Julian Carter: A change of scenery
The last time The Drum saw Julian Carter, he was boxing up the belongings that decorated his Salford Quays office on his last day as group sales director at GMG Radio. He had no idea where he would be taking them.
Now he is acquainting himself with the new surrounds of Ten Alps’ business-to-business publishing operation where he will lead a 50 strong sales team in the role of ‘head of Manchester’. But the transition from GMG to his grandiose new title and all that entails, he tells us, was far from seamless.
Carter took redundancy from GMG at the turn of this year because, as part of a restructure of its sales team, to stay with the group he would have had to uproot his settled family and move to London. He started looking for a new job in January once his departure from GMG was out in the open, but in the midst of recession, his timing was far from ideal.
“There has probably never been a worse time to look for a job in media than January onwards 2009,” he says now.
With media companies’ revenues decimated at the end of 2008, and the pattern continuing during the opening months of 2009, he considered quitting media altogether.
“I had a very open mind on what I did, whether it was radio again or another form of media – outdoor, TV, cinema... But to be honest I wasn’t ruling out getting out of media completely,” he says.
Although there might have been fleeting moments when he wished he had stayed on at GMG and decamped to London, Carter was always ready for a new challenge – even if he had to be patient.
“I wondered whether after 13 years in radio I perhaps needed to see what life was like outside of it. I think it’s probably fair to say in the last couple of years at GMG I became more and more removed from driving sales.
“I got put on the board. To be honest I was more involved in running the company at GMG – I was one of seven executives who ran the business. Clearly sales was my bag and I was responsible for it, but I was able to have a view on everything. That was great, tremendous from a learning and experience perspective, but it distracts you and dilutes you.”
He says his new job – which he found through his “network of contacts” after having no luck with jobs websites and recruitment consultants – suits him down to the ground because “it’s 100 percent sales”.
Across three offices, Ten Alps Communications publishes print and online titles in sectors including energy/environment, international and trade. Put simply, Carter is responsible for the 50 people in the Manchester team and all the print and online revenue that comes out of the that office.
“We had our first executive meeting last week. The chief executive turned round and said, ‘This is a sales-led operation and everything revolves around sales and our success is driven by sales’s success’. It was great hearing that. It was great hearing that we’re all here for the commercial side of the business.”
One of his first tasks is to freshen up that sales team, and bolster the head count. “I’ve got a full remit to recruit and expand the team. Potentially – and it goes hand in hand with the revenue – we want to get the staff number up to 60.
“As well as expansion there’s also going to be replacement. Part of the reason I’ve been brought in here – I have to choose these words very carefully,” he pauses, “is to improve the performance and accelerate the digital migration, I suppose would be a good summary.”
It’s a change from radio, where he schooled, but he isn’t concerned. “Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter what the product is: it’s about managing or directing the sales process.”
He has an obvious fondness for radio given that, over a decade, it is where he learned what he knows and built his career. But viewing it now from a neutral perspective he believes he picked a good time to get out. “I think this recession has really rocked radio. People didn’t invest enough in their core product – whether that be from a marketing perspective, or even a sales team perspective, and radio’s cannibalised itself. It’s not grown the industry enough, it’s not grown the market enough.
“In the last five years it’s become more obsessed with comparing performance across each radio group, as opposed to growing the medium.”
But that’s a debate for another day, and now he’s looking forward to utilising his past experience in his new role.
“The product is very different, but ultimately it is using more of my sales director experience. It’s nice to be back more involved in being able to effect and drive the revenue.”