Professional Development Opportunities with Inland Press Association

MDDC Newspapers Can Participate in Inland Press Web-based Training

MDDC Press is a co-sponsor of Inland Press Association's webinar training, and MDDC's member newspapers can participate in these valuable learning opportunities at the Inland-member rate of just $75 per login.

Below is the tentative schedule of sessions for August, September and October:

Your Role in Managing Your Sales Team - Getting Back to Being the Leader
Bill Osborne, president, The People Business • August 12 • 10:30 a.m. Central
In this Inland Webinar, you'll learn how to set and communicate goals by developing the Big Three: vision, mission, goals. We'll focus on behavior and how to improve everyone's performance, return accountability and keep the pressure from overloading your sales staff, balancing pressure with enthusiasm and reward, reward, reward. In putting it all together, we'll show you how to create an action plan and set and monitor milestones. Click here to register for this webinar.

SEO for Dummies: A Few Things You Need to Know
with Bill Ostendorf, president, Creative Circle Media Cnsltg. • Aug. 13 • 10:30 a.m. Central
Search engine optimization is a critical aspect of your website. Even if you have one of the major website-hosting firms managing your site, many aren't addressing critical SEO factors. In this basic session, we'll focus on removing the mystery about how search engines find and feature your site and simple steps you can take to improve how well your stories perform in search optimization. Click here to register for this webinar.

Keeping the Workplace Harassment-Free: Legal Obligations of Managers
with Pamela Q. Devata, partner, Seyfarth Shaw LLP • August 18 • 10:30 a.m. Central
This Inland Webinar will discuss the full range of legal obligations faced by today's managers. We will discuss practical steps employers can take to minimize liability and provide guidance on policies and practices. Click here to register for this webinar.

Contracting with Independent Contractors — Strategies for Compliance
with Camille Olson and Richard Lapp, partners, Seyfarth Shaw LLP •  August 19 • 10:30 a.m. Central
This Inland Webinar will focus on the legal issues involved with independent contractors and will provide a wealth of practical information for minimizing legal liability. This is a tricky area and one of key importance to the industry. Click here to register for this webinar.

Managing Yourself and Leading Others — Changes in Attitude Pay Big Dividends
with Bill Osborne, president, The People Business • August 20 • 10:30 a.m. Central
In this Inland Webinarwe'll focus on how attitude affects behavior and productivity. You'll learn how to identify the signposts of attitudes, how attitudes are formed, how our thinking leads to positive and negative actions and taking responsibility for our thoughts. We'll show how perception can turn into reality and offer tips for dealing with difficult people. Click here to register for this webinar.

Re-Growing Classifieds: Creating Effective Sales Scripts
with Richard Clark, president, Classified Development • August 25 • 10:30 a.m. Central
Every sales presentation should be scripted, but they should never sound scripted. This old adage is true whether your reps are outbound-prospecting for new business, upselling voluntary advertisers or soliciting renewals. Some of these "conversational scripts" should be followed as closely as possible, while others should be "points to cover" in the sales presentation. In this Inland Webinar, you will be provided with a few sample scripts that you can modify for use at your publication, as well as learn the dos and don'ts of effective sales script order, phrasing and timing. Click here to register for this webinar.

Readers, Relationships, Revenue
with Ruth Presslaff, president, Presslaff Interactive Revenue • August 25 • 2 p.m. Central
Newspapers that identify loyal readers and build relationships by targeting their lifestyle interestes can turn those relationships into lucrative opportunities, valued by audiences and advertisers alike. Ruth Presslaff from Presslaff Interactive Revenue, an e-mail/database marketing company that provides software and marketing expertise to more than 1,000 media properties, will cite case studies demonstrating the endless opportunities to market to core customers once you know who they are. Click here to register for this webinar.

Wage and Hour Laws: Hours, Exemptions and Lawsuits, Oh My!
with Alexander J. Passantino, of counsel, Seyfarth Shaw LLP • August 26 • 10:30 a.m. Central
This Inland Webinar will review the landscape of federal wage and hour laws, providing a primer for HR and employers in this key area. Click here to register for this webinar.

Better Headlines for Today's Media Environment
with Bill Ostendorf, president, Creative Circle Media Consulting • August 31 • 10:30 a.m. Central
What do readers want from your next headline, caption, page one "refer" or web home page? We'll cover all the critical elements that can make or break your appeal to readers. Learn the importance of these elements along with proven techniques that will help dramatically improve all of them. This Inland Webinar will also cover display type and why the first rule about display type is to forget all the rules you've ver heard about display type. "They're nuts and were not written for users," says Bill Ostendorf. "We have brand new rules for display type—headlines, captions, breakouts—that work and that are very different than anyone learned in college." Ostendorf's views on display type come from major industry research along with his own experience running focus groups for dozens of newspapers. They'll be simple tips and insights you can put to work today. A "must" for copy editors, news editors, designers and top managers. Click here to register for this webinar.

