In this weeks’ Face to Face, we interview Paul Birt, Group Sales Manager in the Adelaide office. We dive into personal challenges, his tips for staying motivated working from home and what TV show he’d love to make a comeback.
Q1. Tell us a bit about your role as Group Sales Manager in Adelaide?
Adelaide is an amazing town to be involved in media. We have some great people in all corners of the Advertising and Marketing landscape here, and they do amazing work. My role is to try connect our team with these people, then develop solutions for them using the best of all the assets we have at Seven West Media.
Q2. Where did your passion for sales come from?
I learnt early on about attaining fulfillment through seeing others grow. That’s what drives me.
Seven West Media’s suite of Broadcast, Digital and Print assets connect strongly with Australians. Enabling our clients to connect to, and then intrigue potential consumers with their story brings them growth… and for me a sense of achievement.
Q3. What’s been the biggest challenge for you this year?
Change Management. Our clients, our agency partners and ourselves are all knees-deep in an accelerating change in Advertising and Marketing, sped up by the pandemic. In our business, a new agility is required to get the gist of our client’s needs. Also, a stronger focus on the role of data and activating on our digital assets is required. These new focus points are fundamental to our clients’ and SWM’s success going forward.
Q4. What main commercial trends have you noticed over the past twelve months?
It has been an unbelievable 12 Months. We have seen some industry segments suffer with some segments still not clear. Not long after April 2020, we did start to see a strong move of customers back to the Home Improvement sector. And that has just kept sailing strongly. South Australian’s spend a lot of money on Overseas Travel annually. A lot of that money is being redirected into creating an oasis at home, or at the holiday home.
And we have all seen the move many businesses to up their online shopping game as traffic to bricks and mortar slowed / stopped. We have seen clients coming to TV with a need to grab attention and online traffic as physical foot traffic was in decline. I believe this has had a big role in the strong demand the TV Industry is seeing at present.
Q5. What’s one tip that you’ve used to motivate yourself and your team while working from home?
I have to say that we are very lucky here in SA to have made it through COVID Lockdowns much easier than many interstate colleagues and clients, so I am not sure we are the most qualified in this area. I do know that eating fresh and getting exercise through the day was super energising. I live across the road from a beautiful park so it was easy to get some sun and exercise and make the most of a break.
Q6. Dancing with the Stars has made a triumphant comeback. If you could pick one show from the past to be rebooted, what would you pick?
I have long believed I can pick a banging song from a mile out, but I know that I have no idea on how programmers go about finding a hot show. So clearly this is coming from a rank amateur programmers’ standpoint… 90’s Grunge Variety Show – The Big Gig. I loved its irreverent comedy, alt music, stupid camera angles and bizarre moments. What do you think Angus? Maybe not!
