Many of you have had the pleasure of joking with my Office Manager, Angela, who also happens to be my wife. Once one of BMW Canada’s top sales people, Angela always maintained, “Until I can get a prospect to laugh, I know I have not broken the ice”.
           Nothing is better than the creative and appropriate use of humor to reduce stress and build solid customer rapport.
          According to Peter Warnok, a Professor at the University of Florida, “Humor is no longer considered a frivolous pursuit, as research in the behavioral, social and medical sciences has revealed a significant relationship between stress reduction, productivity and a healthy immune system”.
          Warnok asserts that “Humor can loosen fixed positions in the mind”…..sounds like the definition of “selling”, doesn’t it?
          I have always maintained a file of cartoons and jokes organized by the objectives or points they make. For example, I’ve got a file of jokes about advertising, one about salespeople and one on the economy. Each makes a point that I can draw from when approaching a difficult or stressful situation.
          John Wanamaker’s quip, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, the trouble is I don’t know which half” still makes a popular point today, more than 80 years after his death.
           Building your own humor arsenal can help you to get prospects to see things your way. But use humor judiciously.
        Professor Warnok has actually developed a “Degrees of Risk” model for the use of humor with “Laughing at self” at the low-risk end of the scale. Being only five foot six, I’ll often tell “short jokes” or being Canadian I’ll often make fun of my use of the word “eh?” when working with my American client’s. 
            My friend Steve McGavran of TOMA Research often uses low-risk humor to ease the tension during a cold call when he’s challenged  with, “What are you selling today?”, to which he replies, “Not much, and my boss isn’t very happy with me either.”
            At the higher end of Warnok’s risk scale are thing like “Practical jokes” and “spontaneous humor”. In other words, the humor should be at your expense, not the clients, and it should be well thought-out and planned, not spontaneous.
            So here are a few tips for effectively using humor to loosen the reins of your prospect’s minds;
1. Build a file of cartoons and jokes by topic
2. Make yourself, NOT the client, the object of your humor.
3. Prepare and plan the productive use of humor.
4. Play safe…never use sex, politics, race or religion to get a laugh.
Like Angela says, “Until you’ve made ‘em laugh, you probably haven’t broken the ice”.

There have been many definitions for “selling” but I find two in particular to be very profound;
1. Selling is serving.
2.  is a transference of confidence.
             “Selling is serving” says in very simple terms what sales trainers really mean when they preach, “becoming a sustainable resource”, or “relationship selling” or “partnership marketing”.
There are three things I like about this definition;
            First, to follow up on last weeks management tip, it demonstrates that we too must like our customers. If we do not like our customers, it is difficult to passionately “serve” them. If we sincerely care about our clients and their success, “serving” becomes an honor and a privilege.
            Secondly, recognizing that selling is serving re-positions the traditional, “service” call.
            For a call to qualify as a service call, there must be some benefit to the client in every call. Sales people who understand the sales and service link establish strategic objectives for every call, not wasting their time and the clients’ time with “touching base”, “dropping by” or “visiting”.
            And last but not least, I like the culture this definition creates versus the old “ABC’s of selling……Always Be Closing”.
            Selling by serving opens an ongoing relationship rather than thinking of the sale in terms of “closing”. If you are always closing, you will find your prospect’s door will be doing the same.
            “Sales is a transference of confidence” goes hand in hand with, “selling is serving”. If you know your product, your market and your client, you will exude confidence in you ability to serve.
          Confidence comes from knowing. Knowing comes from learning and experience.   If you are confident in what you have to offer your clients, they’ll be confident in making an investment with you.
          Both of these definitions of selling fall under another phrase I’ve long held to be true…….“No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care”.
          So caring enough about your client’s success to seek the knowledge necessary to be of service to them is really what selling is all about.

