I’m thrilled to report that our 35^th annual YPA conference, “Transformers” was a great success. More than 425 Yellow Pages industry professionals from across the country and around the world joined us in sunny Las Vegas for four days of informative and imperative dialogue about the changing nature of our industry.

Like our industry, our conference was transformed this year to include a new format that highlighted Strategic Exchange Sessions (SES) instead of the traditional exhibition hall. The SES program was designed to allow companies to easily make appointments with industry executives during the conference – and the feedback we received so far has been outstanding. We’ve heard that those who participated were able to make more connections and have more quality 1:1 conversations than ever before.

Our general session and breakout sessions were also well received. The level of engagement and enthusiasm about the topics was significant – as the posts (and video) on InsideYP and on Twitter (via our hashtag, #YPA10) clearly illustrate. Some highlights include:

• YPA Chairman Chris Cummings kicked-off the first morning session with the argument that, despite the fast pace of change in the industry, print and Yellow Pages products are performing well. He called on the industry to continue to work together to promote the facts about offerings and their usage in a transparent way to advertisers.
• Eastman Kodak Chief Marketing Officer Jeffrey Hayzlett captivated the audience with a discussion of the transformation Kodak has made as the world moved away from film/print imaging to digital. As one attendee said, “If Kodak can go through that big of change in their business in that short of a time, and actually come out of it stronger, this industry should have no problem.”
• Although unable to join us in person because of the volcanic ash situation in Europe, Jesper Karrabrink, CEO of Eniro shared a keynote address by video which discussed, among several things, the transformation necessary in our databases to be able to deliver truly relevant searches and to not be constrained by our traditional directory heading structure.
• Local Matters CEO Mat Strover, who also participated in our “Being Built to Last” panel hosted by BIA/Kelsey, delivered a keynote today in which he explained why the future of the Yellow Pages industry will be all about relationships—and how social media is the most powerful and efficient environment to build those relationships.
• Picking up on Chris Cummings’ point, our Advertisers Panel discussed the important of data in driving marketing decisions. Sales representatives from SuperMedia and Yellowbook, along with two long-time YP advertisers, expressed optimism that local businesses are increasingly realizing the importance of maintaining—or in some cases, reengaging—their Yellow Pages offerings.

In addition to these activities, our attendees enjoyed networking and reconnecting with one another – most notably during our Monday night Gala dinner (with our special guests!).

Thanks to everyone who helped make this year’s conference a success.

Frank Rowan, founder of Mr. Business Builder, not only preached passion, belief and persistence as the key ingredients to successful selling, he demonstrably confirmed those traits in his presentation yesterday at our annual conference in Las Vegas.

The focus of Rowan’s speech was that YP sales reps must believe in themselves and in the products they sell before they can become successful.  He said that so little is sold when so little enthusiasm is offered. Successful sales reps are good listeners who have moved from a product-centric to a service-centric mindset. More importantly, they build relationships with their customers by identifying and fulfilling their needs.

Rowan went on to say that customers want our advice and are looking for the best executions in terms of reaching their target audience.

As we finish up our annual conference here in Las Vegas, I’d like to share our top ten favorite tweets from today’s sessions. And in case you missed it, click here to see our top tweets from yesterday.

• OscarSMarques: #ypa10 Eniro’s Jesper gave the best presentation. his company’s on the right track
• ym_sam: #ypa10 Both SuperMedia’s Bill Brewer & YellowBook’s Chris Heilbrock reporting uptick in Yellow Pages advertiser count & spending.
• ym_sam: #ypa10 YPA Conference was great! Thanks to all! Travel safely.
• MarketingMoxie: Matt Stover nailing the future of local search: “It’s all about the relationships, stupid!” #YPA10
• davehucker: #ypa10 STATISTIC: 93% OF SOCIAL MEDIA USERS THINK COMPANIES SHOULD ENGAGE VIA SOCIAL MEDIA, BUT ONLY 16% OF BUSINESSES USE SOCIAL MEDIA
• matterslocal: Local Matters CEO Mat Stover: The Future is All About Relationships #YPA10 http://ow.ly/1AQSK
• ym_sam: Cool YP stats: Municipal landfills consisted of 4.9% Newspapers & 0.3% YellowPages. #ypa10
• davehucker: #ypa10 if yellow page users were a country. It’d be the 5th largest in the world
• AlanSee: Checking out Buzz.com at YPA ... #ypa10 … Give it try
• AlanSee: Good meetings with Acxiom and Century Interactive at #YPA10 … Thanks for setting them up

