Congratulations to Jean Clarke of the Scotsman Pennysaver, Syracuse, New York for the honor & achievement of the 2008 FCPNY Salesperson of the Year award. As a sales representative, Jean is responsible for the sales and marketing of all Scotsman products to customers in her territory. In addition to serving the needs of and developing relationships with existing customers, Jean is always responsible for new business prospecting and development and for developing special promotions that are specific and suitable for the area. She also is charged with maintaining collections and good credit standings among her clients.

Associate Publisher and Sales Manager, Tom Cuskey writes: "Jean is one of the most determined individuals I have ever known. She's been a single Mom for a long time and battles dyslexia, a tough obstacle to battle when you're working in print. But it's these sorts of things that have made Jean a tough battler who never gives up, at least on the inside. Her warm, charming and helpful demeanor sometimes belies the fire that burns inside her."

"Jean challenges herself far more than we do, not only in setting sales objectives but she also lays out heavy promotional objectives. We call her "Jean, Jean, the promo queen" in the office - she typically has multiple in-paper local promos running weekly and is consistently among our top special publications performers as well. Jean's promotional adventures help serve as her entrée to new businesses and existing prospects who haven't bought in to the main product idea yet."

"With her extensive background, Jean brings great knowledge of the marketplace and competitive products to the position. Thus, she designs her promotions and campaigns to market competitively against other media products and uses her expertise with our product capabilities to continually build market share for us in her areas."

"Jean has excellent customer management skills, making sure she is ahead of their marketing curves and always on top of their schedules. When challenges occasionally arise, she is quick to meet it head-on and works hard to be sure the customer's best interests are always at the center of decisions we make."

"Hand in hand with her customer service system and aggressive promotional calendar goes the ability to manage the week, the basic building block of our time and deadline schedule. What makes it a little easier for Jean than most is her consistent willingness to devote extra time to accomplishing more and getting things done correctly. She consistently works evenings and Saturdays, developing new customer spec ads and campaign proposals to keep the pipeline filled with new prospects"

"Jean is a great community volunteer, having given time to a large number of charity events and fundraisers through the years, both in her sales territory and in the greater Syracuse area. She also has served as an officer of two area Chambers of Commerce."

"Jean has recently been promoted to a sales team leader position in recognition of her own sales success but more so because of her demonstrated history of helping her colleagues in the office. She is a valuable trainer and has always helped introduce new staff to her successful methods of developing new business through promotional concepts within our pages. Her territory is also among one of our consistent top dollar producing areas, posting a 16% increase on sales during our most recent fiscal year. That's a double-digit increase performance on a mature and consistently high performing territory."

"Jean has been a consistent star for us for 12 years and this is long overdue recognition that she is very deserving of."

Congratulations, Jean from your fellow FCPNY Members!