You're hired! You're promoted!

Palm Coast Observer
Opinion

In preparation for introducing our new sales staff member to the community, I searched online for famous quotes about selling. But what I found were a bunch of quotes about coping with failure. Take this one, for example, by Malcolm Forbes: “Victory is sweetest when you’ve known defeat.”

Or, as our new account manager, Jacob West, says, “I’m a sales person. Most people don’t like those.”

Jacob West, account manager
Jacob, 25, is a graduate of Flagler Palm Coast High School and the University of Central Florida. Another Flagler Palm Coast graduate, Jaci Beckett, recruited Jacob. She convinced us he was the right person for the job simply by saying, “He’s like the male version of me.” When I heard that, I was picturing someone about 5-foot-1 with straight blond hair, like Jaci. When I met Jacob, who is about 6 feet tall and has dark, curly brown hair, I learned she must have been referring instead to her organizational skills, her professional demeanor and her charm and charisma. Jacob has all of those, too.

Jacob is our newest account manager. He says his biggest surprise so far has been how accepting people are of the newspaper, regardless of whether they accept his sales pitch.

“When I tell people I work for the Palm Coast Observer, even if they don’t want to advertise, we’re buddy-buddy. I get it all the time: ‘I’m not interested in advertising, but I love your paper.’”

Welcome aboard, Jake. But next time, don’t come back empty-handed ... or else!

Jaci Beckett, advertising manager
Or else Jaci will exercise her new powers as advertising manager on you. She was recently promoted. Congrats!

Jaci is 24 and went to Florida Southern College. She had little experience in advertising, either, when she started. “I didn’t even like selling Girl Scout cookies,” she says.

But, now that she’s had a taste of success, she says she likes selling ads.

“I like the customer service part of it. I like when (advertising) works for them,” she says. One of her clients, Flagler County produce company Bratcher Farms, called her one day and was ecstatic, saying he had sold out of strawberries after placing the ad in The Observer.

“It’s cool when you can help somebody — especially when they’re good people, and everybody’s trying to make a living,” Jaci said. “And I haven’t seen it not work.” She said if an ad is not successful she helps the client find a better approach until the ad does produce results.

When things got hectic on the advertising side of the newspaper, she simply took responsibility upon herself and held the sales side together as we went through some growing pains early on. Her promotion was pretty much mandatory: She was already fulfilling the job description. That kind of attitude and talent has prompted Publisher John Walsh to look into cloning her.

Mike Cavaliere, staff writer
But enough about advertising. The important stuff is on my side of the building, of course. And that’s why I’m excited to introduce our new staff writer, Mike Cavaliere.

In case you’re looking for a pattern, Mike is also a graduate of Flagler Palm Coast High School and the University of Central Florida. He’s 24 and has already published a book with Ocean Publishing.

Mike brings a polished style to our pages; the recent story about Air Force veteran Joseph Flattery comes to mind. Here’s how Mike describes Flattery’s long journey by train before entering the Air Force:
“The railways were a creaky kind of magic, carrying Flattery out of what he called a life of no guidance and into something else, something high and fast and tearing through the clouds.”

Mike has an artist’s sensibility, and he’s learning to be excited about long government meetings. He even admitted recently to steering conversations with friends to City Council issues.

Andrew O’Brien, sports editor
Last, but not least, is Andrew O’Brien. Another Flagler Palm Coast graduate (and the University of North Florida), Andrew, 22, has been with us from the beginning. He has covered everything possible for us, from crime to community photo events. He was our first staff writer, and he has recently shifted from covering Flagler County to now covering the Palm Coast City Council. And, he is now our first sports editor. Congratulations.

Andrew is dependable, efficient and takes initiative. He keeps his focus on what really matters: Giving Palm Coast a quality hometown newspaper. He believes in our mission to become your indispensable news source.

By covering his news stories and sports stories, he has helped to create an identity for the company.

“The coolest thing is seeing how important we’ve become to the community,” he says. A year ago, people were excited to have a new newspaper in town. Now, he says, people expect The Observer to cover the news.

Andrew has the passion for the job. He understands that, ultimately, even though many of the sports stories he covers are only of interest to a certain small group — potentially just one team and the players’ parents — it still is a major event for them to be mentioned in the newspaper. Andrew says: “And that’s reason enough to give them coverage.”

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Thanks to the readers for welcoming Jacob and Mike, and for responding to the work of Jaci and Andrew. We look forward to continuing to connect you to your neighbors and your neighborhood.