In an informative panel discussion at the YPA Annual conference today moderated by Amdocs Vice President of Customer Development Rocky Wolf, members were treated to insights and updates from four CMOs on the frontlines of industry transformation.  Sharing notes on emerging technology challenges and the innovations driving new paths to revenue, it was interesting to see how many similarities there were across the companies represented in the panel.  Here are some of the highlights:

Question: What’s the next big thing in technology?

Answer: Social and Mobile

According to Stephane Marceau, CMO of Canada’s YPG, baking social and mobile into all user interfaces is a top priority.  “80% of our users in Canada use Facebook, so we need to integrate it into all of our solutions,” he said.  YPG sees opportunity in building further social and mobile solutions for what they call “local lifestyle”.

Building on that thought, DexOne CMO Maggie Le Beau, added that in the development of new mobile and social applications, the most important thing is to adapt to these new environments.  “There were a lot of lessons learned when we went online that we don’t want to repeat with mobile – the goal is not to replicate the product in the new medium.  We don’t want a static experience of a desk top or a print product,” she explained.

Question: What are you doing to adapt the sales channel?

Answer: This is still a work in progress, but it all comes down to leveraging relationships.  Arming the channel with data-driven solutions is essential to success.

According to Berry CMO Kathy Geiger-Schwab, “Access to the SMB is everything to us and that is our key to moving forward.”  She shared details of Berry’s new go-to-market approach that empowers their marketing consultants to provide prescriptive recommendations to customers on all elements of their advertising approach based on analysis of their rich geography and heading-specific data.

Question: How are you building and providing new value to your customers?

Answer: Demand creation and communicating return on investment are the name of the game.

“We’ve invested in building one simple solution for customers to be able to see the ROI of their local advertising programs all in one place,” said Ken Ray, CMO AT&T Advertising Solutions. “Providing pay-per-call models is also a new priority.”  In this space, there have been many key learnings, he said.

“Lesson #1: print is alive and well.  We should be cautious not to jump too aggressively into digital while overlooking a very effective medium in print.  Lesson #2: We’ve inadvertently set up a system where vendors are fighting over the same call, which is sometimes causing unwanted results.   We want to generate more leads for our clients, not customer support hassles,” cautioned Ray.

The workshop was packed with attendees and they expressed interest in hearing more about social media challenges.  Watch this space for future items on the subject.  Thanks to all our panelists for an insightful session.

Attendees at YPA “Transformers” share key takeaways from their first day at the conference.

The ladies of the YPA really look forward to the women’s networking reception each year at the annual conference, and this year’s gathering did not disappoint. Not only did the guests have a great occasion to network and hear updates from the women helping the industry to transform – but they were also treated to a fun and unexpected history lesson from Kimberli Lewis of Mediatel on the evolution of women’s purchasing power from the 18260 to present.

According to Lewis, women went from having no voice in their family’s day-to-day purchases the late 1800s to more voice in the 1920s during World War to becoming chief decision officers today – accounting for 85% of purchases.

“In Europe, our data shows us that three out of four women make the purchase in most households and 75% of those purchase are being made online,” she added.

Lewis argued that understanding the female approach to purchasing is a key to innovation.

“IYPs that integrate social media and brand-specific search functionality are essential,” she said. “They tap into two key insights: First, that 75% of online shoppers seek suggestions when making a purchase and second, that the average family mentions brands 90 times per week. This is the way consumers are operating and we need to adapt to that.”

