Three Strikes

 Three Strikes

          I recently had a relatively new sales manager confide in me that she was wrestling with the internal discomfort of initiating her first firing.
          I recall the first time I had to terminate an employee. I was the ripe old age of 24, and found the task so distasteful that I had to pull off on the side of the road on the way home that evening and throw up.
          To this day, I feel that failure of a staff member is also partially failure on management’s part. It’s management’s mandate to recruit and cultivate great people.
          Having said that, management can lose the respect of the rest of the staff if they are perceived to be too weak to do what is in the company’s best interest and tolerate an underperforming employee.
          And you can bet your underperformer doesn’t feel very good about their career either.
          Before dismissing a person for underperformance, however, I recommend you use my Three Strikes process.
          Step one: is to only manage what can be measured.  Underperformance is the generic result of not doing certain things right or often enough. Identify exactly and precisely what steps the ‘underperformer’ is missing or why they aren’t performing to par.
          Get them to agree to specific tactics or actions, complete with specific measureable goals and deadlines, to improve their results and document and confirm that agreement in writing. ‘Attitude’ for example, can be subjective and hard to measure, but showing up on time every day or making ‘x’ number of presentations is a measurable sign of a good attitude.
          Step two:  give the person three opportunities to correct those specific causes. And during each of those opportunities, offer your assistance, training, coaching and whatever resources you can bring to the table to help them achieve those goals.
          Once you’ve done your best three times and the individual has not progressed in those specific problem areas, you’re doing them, yourself, your company, and the other people on staff a huge favor when you give them the opportunity to seek a new career.  
          Need a management or leadership coach and mentor? The best performers in sports, entertainment and business, have mentors and/or coaches to help them improve their performance  Contact me in complete confidence to enquire about the ENS Media mentoring and coaching program.  
 

The Smartest People in the World

 

The Smartest People in the World
 
          Have you ever noticed that you believe the most intelligent people are the people who think just like you? Those who differ, are often dismissed as out of touch or ‘idiots’.
          For example, I’ve long held Roy Williams, the Wizard of Ads, in high regard because he’s been able to articulate exactly what I already believed.
          The advent of everything from social media to streaming, and from satellites to the internet, and rumors about the death of traditional media have confused your clients. 
          They are looking for intelligent media advisors or account executives who can demonstrate how their media is a perfect fit for what they already believe to be true.
          The largest part of selling today occurs long before your presentation. It includes asking meaningful open ended questions to uncover what your prospects already believe.
          It includes learning who their mentors are, what books they read, and what other influences and influencers have formed their beliefs.
          And it involves pre-selling with a minimum of five to seven value statements that perfectly align your solutions with your prospect’s beliefs about marketing and advertising.
          The old sales tactic of ‘handling objections’ by changing a prospect’s beliefs is dead!
          Your advertisers have more choices today than ever before, and they’ll choose the solutions that are most closely aligned with what they believe.
          Click here to inquire how our Becoming A Master Questioner workshop reveals the secrets to uncovering your prospect’s beliefs, and how our SoundADvice e-marketing system helps align you with those beliefs to pre-sell your ‘intelligence’ before you present your solutions.

Genius vs Insanity

 

