“After attending my first conference, I doubled my new business booked.”
What makes the Small Market Television Exchange (SMTE) a can't-miss event? Jason Hagiwara, president and general manager of KITV in Honolulu calls it “simply the best two-day sales immersion conference I attend each year.”
He describes his first experience at SMTE (then called the Hundred Plus Exchange) in the mid-90s. “I wanted to accelerate my learning curve and rise to the level of my colleagues but I realized that there weren’t many resources that specifically spoke to the development of a television sales professional. I made a deal with my manager for the company to pay for the conference fee if I hit my new business goals. I made those goals, but I paid for my hotel and airfare on my own. I even used my own vacation time to come to the conference.”
His investment paid off. “SMTE was everything and more than I could have expected,” Jason says. “After attending my first conference, I doubled my new business booked in the ensuing year.” Networking opportunities make SMTE a unique value. “The two years my station won the Money Makers Best Revenue idea, Wayne Daugherty presented me with the awards,” Jason says. “I guess the first year we won I was beyond ecstatic. More than a decade later, Wayne Daugherty eventually became my boss when I landed my first general sales manager job. He remembered me from then. We both laughed at my wide-eyed win.”
Now, he says, going to SMTE is “my annual sales reset and refresh. I take the ideas I learn each year and rate the salability and execution difficulty and pare down the ideas into four ideas I will do. Like anything else, your engagement determines the value you derive.”