You’ve heard that it takes a vil­lage to raise a child, well you should know that it takes an out­stand­ing team to cre­ate the most suc­cess­ful and ex­cit­ing tele­vi­sion sta­tion born in the ear­ly 21st cen­tu­ry in this coun­try. As CNC3 Tele­vi­sion cel­e­brates its 21st an­niver­sary – a com­ing of age, if you will -- many of that team that chart­ed the course for the fledg­ling TV sta­tion have con­tin­ued to work with the com­pa­ny, even as new peo­ple have joined the sta­tion and com­mit­ted to make it the cho­sen place for lo­cal en­ter­tain­ment and in­for­ma­tion.

The Sales and Mar­ket­ing Team at CNC3 is made up of an en­thu­si­as­tic and live­ly group of rep­re­sen­ta­tives who pull to­geth­er to en­sure that they are con­stant­ly work­ing to bring new clients and in­no­v­a­tive sales ini­tia­tives to the com­pa­ny.

This year we high­light three broad­cast mar­ket­ing spe­cial­ists who are part of the long-serv­ing and dy­nam­ic CNC3 Sales Team: Cheryl Elie, Mar­lon Tay­lor and Mar­sha Kong.

Cheryl Elie, Broad­cast Mar­ket­ing Spe­cial­ist

Cheryl Elie notes that she has been with CNC3 near­ly since its in­cep­tion.

“CNC3 reached out to me and made me an of­fer I could not refuse. I guess they had done their home­work and knew who had the most Car­ni­val clients at an­oth­er me­dia house at the time. They ap­proached me, and I made the move to CNC3, bring­ing many of my clients with me.

One of those clients was Caribbean Pres­tige Foun­da­tion and So­ca Monarch, which was a very big deal in those days. I re­mem­ber Mr. William Munroe telling Guardian Me­dia when he came to sign the con­tract, ‘If any­one had told me I was bring­ing So­ca Monarch to CNC3, I would have told them they were go­ing mad.’ Man­age­ment laughed.

“But then he point­ed to me and said, ‘You see that la­dy? She is GOOD. She sold me CNC3 in one week.’”

Elie de­scribes her ex­pe­ri­ence at CNC3 as “price­less, hap­py, en­joy­able” and, most im­por­tant­ly, it helped to en­sure that she was fi­nan­cial­ly in­de­pen­dent.

She, like the oth­er reps, cred­its for­mer man­ag­er Su­san Lal­li Singh, with leav­ing an in­deli­ble im­pres­sion on her.

“She would al­ways say, ‘Small mon­ey, big mon­ey -- we not los­ing none!’ She would then put to­geth­er a pack­age and give it to us. She un­der­stood our po­si­tion as Sales Ex­ec­u­tives and was al­ways there to help us make mon­ey, while most im­por­tant­ly, keep­ing the client’s busi­ness with CNC3. That ap­proach made a last­ing im­pres­sion on me.”

Elie says that her con­tri­bu­tion to CNC3 has been bring­ing qual­i­ty busi­ness to the sta­tion and, more im­por­tant­ly, main­tain­ing those client re­la­tion­ships over many years.

“My brand is very im­por­tant to me, and I con­tin­ue to mar­ket CNC3 as if we are the on­ly me­dia house around. I be­lieve in the brand, and I be­lieve in pre­sent­ing it with con­fi­dence to my clients.”

She says that while both the me­dia house and the na­tion­al land­scape have changed sig­nif­i­cant­ly over the years, CNC3 has con­tin­ued to hold its po­si­tion and main­tain a strong pres­ence in the mar­ket.

“Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, I be­lieve we re­main a step above the rest, and we con­tin­ue to work to main­tain that po­si­tion. It has been a chal­lenge, but we have con­tin­ued to at­tract high-end clien­tele, and that has helped the brand main­tain its im­age and po­si­tion in the mar­ket.”

Mar­lon Tay­lor, Se­nior Ac­count Ex­ec­u­tive

For Se­nior Ac­count Ex­ec­u­tive Mar­lon Tay­lor, CNC3’s 21st an­niver­sary is more than just a mile­stone.

“It rep­re­sents a jour­ney of growth, re­silience, com­mit­ment, and mem­o­ries. For me, be­ing part of this jour­ney has pro­vid­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties to learn, grow pro­fes­sion­al­ly, build mean­ing­ful re­la­tion­ships, and con­tribute to an or­gan­i­sa­tion that has be­come an im­por­tant part of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s me­dia land­scape.

When I re­flect on my time at CNC3, I think about the chal­lenges we over­came, the achieve­ments we cel­e­brat­ed, the peo­ple I’ve worked along­side, and the many mem­o­rable mo­ments that helped shape my ex­pe­ri­ence.”

