Category Archives: Uncategorized

Practice What We Preach

Every day we ask our clients to promote and market themselves. Are you marketing yourselves? The most successful stations we work with are visible everywhere in their communities, in pursuit of audience. But I’m convinced their high visibility does even more for their revenues than it does for their ratings!

Prospects who don’t listen to your station can get the impression that everyone else in town does listen to you when your vehicles, banners, sponsorships and staff are seen at every community event they attend.

With all of your competitors claiming to be “number one”, most business decision-makers don’t believe ratings.  On the other hand, they do believe their own eyes and have confidence in your popularity when they perceive they see you everywhere.

Retailers claim the key to success is location, location, location. Are your station vehicles tucked away overnight in an employee’s driveway or hidden behind your station, or do you have a plan to keep them out, moving and visible?

Do your personalities pull a shift then hide in their cocoons the rest of the day, or are they out and about, clearly identifying themselves as your stars with their attire and vehicles?

By the way, radio advertising works too! The easiest person to sell is someone who listens to your station….you don’t have to convince them someone listens, they know firsthand. Do you run creative, relevant, thought-provoking commercials to attract new advertisers?

Our business is no different than our clients’ businesses. Advertising is the first link in a marketing program, but advertising only “attracts” audience and sponsors. It’s what comes over your speakers and what we do to create value for our advertisers AFTER the sale that will determine your long-term success.

Our radio e-marketing system, called SoundADvice, can help brand and advertise your reps and stations by providing useful marketing tips to your clients and prospects each week. It can be the most cost-effective advertising you can buy. Contact Rick to learn more.

Only 3 Ways to GROW a Business

Everyone is trying to grow their business. Well, almost everyone. Occasionally, we run into that business owner that says, “I don’t want to get any bigger”. While they may have legitimate reasons, the old saying still holds true, “If you aren’t growing, you’re dying”.

In our industry, we are expected to grow, and the emphasis is usually on selling more advertising than you did last year. Regardless of the industry, the 3 ways to grow your business remains true.

Here are the 3 ways to grow your business:

1)  Sell more of what you are currently selling

2)  Increase the price/rate on what you are currently selling

3)  Offer additional products/services to what you are currently selling

If it were only that easy! There are many points, counterpoints, subtitles and bullet points that go behind each of these three statements. But, regardless of how you slice it, everything will fall into one of these three categories. Keep in mind, I said 3 ways to GROW business, not increase profits. Then, you can add a 4th element which is… Cut Cost!

These three points are not only a good lesson for us in the media business, but it’s good information to pass along to the clients and prospects that we call on. When you point this out to them, at the right moment, your knowledge of business will be evident. It gets them thinking and they will admire you for it. You may get some push back from “that client”, but I have never had anyone come up with something that doesn’t fall under one of these three ways.

If you come up with one, please share it with me. Knowledge is Power! Like you, I strive to “Get Better Every Day”.

Happy Training!

“Be Nice to Everyone”

Today is my youngest daughter’s, as she put it, “Last First-Day of School”. She is a Senior in college and will finish her undergrad in May.

As I have done for nearly 25 years on the first day of school with all three of our kids, I told her to have fun, study hard and learn lots! I then asked her, “What’s the family rule?” and she replied, “Be nice to everyone”. That’s my girl!

After reflecting on this, it reminded me of how we as media reps and managers approach what we do in the world of sales. This isn’t just a good rule of thumb for raising kids, (we’ve been blessed, and it’s worked out very well for our family, as it did for the teams I managed) but it’s also a GREAT practice to follow for sales and management.

If you are in sales, or you are managing people, are you Having Fun, Training Hard, and Learning Lots? And, most importantly, are you Nice to Everyone?  It’s a good recipe for success!

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Fink and Wayne Ens
605-310-2062

P.S. If you would ever like to visit about how we consult and help train sales teams to generate more revenue and become better marketing professionals, click here and we can arrange a time. We guarantee it will be a “Nice” conversation!

Do Unto Others As…?

The skills required for selling and building customer relationships in the business-to-business world continue to dramatically change. Today, they’re changing faster than ever.

In a survey by MarketingSherpa, buyers and salespeople were asked, “Why do buyers leave?”

Not surprisingly, the top answer with salespeople was “Price”. The top answer with buyers, however, was “service”.

But multi-tasking, tighter deadlines, and technology have redefined the world of selling and how buyers define service.

Service was once measured by the amount of face-to-face time you dedicated to your prospects. Today, in our fast-paced world, it can be just the opposite and measured by how much of their time you don’t occupy.

In the book,The Platinum Rule by Ph.D.’s Tony Alessandra and Michael O’Connor, they suggest the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, be replaced with the Platinum Rule, “Do unto others as THEY want done unto themselves”. In other words, treat ME, like I want to be treated, not how YOU would like to be treated.

Reading your customers’ personality styles and adapting to their communication style is more important today than ever. Just because I like to communicate face-to-face and by telephone, doesn’t mean my client or prospect wouldn’t rather communicate via one of the many digital options.

And simply because someone is a Millennial, or a Gen X, Y or Z, doesn’t automatically mean they prefer to communicate 100% in the digital space. I know plenty of Baby Boomers that prefer to communicate digitally.

Today, we even suggest you ask your prospects and clients how they would like to communicate. They will tell you, because they want YOU to treat THEM the way THEY want to be treated!

Our Customer-Focused Communications workshops can help you understand what’s behind the emails you receive, and how to reach and influence your prospects with new technologies and the written word.    Click here if you would like to discuss.

The Great Debate…10’s, 15’s, 30’s or 60’s?

What is the best length for ads? The correct answer is… whatever it takes – to make it a GREAT ad! The only wrong answer to this question would have been had you suggested just one of these options.

We need to first understand, believe, and realize that no one listens to your radio station for the ads. It’s our job to get them to listen with creative, compelling, well written, and well produced ads that are strategically on target. The length of the ad has very little to do with how effective it is.

If you are a proponent of 60 second ads, you can probably put up a great debate as to why 60’s are better than 30’s, and vice versa. What I can tell you is that bad 60 second ads are simply a bigger waste of money than bad 30’s.

What about 10’s or 15’s? One of the very best ad campaigns I’ve ever heard is the QUIKRETE campaign titled “Long Story Short”, created by Fitzgerald and Company. They are 10 second ads with a brilliant strategy and were executed perfectly! To hear these ads, click here. They’re great entertainment and can be used as examples when discussing length of ads with clients and in training your team to either ask better questions and/or write better ads. Yes, asking better questions always leads to better ads.

The reason for this article isn’t to debate the best length of ad. The fact remains, regardless of the length, the “better” the ad, the “better” the results. Our point is… what are you doing on a daily or weekly basis to help train your team; sellers, writers and production departments on how to write and produce better ads?

Better ads will lead to better results for your clients, AND, your station will sound better, allowing you to create more revenue with bigger and longer-term contracts.

If you would like to discuss this topic, or if you would like help in training your team on creating and writing better ads, contact us and let’s discuss how doing this can help you generate more revenue. The pay-offs can be huge!