Yearly Archives: 2007

Professional Development

Most professions require their practitioners to upgrade their qualifications and skills on a regular basis. This is, in part, because there is so much at stake if a professional makes an error in judgment or performs their duties unethically. It is also a professional requirement to remain competitive. It has been said, “Our only competitive advantage is to learn faster than the competition.”  
          Lawyers must study the latest laws and president-setting judicial decisions, doctors must stay on top of new medical breakthroughs and surgical techniques and accountants must stay abreast of new accounting rules.
          Notice that professional skills development is the obligation of the professional, not the hospital, the law firm or the accounting practice. Professionals invest their own time and money to upgrade their skills.
          For example, my friend Kennen Williams, President of Noll and Associates, a broadcast sales training company, makes a point of reading a minimum of one new business book a month.
Your people should have a similar self-improvement plan. Why?

1.       Advertising sales is a rapidly evolving and ever changing profession. Your clients entrust your account executives with tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars to help them maintain and grow their businesses.
2.      Too many of our people treat our profession as a “job”. They rely on their employers or industry associations as their sole source of learning, taking no responsibility for their own professional development.
NOTE: “Professionals” also earn substantially better incomes than people holding down “jobs”.
3.           Because most media account executives benefit from a commission or performance bonus structure, their very livelihoods depend upon being the best they can be.
Have your sales people ask themselves;
??   Do I take the success of my clients and of my company seriously? To not do so is paramount to “malpractice”.
??  What am I doing to continually upgrade my knowledge and skills to ensure that I am qualified to be entrusted with crucial advertising budgets and to appreciate my worth to my employer?
Two final points;
1.      If a professional only gets the training their employer or industry offers, where is his or her competitive advantage over their peers with the same training?
2.      When you invest in yourself, that’s who owns the knowledge, should you leave the company.
 

If you are missing any ENS on Sales, wish to come off of the mailing list, know of anyone who wishes to be on the mailing list or simply just has any comments, ideas or questions, please do not hesitate to contact Wayne or Angela.  [email protected]   or   [email protected]

Telling the Real R.O.I. Story

Morris Saffer, founder and head of one of the first successful retail ad agencies in North America often said “It does not take a genius to increase sales, just put everything on sale at half price and your sales will increase. The genius is in increasing sales at a profit.”

            Your clients cannot send their kids to college or pay off their mortgages with traffic or sales….. the bills can only be paid with profits.
            Early 20th Century retailer John Wanamaker is credited with saying “I know that half of my advertising budget is wasted. I just don’t know which half.”……maybe it was the half that was hardest to measure…the half that created top of mind awareness, built customer trust and loyalty, and generated the most profits.
            Have you every tried to measure trust or loyalty? And if it can’t be measured, does that mean it has no value?
            It’s up to us as managers to educate our staffs and our clients on how to measure R.O.I. And in any R.O.I. calculation we MUST take into account any discounts or rebates offered because the brand was not strong enough to stand on it’s own. Every penny discounted from the top line must also be accounted for at the bottom line as a marketing cost.
            I have a concern that in this alleged “new-found” responsibility towards ROI, we will loose sight of what intrusive vehicles like radio and TV can do for
branding and top of mind awareness and what they in turn can do for profits.
            If R.O.I. gets measured by traffic and short term sales, rather than on relationships, profits, brand identity and lifetime customer value, than the media which naturally attracts the bargain hunters will win. Media which attract disloyal bargain hunters, such as coupon envelopes, flyers and penny-savers, could get a reprieve from their sentence as “profit-killers” and become the darlings in a new R.O.I. world.
            It is up to us at the local broadcast management level to ensure that neither our staffs nor our clients and prospects fall into the trap of confusing “traffic” or “sales” with profits.

A Day in the Life

Seldom does anyone look as good as they do on their resume. And often, previous employers are reluctant to give candid references.
            Recent surveys reveal that staff turnover costs in excess of $40,000 per failed recruit, so how do you find out if there is a true “fit” between your organization and the candidates you are interviewing?