Tay­lor says that work­ing in the CNC3 broad­cast me­dia house has taught him it’s not just about sell­ing ad­ver­tis­ing or gen­er­at­ing rev­enue -- it’s about un­der­stand­ing peo­ple and busi­ness­es, cre­at­ing mean­ing­ful op­por­tu­ni­ties, and find­ing cre­ative ways to con­nect brands with au­di­ences. He be­lieves that CNC3 is in a very strong po­si­tion to­day and that its so­cial me­dia has one of the most fol­low­ers and view­ers.

Tay­lor has en­joyed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to spread his wings with­in the com­pa­ny, go­ing be­yond sales and be­com­ing part of the pro­duc­tion team as well. He is par­tic­u­lar­ly proud of mak­ing and sur­pass­ing high-bud­get tar­gets, achiev­ing top sales­per­son sev­er­al times, and two projects that he was in­volved in: be­ing the brain­child be­hind the TV se­ries De Par­ty Start and play­ing a ma­jor role in an­oth­er TV se­ries, Hard-core.

“I am al­so the per­son who will seek wardrobe spon­sor­ship for our news an­chors for African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, In­di­an Ar­rival Day, Di­vali, for Christ­mas decor on the set etc. I al­so rec­om­mend­ed to Bran­don Khan, the MD at the time, in a meet­ing for us to bring the In­di­an soaps to CNC3, which turned out to be one of the most-watched pro­grammes on CNC3.”

He says that CNC3’s mile­stone of 21 years is a strong foun­da­tion, but it al­so pro­vides the op­por­tu­ni­ty for the team to look ahead, em­brace change, in­no­vate, and con­tin­ue grow­ing.

“CNC3’s 21st an­niver­sary is a cel­e­bra­tion of where we have come from, ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the jour­ney, and ex­cite­ment for what lies ahead. I’m proud to have played a part in that sto­ry.”

Mar­sha Kong, Mul­ti­me­dia Sales Ex­ec­u­tive

For Mar­sha Kong work­ing as a CNC3 Tele­vi­sion sales ex­ec­u­tive at Guardian Me­dia Ltd has been “a con­tin­u­ous, dy­nam­ic jour­ney fo­cused on me­dia growth, client re­la­tion­ships, and achiev­ing high re­sults.”

Kong be­lieves that self-con­fi­dence and an op­ti­mistic mind­set are es­sen­tial in the busi­ness of me­dia ad­ver­tis­ing aimed at keep­ing cur­rent clients hap­py and build­ing new busi­ness part­ner­ships.

“There’s a quote I re­mind my­self of dai­ly in this jour­ney of life, and it says:

‘Adapt­abil­i­ty is the cor­ner­stone of a re­silient work eth­ic. When life throws chal­lenges your way, ad­just, per­sist, and let your ac­tions speak loud­er than any ex­cuse.’”

Good com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills are a must in this busi­ness, she says, since they need to lis­ten to the client’s needs and find the right so­lu­tions. She notes that in lob­by­ing for the clients’ needs they some­times have to wres­tle against in­ter­nal af­fairs while help­ing man­age­ment to un­der­stand and recog­nise the im­por­tance of the client’s best in­ter­est.

“I can re­mem­ber our week­ly meet­ings with our man­ag­er/mom, Suzan Lal­lai-Singh, al­ways hav­ing a con­sis­tent pur­pose and di­rect­ed to­wards the in­di­vid­ual’s self-im­prove­ment, with the guar­an­teed as­sur­ance that no one will be left be­hind. I can re­mem­ber achiev­ing my first sale, ac­com­plished my sales tar­gets and even­tu­al­ly earn­ing the recog­ni­tion of the award of “Most im­proved Sales Ex­ec­u­tive” in my first year at CNC3 and in nu­mer­ous oc­ca­sions af­ter that.”

Kong is grate­ful to Guardian Me­dia Ltd (CNC3 Tele­vi­sion), for the past 16 years where she learned so much about me­dia sales which she has grown to love, hav­ing come from a from a back­ground in cor­po­rate sales.

She is al­so grate­ful that they were able to band to­geth­er as a team at CNC3 to do good work in TT, em­pha­sis­ing that her team and the com­pa­ny were not just about prof­its, but about be­ing an ac­tive part of the com­mu­ni­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go: “As a team, we had the most hum­bling ex­pe­ri­ence to give back as the CNC3 Tele­vi­sion team mem­bers cre­at­ed a Fam­i­lies in Need do­na­tion dri­ve where we were able to as­sist eight fam­i­lies.”