Genius vs Insanity
 
          I think retail advertising expert Morris Saffer said it best when he said, “It doesn’t take a genius to increase your sales. Simply cut your prices in half and you’ll make more sales. The genius” said Morris “is in increasing your sales at a profit!”
          I often marvel at media sales managers who wear being “sold out” as a badge of honour.  To me, being sold out is NOT a good thing.  Being sold out simply means your prices are too low, and you’re turning down business. Where is the honour in that?
          And the long term damage that is caused by commoditising our industry with ‘unsold inventory sales’ makes me feel like the inmates are running the asylum.
          In our 12 Profitable Pricing Strategies, one of the strategies we suggest is to re-examine your sales compensation system.
          Many stations reward salespeople and sales managers, on gross sales, whether those sales are profitable or not. Talk about lunacy!
          I compare it to the real estate salesperson who would rather sell your house for $450,000 than $500,000.  The difference to you is $50,000. But with commissions in excess of $20,000, the difference in commission between the low price and the high price, is only a couple of thousand dollars to the agent. Many agents would rather take the least line of resistance and ‘sell’ at the lower price (I use the word ‘sell’ very loosely).
          Car dealers don’t pay commissions on the total price of the car.  They only pay on the gross profit of each car.
          While your bean counters might protest it’s more difficult to manage commissions based upon profit per spot than on gross sales, you know your rates would go up if you paid more for better rates.  Right now your salespeople only care about the total sale, and have no incentive to drive rate. This strategy leaves you with the headache of ‘inventory management’. 
          If you did not see our 12 Profitable Pricing Strategies for radio and TV last week, see them on our website here.
 

Alternate Choice Closes

 

Alternate Choice Closes
 
          My wife asked me to pick up some cream at the store the other day. Have you been there lately? There was low-fat cream, table cream, light cream, whipping cream , no-fat cream and a host of other creams from which to choose. By the way, isn’t ‘no-fat cream’ just milk?
          I was confused which one to choose!
          Your clients today are confused by all of the media choices they have; daily deal sites, coupon envelopes, bus backs, radio, TV, social media, email, search engine optimisers, newspapers….you know the list, it goes on and on. There are way too many choices.
          Busy multi-tasking business owners are looking for media consultants like you to help them make their choice easy. But if you play salesperson instead of consultant, you’ll lose them!
          Salespeople don’t care what the advertisers buy, as long as they buy. So they stoop to old ‘alternate choice closes’, giving the prospect a number of solutions to choose from. The alternate choice close simply sends the signal you are there to sell, not to help. You don’t care which choice they buy, you just want them to buy.
          The consultant, on the other hand, transfers confidence to the advertiser by having the conviction to recommend one solid solution based upon their research, knowledge and expertise.
          Often they have alternate solutions as a back-up in the event their proposal is rejected, but they never present a laundry list of solutions in the hope that the client chooses one.
          In a world of too many media choices, advertisers are looking for a trusted advisor to recommend a solution that is specifically designed for their situation, rather than picking a generic solution from a laundry list of choices.
 
Click here if you would like to discover how our SoundADvice radio e-marketing system can help you present more customer-focused solutions. 
 

Really?

Really?

 

            I was approached by a small radio group recently that had concluded “training” would solve their high failure rate of entry level salespeople. As a consultant, training has always been part of my bag of success tricks so I listened.

One of their managers said, “Our turnover rate is killing us. Our new recruits seldom succeed because they aren’t trained properly.”

            “Really?” I asked.

I asked about their hiring process, new recruit remuneration packages and their training, and while I’m pro-training, quickly discovered training wouldn’t be the miracle cure for their problem.

            Basically, their recruiting process consisted of the old mirror test…… they put a mirror under the candidates nose and if it fogged up, they got the job.

            But even worse, was their remuneration package. “We want self-starters,” one manager proclaimed. “We give them a 90 day guarantee and no account list. After that they eat what they kill.” And the management team concluded the reason most didn’t make it past the 90-day mark was because they lacked confidence in themselves or didn’t have the right training.

            My first job was as an apprentice carpenter (don’t ask how I got into ad sales, it’s a long story).  It takes four years and lots of night school to complete a carpenter’s apprenticeship. Having done ad sales and carpentry, I can tell you both take a lot of skill and learning.  What makes anyone think we can be accomplished ad salespeople after 90 days with any amount of training?

            And then we compound the problem by asking new recruits to sell while their knees are knocking because they need the sale to put bread on the table. We’ve all seen these ‘failed’ recruits move on to successful selling careers in other fields. It’s time we gave them a chance in media.

            While training is part of the success equation, pre-qualified recruitment, a realistic investment in start-up salaries, leadership and mentoring also play dominant roles in a ‘rookie’s’ success.