Advertising has always been simply ‘multiplied salesmanship’; telling your selling message repeatedly to mass audiences. In the modern selling world, we know that advertising must engage or be engaging.

‘Engage’ means to draw into or involve. Telling is no longer selling, and just as your advertising must engage an audience, it’s even more important that your one-on-one sales presentation engage your prospect in an interactive manner.

To draw your prospect into or involve them in your presentation, it must be interactive. You need to ask, rather than tell.

For example, rather than telling your prospect about the power of top of mind awareness, you can help your prospect discover the link between awareness and sales by asking questions. You might ask "What’s the first brand you think of when I ask you to name a brand of soup you would expect to find in a super market." They will invariably get involved and answer.

When they answer "Campbell’s’, you can follow up with another question, you might say "That’s interesting. Did you know that a study done by ENS media found that 80% of consumers named Campbell’s just like you did? And more importantly, did you know that 80% of the super market soups are sold by Campbell’s? Do you think there is a link between awareness levels and sales levels?"

There is a simple magic to asking rather than telling.

First, when a prospect is answering your question they have no time to think about their objections.

Secondly, when they discover for themselves the answer you want, they take ownership of that answer and buy into the point you have just helped them discover. We call it Guided Discovery Selling.

When you have a point to make, there is always a way to ask questions to help your prospect discover and agree with your point. For example, when a prospect tells you they tried radio on another station and "radio doesn’t work" resist the temptation to tell them why your station is better than the station that didn’t work.

Instead craft a question. You might ask "Have you ever had a bad meal at a restaurant?" Of course they will say, "Yes". If you engage them further with a follow-up question like "Did you quit going to restaurants, or did you quit going to THAT restaurant?" they discover not all suppliers are equal. Now, you have opened the door for a discussion about why your station is different!

In today’s confusing and evolving new media landscape, selling is teaching. The most effective teachers don’t preach or pontificate. They ask questions, initiate experiments, take field trips and use various engaging and interactive methods to help students discover the answers for themselves, rather than telling them what they need to know. In academic circles it’s called the Guided Discovery Teaching method.

Click here to inquire how our copyrighted Guided Discovery Selling method can increase your sales.

Does your sales staff fully appreciate their FREE franchise?
Think about it, what do typical franchisees receive when they invest their life’s savings in a franchise?
Franchisees pay for the rights and privileges of using a recognized name and trademark. Your station name, heritage, format, and logo provide a strong brand for your salespeople to represent.
Typical franchisers offer protected territories as long as the franchisees meet agreed-to quotas. Most broadcast organizations offer their "sales franchisees" similarly-protected account lists.
Franchisers continuously improve their products and services. Broadcasters too are constantly improving programming to grow audiences.
Franchisees rely on the training provided in their franchise agreements to teach them the "tricks of the trade" they have invested in. Successful broadcasters continually provide professional training for their sales executives.
Franchisers provide proven systems and procedures. Radio account executives utilize the broadcaster’s traffic, accounting, ordering, and billing systems.
Franchisers advertise to enhance the value of their brand. Stations advertise and promote on-air and in other media to keep their brands current.
Franchisers invest in market research for their franchisees, just as broadcasters invest in research like Nielsen, Arbitron, TOMA, and various other research and marketing tools.
Last but not least, franchisee remuneration is directly proportionate to the success of their franchise. Commissioned radio executives earn incomes directly proportionate to their success.
I have had the opportunity to consult several national franchise organizations and their franchisees. Many franchisees pay $50,000 to $100,000 or more just to buy a small local franchise. They also pay for real estate, equipment, support staff, and ongoing royalties. In spite of their large investment, typical franchisees will earn LESS than the top biller at your station!
One of the benefits franchisers promote is "being in business for yourself but not by yourself." In most radio sales departments, professional salespeople are given the latitude to manage their time and their accounts and account strategies, but they have good management supporting and coaching them each step of the way.
Telling your staff about their free franchise can inspire a commissioned salesperson to be more passionate and professional about managing their franchise.
I have learned, however, that not all franchisees experience the same degree of success. More importantly, I’ve discovered that it is the franchisee who makes the franchise succeed above and beyond expectations, NOT the franchisor.
Here’s what your account executives can learn from the more successful franchisees in other fields across North America;

Embrace Change

When a franchiser introduces new products, ideas or changes it is because they are committed to improving results for the franchisee….and the success of the franchiser is directly dependent upon the success of its franchisees.