Sales Sheets for Outbound Prospecting: How to Create Them, and the Right Way to Use Them
with Richard Clark, president, Classified Development • September 1 • 10:30 a.m. Central
To re-grow classifieds, newspapers need to outbound-prospect as though the phone might never ring on its own ever again. Getting prospects interested in advance of the sales call boosts the success of outbound efforts tremendously. The right benefit sales sheets sent in advance of the call are a great tool for creating this interest. In this Inland Webinar, you will learn the basic principals behind creating simple sales sheets that grab more attention from prospects, and the right way to use them. Click here to register for this webinar.

Building Effective Ads and Reducing Advertiser Churn
with Sue Beck, president, Print Marketing Concepts • September 1 • 2 p.m. Central
Effective advertising sells products and services for your advertisers. When advertising works, your customers will stay happy and with the newspaper, and your "advertiser churn" will be reduced. Find out how to keep your advertisers happy and coming back for more. In this Inland Webinar, you'll learn • How to connect with today's consumer by understanding how consumer buying patters have changed; • Why newspapers work to reach consumers and the strengths they bring to the table; • How to uncover what an advertiser wants to communicate through his advertising and the differences in types of ads to use; • A reminder of the value of advertising— why businesses need to continue to advertise even when times are tough; and • How people read the newspaper and ads in today's culture. Click here to register for this webinar.

Staying Cool Under Pressure—No Matter What
with Bill Osborne, president, The People Business • September 9 • 10:30 a.m. Central
In this Inland Webinar, we'll uncover the issues and hot buttons associated with a pressure-filled environment. We'll discuss reaction time and the demons that don't go away. You'll learn the dangers of over-arousal and what happens when you win the battle and lose the war and how not to get lost in the drama. Staying cool is all about making choices: taking a second look, deciding not reacting, and action-planning. Click here to register for this webinar.

Growing Single-Copy Sales: 12 Proven Tips for Your Newsroom
with Bill Ostendorf, president, Creative Circle Media Consulting • September 10 • 10:30 a.m. Central
Most newsrooms focus on some of the core things they need to do to help give their single-copy sales a boost. The wording of headlines, the design, wording and selection of material to refer to from "top boxes" and the use of photos are all crucial to getting more people to pick up the newspaper. This Inland Webinar will provide an overview of key research results and offer a dozen proven tips that will absolutely help grow circulation—even today. Learn what the newsroom can and can't do to move the numbers. Click here to register for this webinar.

Supervisory Skills Training: Your Responsibilities as a Supervisor in 2010
with Tom Riebock, director of human resources, Wick Communications • September 23 • 10:30 a.m. Central
The human resources challenges for employers and managers is constantly changing. Do you have the confidence to deal with your employees effectively? Do you know what managerial mistakes could put your company in jeopardy? Find out with this Inland Webinar on hiring, termination, employee reviews and other timely issues that will help you become a better, more informed manager. Click here to register for this webinar.

What to Expect form OSHA in 2010/2011
with attorneys from Seyfarth Shaw LLP • September 2010 • Date and Time TBD
This Inland Webinar will highlight the renewed compliance issues that employers need to grapple with in dealing with OSHA. The agency has changed its focus and increased its activity dramatically, and you need to be prepared.

Untangling Web 2.0: Understanding Social Media in the Workplace
with attorneys from Seyfarth Shaw LLP • September 2010 • Date and Time TBD
Social media (Facebook, Twitter and the like) is a key focus of our employees. This Inland Webinar will walk you through navigating the legal issues underlying the dominance of social media in our lives.

How to Improve Your Recruitment Packaging and Positioning
with Larry Maynard, chairman of NGM Partners LLC • October 6 • 10:30 a.m. Central
Most newspapers continue to take whatever the recruitment category gives them while others have pretty much given the category up to online competitors. The truth is, the combination of your newspaper's print and online recruitment products is vastly stronger than any other competitor  because of its local presence. Are you actively leveraging and promoting your strengths, or are you one of the many who assume advertisers "will figure it out and find you?" In this lively session, we will discuss specific steps you can take to improve your recruitment sales efforts, visibility and results for local recruitment sales, current agency sales and agencies not yet running with your newspaper. Click here to register for this webinar.

Dates, times, subjects and presenters subject to change at any time. Please vising www.inlandpress.org for more information.