FTV: Selling Mags
Once upon a time, not that long ago, I was introduced to the art of selling magazines. Having never been in love with fundraising (particularly the kind done to fund school projects), I was a little dismayed when a colleague of mine dropped a box of paperwork on my desk and said, “Here, it is your turn to run the magazine sale.” With no further instructions coming, I muddled through that first year, made a hash out of the accounting, and vowed there would have to be changes made or this whole fundraising thing was going to make me lose my mind. Before we get too far into the nitty-gritty, we need to examine why we got involved in magazine sales to begin with.
Back in the dark ages (okay, maybe I am exaggerating – it was the late 1970s), our Jr High Student Council had a school store and a vending machine at the ‘old school’ on Greenland Road. Both projects were the brainchild of band director / history teacher Bruce Johanson. Bruce and I split the student council / class advisor duties back then and we found these enterprises were a good way to fund the field trips and other activities we were doing with the seventh and eighth graders. I helped where I could but mostly was along for the ride when it came to the buying and selling. It only took a couple of years for the school store to take wings and we found ourselves with a nice nest egg that hovered about $2000 to the good even after we had funded a year’s worth of activities. We invested some of the excess profits in educational materials requested by the teachers in grades K-8 and in donations like the one we gave to fund a new scoreboard in the gym.
It all came to a screeching halt the summer of 1982. We returned to school in the fall of 1982 with a laundry list of our usual activities only to find our war chest was empty. The JH principal at the time had purchased a lot of Gladiator logo school supplies the year before. They were going to sell them out of the school office but they didn’t go over as well as he had hoped. When the bill came due, he unilaterally decided it would be okay for him to use the $2000 we had in our account to get the company he had dealt with off his back. Naturally, we were a little upset and the conversation started with, “So you are telling us we have ‘zero’ in our account. How are we expected to fund our activities and trips? How do you propose to pay us back?” Maybe it made sense in his own mind, but we were a little dumbfounded when he said, “Oh, just act like you still have $2000 on hand and we will eventually pay you back.”
It was an interesting (yet confusing) concept, so we did just that. We made sure that we spent ourselves $2000 in the hole by the end of that year. To make sure we had enough funds, we ended up charging students who wanted to go on outings (those who did not want to pay stayed in school) and this debt remained with us for a decade. Several principals and superintendents came and went and each time they questioned our persistent deficit (one even called it a ‘monetary black hole’), we explained the source. For ten years, we offered the same solution: “Call us even (in other words, ‘show us the money’) and we will start fresh and never spend ourselves into the negative again.” Some promised action but the deal was never completed – for ten years we operated around our ‘monetary black hole’.
A solution finally came when our newest 7-12 principal (circa 1993-94) heard our sad tale and proposed an action to correct the problem. We had lost the school store when we moved the Jr High students to the High School building 1983-84 and our meager vending machine sales were not exactly overfilling our coffers. The new principal said, “I have a contact who will set us up to do a yearly magazine sale. It will pull you out of the hole and provide you with the funding you will need going forward.” It turned out the contact was Bill Laurich from Marquette. I had worked with Bill’s seventh grade science classes when I did my student teaching at Bothwell Middle School in the spring of 1975. Bill wasn’t my supervising teacher (they had placed me in 8th grade social studies for some reason) but working with Bill got me involved in the spring camp program BMS ran at the Bay Cliff Health Camp in Big Bay each May.
As the OASD 7th and 8th grade class advisor, my job was to guide them (the original magazine sale was a 7-12 affair) but I was not in charge of overseeing the whole operation. That all changed when my colleague dropped the whole package on my desk several years later. As the person charged with collating the final order, I thought it would be a piece of cake as long as the other 9-12 class advisors did their part. Unfortunately, they had a different idea and simply handed over their collection packets stuffed with checks, money, and orders. With 80 percent of the sales coming in from the 7th and 8th grade students, the first change was to cut off the high school classes. They were not that interested yet they accounted for a great deal of work when it came to processing six classes worth of orders. I thought limiting the sale to only grades 7 and 8 might set off a firestorm of complaints, but it didn’t.
