I had such an overwhelming response to last week’s Selling By Seminar, I felt I should clarify one point.
          Achieving buy-in from your sales staff to any company initiative is absolutely critical if you are to achieve long-term sustainable success.
          Please do not confuse your sales force’s attitude towards facilitating legitimate customer-focused seminars with the various revenue-generating sales pitches that are out there.
          Sales people with integrity will have moral difficulty attracting prospects to a sales pitch disguised as a seminar. The most professional sales people will also have philosophical difficulty selling your unsold inventory in “packages” or at deep discounted rates.
          If you are establishing an inventory-focused culture, designed to sell out at all costs, the aforementioned revenue-generating schemes will help you achieve your goals. And if that’s your goal, there is nothing wrong with the group sales-pitch approach.
          If, on the other hand, you are evolving a more customer-focused culture, then the only way you will achieve buy-in from your sales force to selling by seminar, is to facilitate legitimate customer-focused experiences.
          Remember the caution we highlighted in last week’s Selling By Seminar memo?
Caution: Never let your “seminar” degenerate into a sales pitch. The attendee will invite you to make a “sales pitch” if your seminar has been truly educational and enlightening.
The goal of the really great advertising seminar presenters is three-fold:
1.       To introduce your clients and prospects to proven concepts that will help them to grow their business with your medium.
2.       To introduce your sales staff to these same proven concepts so that focusing on results for your customers becomes a permanent and ongoing part of their culture.
3.       To establish your station and your account executives as business partners to your clients. 
The relationships that evolve in a customer-focused culture will result in your clients wanting to buy, rather than in your account executives having to hard-sell.    

         Are the guys who come into your market to run “client seminars” better salespeople than you? Probably not.
          I have sold literally millions of dollars in new business through my Competitive Immunity, TOMA Research and various other seminars and in most cases my host-media partner has had sales people every bit as effective as me.
          So why then do these seminars generate so much new or increased business?
1.       The prospects are virtually pre-qualified by their virtue of their attendance. Those who take valuable time away from their business to learn how to grow their business are looking for alternative new business ideas that you can provide.
2.       The guy from out of town is perceived to be an “expert” rather than a biased “spot seller”. Credibility and trust are important in any selling relationship, and good seminar presenters build that instantly.
3.       If the attendees heard about the seminar on your station they already believe in your station. They watch or listen to it, and they have responded to your advertising themselves. They know it works!
4.       As the host station, you become branded as a business partner rather than just another commodity supplier.
5.       In a seminar environment you have more time to tell a compelling story than you do in a sales situation. 

BONUS REASON: The Training Element. When your sales people see how your prospects react to some of the seminar principals, these same principals become part their culture and presentations for life!
         There are many other reasons selling by seminar is so effective, and many proven techniques to improve the results of your seminars. But in a nutshell, seminars attract a pre-qualified audience that is looking for change and you can be the credible business partner who becomes the conduit to that change.

Caution:  Never let your “seminar” degenerate into a sales pitch. The attendee will invite you to make a “sales pitch” if your seminar has been truly educational and enlightening.  

          As summer ends and we refocus on maximizing our revenues, one of the most productive things you can do is to facilitate a major account re-alignment to keep everyone “productive” rather than just “busy”.
          Very often I hear account executives talk about being “too busy” to pursue corporate initiatives or special projects introduced by management.
If this is the case at your station, you are only skimming the cream in your market.
          Account executives who are too busy to capitalize on new revenue-generating projects are also too busy to drill deeper or to super-serve your key accounts.
          The solution?  A strict but fair account list management policy that prevents your best sales people from acquiring account lists that keep them too busy to sell.
          The lack of a strategic account list management policy poses a number of problems which all restrict your revenue potential:
1. Your most senior people really are “too busy” to stretch themselves or their accounts. They inadvertently find themselves relegated to making re- active submissions rather than pro-active presentations.  Can you say… “comfort zone?”
2.) Your entry-level staff turn-over rate is high because these new career hopefuls do not have the opportunity to work with high-potential accounts or enjoy the taste of success.
3.) You, and your sales people, can fall into the trap of thinking your top “biller” is your top seller.
4.) The people who would be the best at closing new business for you end up filling their day servicing “entitlement accounts”…..accounts your station is entitled to regardless who serves them.
5.) The account executives best-suited to take a leadership role in new initiatives and revenue development are not setting the example for the pack.
Strategic account list management is never an easy task. But if you have a written account management policy and quarterly account review that is applied equally and fairly to everyone, it can be one of the most productive management tools you have. 
To learn how your organization can install the ENS Media account list management system as part of our Total Sales Fitness program, Call Wayne Ens at 705-484-9993

           A funny thing about breaking records……while we might beat our chests about doing so, it’s what has to be done to win!
          Sales people who break an all time record should be congratulated for the moment. On the flip side, however, we MUST always be breaking revenue records because we are also breaking expense records. As our electricity bills, taxes, salaries and other expenses continue to rise, our revenues must rise to meet the challenge.
          But where does it all end? Is there not some point at which we just can’t do any better? I think not. Just when we think we’ve achieved the impossible, there is always room for more.
          Consider this. In less than a hundred years, the men’s 100-meter freestyle record has been cut nearly in half. 
          1896    Alfred Hajos, Hungary                        82.2 seconds
          1906    Charles Daniels, USA                        73.4 seconds
          1920    Duke Kahanamoku, USA                  60.2 seconds
          1972    Mark Spitz, USA                                 51.2 seconds
          2004    Pieter Van den Hoogenband, Nthrlnds.    48.2 seconds
          All that is required is you jump in the water and swim as fast as you can. 
          Clearly, to win the Olympic Gold Metal it is not enough just to swim faster than this year’s competitors. You must beat the all time record.
          Also clearly, no matter where that record stands, it can always be beaten.    

Your account executives can dramatically reduce their client attrition rates by asking themselves four simple questions once a month.|
1.  What is the last good thing I did to help the client grow her business?
2.  When?
3.  What is the next good thing I am planning to help the client grow his business?
4.  When?
The things we do to help our clients to grow their business can be anything the client did not negotiate nor expect, including everything from proactive creative suggestions to providing leads.
The “when?” must be within the last thirty days or strategically-planned for the next thirty days for all of your key accounts.
P.S.These questions can also serve as the litmus test for whether an account executive has earned the right to continue managing each of your key accounts.