Penton Cuts Workweek, Pay

The sales team's job gets that much tougher in this tough advertising environment when their CEO is quoted like this. What is their sales pitch...'get aboard our sinking ship'?

At least they still have sales people. So many execs seem to think the best way to increase sales is to layoff sales people or bring on independents. Good luck to that.

the penton ship has been taking on water for a while. Since the company is run by non sales oriented people from the group show director on down. This is too be expected. Just look at the Waste Expo the bread and butter ofthe company the vegas show is going to be a disaster......

WASTE EXPO??? Wow, talk about synergy!!!

Penton is doing what most smart companies do in crazy hard times - making necessary adjustments to the cost column. If I work at Penton I am happy to still be employed and not out on the street with a couple million other media cast offs. 4 day work week with slightly reduced paycheck ....hmmm, could be a whole lot worse. Good for them for trying to stay afloat and keep their key players on the team.

A heavy debt load, plus a dependence on print media means a steep uphill climb for this company. They are doing what they have to do in this economy, but cutting off their lifelines in the process.

Rowlands is producing a video---whe has reviewed the portfolio---reorganized and cut costs. All tough things to do, none of them too visionary, but all needed, it is the next steps of building the business where a ceo is tested. I wish her luck for Penton and for our industry.

Penton is done it doesn't matter who the head of penton is. Penton has laid-off all the talented sales people without talented sales people the chances for recovery is going to be a slow & painful process your relationship will have to be rebulit and the new person will have to understand the penton way of destroying relationship is the way to do business. You gotta love these show directors that have zero selling expereince that are running the show there. they got what they deserve. get your resumes ready and get in the back of the line. the good thing it's summertime

The further the management team is from where the sales occurs, the less they understand the process and how to fix it. So many publishers today are bean counters, not publishing professionals - they may as well be selling widgits or nails. Remember publishing 101? Find out what the reader wants, give it to him, sell that editorial product and audience to the advertisers and everyone wins.

Ummm, what? English, do you speak it? No wonder they canned you.

Check this out: http://people.forbes.com/profile/sharon-t-rowlands/8759

"Find out what the reader wants, give it to him, sell that editorial product and audience to the advertisers and everyone wins." As a former member of Penton's editorial team, I can say that this is exactly what all editors, associate editors, assistant editors, and editorial assistants are striving to do at Penton. Unfortunately (during my time), the success of these professionals' efforts were measured by the amount of revenue the sales reps could pull in from print and Internet ads. No one payed attention to the quality of our work. No one had any opinion, except to tell us what articles to write and what subjects to address in order to make a potential advertisers happy. When the sales reps were not successful, we -- the editors -- took the fall. When the sales reps were successful, their efforts and only their efforts were praised. I believe the management needs a new perspective on who exactly is responsible for the success and originality of a magazine. While sales reps are responsible for a large part of that success through promotion, it's the talented editors and writers who create that quality content and who run the show. Penton sales reps need to begin taking their cues from the content developers. Work more closely with them, get to know them, respect them, praise them, and learn how to sell from their point of view. There is an incredible crack in the communication lines of Penton's editorial and sales departments.

Do your homework and you'll find that most companies are requiring week long furloughs and across the board pay cuts. Perhaps the media should stop reporting on every cut that happens and start reporting on smarter cost saving solutions like this one. These types of cost saving measures aren't news, they are happening in every company in America that doesn't have government bail out dollars. Seems like the person who prints an entire company memo instead of finding a real story is is a great candidate to get the axe to help shave off HIS company's bottom line.

The post above was written by a corporate lackey (probably in the HR or PR areas) who is sore about a precious email getting leaked to the public. Get over yourself. If an internal memo is so secret and special that it bothers you, clearly it is a coveted story by Folio -- Fell is more likely to be promoted than axed. And stop whining about Folio content. Don't read it if you don't like it.

This issue has less to do with ad sales and performance as it does companies such as this one being owned by an investment firm. Cost/saving expenses to reach EBITDA? How much profit is enough before the back of this country is broke by investment firms and bankers? This company is no better at treating the american people as the auto industry, banking industry, etc.