By my third year in charge, it was apparent that diligent accounting was the key to saving a lot of extra work. When an order came in, the first order of business was to make sure the money included matched the magazine order. Tracking the number of orders was critical because the number of sales each student made were tied to prizes they could win. Selling more subscriptions allowed them to earnr more (and better) prize incentives. We got into a yearly rhythm. Bill would pay us a visit in the early fall to explain the magazine sale to the kids. The sales period was usually two to four weeks and by the end of November, the prizes would arrive for distribution. Sometime near the end of the school year, the sales coordinator from Stevens Point, Wisconsin would drop by to see if we were going to participate again the next fall. Greg (the coordinator) and Bill were always a great team to work with. Some classes were more enthusiastic about the sale than others. As long as one of the two Jr High classes went all out, we would make enough to help keep the cost students paid for trips at a reasonable level. If we had a particularly bad year, the kids would have to chip in more if they wanted to take part in field trips and the annual Winter Recreation Day held at the Porkies Ski Hill.
Magazines began losing ground to digital media so the last couple of years we ran the sales, the revenue was down. It was still worth doing, but the subscription numbers were definitely trending downward. By the time I retired in 2018, nobody on staff was interested in taking over the project and it simply disappeared. Yes, it was a little added work for the advisor, but it was also an opportunity for students to shine. Paying for things they wanted to do was always one of those life lessons that Jr High students needed to learn sooner than later. When the prizes were distributed, I would point out, “This many students raised this much money to help fund EVERYONE’s field trips and special programs. It doesn’t seem fair, does it? Not everybody helps. Oddly enough, those who wouldn’t lift a finger to help raise funds are always there to sign up for every activity.” It seemed counter-productive to shame those who didn’t sell so it became my habit to praise those who did. I actually grew to enjoy selling magazines.
Back in 2018, we featured the sad end (and then joyous resurrection) of Classic Rock Magazine (FTV: The Power of Print 5-30-18). The company that had purchased the magazine had gone into receivership and just prior to Christmas of 2016. The employees of CRM had been told they were about to be unemployed. In what could pass as a modern day version of the Jimmy Stewart holiday classic It’s A Wonderful Life, a group of dedicated fans got involved. Orange Goblin singer Ben Ward and his partner Sandie decided to pitch in and raise enough funds to ensure the pink-slipped staffers would at least be able to enjoy the Christmas Season. When all seemed lost, the former owners of the CRM brand repurchased the publication. The remaining skeleton staff were pressed into service to put out the next couple of issues while the legalities were being resolved and, poof, the magazine rose from the ashes like a Phoenix.
This was a remarkable story in itself. I had resolved to get a subscription to the magazine when the brick and mortar bookstore I used to purchase my monthly copy went out of business in 2016. Once the company was out of receivership, I finally got around to getting my own subscription started. Sure, it was a little expensive and the costs kept rising, but it reminded me of a story Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielson told about his early days as a wanna-be-a-rockstar. Rick always loved English bands so back in the day, he forked over a princely sum to subscribe to the granddaddy of the English music trade papers, The New Musical Express. He would eagerly await the latest NME to show up in his mailbox so he could be up on what was happening on that side of the pond. To me, getting Classic Rock Magazine was worth the postage because it had a lot of information about my era, now deemed ‘classic rock’.
Fate wasn’t quite through with CMR, however. When the COVID 19 Pandemic hit, their overseas distribution network went into the dumpster. Without functioning airlines to carry their goods around the world, the publishers had to settle for good old fashioned surface transport – in other words, shipping by ship. The company sent out numerous letters and emails to keep readers up on when to expect their next magazine. Sometimes they would arrive out of order with the December issue landing in the mailbox before November. Through it all, they never missed an issue and eventually, the restoration of air travel got things pretty much back to normal. No one was happier than this old magazine sales coordinator at least until the day my subscription lapsed.
