2014 Dynamic Dozen Top Local Sales/Marketing Executive: Glenda DeFontes

Glenda DeFontes didn’t want her job.

When Mid-West Family Broadcasting first approached her for an account executive position, DeFontes declined. Sales wasn’t her thing. And in her experience as a marketer, DeFontes usually gave sales people ideas, not the other way around.

It took a while for her to see the obvious: She could be the one selling the good sales ideas. DeFontes shifted her perception to meld her marketing experience with her natural sales ability and told Mid-West she was on board as long as she could approach clients as a marketing director with an overall strategy to grow their business.

DeFontes joined Mid-West and its four local radio stations in 2008 and has grown her sales a minimum of 30 percent each year.

“I love the idea I’m able to help these industries take their business to the next level,” she says.

DeFontes contributed to transitioning Mid-West’s broadcast sales into MWF Marketing to offer more services to clients, such as focus groups, website development and search engine optimization.

“Having a background on the advertising agency side ... I was one of the first to embrace and to provide to my clients the services MWF Marketing offered,” DeFontes says. “With these tools at my disposal, I was able to build effective advertising campaigns and preserve the synergism that is so important to produce results for advertisers.”

Her enthusiasm for and utilization of MWF Marketing’s multiplatform services earned DeFontes the inaugural IStar Award last year, given to one employee across Mid-West’s 32 radio stations in seven markets.

“It’s about building those deeper relationships ... and you’re their resource,” DeFontes says of her clients. “I’m giving them a full-blown marketing plan ... with all these different platforms.”

She played a key role in initiating an Apostle program encouraging salespeople to have 12 clients who refer Mid-West without being asked.

“We want to have clients who are so satisfied with the results that our recommendations deliver for them that they will unsolicitedly and aggressively recommend us to others without being asked to do so,” DeFontes says.

When she started at Mid-West six years ago, DeFontes prepared a presentation on how to prepare for an economic downturn. She did a lot of cold-calling with that in hand.

“There were a lot of challenges, but I saw them as opportunities,” she says. “I knew that I could help businesses. Some of my biggest clients today are the ones who came on board with me then.”

DeFontes also says her success is in direct proportion to the trust clients and Mid-West place in her. In 2012, she was invited to participate in earning her way to Master Sales Performer, a prestigious designation that recognizes employees who are top performers in their markets.

DeFontes takes an active role representing Mid-West in community and nonprofit events.

“Many of these organizations are populated by private business owners, and it allows them an opportunity to see Mid-West Family Broadcasting as people who care for our community and aggressively carry out one of our core principles, that of public service,” she says.[[In-content Ad]]