No offense to the Folio editorial staff but I find the comments to this story to be more thoughtful, interesting, and entertaining than the original article. There are opinions about the best experience base and background to run Penton and its business units, a discussion as to whether B2B is truly a sales or editorially based business, and even speculation as to the source of some of the anonymous comments. Just think about how many good questions and ideas come from these comments. In what I find to be an ironic twist, the article and comments demonstrate one of the core issues facing Sharon Rowlands, Penton, and every other B2B publisher. We didn't have to wait to read this article as three-week-old news in a print publication delivered on a publisher's schedule compounded by the vagaries of the US Postal System. I originally saw this article via Twitter. And the comments. How many letters-to-the-editor would there have been for the same print story? Not too many, and personally, I doubt I would have read them. Think about our collective expectations as readers and information consumers. I still look forward to picking up the (threatened) Boston Sunday Globe and I rip open Guitar Player and Golf magazines when I get them in the mail, but my expectations have changed. I'd estimate that 80% of what I read is online. And I expect to see comments, I read the comments, and sometimes I even write comments. For me the printing press is gradually being replaced by a networked infrastructure leading to my desktop, laptop, and/or mobile device with the content coming from sources who aren't always professionally trained editors and journalists. Trust me that I'm not an apologist for Penton, but the positive sign from the furlough/pay cut is they recognize that they need to keep their people balanced against the financial reality of running the business. But the underlying question remains. After this economic tsunami passes, what does the core publishing product look like and how is it supported financially and organizationally? I'm guessing that Sharon Rowlands is trying to buy as much time as possible in a dismal business environment to figure out answers to these questions. I wonder if she'll read any of these comments?

let me make sure that i got this right. 1 day a week a customer of penton will not be able to get marekting program support. and secondly 1 day a week a customer will not be able to get in touch with a sales person?

The fact that Penton's Event Directors are from business backgrounds other than sales is NOT the cause of Penton's poor performance. In fact, the events were, and probably still are, the most profitable segement of Penton's portfolio. And important to this conversation, Events are also the smallest percentage of the entire company's business. So, the revenue and management mess is primarily on the publishing side of the business where the experience of those in charge is primarily in sales.

That cannot be stressed enough. Sales experience is no substitution where product enhancement and brand building is needed.

Penton's main problem is debt and as been for years due to the old KKR legacy of greed, extreme leverage and unrealistic growth expectations. This isn't Apple where you can invent a magic widget that sells to an infinite number of teenagers; it's B2B publishing for niche markets. B2B is a fine business where you can make a decent profit, but when the market size is very limited, you can't have the kind of exponential growth that would be needed to ever hope to pay off the debt. I can't believe the bankers fell for the EBITA bullshit and "new media" hype for so many years. What's wrong with the economy is what's wrong with Penton. Too much debt and unreasonable expectations for growth from internet fairy dust and Cue Cats. Now we're supposed to somehow monetize Twitter? What a hoot. No CEO wants to preside over a bankruptcy. So maybe this one can find a buyer for the whole mess who can temporarily rejigger the books yet again. My god, how many iterations has it been now? Webb, Intertec, Primedia, Prism, Penton... I'm sure I'm missing a few. But when you think about this house of cards, it's quite impressive how managers have been able to keep it from toppling over as long as they have. It could hobble along for another decade or two and put bread on the table for a few hungry journalists and space reps. In the meantime, might as well enjoy the summer.

I'm one of Penton's cast-offs, and I have plenty of disagreement with the way they're trying to save this company. They've had ample opportunity to hack away at the portfolio while keeping some core, chosen markets strong. Instead, they are weakening every market to maintain a cash-producing portfolio; and what they're panicking over is that the portfolio is producing less and less cash every day and every year since the company was sold. However, this latest move -- to furlough workers and cut pay -- is one of the smartest tactical moves they've taken. While other companies are just cutting pay, at least Penton gave people some time off in exchange for the pain. And most important, this is a demonstration to me that they've finally realized the company can't just keep cutting heads. After throwing some really good talent out the door over the past 6 months, this is the first honest effort to retain people in an extreme situation.

For some of the pubs, there will be no time off - the staffs are already strained and the workload is to great. To keep their jobs, people will feel compelled to work the fifth day without pay.

Penton has some good publications and publishing history and it's the debt that's holding them back. It seems there has been a good deal of mismanagement in the past. Good luck to Sharon with her strategies for the company! Looks like this shortened work week will only be in theory for some of the publications that are already stretched though. Effectively, this will be a paycut.