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The Sales Process – Your Opinion Please
Last week we suggested that there are nine steps in the advertising sales process and we provided our Media Rep Rating System.
Whether you are a manager or an individual media rep, we hope that you took the time to rate yourself or your sellers. If you did so in a very honest way, you discovered some areas that you or your reps are deficient in. You also learned that scoring enough points to be considered an excellent or elite media rep is difficult.
The goal of the process was not to show you that the reps you thought were “Excellent or Elite” are only “Above Average”. Instead, it was to get you to focus on the media sales process and areas where you can improve on.
We hope you did just that!
This week, we would like to look at the nine steps once again, only this time we would like you to rank them by order of importance. Understanding which steps are most important and giving additional attention and training to these areas will increase the rankings and ultimately help everyone become more successful.
Below are the 9 steps in the advertising sales process. Click here to take a quick survey to tell us how you would rank them by order of importance (1 being most important and 9 least important).
Advertising Sales Process
Step One: Prospecting
Step Two: Cold Calling / Asking for the Appointment
Step Three: 1st Meeting / CNA
Step Four: Strategy Session / Creating Ideas / Creative
Step Five: Creating the Proposal
Step Six: Making the Presentation to the Client
Step Seven: Closing
Step Eight: Service after the Sale
Step Nine: Upselling / Renewals
There is no right answer or right order, and the point of this topic was not to start a debate. However, some steps in the process have a greater impact on determining whether a media rep is successful or not.
Thank you for participating in our survey. We will share the results with you in upcoming issues.
“If We Could Turn Back Time…”
“…and do things differently, I would….…”
That’s a common statement that nearly everyone has made regarding nearly everything we do in life, both personally and professionally.
In some cases, we would not change a thing. But in others…?
In last week’s ENS on Sales Who’s Promoting YOU, we suggested that if radio could have a re-do, or, as Cher sang it so well, “If we could turn back time”, there are two major things that radio could have done and should now do differently on the sales side of our business. These two things alone would make a tremendous impact not only with our reputation but ultimately, where we stand on the totem pole of revenue share.
We are happy to report that very soon new markets will in-fact start to “promote their group and their sellers”. Thank you to those that chose to reach out. You’re on the path to success!
The second thing that radio should do, if they could turn back time, is to train, and I mean REALLY train our media reps. Not just how to sell, but on how to make radio work!
Here’s how it went in the old days and unfortunately is still happening more than we care to admit. We hired someone that displayed a great attitude and effort. We then had them watch a few videos on selling radio or maybe just selling, i.e. Jason Jennings or Chris Lytle. Then, within a matter of a few days, we armed them with a depleted deadbeat account list (that the rep before them failed with), new business cards, pointed them towards the streets, and with a pat on the back, we cheerfully said, “Go out and make some sales!”
Even if your new seller was good and they did what you asked, made the calls, and made some sales, we all know what happened next. On the follow-up call, when they tried to sell another package, the client says, “It didn’t work”! Hence the reason we now have businesses all over the planet earth, saying “I tried radio once and it didn’t work”. We’ll duh! ! It didn’t work because we didn’t train or teach the sellers how to make it work! …And it’s not the seller’s fault!
In nearly every other profession, vocation, and industry, they train their people before they ask them to perform. But in radio, we hire on attitude and effort, provide little to no training, and expect miracles. Heck, in little league sports they train for two weeks before testing their skills. We can do better! Our clients deserve better!
The most successful sales organizations will tell you that a proper, well-planned, on-boarding program and an ongoing training program is key to their success.
“Your Life Can Only Get Better When You Do!
Do Something Every Day to Improve Your Key Skill Areas.”
– Brian Tracy
Because you are a regular reader of ENS on Sales, we’ll assume that we’re preaching to the choir and you are NOT doing what is suggested above. If so, you should be proud of what you are doing – keep it up! Never Stop Learning – Get BETTER Every Day!
Unfortunately, we can’t turn back time, but if you’re serious about building a more professional media sales team, ENS Media can help. To arrange a call to visit about how we can help turn your team into professional media reps, click here.
Who’s Promoting YOU?
Do you promote your stations and/or yourself? I mean really promote, more than the one or two times a year when you’re running a station promotion that you sell ad packages for?
The fact is that most radio stations don’t! But yet every day we strongly suggest to business owners that they should promote their businesses via the radio on a regular, ongoing basis. In fact, many suggest to their clients and prospects that they should advertise 52-weeks a year and never take a break.
I’ve often stated that if radio could have a do-over, you know, go back in time and start over again, there would be two things that if our industry did differently would make all the difference in the world. One is… Promote ourselves in the same manner that we ask business owners to promote themselves.
Here’s another question… If you don’t promote your stations or group regularly on your own stations, why should we expect the businesses we deal with to believe that promoting/advertising is the right thing to do for themselves?
I can only assume you believe in the power of radio. If so, prove it! Your station or your group of stations should be your biggest advertiser! Are they?
Easier said than done, right?
Promoting your stations and/or yourself on a regular basis not only takes effort but thought. We can help you with both! We make it very easy and VERY affordable.
If you would like to become one of the very few stations or groups that promotes themselves regularly, give us a call or email [email protected] to arrange a time to talk.
Oh yeah… and the other thing our industry should have done differently? We’ll talk about that in a future issue.
The Greatest Gift
“The more one knows, the luckier he is, for knowledge is the greatest gift in life.”
– L. Frank Baum (author of Wizard of Oz)