Yearly Archives: 2008

You Might Be Customer Focused If…

You Might Be Customer Focused If…

             A lot of sales organizations today recognize how profitable being customer-focused can be, and subsequently ‘claim’ to be customer-focused.
            Here’s a litmus test to help you determine if your customer-focus claim is valid.
            You might be customer-focused if…
 
1.) You know that focusing on helping your customers reach their targets will result in you reaching your target.
           
2.) Your customers consider you an insider, part of their team, and frequently seek your advice and guidance.
 
3.) You spend at least as much time and money learning about advertising and what motivates your customers’ customers, as you do learning about selling or broadcasting.
 
4.) You have more consistent 52-week advertisers on the air than your package-peddling counterparts, and your renewal rates are notably higher.
 
5.) You are famous for your integrity. You have actually turned down business you felt did not serve your customer’s best interest.
 
6.) You don’t allow anything on the air until you have personally reviewed the scripts to ensure they will produce the desired results.
 
7.) You deliver comprehensive written evidence of your over-performance after every campaign and conduct a post campaign analysis to make each campaign work harder than the last.
 
8.) You never knock another station.
 
9.) You plan a Valid Business Reason for every customer contact.
A valid business reason is any reason that benefits your customer.
 
10. You always under-promise and over-deliver.

Selling the Sellers

Selling the Sellers

            Successful business initiatives are seldom a result of democracy.  New initiatives require the passionate leadership and commitment of focused management and their teams to be successful.
          Many sales managers confuse achieving staff buy-in for strategic new initiatives with winning their staff’s popular vote.
          It’s a universal truth that management must get staff buy-in on all new initiatives if they are to be successful.  To achieve that buy-in, the best managers SELL their staffs, clearly outlining what’s in it for them to tackle a new project.
          Some sales managers have made the mistake of putting a new initiative to a popular vote rather than selling that initiative to their staff.
          New projects generally equate to extra effort, uncertainty, breaking out of comfort zones, and frankly, can reveal the real achievers on your staff versus those big billers who might be winning by default.
          In the face of those fears, a ‘vote’ will generally be negative.
          Your internal customers, your account executives, are your most important and high-leverage asset.  It is imperative you invest as much of your time and skill as you can muster to sell your people on the merits of buying into your new revenue projects.   If you can’t develop a minimum of 10 solid benefits from your staff’s perspective, maybe the project is not worthy of pursuing.
          Over-the-top revenues do require over-the-top efforts, efforts which require focus, passion, confidence and more.
         Democratic sales departments don’t work.  If they did, we wouldn’t need sales managers, the company could just get the staff to vote on various new projects.
          Every package, promotion, concept and initiative needs to be sold to your team.
          Management’s mandate is to sell and lead new initiatives because your station can’t keep doing the same thing over and over if they want improved results.

What About Your Staff?

What About Your Staff?

 
            Chapter 13 in my book suggests that ‘95% of all cancellations are predictable, and thus preventable’.
            It further explains that one of the key tools in cancellation prevention is using our Four Questions for every key account, every month.
 
Q1.) What is the last good thing we did for the account?
Q2.) When?
Q.3.) What is the next good thing we’re planning to do for the account?
Q.4.) When?
 
            A “good thing” is described as a Valid Business Contact, or a contact that your customer benefits from.
            The book explains that if the answers to questions 2 and 4 are longer than 30 days, your budget might be coming under the knife when your advertisers begin to look for ways to cut expenses.
            But I’ve come to recognize you have to ask those same four questions with your most important and highest leverage customers…your internal customers.
            Substitute the phrase ‘for my customer’ with the phrase ‘for my staff’ in questions 1 and 3. What is the last good thing you did for your staff and what is the next good thing you are going to do for them, and when?
            In the case of your internal customers, giving them a job, or an earned bonus or incentive, is NOT enough. What do you do over and above what is expected or earned to keep your staff from canceling or tuning you out?
            I recall one instance with Scott, one of my sales people, when his car broke down heading into a weekend when garages were closed and he had promised to take his kids to an important outing.
            I flipped him the keys to my new car for the weekend.  That simple gesture earned more loyalty, respect and sales from him than I did with any of the financial incentives he earned.
            To this day I think Scott would walk over broken glass for me.      

Hare Krishna Strategy

 

Hare Krishna Strategy
 
In his book, The Psychology of Persuasion, Dr. Robert Cialdini identifies psychological reciprocity; ‘the deep-rooted subconscious need to return effort to those who put forth effort for us’, as one of the six most powerful influences on human buying behavior.
Psychological reciprocity is one of the most powerful sales levers radio sales professionals can develop.
Even Hare Krishna, the unusual 1970’s group with shaved heads and ill-fitting robes, capitalized on people’s deep-rooted subconscious need to return something to those who give you something.
They discovered their likelihood of receiving a donation from unwilling travelers at the airport increased dramatically, if they first gave the passersby a rose.
They also learned it didn’t matter if their target donors wanted the rose or not.  In fact, the robed team always had one member scurrying about the airport collecting the roses travelers threw in garbage bins, to give them away to another unsuspecting traveler.

Obama vs Clinton

Why Obama Has Raised More Money Than Clinton

 
            There really are only two motivators in life and in buying decisions….fear of loss or hope of gain.
            Hillary Clinton’s campaign clearly focuses on solving problems and minimizing pain while Barrack Obama clearly focuses on selling hope and a brighter future.
            While Clinton offers the ‘experience’ to solve problems, Obama holds the torch for a new and brighter future seldom talked about by traditional politicians who focus on solving problems.
            It remains to be seen which strategy will win, but it is interesting to note that a recently ‘unknown’ has been able to raise considerably more funds than the established Clinton.
            Those of us in sales need to recognize that both ends of the scale, fear and euphoria, hold opportunities for us as well.
            Most solution-oriented sales training or traditional consultative selling often focuses only on the pain side of the questioning continuum.
            The moniker of some of these courses is; “When the price of the pain exceeds the cost of your cure, you have a sale.” While this is true, it is a mistake to under-estimate how much wider the purse strings open when your presentation appeals to advertisers’ visions, hopes and dreams, rather than focusing on solutions to short-term problems.
            Our Becoming a Master Questioner Workshop can help your account executives master the skill of opening doors through problem solving, then building relationships by uncovering your prospects’ dreams and long term-goals.