Tag Archives: Customers

Celebrate – All of Us!

How do you define hard work? How hard do you work?

As media reps and managers, we don’t typically describe what we do as “labor” in every sense of the word. Nonetheless, what we do is laborious.

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.

Another definition is, “physical or mental work, especially of a hard or fatiguing kind; toil”. While you’re probably not getting blisters, and the work we do is not physically toiling on your body, the task we perform oftentimes leaves you mentally shot at the end of a day. These last five and a half months has certainly taken its toll on everyone in one form or another.

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 first responders (our police, firemen and women), those that work in the factories and fields, in the offices, retail stores, truck drivers, linemen, service and medical professionals, the stay-at-home moms, and dads.

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.

This Labor Day, let’s celebrate us… all of us!

Who’s Getting the Credit?

How many times have you heard an advertiser say, “We ask every person that calls or comes through our door how they heard about us.” The answers vary, but prior to the New Media Age (digital/social), it was typically newspaper, direct mail or the Yellow Pages that garnered most of the credit.

Why do the customers say this? Mainly, because it’s true! These mediums are usually the last point of contact just prior to the purchase. It’s the end of the buying cycle or the bottom of the Marketing Funnel.

But, have your advertisers considered that it may have been the radio or TV ad that persuaded their customers to even consider looking at their ad or visiting their website? “Intrusive Media” (Radio/TV), if done correctly, should have created an emotional connection with prospective customers long before “Passive Media”(print/digital), which is the point of research prior to purchase, comes into play.

The average person will only consider doing business with someone they are familiar with and feel good about.

We ask the question in every one of our TOMA surveys, “If you use Google or some other search engine, would you be more likely to click on a business that you have never heard of at the top of the list, or the first business you recognized or were familiar with?” The results are ALWAYS the same. 82-86% say they will click on a business they are familiar with. 1-2% say they will select the name at the top of the list, and approximately 12-15% say both.

It’s clear that having TOMA, “Top of Mind Awareness”, has a LOT of value!

Feel free to use this question and its results the next time a client says that their customers heard about them via the “Passive Medias” of the world, i.e. print, direct mail, social/digital.

It’s still the “Intrusive Medias”, TV & Radio, that do all the heavy lifting!

If you would like to see how our TOMA Surveys and Seminars can help you generate new income in 2019 and beyond, click here and let’s talk.

Be a Part of the Solution, Not the Problem!

Starting this Friday (now Thursday), the biggest shopping days of the year begin and your clients, particularly your retail clients, are scared to death. It’s not J.C. Penny, Best Buy or Walmart that scares them. Today, it’s Amazon and the many thousands of other online minions that are trying to gobble up their customers and rain on their holiday shopping parade.

Is there anything you can do about it? Yes, in fact, there is!

First, DO NOT buy on-line yourself, unless you cannot buy it at a “brick and mortar” store. Lead by example and share this with your team. We should never tell our employees where to buy, but you can encourage them and show them the impact it can and will cause. In advertising sales, we rely on the “brick and mortar” stores to make our living. If we personally don’t “walk the talk” and support them, how can we honestly ask those clients to spend with us?

Secondly, one of the most powerful things I have ever heard came from my lifelong mentor, Don Jacobs. Don ran what he referred to as TOMA Branding Ads for his group of radio stations which covered topics on advertising, business, and life. The most powerful one he ever wrote was titled “Buy Local”, and he ran it during the holiday shopping period. In a nutshell, the ad asked the listeners of his stations to buy local instead of buying online. He outlined why it’s important to our community and our local businesses.

Do you think the local business owners appreciated him and his stations for this message? They didn’t just appreciate it…they absolutely LOVED it! Finally, someone (this group of radio stations) was standing up for them and asking people NOT to buy online, but instead, support their local businesses.

It’s not too late to write and produce this powerful message and run it in your market. Like Don, you too will be a Hero!

Don has graciously offered to give you a free sample of one of his “Buy Local” ads. If you’d like to take advantage of this, click here and we’ll get you a copy ASAP.

Prospect for “PASSION”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce will tell you that there are approximately 60 registered businesses for every 1000 population within a city. Of these 60 registered businesses, we suspect approximately 50 of them are viable prospects that have the ability to advertise on some level. So, in a city of 50,000 people you have approximately 2,500 viable prospects!

If you have been to one of our workshops or seminars in the past five years, you’ve heard us say that Main Street is shrinking, and that the best places to prospect today are in the service and professional business categories. But regardless of the business category, there is one important quality to look for when prospecting. That quality is… an owner who has “PASSION” for their business!

If you read last week’s ENS on Sales, Just Fishing or Trying to Land the Big One, you’ll recall I stated that nearly every six-figure account my sales team landed took three to six months to land, and some even longer. What I didn’t say was that these same accounts started out spending small and grew from there. But ultimately these business owners all had one major thing in common! You guessed it… they ALL had PASSION for what they did.

There is no secret to identifying those who have it. You’ll feel the passion once you meet them. They get excited, even “gitty” when they talk about what their company has to offer. They share more exciting stories, have more love for their employees and customers, are more open to your ideas and have bigger dreams for their business.

When prospecting, look for the business owners who have passion. Then have the patience and knowledge to help them get where it is they want to go! All they need is someone like YOU, who has nearly as much passion about their business as they do and knows how to make advertising work.

Are your Advertising Reps trained properly to handle these and other accounts? If you have the passion to help your reps be all they can be, click here and let’ s discuss how ENS Media can help train and brand your sales team as marketing professionals.

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.