Your station’s success is also dependent upon the success of its salespeople. When management introduces change it is because they are convinced it will make their salespeople, and themselves, more successful. The most successful franchisees always give change a chance.

Rally Behind the Flag

In franchising, there is a thing called "The Franchisee Dependency Curve." When a new franchisee comes on board they are initially delighted, learning new things every day, managingtheir own business, and appreciating what the franchiser brings to the table.
But some franchisees become complacent. As their learning curve flattens, they begin to begrudge the royalties they are sending the franchisor. These franchisees begin to fail when they say, "But my market is different" or " I know better than head office."
Your account executives’ fates are no different. When an A.E. says, "But my account list is different" or " I know better than management," they begin to lose the benefits of their franchise.

Go Beyond the Call of Duty

The most successful franchisees I’ve met actually go beyond what the franchiser expects. If, for example, the franchiser expects them to participate in one local charity for publicity and networking, the most successful franchisees will get involved with two or three charities.
The most successful franchisees actually improve upon and build upon management initiatives and volunteer to sit on franchisee project committees.
And when they do find an improvement that works for them, they enthusiastically share it with the franchiser for the benefit of all franchisees. They recognize that a stronger team benefits the entire franchise as well as their local franchise.
These same three keys will maximize the success of each of your salespeople’s franchises; one, embrace change; two, support the brand; and three, go above and beyond the minimum expectations management sets.

If you are selling local radio or TV advertising, get out your sunglasses….your future has never been brighter.

There have always been two basic types of media; intrusive media and passive media.

Intrusive media are those media which reach and influence consumers before they have a need, while they go about their daily activities and before they have entrenched brand preferences or prejudices, largely radio and TV.

Passive media are those media which can only reach people after they have established a need. Passive media require people to stop what they are doing in order to actively search for more information as they make their purchase decisions.

Until the Internet, however, many local ad budgets were weighted towards expensive passive print media. The cost of delivery and production for old passive media (lumberjacks, pulp and paper mills, truck drivers, fuel, printing press operators, delivery people, and more) left little money for creating a pre-need preference with intrusive media. Brochures, yellow directories, coupons and newspapers took the bulk of local-direct ad dollars.

Passive media have long been considered a necessary evil by local advertisers who felt they needed to deliver detailed information, facts, figures, prices or pictures that could not be accommodated in 60 or 30 second ads.

Well, hang on for the ride! Embrace the Internet!

Local marketers no longer need to pay letter carriers, paper boys, forestry workers or press operators to deliver their ‘necessary evil’ details, information or pictures.

They need simply to invest in designing and posting the information, with little or no production and delivery costs.

Those former print budgets can now go to intrusive media to drive traffic to the lower-cost websites. And here’s another reason we’ll do well in the new media world.

Local advertisers previously only competed with a few local advertisers in the paper or mail box. Now they compete against thousands and thousands of easy-to-find competitors around the world.

Smart local marketers need intrusive media more than ever to drive traffic and create awareness for their passive media message. Your intrusive media can create awareness, credibility and trust for local businesses and their websites over the thousands of online choices web-surfers have today.

Better reach for those sun glasses…and don’t go for the cheap ones, it’s a bright new lucrative day ahead.

Click hereto arrange an appointment to discuss how our Winning in the New Media Economy advertiser seminar will persuade advertisers to invest larger shares of their budgets with YOU in this exciting new media world.