Fire Yourself

Fire Yourself and Start Over

           I happened to be at a client’s station the other day when a listener came in to pick up a prize they had won. One of the station’s staff asked if the winner wanted a tour of the station.
          I couldn’t believe the response. You would think they were just offered an all expense paid tour of Europe! “Really?!” she said excitedly, “I’ve never been in a radio station before!”
          At that moment I quietly admitted to myself that I had become so close to the forest that I wasn’t in awe of the trees anymore.
          Do you remember how you felt when you scored your first radio job? Your friends couldn’t believe you were in ‘show biz’. You were in the mass electronic communications business, playing music, getting back stage passes, hearing the news before anyone else and it was FUN!
          And what about the first broadcast order you filled out? Was it more exciting than the daily paper you push today?
          Maybe it’s time to fire yourself and start your career again with that same enthusiasm.
          Sure you’ve got budget pressures (you used to call them “challenges”) and your clients are cutting back or demanding competitive proposals and costs. But there’s a lot of sizzle to the sell of radio that many of us have forgotten.
          Are you using the emotional power of music or the compelling sound of the human voice in spec spots to put the excitement and sizzle into your presentations?
          Have you offered the services of your personalities to M.C. events at your client’s club? Is your station aloof or do you offer your audience station tours like the station I was at?
          Do you offer your clients opportunities to sponsor exciting on-air contests?
          While you might think all of the buzz today is around new media, there’s still a lot to be said for local people being able to call their favorite station and talk to a real live person.
          Your music inspires them and your information, contests and humor still evoke conversations around the water cooler. Radio advertising is just as effective today as the day you started in the biz. The only difference is, you now have more competitors vying for your sponsors’ attention. To win, your presentations need to be more professional and more exciting.
          Your clients have a lot of media choices today. And you have to deliver the competitivelypriced steak they want, to get the sale. But if you’ll fire yourself and start your ‘new’ career with the enthusiasm you had at your first job, the sizzle you add to your steak will be the tiebreaker to help clients choose you over a competitor.
 

P.S. While you’re having fun again, I’m betting you’ll also make more calls!!       

Gatekeepers

How to By-pass the Gatekeeper

          We have all seen them. Those steadfast front office gatekeepers who are trained to ‘protect’ the decision maker from you.
          You have three strategic alternatives to getting past these sales preventers;
1.) Go around them.
2.) Wait until they die or leave the company.
3.) Win them over.
 
          In reality, option three, winning them over, is your only viable option.      The process of winning over the gatekeeper begins with respect. They are doing their job. Heck, some of them might be the spouse or son or daughter of the owner!
          Your job is to sell the gatekeeper first.
The process begins by showing respect for their position and determining what is in it for them to introduce you to the decision maker.
          Perhaps it’s job security as a result of the increased business your advertising will attract. Perhaps it’s discussing an ad idea they told you about and giving them credit for that idea when you meet the decision maker. It may be simply doing a favor for their friend who referred you to them.
          It’s your job as a professional communicator to uncover what’s in it from the gatekeeper’s perspective to give you the key to the decision maker’s office. The respect you show the gatekeeper when you open dialogue to uncover their needs, pays off in more ways than one.
          Very often it is that very gatekeeper who is assigned to conduct a customer survey or is asked their opinion of which media is driving customers to the business. Somehow, I don’t think the media rep who trampled over the gatekeeper will get the same fair shake as you when the gatekeeper conducts their customer survey.

