Subtle vs To the Point

I like quotes and use them often to make a point, whether to one person or a group.

Recently, as I was preparing for a presentation, I decided to use one of my favorite quotes by Brian Herbert…

“The Capacity to Learn is a Gift… The Ability to Learn is a Skill…
The Willingness to Learn is a Choice!”

To me, this quote simply states that we are all born with the ability to learn. Whether we choose to use that gift to learn and try new things is up to us. It’s subtle!

For this particular presentation, I wanted to be a little more direct and make the case that if you aren’t willing to learn and try new ideas, failure is inevitable. So, I chose this quote by Zig Ziglar to use along with the previous one:

“If you are NOT willing to learn, no one can help you!
If you ARE determined to learn, NO ONE can stop you!”

If you’re trying to make a point to someone or a group of people, try using quotes. Hang them around the office… or even hang one in your office to remind those that visit… or to remind yourself.

I hope that wasn’t too subtle!

We’ve created a clean, more presentable version of these two quotes together. If you would like a copy, click here and we will share them with you!

Last week’s ENS on Sales was titled, Warning Label and User Manuals. I may have been too subtle in what I was trying to get across, so let me be more direct.

If you aren’t having much success with selling recruitment advertising or with its effectiveness, give me a call. I know how to make it work for you and your clients. It’s a proven system that will help you sell mega loads of recruitment advertising.

Your investment is tiny, peanuts, crumbs, compared to the potential return for your stations. We will teach you how to present it, prepare it, and execute it!

If you want to make your clients happy, make your stations look like heroes, and create a ton of billing, contact us to arrange a conversation. Oh, and also let us know if you want us to send the quotes.

I hope I wasn’t too subtle this time!

Warning Label and User Manuals

Warning: Failure to understand how to present and execute recruitment advertising could lead to financial injury to you and your clients and cause severe harm (or worse) to your reputation as a media rep.

Many products we purchase come with some sort of a user manual. In addition, when there is potential for injury (or even worse), warning labels are required by law.

Recruitment Advertising should not only come with a user manual but with warning labels as well! Why? Because when recruitment advertising is not executed correctly your clients stand to lose money, and you, stand to lose a client, forever!

While recruitment advertising is a form of “direct response” advertising, it does have a different set of rules that need to be followed to achieve success. Most “direct response” advertising needs to address the who, what, when, where, and what else. With recruitment advertising, you MUST answer the WHY! Why would someone consider working for this company?

Understanding “How” effective recruitment works, then presenting this to your prospects and clients, and ultimately executing it correctly, is key to achieving success.

As states start to eliminate unemployment benefits and we get closer to September when the U.S. Government plans to eliminate the extra unemployment benefit, more of the population will go back to work. As this happens, we need to be prepared to reap the rewards.

If you want your piece of this huge, ongoing, recruitment pie, we have a system that is proven to work.

I learned this system from someone much smarter than I over 20 years ago. Since then, with some fine-tuning, it has generated millions of dollars in ad revenue, and more importantly, helped hundreds and hundreds of business owners and H.R. coordinators successfully recruit qualified job applicants.

This system not only trains your sales team on how to present and sell recruitment advertising, but they’ll learn how to execute it from beginning to end so that it has the best chance of success.

Once your team understands how to present, sell, and execute this system, you’ll reap the rewards, not only in ad revenue for years and years to come but also in your reputation as an advertising professional. Once they know it works and they’re looking to hire, they will simply call you and say, “we need to run that recruitment campaign again!”

Warning: Proceed with Caution – Failure to understand how to present and execute recruitment advertising could lead to financial injury to you and your clients and cause severe harm (or worse) to your reputation as a media rep. Proceed with caution!

If you would like to learn how you can implement this system and how our Return-On-Investment guarantee works, call Rick at (605) 310-2062 or click here to request information.

 

Halftime Interview 2021

Wow! Where did the 1st half of 2021 go?

Over the holiday weekend, I read the book titled Talking To GOATs by the famed sports broadcaster/journalist, Jim Gray. It inspired me to write this week’s ENS on Sales using a sports analogy.

The following is a mock interview between a reporter and the GM or SM (coach) of a media sales team as they head back onto the field for the second half of the game/year.

Reporter: Hey coach, the game/year started pretty slow in Q1 as you were still comparing to pre-COVID numbers. What was your game plan for the first quarter? Can you tell us what happened?

Manager/Coach: We came into 2021 pretty optimistic, even though we were still in a state of uncertainty. The plan was pretty much the same as Q3 and Q4 of 2020. We knew that some business categories were doing great and others not so well. Our focus was to first see and help as many businesses as we possibly could.

Reporter: How about the second quarter (Q2) of this year? Did you change your game plan at all?

