Internal vacancies: Friday-Ad (Field Sales and Telesales)

Gillie is looking to recruit for the following positions:

Field Sales
Full time
3 Reps required to cover Crawley, Worthing and Brighton Friday-Ad areas.

Telesales
Full time
Selling print 'Features' for Friday-Ad

Further details including salary can be obtained from Gillie by email or call her on extension 7613.

‘Horses for sale’ is UK’s most popular search term

Here's a press release we have just circulated for Horsemart.co.uk, showing how well it is performing as a classified site and also how it is benefiting from the popularity of the searhc term 'horses for sale'...

Hitwise, an Experian company, has revealed that ‘horses for sale’ is the most popular search term containing the phrase ‘for sale’ in the UK.

Their survey results, released last week, show that the search term increased by 5% over the last 12 months, the best performing ‘for sale’ term across all classified sites.

Sarah Wood, business manager for Horsemart says: “This is really encouraging news and demonstrates that despite the current credit crunch, finding a new horse is still a high priority for horsey folk.”

“We currently have 445,996 visitors per month, which has increased over the last year, helping to prove the popularity of our site for people looking to find a horse for sale.”

Horsemart currently ranks at number six in the Hitwise list of Top 10 classified websites ranked by market share of UK Internet visits (September 2008). No other classified equestrian websites appear within this list.

Sarah added: “This ranking is fantastic news and helps show our customers that by working with Horsemart they are not only targeting the right sort of people, but are reaching the largest equestrian audience in the UK”.

Brownbook on Guardian.co.uk

Some really good PR for Brownbook.net posted yesterday on the Guardian's Media site.

There are a few 'interesting' comments from readers, but all form useful feedback too.

Check out the full interview here and watch out for the great photo of the 'Dynamic Duo'!

A1Surf goes retro for charity

Last weekend saw our first A1Surf event - The A1Surf Retro Board Challenge '08.

We had an amazing day which saw 50 surfers compete in fancy dress in a surfing comp with a difference.

Hundreds of spectators turned up too to witness the likes of Captain America, Batman and a man dressed as a bride!

You can read the full report here and view a film of the day here.

As well as having lots of fun we also raised over £500 for the local lifeboats station.

Internal vacancy: Telesales Executive

Boats and Outboards are looking for someone to join their team down in Chichester. Here's the details and how to apply...

To maximise advertising sales on boatsandoutboards.co.uk, dedicated to buying and selling boats. You’ll be working as an integral part of the team to achieve this. You will be expected to help us expand boatsandoutboards.co.uk into new areas and will be rewarded well, through a good basic salary and commission.

Based in central Chichester, West Sussex.

At least 1 years previous tele-sales experience is crucial. Marine knowledge would be advantageous, and online or media sales would also be desirable.

Apply in writing with your CV and covering letter to:

Nicola Tucker
Sales Manager
Boats and Outboards
44A North Street
Chichester
West Sussex
PO19 1NF

Or email her

Meet the staff: Sam Kidger

Last week I contacted the managers across the company and asked them to answer a few questions about themselves, plus provide a photo of their choice.


Obviously they are all media whores as I receieved an instant flood of replies!


The idea behind this is so we can see who people are, what they do and what makes them tick. In time I'd like to feature everyone, but this may take a while with over 500 staff.


Here's the first profile, featuring Sam Kidger...



Name: Sam
Company: Friday-ad/Trade-it
Department: Sales
Position: Sales Director
Describe in one sentence your job role:
Identification and implementation of sales strategy for Friday-Ad
How long have you worked with/for the company?
On and off for 29 years
Describe in 10 words your average working day:
Arrive busy meeting busy meeting busy meeting busy meeting leave
Favourite website of the moment?
http://www.scientology.org.uk/
Who is currently sitting on your right?
No one
If you could be a fly on a wall, where would you be?
Tottenham dressing room after they get relegated
Marmite. Love it or hate it?
Love it

Happy Birthday Boss

Last Sunday Chris Kidger celebrated his 60th birthday.

