Yearly Archives: 2009

The Economy Excuse

© by Wayne Ens

Warning; This week’s ENS on Sales may not be suitable for all audiences and may offend those who cannot be clearly objective about their sales efforts. This message is not intended to offend anyone, but to offer solutions based upon the successes I see everywhere. It is intended to reach those who will not accept excuses for failure.

As I visit stations across the continent, I’m becoming increasingly convinced that lack-luster sales performance is more a result of lack–luster sales efforts than a faltering economy.

In spite of what you might read or hear, local-direct sales are up over last year at many stations!!

But I see sales managers and sales people in less successful stations focusing on what used to be, rather than what could be; trying to win back accounts they had in the old economy instead of being innovative and uncovering the opportunities in the new economy.

I’ve seen countless cases of sales people who were literally winning by default with fat lists and luck in the boom economy, who now use the economy as a convenient excuse for their failures rather than pulling up their socks and selling.

I see sales people being measured and measuring themselves on histories rather than on futures. This month’s sales report only reflects historical efforts dating back 90 days ago or longer.

The successful teams are measuring current effort and activity over history.

This month’s activity reports will predict where your sales will be 90 days from now. It’s time to start measuring these activities rather than billings history;

1.) Innovation! What have you really done that is different in the new economy?

2.) Effort. Are you making more calls and working much longer hours than you did in ‘the good old days’ or are you insane; doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?

3.) Planning. Hope is not a plan. Do you have a strategic selling plan to win more business from every prospect in the new economy, or are you hoping something will change and the phone will ring?

4.) Learning. Are you using your current situation to learn what works, and what doesn’t, in the new economy, and sharpening your skills and knowledge?

5.) Confidence. Do you believe you have the knowledge and the solutions to help your clients increase sales? Or do you walk into every meeting thinking you’re concealing your self-doubt?

6.) The Big Idea. Are you presenting big ideas to your clients who need what you sell, increased sales, more than ever? Is there a ‘wow’ in every presentation you make that makes your solution to help increase sales stand out from your competitors?

I started ENS Media Inc. more than a decade ago, because I thought a recession was just around the corner. I knew from four prior recessions how to win when times are tough and planned to build my business helping stations and advertisers win in a tough economy.

I misjudged how long it would take for a cyclical decline to arrive, but it’s now here, and I’m having fun!

Picking up orders was never as challenging or rewarding for me as helping stations and advertisers grow in the face of adversity.

Like Vince Lombardi said,“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” I wish I could see more tough sales people and fewerexcuses during my market visits across the continent!

P.S. If you want to have fun and be successful in the new economy, start by implementing and monitoring the six activities I’ve outlined here. Like it says in my book, “Isn’t it funny, how the harder we work, the ‘luckier’ we get!”

Making Radio Tangible

The dictionary defines ‘tangible’ as; ‘able to be perceived by a sense of touch’.
Radio is only an intangible if you let it become so. And if the only ‘tangible’ your clients receive from your station is an invoice, you’re headed for trouble.
At cutback time, the media with the most tangibles in your clients’ files often wins and escapes the knife! How thick is your client’s file of your tangibles?

Do they have a presentation on file that clearly outlines what you proposed to do for them and how you would achieve those objectives?
Have you delivered trade articles about marketing your customers’ categories?
And what about wrap-up reports, with testimonials from their customers, a summary of what you delivered, and of course, an outline of how you over-delivered?
Does your client’s file include all of the scripts you’ve delivered, audio copies of their commercials and proofs of performance?
Do you conduct post-campaign analysis and deliver written summaries of those analyses?
And what about regular helpful tips like our SoundADvice, complete with your photo and station logos?
Have you used your cell phone to take pictures of their customers lined up at a successful event or remote?

At cutback time, the media with the thickest file of tangibles in the advertiser’s cabinet wins! Don’t let the newspaper tear-sheets, or the billboard tent-cards and photos ‘out-tangible’ what you do, and certainly don’t let an invoice be the only tangible advertisers receive from you!

P.S. If you don’t have a post-campaign analysis process, SoundADvice weekly email tips, or if you want to have our Guided Discovery Selling System contact; [email protected].

Fighting for Share

In the last few weeks, I have had several media sales people call and ask me, “Wayne, how can I get my automotive business back?” Get over it! We’re NOT in recession; we’re in a new economy that isn’t going away.

Approximately 80% of the businesses in your market have never seen a radio rep.

Unfortunately many of the sales people wanting to know how to get old economy categories back on the air have not sold advertising or their media at all….they’ve only been skimming ‘share’ from clients who were already sold on using their media.