Take notice, ladies: To better tap into the female purchasing cycle, Lewis suggested that more should be done to increase female executive leadership in the industry.

“If you want to know whether we are transforming, you have to ask who is leading the innovations in IYP platforms. Women make 85% of purchasing decisions – but represent only 18.2% of the CEOs in the industry globally.” An eye-opening number.

Special thanks are also owed to Lisa Mahoney of Century Interactive who led the annual raffle. A key prize among this year’s give-aways was a new iPad tablet… perfect to stay on top of the latest mobile innovations.

Our annual conference attendees here in Las Vegas are busy tweeting the latest news from our sessions today.

See our top ten favorite tweets below – and join in the conversation by using our #YPA10 hashtag.

• matterslocal: LM CEO, built to last means a sales force that understands and uses social media to connect with their customers #YPA10 http://ow.ly/1ArSc
• ym_sam: Eniro: changed White Pages into a social media hub with Facebook, Twitter & email! The directory is dead, long live the directory! #ypa10
• jc_losangeles: At #YPA10. Buy, rent or build? overarching theme. Also, everyone loves Morgan Stanley’s internet trends report–mobile overtaking desktop!
• davehucker: Krishna Pillai: “don’t build a rocket ship if your client needs a bicycle” #ypa10
• ym_sam: Sergio did same search on his iPad, iPhone & desktop. All yielded diff results due to attempts to deliver ‘local search’ by Google. #ypa10
• ym_sam: Kimberli Lewis saying they’re seeing consumers asking for more locally focused directories in Europe. I think that’s a global trend. #ypa10
• TavisMcPherson: YPA sales force changing to trusted advisers – this means more time spent listening less time selling – #YPA10 (panel)
• MarketingMoxie: Imperatives for survival = speed, customer-centric focus, fearlessness and relationships. #YPA10
• brendanking: Speed, Service over products, fear of failure, relationships – things the YP industry needs to change to survive (panel says) #ypa10
• peterrand: To everyone at YPA conference – spare a thought for those of us left under a cloud in Europe! Have a good one #YPA10

Dennis Fromholzer, President of CRM Associates presented his views on repositioning the Yellow Pages industry at the International Breakfast held at the YPA annual conference this morning.

He stressed that as we move from a product-focused mentally to a customer-focused mentality, ensuring relationships with our advertisers is absolutely paramount to our success. His opinion is that Sales is no longer an “operational efficiency,” but in today’s media environment requires that more time be spent with the advertiser. In addition Yellow Pages reps are required to have more business acumen and have a longer term focus on what the businesses’ needs are.

He went on to say that the Goal is to gain the advertiser’s confidence and trust and that will require a change in practices with respect to hiring, training and performance measurement.

Dr. Fromholzer also quoted some stats from his own metered ad data base that showed, based on 4,144 advertisers with same size ads in both 2008 and 2009, call counts actually rose 3%.

Jesper Karrabrink, CEO of Eniro rounded out today’s session with a video presentation made especially for “Transformers” after international air travel difficulties grounded him. Eniro has a global reputation for successfully transforming its business and Jesper shared insights with the audience on “transforming with a smile.” He spoke of transformation not as an option, but a requirement, emphasizing the transformations taking place at Eniro are not just about going from print to online, but represent at total transformation of the entire company. He also noted it was about “moving from print dependency to online opportunities.”

Eniro is focused on providing relevant search results, with Jesper noting that “those who can show the most relevant search results will be the true winner.” He showcased the search functionality on Eniro.se with an example for finding a hairdresser. They have taken their system to the next level, allowing consumers to not only search for the nearest salon, but to also input the date and time they are looking for the appointment, and actually closing the loop by allowing the consumer to book and confirm the appointment, all within the search.

Jesper acknowledged that these and other transformations take time, and require real investment in both the back-end systems and also in shaping the company’s culture to move forward in serving the needs of consumers in the way they think and search.