Having gotten used to the wonky delivery schedule during the earliest wave of the COVID 19 pandemic, it just didn’t dawn on me that I hadn’t received an issue in a couple of months. The first thing they instruct subscribers to do if there is a problem is to contact them via their web address. I began by filling in the requested information only to be told, “Sorry, there is no record of a subscription under your name.” Ding, round two. I sent an email to their customer service address and asked if someone could look into the matter. The reply was equally unhelpful: “There is no record of payment on your account, your subscription has lapsed.” Having sent a check for a full year renewal at the end of the year, I dug out my checkbook to confirm that I had indeed sent a check. The next step was to inquire at the bank if said check had been cashed – it had not cleared their books. Now my annoyance had become a puzzle.
Fully four months after my renewal check had been sent, the envelope returned to my mailbox with a stamp from the Royal Postal Service that said, “Addressee has gone away.” Sure enough, there was my check. Back to the internet and a second request to help me with my problem. I included the address printed on the invoice I had mailed in with my check to verify I had the right information. Apparently the business address had changed and they helpfully sent me the new mailing address. After writing a quick note of explanation, the check (it hadn’t been cashed so why write a new one, right?) and the old invoice with the new address added was on its way. The date was written down in our calendar to remind me to check up sooner than I had the last time. Two months passed and no new issues arrived so I started the process again. Still no record of a subscription under my name. Back to seeking help at their internet address.
By now frustration was setting. When they finally contacted me, they confirmed that they had NOT received my check (again) and asked if I would like to pay online. “Would I want to send you my credit card information if you can’t seem to handle cashing a check?” I asked. “Sir, your bank may have some restrictions on handling overseas transactions,” came the less than helpful reply. I had done my homework on that one already: “I checked and they have no such restrictions, plus I have been subscribing for a number of years and it was never an issue until now. I’ll tell you what. If you find my check, renew my subscription. If you do not find it, then I will regretfully let it go.” That is the last communication we had on the topic.
Flash forward to the fall of 2023. The WOAS West Coast Bureau in Oregon decided they could crack the code and get me a new Classic Rock Magazine subscription for my birthday. The first go around, the website would not let them process an online payment. Elizabeth even took the time to call their office in spite of the nine hour time difference between London and Eugene. When they got no traction, Todd worked the internet until he finally figured it out and placed the order. I got the nicest birthday card in September announcing my gift was in the works. October and November arrived with no magazine in sight. The WCB checked the activity on their credit card and found the fee had never been processed. I got a second card and a book in place of the subscription that never came (which they didn’t have to do, but then again, I didn’t send it back, either).
I took the opportunity to send one last email to CRM with a synopsis of both failed attempts to subscribe. It was a good thing I wasn’t expecting an answer (because I didn’t get one), but I had to ask: “How do you stay in business when signing up a new subscription seems to be an impossible task?” I thanked the WCB for their thoughtfulness and we had another good laugh about both of our subscription failures.
Is there such a thing as a Thanksgiving miracle? On Monday, November 13, Issue No. 320 for November 2023 showed up in my mailbox. I sent a quick photo of the cover to the WCB and got the exact reaction I was expecting: “What?” Just to make sure it was no fluke, I went to the CRM website and signed up for their online portal. They even confirmed that Todd was the ‘payer’ and I was the ‘receiver’ so apparently this time they actually do have a record of my subscription. When this information was shared with the ‘payer’, the WCB had a good laugh – the cost still had not been charged to their credit card.
The information on my new ‘membership account’ noted that this is a five month subscription. I will be sure to let you know if they actually let me renew when March rolls around. In the meantime, I am going to enjoy reading the mag again after a two year drought.
Thank you to everyone who supported our JH mag sales for all those years – I hope we were better organized than the folks at CRM!
Top Piece Video: Okay, Genesis isn’t selling magazines, but back in his weird headgear days, Peter Gabriel was Selling England by the Pound