Whether you are a media rep or in management, we appreciate you reading ENS on Sales each week. We hope that you find the articles helpful.

We know that this is the time of year that you start making plans for 2023. With that in mind, one time a year we take the opportunity to present to you a complete lineup of ENS Media’s products and services. This is that week.

If you’re considering any outside training, revenue-generating programs, or workshops, give me a call anytime. Of course, no obligation. We can simply visit about your situation and what you’d like to accomplish.

Here is a line-up of our products and services. Click here to read some of our testimonials.

TOMA Surveys and Seminars: These local market surveys and seminars provide your clients and prospects, along with your sales team, valuable knowledge on the power of radio combined with the new digital media. Following the seminar, Rick stays in the market and meets 1-on-1 with clients and reps. This entire program is designed to generate new annual revenue and provide your media reps with hundreds of new prospects and information on how to sell in the new media world.

SoundADvice: Our 4-part weekly E-marketing system is designed to brand your media reps and stations as the advertising “experts” in your market. This completely self-sufficient system keeps your media reps in weekly contact with clients and prospects by providing valuable bits of information on running a business. Every true marketing professional should use SoundADvice. It is market exclusive when purchased as a group, but is also offered on an individual rep basis.

Recruitment Advertising Seminars: New in 2020. These 45-minute mini-seminars (we suggest 3-4 per market visit) will conquer 3 things: 1) Answer and provide a solution to your clients’ and prospects’ biggest concern… how to attract, hire, and retain “good” employees, 2) Increase your sales and revenue with this proven system 3) Train your reps to sell more Recruitment Advertising in the future and further position them as true advertising experts with their prospects and clients.

*Workshops and Presentations: We create and conduct workshops that cover nearly every area of the radio sales cycle. Here are individual topics on which we do 1 or 2-hour presentations/workshops, or combined, ½ day or full-day workshops:

• Prospecting / Cold Calling: Main Street is Shrinking
• 1st Meeting / CNA: Ask Better Questions to Get Better Answers
• Creating Presentations/Proposals
• How to Create Strategies and Why Strategy Wins!
• 20 Tips for Creating Better Ads
• Customer Lifetime Value
• Selling Radio vs Digital (How to embrace digital)
• How to Sell Radio “MORE Better”
• 7 Criteria for Effective Advertising
• How to Create TOMA (Top of Mind Awareness)
• Marketing Funnel: Passive Media vs Intrusive Media

      *We can and will create specific workshops to match your unique needs.

If you would like to talk, contact me and provide the best day and time to call, or, simply call me anytime at the number below.

Again, thank you for reading ENS on Sales, and thank you for allowing me to present our company. 

As a media rep, whether you like it or not, you are being judged by your prospects and clients; not just at the beginning of your relationship, but all the time.

They are not just judging you on whether you are nice and professional; they are judging you on whether you bring value to themselves and their businesses.

Have you ever walked into a client or prospect’s business and when they see you, they dash out the nearest door? Or when you ask to see a client, the person at the front desk returns with, “They’re busy right now”?

Granted, sometimes it’s legit and they really are busy. However, more often than not, it’s an excuse! I have always suggested that when we walk into a business and the owner looks up and sees us, they make an immediate conscious decision. It’s either, “GREAT, there’s Rick and he brings value to my business, I love talking to Rick”, or “There’s Rick and I don’t have time to waste today. I know he’s going to try to sell me something!”

Are you bringing value to your clients, and what constitutes value? It may be articles about their business category, how to keep employees satisfied, or healthcare regulations. Anything that pertains to the many hats they wear as an owner/manager. You can find information on any topic, just Google it. But be careful not to deliver information about your product (radio) or your stations too often. And no, cookies have little to no value and DO NOT qualify! 

How you deliver value is equally as important. Always emailing or dropping it off, in the same manner, will lose its flair. If you know they are not in the office/business, drop it off and leave a short note, “Joe, I ran across this article and thought you might find it interesting”. Even using “snail mail” is a good option. Be CREATIVE!

I challenge you to be honest with yourself. Do you bring VALUE to your clients and prospects, or do they see you as just a “salesperson”? How much VALUE you bring to your clients will be in direct proportion to how willing they are to see you, and more importantly, how much they will invest with you! 

Starting today, make sure you’re always increasing your VALUE!

Our SoundADvice E-Marketing system is the best way to bring value to your clients and prospects each week. It helps brand your reps and stations as the “Advertising Experts” in your market. If you would like to learn how to take advantage of SoundADvice, click here to see a few testimonials, and let’s talk! SoundADvice is market exclusive, so be the first in your market to call.

If you’re a seasoned writer, you may not agree with this. However, if you are an untrained media rep or a new rep, writing a basic ad can be frightening and hard. Writing a good ad is even more difficult. And writing great ads takes a unique talent.

I think everyone would agree that there are way too many “bad ads” on local media. This isn’t just radio; it very much includes newspapers, magazines, digital, and especially local TV ads.

