Charlie Delatorre Honored With Presidential Award

Charlie Delatorre was named the recipient of the CPF Presidential Award at the recent conference in Orlando.The current CPF president has the opportunity to name a member who has volunteered his time for the good of this association.In making the presentation, CPF President Wendy Murray said, "The recipient of this award today not only has volunteered his time to serve as president, vice... + Read More

Heizer Media Group Wins Beckerman Award

The Boca Raton Tribune and Publisher Doug Heizer were recipients of the CPF Milton & Bernice Beckerman Award.The presentation was made by CPF President Wendy Murray at the association's annual conference held recently in Orlando.The award is presented to a member paper for community service that benefited a community charity, a fund raising event for a charity, or an employee who provided... + Read More

Tom Germond Wins Beckerman Award

Tom Germond was also named a recipient of the CPF Milton & Bernice Beckerman award.The editor of Tampa Bay Newspapers received the award at the CPF annual conference in Orlando.In making the presentation, CPF President Wendy Murray said, "For the individual we are going to honor, think about this: 88 gallons of blood plus hundreds of platelets."Since 1983 this employee of the Tampa... + Read More

2015 "Awards for Excellence" Winners

The Observer News publications in the Ruskin area took home the most editorial and graphic awards in the Community Publishers of Florida (CPF) "Awards for Excellence" contest.The awards were presented at the awards banquet at the Caribe Royale Resort in Orlando during the annual CPF conference.The Best of Show award went to the Tampa Bay Newspapers for its "Pub Crawl" section.... + Read More

The President's Message: A Quick Conference Recap

If you attended the annual Community Papers of Florida (CPF) conference in Florida, we are sure that you took home some ideas to help add to the bottom line of your papers.We thank you for taking the time to attend and for sharing your knowledge with your peers.You will note that in the opening paragraph, I referred to the Community Papers of Florida. At the conference the general membership... + Read More

CPF Has a New Name!

The general membership of the Community Papers of Florida (CPF) approved the recommendation of the Board of Directors to change the name of the association. The name of the association has been changed to: the Community Publishers of Florida (CPF).The board opted for the change due to declining circulation and revenue over the past six years. During this period, the CPF circulation has dropped... + Read More

2014 CVC Audit of CPF Publications is Revealing

The 2014 Circulation Verification Council (CVC) audits of the Community Papers of Florida (CPF) reveals that the circulation of the association continues to fall.The average net circulation of print editions is 4,033,922.Direct mail accounts for the lion's share of distribution. Direct mailed numbers are 2,370,424. Carrier delivery numbers are 771,258. Bulk delivery is 566,962.On a positive... + Read More

Motivating and Compensating Your Sales Team

Some years ago, I had a sales person who simply quit selling. After years of being one of the leaders in my sales group, she suddenly fell to the bottom of the ranking. She still came to work every day and she seemed to be working, but she made fewer and fewer calls and no longer tried to respond to customer objections. I sat down with her to talk about what was wrong. We talked for a while and... + Read More

Newspaper Pet Peeves

Readers Weigh in on What Ticks Them OffWhile preparing to lead a webinar for a newspaper association up north last week, I took a survey of newspaper subscribers and nonsubscribers to find out what their biggest pet peeves are about newspapers. After looking over the results, I realized that most of the information is just as valid for free papers as it is for our paid brethren.So last week, just... + Read More

Postal Pieces: Service Performance, Household Diary, Value of the Mail, Promotion Reviews

In August, the USPS held one of its quarterly Mailers Technical Advisory Council (MTAC) meetings with the mailing industry and posted a number of reports of interest to mailers and free papers that use the Postal Service for distribution. This column is a summary of some of the news of interest, MTAC announcements, and postings in the last month.SERVICE PERFORMANCE REPORTOne of the regulatory... + Read More

Sales Training: You're Replacing Someone. Now What?

I was talking to Angela about her early days at her newspaper. "When I moved into this sales job, a lot of clients asked about the person I replaced. Most of them asked innocent questions about how that person was doing. But some of them were nosy and persistent. I figured the best strategy was to stay upbeat." It's a big challenge to step into a new position, whether it's a... + Read More

Your Last Minute Conference Questions Answered!

Conference is just a week away! Sure, you have questions so you've come to the right place for answers.Where are we staying?We are once again at the welcoming Caribe Royale All-Suite Resort and Convention Center located at 8101 World Center Drive in Orlando. Click here for directions to the hotel.What are we doing?There will be plenty of training, opportunities to win cash and prizes, and... + Read More