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s wake up and smell the coffee! We are not in a ‘recession’ we are in a badly-needed correction. In the new economy, we won’t be duped into thinking Bernie Madoff is making us rich. In the new economy, people with no money and no money down won’t get a $600,000 mortgage. “Tree huggers’ will no longer be the brunt of jokes as consumer priorities shift, and conspicuous consumption won’t be ‘cool’. And General Motors won’t be selling an Oldsmobile or Pontiac!

The problem in our industry today is that only a few account executives have been selling advertising for decades. Most have been fighting for share of existing ad budgets rather than generating bigger budgets or creating ad budgets from non-advertising business categories.

Advertising’s share of marketing budgets has suffered losses to everything from customer relations software to point of sale gimmicks and only professional advertising sales people can change that trend. As media’s share of marketing budgets declines, media share fighters won’t get us where we need to be in 2020.

But there is good news. The largest and fastest growing sector of our economy, the small business and service sectors need our help and expertise! The yellow pages people have been skimming these sectors and reaping more revenues than all broadcasters in your market combined have been able to sell to the traditional ‘big advertisers.’

No, I’m not talking about the little guys with small ads. I‘m talking about businesses spending tens of thousands, or in larger markets, hundreds of thousands a year.

In most markets, the businesses buying a full page in the yellow pages could have 20 spots a week every other week for a year on your station!

Do you want your team to quit fighting the other stations for share and build effective strategies to increase the over-all size of the advertising pie in your market? Contact [email protected] to learn how we can grow your revenues!

Candor as a Relationship Builder

Many sales people are afraid to use candor as a relationship builder with their customers and prospects.

They have been trained to ‘sell themselves first’.

In this effort to sell themselves first, they have placed being ‘liked’ ahead of being respected as a marketing partner. In their quest to be liked, these glad-handers often fear opening the challenging and meaningful dialogue necessary to understand their customer’s goals.

These friendly sales types will often take every answer they get in a Customer Needs Analysis (CNA) at face value. If a prospect claims they ‘give better service’ than their competitors, for example, these sales people will smile and say something like, “that’s nice”.

True advisors have mastered the art of playing devil’s advocate during the CNA process on their way to building stronger client relationships and more relevant ad campaigns.

Professionals will explain to their prospects why they play the role of a skeptical customer. And, when the client suggests they, “give better service,” the professional will say something like, “I’m playing a skeptical customer. Prove to me that you give better service.”

In our Guided Discovery ^© Selling System, we train media sales professionals to enter into their CNA’s with phrases like, “Before I can sell our audience on why they should do business with you, you have to sell me on why they should do business with you.”

This candid and frank approach may seem confrontational, but handled correctly, will be the building block for much stronger customer relationships than the old ‘smile and pretend to agree’ approach to CNA’s.

Practice What We Preach

It’s hard to sell when your knees are knocking!

Your sales people hear the headlines about our economy, and the woes of traditional media, and they are worried about their jobs.

In some markets they’ve seen management appear to share their desperation by cutting rates up to 20% in a misguided attempt to secure an order.

Yet those same managers don’t appear to have the confidence to invest 20% in their people, training, tools or incentives to secure more business.

You have probably cut all of the expenses you can cut. Isn’t it time you started exploring the other side of the profit equation…..revenue generation?

Investing in sales tools, training people and incentives to capture more revenue can result in a higher return on your investment in this economy than ever before. Your returns will include;

· Improved staff morale – Investing in your people can pay huge dividends and sends a signal you are planning for them to be around for a long time.

· Leading by example – Persuading clients to invest in marketing can be difficult when we don’t practice what we preach.

· Higher closing ratios – The right investment in skills development and marketing tools will invariably improve productivity.

· Larger average orders – Better trained and armed sales people create an air of confidence which is transferred to advertisers and creates stronger customer relationships.

· Attract better talent – There is some great talent that has been bought out. With that money in their jeans, they don’t need huge guarantees and more feet on the street always equals more sales.

Your clients and prospects have made all of the cuts in expenses they can make. They are now starting to turn their focus toward what we sell….increased sales.

Never in recent memory, has increasing sales been so vitally important to your clients. Yet less than 15% of the businesses in your market advertise on local stations, in part because we don’t have the confidence, the tools or the skills to persuade them we can increase their sales.

P.S. This memo may seem a little self-serving in that ENS Media Inc. specializes in helping stations increase their sales with sales best practices, revenue development tools and sales training.

According to our research, 82% of the businesses in your market can’t recall seeing a rep from your station. We don’t see how reducing your marketing and sales efforts are going to solve that problem.

We’re here to help. Contact [email protected]