Increasingly stations are recognizing the “billboard value” of station vehicles in and about their markets.
            But these traveling billboards can actually impact negatively on your marketplace if their operators do not understand how important their ambassadorship is, or if you do not have a code of conduct for them to live by.
            How good is a mobilebillboard that just ‘cut off’ your best client?
            So here are a few things you may want to make certain are published in your current code of conduct. If you do not have a published code, write one and call a staff meeting to stress the importance of it.
1. Drive defensively. In fact, if you are driving a vehicle clearly representing your station, be overly courteous.
2. Keep it clean. Work out an agreement with a local car wash to ensure all of your vehicles, or any station-I.D’d staff vehicles, are kept clean inside and out at all times.
3. Parking manners. Do not park a station-identified vehicle in the “wrong place”. The wrong place includes seedy bars (even if it’s a client), handicapped spots, preferred customer locations or anywhere else that common sense tells you is not in keeping with a positive profile for your company.
4. Expose your billboard. If it’s not on the road, maximize your exposure by making arrangements to park your vehicles in highly-visible locations. And make sure all station identifiers are clear and current.
5. Obey the laws of the road (and the parking lot) and the laws of courtesy.
6. Make certain clients, your advertisers, have first option to provide station vehicles and staff-owned station-identified vehicles.
7. Keep your vehicles in safe and proper mechanical condition.
8. Smile when you are behind the wheel.
9.  possible, carry some small audience rewards with you in the vehicle to hand out at appropriate occasions.
10. Always have a cell phone or other communications in the vehicles which allow you to communicate news stories or ask questions of your studios and office.
            I started this tip by suggesting it had nothing to do with sales or management, but maybe giving a station t-shirt to a boy scout you spot doing a good deed, or allowing a client to take a preferred parking spot will generate goodwill with both your audience and your sponsors.
            `Billboards are expensive. Traveling billboards can extend your reach and create the impression your station is covering the market like a blanket.
            I encourage you to develop and monitor a station vehicle code of conduct and operations manual if you do not already have one.  If you do have one, take time quarterly to remind your staff about it.

Jimmy Durante probably said it best when he said “Be careful! You meet the same people on the way down that you stepped on, on your way up.”
          Job interviews can be an un-nerving experience for job applicants.
            As the interviewer, you have a professional and moral obligation to follow-up on every interview you conduct in a timely fashion….. even if the follow-up is a rejection.
          If the person made it past your initial screening to the interview stage, I have to assume they have something going for them. Using Durante’s wisdom, the person you interviewed may be a future client, the daughter of an existing client, or might even be your boss some day! Your interviewee might even be participating in ratings.
          Don’t leave your candidate waiting in the lobby for your appointment. Be prompt and courteous.
          At the conclusion of every interview it is imperative that you let the applicant know exactly what to expect next, and when to expect it. Whether the next step be an offer, a second interview or a rejection, it should be made perfectly clear when the applicant should expect to hear from you.  
            If the next step is a rejection, have the intestinal fortitude to talk directly to the candidate. Do not send an email, leave voice-mail or mail a form letter.
            If the applicant is rejected, be honest and forthcoming as to why you selected another candidate. Your candor about the interview or the candidate could be a positive and life-changing experience for the applicant.
            Remember, you meet the same people on the way down that you met on the way up, and your observations might be a positive life-changing force for the person you just rejected.

Steve McGavran, the COO of TOMA Research, is often heard asking sales people “Do you know what the most important thing is about making a sales call?”
            After a brief pause, his thought-provoking answer is “Making a sales call.”
          Call reluctance is the biggest barrier to sales success I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen many a great presenter and creative thinker out-sold by sales people of lesser competence simply because of their fear of rejection.
          Here are a few tips to help you over-come call reluctance;
1. Sell yourself first. When you believe in what you are selling you will make every call confident in the knowledge that if the client rejects what you are selling they are the losers, NOT you.
2. Be customer-focused. Have a strategic purpose for every call, from the customer’s point of view. Be able to clearly and confidently answer the question “What is in it for the prospect to spend a few moments with me today?”
3. Pace yourself. Five new-business calls a day for twenty days, for example, is much more realistic and manageable than setting a goal of making one hundred new-business calls this week.
4. Warm up your cold calls. Use referrals, gain some knowledge about the client’s category that you can share with them, bring some research about them, not your station, which will benefit their business.
5. Have integrity. The purpose of every call should be to help the prospect….NOT to sell them something they don’t need. But know that if you don’t sell them someone else will, and that competitor might not work as hard for the client as you will.
6. Don’t “visit”. Many salespeople who suffer from call reluctance find themselves pretending they are busy by “touching base” with clients they are comfortable with. To avoid this, make certain that EVERY call you make has a customer-focused purpose and is of benefit to the client.
7. Sell the big idea. When you present a customer-focused idea, the client does not reject you or your station, but rather they are only rejecting that particular idea or proposal. This leaves the door open for future big ideas, and prevents you from taking the rejection personally.
8. Plan, prepare, and mentally rehearse. Roy Williams says “Where the mind has repeatedly journeyed, the body will surely follow”. Picture the call, your approach, and getting the order and you will make the call.
            Winston Churchill once said “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Nowhere is this more true than in selling. Like my friend Steve McGavran says, “The most important thing about making a sales call is making a sales call”.