Manager/Coach: We did a little bit of adjusting. A lot of clients seemed to be searching for something new. We had to bring our best game and all our tools to the table, traditional media, digital, and we even implemented some promotions and events.

Manager/Coach: We experienced some losses but also some big wins too. Of course, we were going up against smaller comps. Even though the goal is to get back to pre-COVID numbers, a win is a win at this stage!

Reporter: What’s the current temperature of the business owners?

Manager/Coach: It varies, but one consistent thing is that they don’t want to buy advertising… they want IDEAS and they will buy if you have an IDEA that they believe will improve their traffic, and ultimately their sales.

Reporter: Going into the second half, what are your goals?

Manager/Coach: To Win and Win Big! I don’t mean by just beating the 2020 numbers. I mean by surpassing the numbers we were at in 2019, pre-COVID. It’s very doable, but we won’t get there unless we execute, work hard, and bring better ideas to our clients than our competitors are. 

Reporter: Anything else?  

Manager/Coach: You know, radio is in a great position to help these business owners. We just have to get out there and work hard. There are some real opportunities out there right now. Recruitment should be on everyone’s radar! But you need to execute it correctly or it’ll backfire on you. In addition, the combination of digital/social and radio can be very powerful. We just need to get out there and tell our story to anyone and everyone willing to listen. Then Execute!

Reporter: Good luck with the second-half manager!

Manager/Coach: Thank you! Go Radio! 

At ENS Media, we wish everyone good luck as we start the second half of 2021.

We appreciate that you are a reader of ENS on Sales and we hope that you find the topics useful.

If you know of someone that you think would enjoy receiving ENS on Sales, click here and send us their email address. We will add them to our mailing list and send them an email letting them know that you suggested them.

Go Radio!

Be Prepared for “NO”

There are three things you need to know about business owners. They are savvy, they are extremely busy, and they are nice… most of the time! Oh, and they are extremely busy!

Because they are nice (most of the time) but busy, over time they have evolved and come up with four of the “most common” ways to stop radio reps in their tracks by saying…

1.    “My budget is set for the year. Come back next year.”

2.    “We are so busy we can’t handle any more business.”

3.    “Send me your media kit.”

4.    “I tried radio once. It didn’t work.”

 …and because they are savvy and can adapt and evolve faster than the average human, their latest and greatest objection, post-COVID is, “We can’t get any product, so there is no reason to advertise”.

Number one is rarely ever true. If you’re talking to the right person who establishes the budget, they can change that budget whenever they want to. Don’t buy this objection.

What he/she is really saying is, “I don’t know you. I don’t trust you and I have no reason to believe that what you offer will get me an adequate return on my investment”. If they did trust you or believe you, they would agree to see you. Or, if you were presenting to them and asking them to buy, they would either revise their budget or pay for the schedule with the additional business your idea would bring to their business.

Number two is also rarely ever true, as most business owners will always say, “doing great is never good enough”. They ALWAYS want more. If in the rare case it is true, you now know a category where there are one or more competitors that you can approach and help capture the business “Mr./Mrs. Busy” can’t handle.

Number three, the media kit, is just a polite way of saying “Get lost”, “I’m not interested”, and/or, “you’re a nice person, I just don’t believe you’re here to help me”. Besides, no one has ever bought advertising based on a “pretty” media kit.

When a prospect asks for a media kit, a seasoned professional will respond by opening the door to more productive questioning. The professional media rep will be prepared and tell their prospect that they don’t want to bombard them with irrelevant information and then dig into what they would specifically like to see in the “the media kit”. The questions and answers that follow can result in delivering a customer-focused presentation instead of a generic media kit.

…and number four, “I tried radio once and it didn’t work!” There are several reasons why it may not have worked. You need to be prepared to walk them through why it may not have worked.

If you would like to learn how to build a positive, professional relationship, and build trust with your suspects and prospects so they won’t say “NO”, reach out to us. We can help show you how. The investment to do so is much less expensive than one “NO” a year!!!

Your Patience Will Pay

You’ll know it when you see, or should I say, feel it… a business owner with a true passion for their business!

There’s at least one or more in every business category. They come in all shapes and sizes… an attorney or a veterinarian, an autobody repair shop, a roofing contractor, an accountant, a dentist, or an auctioneer.

You’ll know they have a passion for their business because they speak at a more excitable octave. Their eyes are open wider and brighter. They’ll explain their business in more vivid detail, and there is simply a different aura in the room.

You’ll know it when you feel it!

When you do, have patience. Take your time. Don’t try to sell them too quickly.

These are the businesses that really want to grow. Ask deeper questions and do more research so you can create a presentation with a strategy that includes better ideas and solutions that will produce positive results. Then, you’ll have a client for life!

Nearly all of us are in sales, and sellers want to sell. But when you meet a business owner with a passion for their business, slow down!

Your Patience will Pay!