words; less is more. With this email, we’ll assess your ability to communicate.

Deadline

The deadline for applying is this Friday. Hope to hear from you soon!

Posted by Coilhouse on February 8th, 2010
Filed under Coilhouse