Tag Archives: Clients

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.

Offense or Defense?

While watching World Cup Soccer recently, and at the same time thinking about work, some thoughts occurred to me. What’s more important in sales, offense or defense?

We all understand offense, right? You go out there and score, get the sale and celebrate! It goes without saying that to make money you must make sales! Soccer, as in sales, is very strategic, the better the planning the easier it is to score.  But occasionally, they take random shots. I suggest that you be more strategic in your approach, but every so often it’s OK to take that random shot. If you’re keeping track, a “No” is one step closer to a “Yes”.

So where does defense come into play? Defense in sales is what keeps your client a client for a long, long time.  It’s the service work after the sale, the little extras that go above and beyond what other reps are willing to do.

Like offense, defense takes practice, but it isn’t always as much fun.  In soccer, as in most sports, offense gets all the recognition. Offense is fun and rewarding. Defense is work, but as many great coaches have preached, “Defense Wins Championships”!

Let me ask you a question.  Do you think your client would prefer you be better at offense or defense?

This week, if you’re not already, I encourage you to add “defense” to your practice schedule!

If you would like some help with offense or defense, let us know. We would love the opportunity to visit about how we can train and brand your stations and account executives as professional marketing consultants and help grow your revenue with our proven sales and training programs.

Quit Calling It “Direct Mail”

You’ve probably seen the latest BIA Kelsey data that radio is the sixth-highest used advertising platform today, with “direct mail” being the number one advertising platform in terms of advertising expenditures.

In telling radio’s story, we have to educate advertisers about the miss-use of the term “direct mail”.

Direct mail is mail that is addressed and sent “directly” to a known person’s address.

The advertising that is delivered to households indiscriminately is better defined as “mass mail” or is commonly referred to as “junk mail”.

The reasons radio account executives need to make that distinction are many.

First, your advertisers and prospects are hearing at their trade conferences and reading in their trade magazines about the “success” of direct mail. And it’s true, direct mail by nature works because it’s sent directly to a prequalified known prospect.  Smart radio account executives encourage their clients to use real direct mail in the media mix because today, it’s FREE.

In the old days, advertisers had to compensate printing shops, paper mills, delivery trucks or the post office to produce and deliver their direct mail.

Today, direct mail is literally free via permission-based email….no envelopes, no printing presses, no postage stamps.

Don’t let your advertisers return from their conferences all hyped up about direct mail only to end up sending what’s really junk mail…sent via indiscriminate household “flooding”.

Click here to arrange an on-line demo of how our local TOMA surveys and SoundADvice radio e-marketing system are helping radio station account executives prove the ineffectiveness of junk mail, and the effectiveness of a broadcast and permission-based e-mail campaign.

Being Productive in 2016

 I understand how busy multi-tasking sales managers can be today. I also understand it’s pretty easy to get bogged down pouring over spreadsheets, creating forecasts, reading fiction (a.k.a. call reports) and a long list of other paper-shuffling and data processing tasks.
            But there is one activity you should consider this year that will only take one hour per week that will produce more revenue for your stations.
            Simply identify your top 50 clients and meet with them face-to-face, one per week, without an account executive.
            You might do it over lunch, breakfast, or invite yourself for a tour of the client’s business.  During each meeting, plan to achieve the following three goals;
  1. Thank them for their business. Your top 50 clients want to feel like your top 50 clients, and feel their business is appreciated.
  2. Ask them how THEY are doing. Use these face-to-face meetings to keep your fingers on the pulse of the market. Look for bright spots you can share with your sales team, and problems your stations might help solve.
  3. Ask THEM how you are doing. How can your station, your rep, and you, serve them better in the coming months.
           Do this with one client per week, and I can guarantee you’ll be a better manager, and book more business in 2016.
Sincerely,

Wayne Ens

ENSMedia Inc.

705-484-9993