            Try having them spend two days in the field with both your senior and your junior staff if they are one of your finalists in your recruiting process.
            From the candidate’s perspective, they get to observe the culture, the market and the methods of operation you and your people employ.
            Let them see the good, the bad and the ugly. Particularly if they are new to our business, don’t just cherry pick the good calls for them to observe.
            Let them see a major senior account presentation, but also let them sit in on some cold calls, collection calls and perhaps a sales meeting.
            This will let the candidate determine if you are a fit for them.
          From your perspective, your staff will be able to explore areas and uncover truths about the candidate during casual conversation that you can not legally find out during the interview.
          The fact that your prospect is willing to spend a couple of days in the field with no remuneration speaks volumes about their intent and commitment. 
          While the candidate is in the field to observe your people, they in turn will have the opportunity to observe the candidate. They’ll learn if the candidate has any skeletons. Did they have alcohol at lunch? Did they show up on time for every call? Did they ask the right questions in the field and do they reveal anything while in the car between calls, that is cause for concern or confirms your positive impression of the person.  
          In your post field-trip interview, exploring the prospect’s impressions of your culture and processes is also a valuable assessment tool.
            Bonus Benefit; If your people give the candidate a thumbs up after a day in the field, they will be more likely to welcome the new recruit as part of the team and help them jump start their new career with you.
 
Wayne Ens, President of ENS Media Inc. Inc, is a Principal with Noll & Associates.
Noll & Associates offers an interactive recruiting workshop entitled “Hiring Right”. 

That’s A Lot Of Poop!

 

            Thomas Szaky shocked his parents a few years ago when he decided to drop out of Princeton University to start a business making organic plant food. To their dismay, he explained that the product came from worm poop and would be packaged in recycled pop bottles.
            But today the 23-year-old Canadian is having the last laugh. His fledgling firm has landed the Wal-Mart account, one of the most prized in retailing, and expects to do more than $15 million in sales next year.
            Each week, thousands of inventors and sales people try unsuccessfully to get their products stocked on Wal-Mart shelves.
            So how did a young Mr. Szaky nab the business at mighty Wal-Mart?
            “I don’t know” he says.  “I made sixty one phone calls and one of them worked. I guess it was just sheer persistence.”
            Virtually every successful sales person, sales manager and sales trainer knows the value of persistence. Share this story in your next sales meeting, then ask your sales people to examine their own commitment to persistence.
            Do they believe enough in their product to call a prospect 61 times?
            What is it about each account executive’s approach that makes them stand out from the other dozen or so advertising sales people whom the average business will get a call from this week?
            From a customer’s perspective, why should a prospect accept their phone call or read their letter?
            Having the right answers to these three questions will help your people sell more poop, instead of just being full of poop.
 
Planning a sales or management conference? Talk to Wayne at ENSMedia Inc. about having him or one of the professional trainers from Noll & Associates facilitate a memorable event for you.

Turning Cold Calls Into Warm Calls.

            As most of you know by now, I’m not a big fan of “cold calls”. With time at a premium, for both buyers and sellers, it is unrealistic, not to mention unprofessional, to expect prospects to drop what they are doing every time a fly-by-night sales person drops into their offices un-announced. As my friend Dan Gittings of Cherry Creek Radio puts it, “Decision-makers are caught between a clock and a hard place”.
            Previous ENS on Sales tips have explored several ways to make key decision makers more receptive to making an appointment with you, but one of the most over-looked tools for gaining acceptance, credibility and appointments is the use of referrals.
            Other professions such as life insurance, lawyers, or financial planners, uncover up to 70% of their new business leads from this tried and proven method, yet broadcast sales people seldom ask for referrals.
            The next time a client acknowledges how pleased she is with your services, don’t hesitate to ask, “Do you know any other people who could benefit from advertising with us?” In one such encounter, you might run down a category list to jog your client’s memory of contacts they have who would benefit from advertising with you.
            You can also review a list of the client’s suppliers, (accountants, landscapers, security services, shippers, sign painters etc.) and get permission to use your clients name when you call these companies.
            When you call a supplier suggesting their customer said you should meet, the door will generally open. Not only that, when you can offer a testimonial from that client, your credibility for that first call will be pre-established.
            So when you are planning your week, make a point of asking one client per day for a referral. The Law of Psychological Reciprocity states “when you exert extraordinary effort for someone, they have a deep-rooted subconscious need to return that effort to you”. Assuming you’ve done a superior job for your client, psychological reciprocity will kick in, and your client will be more than happy to help you with your quest for new business.
P.S. One of the best times to ask for a referral is while completing one of the Post Campaign Analysis forms I introduced you to in last week’s ENS on Sales.  You can also get the Post Campaign Analysis for our website at www.wensmedia.com.