Busy in Not a Good Word

Busy Is Not A Good Word

           Paul Orfalea, founder of the Kinko’s chain of copy stores, said, "Busy is not a good word. It’s not a good excuse. Come on, it’s common sense. Get it done; delegate it.”
          Mr. Orfalea, nicknamed "Kinko" because of his curly red hair, has seen the chain he founded grow to over 1,100 locations worldwide. He says,“I never aimed for busy-ness at Kinko’s. The workers in the front lines are my customers. I need to keep them happy. And the best way to take care of your customers is to take care of your front line workers. I always believe that a manager’s first responsibility is to their workers."
          I often meet multi-tasking managers who confuse ‘busy’ with ‘productive’ and blame their frantic activity level for not being able to manage their most important customers…their staffs!
          The reality is, we have the tools today to allow us to multi-task without becoming so busy that we fail to motivate our people.
          Managers who once had secretaries typing and mailing their correspondence, and who had to search through cumbersome rolodexes to find contact information can now multi-task without missing a beat thanks to email, computers, the internet, hand-held mobile devices and more.
          The Kinko’s founder wasquick to grasp the difference between working hard and working smart. He knew that efficiency and doing things right was often not as important as effectiveness – doing the right things.
          A harried ‘busy’ manager can end up ‘working’ 12 hours a day, destroying their life’s balance and rendering them less effective in business.
          Entrepreneurial and managerial productivity today is not measured in hours or tasks, but in results. And it is the motivated staff that actually produces those end results.
          Two old clichés can help you stay focused on your staff to be more productive;
1.) You can be as successful as you want to be if you are willing to let others take the credit.
2.) You can get whatever you want if you simply help enough others get what they want.

Who’s in Sales

      Who’s In Sales?

           Everyone in your station is either in sales, or affects sales. A personality performing master of ceremony duties at a community event, an engineer meeting a client and setting up a remote, the traffic manager charged with getting the order right and the copy writer responsible for writing ads that work …..they all affect sales.
          You already know that. But when was the last time everyone in your building was thanked and invited to join in celebrating a successful sales month?
          All too often the heavy lifters in your organization see the sales people getting bonuses, praise from the president, or celebratory dinners, while a great sales month only meant more workload for them.
          Everyone is in sales. When your sales ‘department’ truly knocks one out of the park, the highest ranking officer in your company needs to acknowledge and thank everyone in the building for their role in that success!
          And sales people, those troops in suits who receive financial rewards with every sales success, need to personally thank and even offer small tokens of appreciation to those who help make their lives easier.
          One method I recommend to the sales reps I work with is to “catch someone doing something right every day”….that’s right, catch them doing something right and recognize it. Behaviors that get recognized or rewarded are behaviors that get repeated.
          It’s human nature to catch someone doing something wrong when they make a mistake on an order, or miss a deadline. But keeping your eyes peeled to catch someone doing something right every day will result in fewer mistakes over time, a much healthier team environment and more respect for the sales department from everyone in the building.
          Everyone is in sales. Let’s start showing our appreciation to them.

Back to Basics Marketing

Back to Basics Marketing

 

          I just read a 242 page report entitled, The State of Social Media Marketing, compiled from surveying 5,140 marketing professionals. The survey was conducted to determine how these experts were using social media to launch campaigns and promotions, measure return on investment, and engage audiences.   

          The publisher promoting the report highlighted these three findings;         1.) Social media strategy is far more important than hurriedly    enacting a bunch of social media tactics.

          2.) There is no such thing as one-size-fits-all in social media tactics.

          3.) It is critical to map social media plans to a strategy that is          customized to your company and customers.

DUH!

          What’s so darn different?! Marketing communications basics are obviously the same from media to media;

1.) Your strategy and message are key to your success.

2.) There is no message where ‘one-size-fits-all’.

3.) Your message has to be ‘customized’ to fit your customers and your company.

          With all of the jargon and hype around new media, it’s pretty easy for you, and even easier for your clients, to become intimidated and feel overwhelmed.

          Don’t!

          Those of us who have honed and sold our skills as marketing communication experts rather than commoditizing spots as our ‘inventory’, have skills even more valuable to advertisers today than when there were fewer media and messages to deal with.   

          Your prospects can buy spots and space from more media choices now than ever before. The media sales people who will earn advertiser dollars in 2010 and beyond are those media sales people who have always understood the basic ‘findings’ of that 242 page report. The strategy and message must fit the customer and the company.

          P.S. A pet peeve of mine is media people who sell spots, thinking they can run the same ‘one-size-fits-all’ message in every format. If you are selling a cluster with dramatically different target audiences, is it realistic to run the same message on every station? Shouldn’t your car dealer promote a different car to your golden oldies audience than she promotes to your hip hop audience?