It’s mid-December. Direct marketers are reaping the rewards of the Christmas catalogs they started mailing last January. An unfortunate few are planning the final panicked e-mail blasts for the holiday 2007 season.
But other than this, are they ready for 2008? In many instances, not quite. For when DMers were filling out their annual revenue projections and expense forecasts, they may have neglected one key calculation: A few extra simoleans in their own paychecks.
The art of asking for a raise is a tricky one. For those DMers who haven’t made their case yet, I offer the following historical perspective, in hopes it will enhance their efforts.
In years past, the savviest employees boosted their requests for raises with presentations that mirrored the mediums on which they relied. For instance, employees at direct-mail-focused firms often used a zippy cover letter that started with a “pull-em-in” anecdote on the advantages of their continued employment. A classic example follows:
“On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men graduated from the same college. They were very much alike, these two young men. Both were hired by the same firm, both ultimately were happily married, and both had three children. But one of the men was manager of a small department of that company. The other was a vice president. What made the difference in their lives? The manager wiled away his time reading the financial pages of a local newspaper and scrawling rude comments in the margins, while the vice president — ME — put down the paper, rolled up his sleeves and actually addressed the company’s needs.”
Alas, this approached worked about as well as the average direct mail pitches of the time. It usually netted a 2% pay increase.
Those DMers working for firms heavily invested in telemarketing often generated a series of rebuttal scripts anticipating all possible counter-arguments, and assembled these in a binder indexed with thumb tabs. For instance, when an employer said, “Your requested increase is outside the salary structure for your position,” all the employee had to do was flip to p. 3 and respond, “Can I at least have a monkey?
This request usually worked best when the worker toiled within a circus’s direct marketing team, but people in other industries found it never hurt to ask.
The modern DM employee faces a trend of employers attempting to foist “in kind” compensation on their workers. These agreements often culminate with bosses attempting to unload last season’s failed “cute” merchandise on them. As a result, DMers are up to their armpits in pencil sharpeners shaped like cartoon cats — on which they then have to pay income taxes.
Those working for business-to-business DM firms are burdened even further by these forms of compensation. Often, they are stuck with last season’s unsold bulk merchandise. Individual consumers absolutely do not need 25 surplus hospital gurneys, no matter how enticing the catalog copy portrays them.
What does the future hold, in terms of employee negotiation tactics among direct marketers? Well, those in the burgeoning mobile marketing field need merely scrawl “i nd mre $$$$” on a matchbook cover to demonstrate they fully appreciate the nuances of this channel.
And those responsible for generating revenue from online virtual worlds such as “Planet Terror” may have the easiest time of all. They need simply log in and petition their employers within the game context. It’s hard to deny an 8% raise to someone wielding a Sword of Pernicious Extremity Removal.
There is one rule that has held through the ages: For heaven’s sake, don’t whine. It doesn’t ship well out of state, although it might result in your job doing so.
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