Yearly Archives: 2011

Focus for Success

Focus for Success

           In 1993, Ted Danson,the star of Cheers, had an audience of 80 million, and a salary of $500,000 per episode. In February of this year, Charlie Sheen, the star of the hit series Two and a Half Men, had a much smaller audience of 14 million, yet a whopping salary of $1.8 million per show!
          Welcome to the world of fragmenting audiences and higher costs. Your advertisers have more competitors today than ever and the number of media choices they have is literally bewildering.
          Legendary marketing strategist Al Reis says the only way they can succeed in this new environment is to ‘focus’.
          Advertisers can no longer be all things to all people, and they certainly can’t afford to ‘reach everybody’. Successful marketers do a few things well, rather than trying to be all things to all people or trying to reach everybody.
          If you can help your clients focus on these two marketing disciplines, you and your clients will be successful.
1.) Focus on the message. Help the advertiser understand what they do best, and what they can claim, that their competitors cannot. In the world of clutter and fragmentation, their prospects can only remember one thing about them. You can help your client discover and focus on that ‘one thing’.
2. Focus on Select Media. Capturing the dominant share of voice on a few strategically-selected media will always be more powerful than spreading budgets too thinly over a variety of media. Your advertisers can easily become lost in the shuffle trying to reach everybody via Radio, Facebook, TV, Twitter, newspapers, online directories, billboards, websites, printed directories, email, direct mail, Groupon, flyers, YouTube, cable and a growing list of digital media choices. 
          Teaching your clients to focus on a few radio stations and a few internet media will serve them well. In the Electronic Age, media strategy needs to be simplified. Simply put, radio inspires and internet informs. By the way, there is no need for print in ‘The Electronic Age’….only broadcast and digital qualify as ‘electronic.’
          Your job is to teach advertisers to focus;
a.)   on a few radio stations to inspire their prospects, and
b.) on a limited number of new digital media to make it easy for their prospects to find the information they are looking for once they are inspired.
          The choice and fragmentation your clients have today can actually be detrimental to their success if they do not elect to do a few things well, rather than trying to reach everyone in every new media flavor of the week.
 
Randy’s ‘What if’:
What if you could persuade 25% of your clients they no longer need print, and that the combination of radio to inspire and internet to inform, is the perfect solution in the new media mix?

Thank You Mr. Brooks

Thank You Mr. Brooks

           I want you to think back to a time in your life when someone recognized a talent in you that others may have overlooked.
          When I was in high school, that was my carpentry teacher, Mr. Brooks. Although I didn’t recognize it at the time, Mr. Brooks saw a talent in me that I, nor anyone else, had seen.
          I didn’t understand why he gave me expensive teak for my cabinet-making project, while my peers worked with less expensive pine.
          In fact, I resented him at the time, because the oily teak I had to work with was much more difficult than the soft pine the other kids destroyed. In hindsight, when I see the time and attention he gave me, not to mention the much more expensive lumber, Mr. Brooks believed I would make a better cabinet than the rest of my class.
          Mr. Brooks passed away recently, and I never did take the time to thank him for the faith he had in me. Don’t let that happen to you.
          Think of someone who had a profound impact on your life, find them, pick up the phone today, and thank them.
          I guarantee you’ll feel great, and probably have a big day!    
 
 
Randy’s What If:
What if you marked it in your calendar on the first of every month to reflect on a mentor who helped you along the way, and called them to say “thanks”?
 

Choose Your Influences Wisely

Choose Your Influences Wisely

             A well-intentioned friend of mine sent me an email this week saying, “I thought you’d find this interesting”, with a link to a story titled ‘Poll; Many Consumers Believe Recession Not Over’.
          I didn’t open it.
          I like to think I don’t play Ostrich regarding the news that affects my business, but I do consciously seek out positive news, and avoid the negatives over which I have no control.
          Very early in my career as a sales person I learned that I felt better, produced more and made more money when I went for morning coffee with the half of our sales team that was always looking for positives and opportunities.
          Conversely, I learned the hard way that hanging with the half of the team that tended to whine and complain about how tough things were, affected my performance negatively.
          I actually looked forward to the last recession because I had developed a unique way of selling successfully during the last four recessions which I was able to share with my clients.
           I welcome the inevitable impending boom as well because I’ve made it our mission to help our clients be on the cutting edge of the opportunities which lie ahead. 
          Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you are right”!
          The influences you allow yourself to be exposed to can dramatically affect what you think you can do, and you can do whatever you think you can. Select those influences carefully!
 
