Category: newsXpress difference

Face to face with newsXpress members

Our team of Business Development Managers are travelling the country these next few weeks, completing our last round on in-store visits for 2008 with newsXpress members, working on group strategies and delivering training and other support to help our member businesses experience a great Christmas.

Over the next two weeks members of our team will visit with newsXpress newsagents in many cities including Cairns, Townsville, Rockhampton, Mackay, Darwin, Devonport, Burnie, Bairnsdale, Yarram, Lismore, Armidale, Tamworth, Singleton – and these are just some of the regional centres we will cover.

These visits are a considerable point of difference for newsXpress and for our members. Newsagency suppliers like that we have a team which conducts these in-store visits. Suppliers tell us they are tired of negotiating deals for newsagents which are not backed by an association or marketing group to help the deal achieve the maximum potential for newsagents and for the supplier. Our BDM team and bring supplier offers and newsagent needs to a commercially rewarding union thanks to our store visitation program.

As one of our members said recently, it is like having your own personal business coach.

Lease help for newsagents

Negotiating a lease is a daunting task, one which often overwhelms newsagents as they navigate dealing with tough negotiators and are confronted with lease agreements which are burdened with legal jargon and unfair clauses which can, over the long term, devalue a newsagency.

To help newsXpress members navigate lease negotiations, newsXpress has a lease Consultant on our team.  Chris Hicks has years of experience in lease negotiations with all of Australia’s major landlords as well as many small independent developers. 

Chris liaises with the landlord, takes the emotion out of negotiation and leaves the newsagent to get on with building the business.

Chris Hicks’ service to newsXpress members sees him provide day to day help on lease issues which arise long after the lease is signed.  Issues such as outposting, lease lines, shop-fits and other operational matters can be resolved thanks to Chris’ help.

Over the last two years, Chris has successfully negotiated fifty new leases for newsXpress members.

Lease advice and support is another benefit newsagents can access when they join newsXpress.  It is part of a host of services we provide access to through our membership.

The challenge of selling the newsagency

newsXpress backs itself with a membership structure which enables members to leave the group at thirty days notice.  There is no time this is more important than if your newsagency is for sale.  Prospective purchasers look at a business from the perspective of what they can achieve with it.  Sometimes this will include re-branding to mark a departure from previous ownership.

A prospective purchaser cannot re-brand if the franchise agreement a vendor has signed with a marketing group does not permit a fair and reasonable exit strategy.

Another risk with franchise agreements can be the requirement to give the franchisor first right of refusal.  This means that a newsagent may have a signed buyer but cannot proceed until the franchisor decides if they are going to purchase the business.  Buyers will be wary of making an offer in this situation.

At newsXpress we believe in a simple structure which sees members stay in our group because they want to and not because of an onerous contract.  We believe in a structure which does not get in the way of the sale of the newsagency.

The business development difference

One of the differentiating services newsXpress provides its members is on the ground visits from our Business Development team.  Our experts are armed with years of practical newsagency experience and an exclusive to newsXpress toolkit of marketing and management strategies which offer our members help in many areas of their businesses.

On the phone and face to face our Business Development Managers play a key role in helping newsXpress members achieve greater year on year success than other newsagents.  This success was recently reported by magazine publishers and greeting card companies at our National Conference – data showing that in a same store basis, year on year, newsXpress members achieved growth ahead of any other group in the channel.

Our Business Development Managers guide, drive and encourage our members and it is through this regular contact that together we are able to achieve more.  They are unique in the newsagency channel and exclusive to newsXpress.