Many times in small and medium markets, it’s the sales rep that is writing the ads for their clients. While I actually subscribe to this, most reps aren’t trained on how to write basic ads, much less on how to insert meaningful creativity into an ad. And, creating effective campaigns is almost unheard of.

When I work with media reps and we are discussing the creative side of their job, I always emphasize that writing an ad is the hard part. Fixing an ad is easy and I teach them ways to do this.

In most small to medium-sized markets, the average rep has way too many clients on the air each month, with way too small of schedules (that subject is for another day) to devote the required time and effort to write good, effective ads.

One of the things that make radio stations sound bad is all the boring, redundant, cliché-filled ads with useless words, and oftentimes, way too many words. Here is a simple example…

“Ben’s Bargain Barn – Located at the corner of 10^th and Main in Downtown River City”.

This sentence has a total of 15 words, 6 of which are useless and not needed. It should read, “Ben’s Bargain Barn, 10^th and Main, Downtown River City”.

The words “located at the corner of” and “in” have no bearing on the message you are trying to get across. The only reason we write them into a script is that we assume we should use proper grammar while writing radio ads. 

When it comes to writing ads for radio, using proper grammar can, and often times will make the ads too “wordy”. Taking the connecting words out and instead using a pregnant pause will have a more dramatic effect and will grab the listeners’ attention. 

“It’s the biggest dress sale of the season. You will find hundreds of dresses in all sizes and colors at drastically reduced prices. The sale ends this Saturday, so hurry in today while the selection is at its best”.

It should read…

”The biggest dress sale of the season… find hundreds of dresses – all sizes and colors – drastically reduced prices! Sale ends Saturday – hurry in

today while the selection is best”.

In this example, it’s 10 words less than the original, and that’s only two sentences. If you do this with three or four of the sentences in a typical 30-second ad, you could find an additional 10 to 20 words that could be used to say something more profound to grab someone’s attention. 

Keep in mind that these are basic ads. We didn’t take a bad ad and make it great; we simply made it a little bit better.

It’s hard for untrained media reps to write an ad, but if you know the process, it’s easy to fix bad ads and make them respectable.

If you want your team to create and write better ads, click here to visit with Rick about our training workshops on How to Create, Write and Produce Ads that work MORE Better! 

Your clients will get better responses and your stations will not only sound better, but you’ll make more money!

If the only thing your clients receive from you is an invoice, they won’t be your clients for very long!

That sounds harsh, but it’s the truth!

If the only conversation you have with your prospects and clients, or the only information they receive from you, is a proposal asking them to buy from you, they won’t be your client for very long!

It too sounds harsh, but it’s true!

When is the last time you provided something other than a proposal or an invoice to your clients or prospects?

Are you just trying to sell them or are you providing them with solid information on how to do a better job of marketing their business, or ideas to help them run their business more smoothly?

If you want to be more than just a sales rep to your clients, if you want your clients and prospects to trust you and view you as a professional media rep, if you want them to trust you enough to buy more from you, then you must provide them with something more than just an invoice!  Are you?

If not, click here to arrange a short, friendly, no-obligation phone call to learn more about our SoundADvice program. The investment is minimal, the process is simple, and the results are powerful!

How do you define hard work?

If you’re like most, when we say “hard work” we think of physical, tough labor that includes sweating, getting dirty, accompanied by tired and sore arms, legs, and back. 

As media reps and managers, we don’t typically describe what we do as “labor” in every sense of the word. I never once got blisters (other than maybe on my butt) while selling radio or managing people, although I have secretly been sweating bullets a few times. Nonetheless, what we do is laborious and at times it’s absolutely hard work.

One definition of labor is, “productive activity, especially for the sake of economic gain”. If you’re in sales, we hope that you are doing it because of the great potential for economic gain.

Unofficially the first celebration to recognize “hard work” was held on Sept. 5, 1882. Union leaders in New York City organized a “Labor Day” parade. Tens of thousands of labor union members—bricklayers, jewelers, typographers, dress and cloak makers, and many other tradespeople, took unpaid leave and marched with their locals. The day culminated in picnics, speeches, fireworks, and dancing. It was in 1884 that Labor Day was officially recognized as a national holiday, always to be celebrated on the first Monday of September.

This weekend, celebrate yourself for what you do and what you do for your customers and the economy. But also celebrate those that make it possible for us to do what we do; the on-air staff, engineers, production, promotions, traffic, support, and even the people that keep your office clean. If it weren’t for them, your job wouldn’t be possible.

In addition, celebrate everyone else in your cities and communities, the first responders (our police, first responders, and our firemen and women), those that work in the factories and fields, in the offices, retail stores, sanitation, truck drivers, linemen, service and medical professionals, the stay-at-home moms, and dads and don’t forget our military and our educators.

More importantly, this weekend and always, celebrate and appreciate everyone, regardless of their political party and views, regardless of the color of their skin or the religion they choose to believe in.

We hope your Labor Day weekend is filled with picnics, speeches, fireworks, and maybe even a little dancing.  But most of all, make sure you celebrate YOU and your hard work!