 
Randy’s What If; What if you invested just 15 minutes every morning aggressively seeking one piece of positive news or an opportunity you could share with everyone you meet today?

Becoming a Master Questioner

Becoming a Master Questioner  ®

 
          The real sales professionals have learned their stations’ traditional Customer Needs Analysis (CNA) is the same as the CNA every media rep in town has used. And their prospects have already been there, done that and are tired of wearing the t-shirt.
          Our Master Questioner® sales training helps sales pros uncover unique new ways to differentiate themselves from the other media reps and to craft more meaningful and relevant questions.
          The first step is to become a ‘category expert’, learning as much about your prospect’s industry as you know about your own.
          To short cut that process, simply conductfour online searches;
1.)  Search “(name industry) advertising tips” or “marketing tips”
          It may take a while, but if you search deep enough, you’ll find an industry expert who will make your case for you.
Also, keep a keen eye during your search for those alleged industry experts who knock advertising or ‘traditional’ media, or preach that there is something better than radio or TV.
          You might as well know the misleading influences your prospects may have been exposed to so you can be prepared to prevent objections.
2.)  Search “(name industry) trade magazines” or “trade publications”
         Surf them quickly until you find articles from ‘industry experts’ on marketing and sales that naturally lend themselves to a discussion about broadcast’s role in the new media mix.
3.)  Search “(name industry) association” or “(name industry) society”
        Once on the industry’s association website, you’ll be able to capture invaluable information about the industry’s trends, problems and objectives.
4.)  Search “(Name Industry) news”
          Look for new products, industry trends or quotes from industry experts that you can use to frame more relevant questions and write customer-focused presentations.         
          Click here if you would like me to call you to discuss introducing our Master Questioner training to your sales team.
 
Randy’s What If’s;
What if you went on a mission to become a category expert in one new category every month? At the end of one short year you would have 12 prospective categories you could speak with intelligently. 

Old School

Room for a Little ‘Old School’?   

          Has our relentless search for ‘what’s new’ caused us to sometimes forget the basics?
          I was speaking with a sales manager recently who was remarking about some of the old sales trainers from the 80’s and 90’s; “I see some of them are still around”, she said, “I hope they’ve come up with some new material, the old stuff is really tired”.
          There is no doubt that business-to-business selling has changed. Cold calls don’t work, tricky closing techniques are viewed with suspicion, and old-fashioned glad handing or invitations to golf are not enough to build your brand or the customer relationships you desire.
          But as I reflected upon the sales manager’s comments about some of the old trainer’s material being ‘tired’ it occurred to me that most of her staff had not heard the wisdom of some of these old masters. And if they really are ‘masters’, I’m sure they have updated their material.
          Some of the old basics like understanding the four buyer styles and engaging in professional pre-call planning remain as useful today as they were 20 years ago. But the way we use these basics may have been changed by technology.
          I still find Roy Williams’ Twelve Causes of Advertising Failure as relevant today as it was ten years ago, and Chris Lytle’s “Prescription without diagnosis is malpractice.” still hits home the importance of pre-call planning.
          Where we previously were able to assess buyer style in person, often now, we have to assess it via the clues from email or phone conversations. And the wealth of information that is at our fingertips for pre-call planning is certainly enhanced by the internet.
          I still find basics like Roy Williams’ Twelve Causes of Advertising Failure as relevant today as it was ten years ago, and Chris Lytle’s “Prescription without diagnosis is malpractice.” still hits home the importance of pre-call planning.
          Let’s not forget that if you have sales people with less than ten years experience, they may not have been exposed to the basics that your more senior account executives have ‘tired’ of…..and even those tired souls may need the occasional reminder wake-up call to get back to basics. 
 
 
Randy’s What If
            What if you had ENS Media Inc. conduct a no-charge, no-obligation Training Needs Analysis to help you custom tailor a hybrid training program of the latest sales best practices coupled with the tried and proven basics to meet your objectives?