Staff at Sayers Common (the clever ones anyway) wrote messages in a birthday card and presented him with a suitably themed cake (pictured).


Chris was really pleased with these and would like to thank all staff who contributed.

Run Forest, run!

Jason Knight from IRT is running in the Great South Run on Sunday 26th October.

It's a ten mile run round Portsmouth and he's running on behalf of the Stroke Foundation. If you would like to sponsor him then please mail him or call him on x7571.

NKOTB - update

Apologies to Faye, who would like me to point out that she does actually do something, I just missed out her job title which is 'Online Retail Marketing Executive'.

Have you seen this man (on TV)?

You may recall that last year I mentioned Gavin Davies (former Friday-Ad Pembroke employee) was filming for ITV reality show Natural Born Sellers.

This has now hit our screens and two episodes in (at time of writing) Gavin is still in the competition and in with a shout of winning the big cash prize.

Despite ending up in the bottom two reps, Gavin is holding his against the other sales people so it will be interesting to see how he fares in the end.

For those of you who didn't have the pleasure of meeting Gavin here's his biog courtesy of ITV (as is the photo above):

Name: Gavin

Age:32

Occupation: Team Sales Manager

Employment History: Gavin started out in the supermarket aisles before he found his niche in advertising sales. Quickly rising through the ranks he was promoted to Team manager for ‘naturally excelling in sales’. “I don’t do anything that benefits humanity” he says.

Profile:After a slow start on the employment ladder, Gavin admits to really enjoys the challenge of sales. He’s happy go lucky, and says he ‘doesn’t take life seriously and hates people that do or moan a lot’. Money is not an obvious motivation but the fun and challenge of earning it. Gavin believes that his key will be that his opponents won’t see him as a threat and he will be able to sideswipe them to win it all.

Hobbies: Gavin is an avid reader, has an insatiable passion for film, loves listen to music and watching dramas and comedy on TV. He is a part time investigator of the paranormal and enjoys combining camping trips with local ghost “hunts”.

Natural Born Sellers is on ITV1 on Thursdays @ 9pm.

There's a link here to more info and you can watch the previous episodes again, but you'll need to do this at home as our Firewall blocks it!

Watch out London, here we come...

We are proud to announce the launch of Londonlist.co.uk a new, free classified advertising site for the London market.

Londonlist.co.uk is an exciting addition to the Friday Holdings portfolio of vertical websites.

It’s totally free to place picture or video ads so please pass this on to anyone you know who lives, or commutes to London.

To find out more contact Bryn Mabey.

Michael Owen beaten by a girl (as was Gavin too)

Pictured here is Laura Mercer, proudly displaying the trophy she won recently when she and Kelly Smith challenged Michael Owen and Gavin Morris to a friendly game of ten-pin bowling.

Michael and Gavin were down at Sayers when Laura invited them out to Eastbourne, where Michael couldn't resist trying to prove his skills in the lanes...

Laura says: "Michael had a £5 bet that he would beat me at bowling. Always up for the challenge, although knowing I wasn’t great at bowling, I accepted.

"I then beat him! He was beaten by a girl!


"Gavin and Kelly were too far behind to be contenders for 1st or 2nd, but battled it out for 3rd place with Kelly winning 3rd place."

Michael and Gavin have now returned to Pembroke where hopefully their colleagues have been giving them plenty of stick...if not then feel free to do so now!

New kids on the block

It's been a while since my last post, due to a number of factors, so I thought I would start off again with a quick summary of some new staff who have started over the past couple of months...

Tom Nagle - Marketing Assistant for my Online Content Marketing team

Louise Lawrence - Account Manager for A1Surf

Rachael Welford - Account Manager for GoneBoarding

Andrew Marner - Online Project Manager

Anya Klack - Q&A Tester

Faye Blackman -

Bryn Mabey (back again!) - Online Marketing Executive for 3 new 'passion' sites

Nicola Grinham - Search Marketing Specialist

Paul Bowden - Account Manager for Wightbay

If I have missed anyone out then apologies, but that's the fault of your manager for not letting me know!

I hope to be posting again regularly so please send all your news, photos, stories and more...