MEMBER PROFILE: The Buyer's Guide - Martinsburg, WV

January 2010 IFPA TIP Profile Tom and David Aird The Buyer's Guide Martinsburg, WV story by Dwight Bitikofer Tom Aird began his career in classifieds at a newspaper in his hometown of Steubenville, Ohio. He graduated to display advertising sales. He turned up his nose at free papers. They were unworthy competitors, he thought. After a detour to work in the steel mills, his newspaper career crossed the state line to Weirton, W. Va., far up the northern panhandle, just west of Pittsburgh, Pa. Eventually Aird sold for Ogden Newspapers, Inc. in Wheeling, W. Va. The company made him a sales manager and transferred him across the state to Martinsburg. Aird spent some unhappy years in Martinsburg and began interviewing for other jobs in the publishing industry. One interview took him to a community paper group in Mt. Pleasant, Mich. And oh, by the way, he learned, these papers were distributed free. Aird was offered a position, but he needed time to consider. He had heard how big the mosquitoes get in Michigan. He had heard how cold the winters could be. And Michigan was a long way from home for he and his wife, Sharon, both Buckeye natives of Steubenville and now comfortable in these years of raising a son and a daughter in West Virginia. What if, he thought on the flight home. What if I were to take this free paper concept and apply to a market I already know - someplace close to home. Maybe right here in Martinsburg where we live? "What if we lose everything we've worked so hard to gain?" he asked Sharon. She replied that they had started their married life with nothing and if it didn't work out, they could start again. That was in 1982. Aird quit his ad manager job at the daily paper. Several employees followed him. Together, they started The Buyer's Guide, which debuted in two eastern panhandle counties on Sept. 15, the same day USA Today was born. (One of those employees, David Unger, is still selling at The Buyer's Guide). The Buyer's Guide circulates in all of Jefferson and Berkeley and part of Morgan counties. Since the mid-'90s, the paper has been published as a single edition that serves the entire area. Papers are dated for Wednesday, but most deliveries are made on Tuesday by the paper's network of 70 to 80 door-to-door and motor route carriers. The paper is 95 percent advertising and has averaged about 28 pages in the 2009 economy. Tom Aird is publisher. Sharon Aird keeps the books. Son David Aird is general sales manager. Daughter Diane no longer works at the paper, but was active in its graphics department during high school and college. Coping with the changing economy has occupied a lot of the Airds' time in the past year. "For several years now we have seen Mom and Pop businesses disappearing - and since the beginning they have been our mainstay in business," said Tom Aird. "For right now, (some of them think they) must choose to run an ad, put food on the table or pay the kids' braces. We must try to convince them of the success an ad program could bring them." Recently Bob Munn, a former publisher-turned-sales-trainer, also from West Virginia, spent a week with The Buyer's Guide 5-member sales staff. The Airds said that Munn reinvigorated the staff and that staff members have been coming in early to practice the approaches suggested by Munn. Another new thing is the online use of Kaesu's Kooler ads. Tom Aird reported the online program is adding about $1,000 a month in sales. It is offering a new package of online business tools to bring to Buyer's Guide customers. "It is hard to get me excited about new technology," said Tom Aird. "But this one has my attention!" Aird said the company saved thousands of dollars over the past several years by reducing the page size of the paper from a 6 column by 16-inch format to 7 columns by 14-inches. He said he had only one complaint from a customer about the change when it occurred. Tom Aird has been active for years with Independent Free Papers of America (IFPA), Mid-Atlantic Community Papers Association (MACPA) and the Association of Free Community Papers (AFCP). Aird served on the board of IFPA for six years and was its president in 1999. The sales boot camp program for new sales reps was initiated by IFPA during his presidency. The Bob Wright Memorial Scholarship was also funded that year. Aird has been recipient of IFPA's Distinguished Service Award and the Ben Hammack Award for Volunteerism. He is also remembered as the IFPA program chairman with the courage to dismiss a dry Saturday afternoon speaker and fill the remaining time with a lively publishers' forum. Aird has also taken an active role in the IFPA Publisher Summits held in recent Februarys. David Aird served on the IFPA board from 2006 to 2008. "The benefits of IFPA are really the people that I have met, learned from and the great friendships I have formed," said David Aird. The younger Aird had no intention of getting into the family business when he graduated from college. He had worked a summer at Walt Disney World and saw that environment as a direction he would like to pursue. But in 1981, his Dad asked if he might fill in for a retiring sales person. "I fell in love with advertising sales," said David Aird. Aird is married to Nikki and they have a 3-year-old daughter, Ashlyn and a 1-year-old son they call "Little David." "Don't laugh," said Aird. "He IS shorter than his dad!" Aird also has a passion for officiating football games from peewee leagues all the way up to professional arena football. He also enjoys golf. Tom and Sharon Aird like to cruise their pontoon boat on a 13-mile length of the Potomac River between dams. They relax at a vacation home near Ocean City, Md. Tom enjoys fly-fishing, fly tying and golf. The Buyer's Guide involves itself in its community by supporting various charitable causes with donations of free advertising. The Salvation Army is one their favorite causes. The paper has been heavily involved in the Wings of Freedom Airshow at its regional airport, which is shared by the Air National Guard. The next show is scheduled for Sept. 4 and 5 and is to feature the U.S. Air Force Air Demonstration Squadron, the Thunderbirds. Martinsburg (pop. about 15,000) is on Interstate 81 and is only an hour from Washington D.C. and Baltimore. The Buyer's Guide circulation area is bounded on the north and east by the Potomac River. It is a gateway to the Shenandoah National Park to the south. It is an area rich with Civil War history. Harper's Ferry, where John Brown attempted to overtake the Federal Arsenal during the Civil War, is within the paper's circulation. It is an area that divided loyalties and changed hands a number of times during the Civil War. Tom Aird said he was told upon moving to Martinsburg that the Civil War wasn't over yet in his new community. Martinsburg is home to federal government offices for the Internal Revenue Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the U.S. Coast Guard. The area was known for its apple orchards decades ago. It still has some, but many have been sold off to grow new homes, said Tom Aird. Change is the challenge that keeps Aird from retiring from the paper business. Aird also has come to believe that the word "free" is an impediment to making new sales inroads. The Buyer's Guide recently removed the word free from its sales materials. "I think that although many of us are having a hard time with the present business conditions, our industry will prosper well into the future," said Aird. "However many of us will have to look at what we do and be willing to adjust and change. Also I think it is imperative that we drop FREE from our vocabulary and the names of our associations. We are community papers and shoppers that just happen to be distributed free." Writer Dwight Bitikofer is an IFPA director and is publisher of Webster-Kirkwood Times and South County Times in suburban St. Louis.