Tag Archives: Radio

The Powerful TRUTH

The majority of business owners, managers, and media buyers that deal with media reps have heard nearly every song and dance there is about why they should buy from you and your stations.

What a lot of them haven’t heard is… the TRUTH!

If you are not doing so now, here are some of the TRUTHS about radio that we should be sharing and using in our presentations with the decision-makers:

“Good advertising won’t make a bad business a good business.”

“We suggest fixing the inside of your business before you consider advertising.”

“No one listens to our radio stations for the ads.”

“When the jock stops talking or the song ends, and the ads come on, people actually lean back and subconsciously turn their ears off.”

“The radio station is not the most important element in determining whether your campaign will be successful or not.”

“When we air sports on a music station, our audience goes down, not up.”

“Nobody cares that you’ve been the ‘servicing dealer since 1969’.”

“No, we are not the most listened to station in town.”

“Yes, we play more ads than the stations across town, but there is a reason.”

“It’s true, radio is not listened to as often as it once was.”

…and the list can go on and on.

Most business owners are savvy people, and they can sniff out the “bull” pretty easily.

Answering objections abruptly and making exaggerated statements will deteriorate trust. Telling the truth and having a logical explanation for your “TRUE” statement will dramatically lead to a greater level of TRUST in you.

I am not suggesting that anyone is intentionally lying about radio or their stations. However, in an effort to defend our industry, sometimes the reality or truth gets stretched and important details get left out in order to make the sale.

In sales, TRUST and KNOWLEDGE are two extremely powerful traits.

The list of “honest” statements above, in nearly all situations, is true. Understanding how and when to use these statements and how to follow-up with them can be extremely powerful. We suggest in your next training session that you go over these statements and rehearse when and how to use them.

If you have questions as to when and how to use or follow-up on any of these statements or others, simply give me a call.

“If We Could Turn Back Time…”

“…and do things differently, I would….…”

That’s a common statement that nearly everyone has made regarding nearly everything we do in life, both personally and professionally.

In some cases, we would not change a thing. But in others…?

In last week’s ENS on Sales Who’s Promoting YOU, we suggested that if radio could have a re-do, or, as Cher sang it so well, “If we could turn back time”, there are two major things that radio could have done and should now do differently on the sales side of our business. These two things alone would make a tremendous impact not only with our reputation but ultimately, where we stand on the totem pole of revenue share.

We are happy to report that very soon new markets will in-fact start to “promote their group and their sellers”. Thank you to those that chose to reach out. You’re on the path to success!

The second thing that radio should do, if they could turn back time, is to train, and I mean REALLY train our media reps. Not just how to sell, but on how to make radio work!

Here’s how it went in the old days and unfortunately is still happening more than we care to admit. We hired someone that displayed a great attitude and effort. We then had them watch a few videos on selling radio or maybe just selling, i.e. Jason Jennings or Chris Lytle. Then, within a matter of a few days, we armed them with a depleted deadbeat account list (that the rep before them failed with), new business cards, pointed them towards the streets, and with a pat on the back, we cheerfully said, “Go out and make some sales!”

Even if your new seller was good and they did what you asked, made the calls, and made some sales, we all know what happened next. On the follow-up call, when they tried to sell another package, the client says, “It didn’t work”! Hence the reason we now have businesses all over the planet earth, saying “I tried radio once and it didn’t work”. We’ll duh!  ! It didn’t work because we didn’t train or teach the sellers how to make it work! …And it’s not the seller’s fault!

In nearly every other profession, vocation, and industry, they train their people before they ask them to perform. But in radio, we hire on attitude and effort, provide little to no training, and expect miracles. Heck, in little league sports they train for two weeks before testing their skills. We can do better! Our clients deserve better!

The most successful sales organizations will tell you that a proper, well-planned, on-boarding program and an ongoing training program is key to their success.

“Your Life Can Only Get Better When You Do! 

Do Something Every Day to Improve Your Key Skill Areas.”  

– Brian Tracy

Because you are a regular reader of ENS on Sales, we’ll assume that we’re preaching to the choir and you are NOT doing what is suggested above. If so, you should be proud of what you are doing – keep it up! Never Stop Learning – Get BETTER Every Day!

Unfortunately, we can’t turn back time, but if you’re serious about building a more professional media sales team, ENS Media can help. To arrange a call to visit about how we can help turn your team into professional media reps, click here.

Who’s Promoting YOU?

Do you promote your stations and/or yourself? I mean really promote, more than the one or two times a year when you’re running a station promotion that you sell ad packages for?

The fact is that most radio stations don’t!  But yet every day we strongly suggest to business owners that they should promote their businesses via the radio on a regular, ongoing basis. In fact, many suggest to their clients and prospects that they should advertise 52-weeks a year and never take a break.

I’ve often stated that if radio could have a do-over, you know, go back in time and start over again, there would be two things that if our industry did differently would make all the difference in the world. One is… Promote ourselves in the same manner that we ask business owners to promote themselves.

Here’s another question… If you don’t promote your stations or group regularly on your own stations, why should we expect the businesses we deal with to believe that promoting/advertising is the right thing to do for themselves?

I can only assume you believe in the power of radio. If so, prove it! Your station or your group of stations should be your biggest advertiser! Are they?

Easier said than done, right?

Promoting your stations and/or yourself on a regular basis not only takes effort but thought. We can help you with both! We make it very easy and VERY affordable.

If you would like to become one of the very few stations or groups that promotes themselves regularly, give us a call or email [email protected] to arrange a time to talk.

Oh yeah… and the other thing our industry should have done differently? We’ll talk about that in a future issue.

Dump Nielsen NOW!

I don’t mean to be rude, but, if you subscribe to Nielsen ratings service, DUMP them now!

I’m not saying this because of their recent decision to go to a “subscribers first” policy. In fact, I agree with their decision and frankly, I am not sure why this hasn’t always been their policy. It never made sense to me that stations not paying for the service had access to it, even if it was in a roundabout way.

Here are the main reasons I have always been a staunch opponent of Nielsen or any other ratings service. Simply put, they make your sales efforts weaker and have caused far more campaigns to fail than they have ever helped.

In nearly every study conducted about how and what makes advertising campaigns successful, research shows that Creative is the most important element in determining whether a campaign is successful or not. Even Nielsen’s own study suggests that Creative, at 47%, is the most important element attributed to the success of a campaign. That study also stated that Creative is more important than Reach at 22%, Brand Strength 15%, Targeting 9%, Recency 5%, and Context 2%. Of these, only Reach and Targeting ( 31% combined) have anything to do with the success of an ad campaign. (I apologize for using Nielsen’s information for which I did not pay.)

Just imagine how strong radio would be today if instead of spending money on “ratings”, station owners invested the money on training their media reps and on-air talent how to sell and use radio correctly, and how to create, write, and produce great ads and ad campaigns.

Let’s be clear, the reason we have heard this statement, “I’ve tried radio once and it didn’t work”, far too often is not because of the number of listeners the station had or didn’t have, or whether or not they were reaching the “right” demographic. In most cases, it didn’t work because the ad or Creative SUCKED and/or they didn’t have enough frequency or consistency to give it a chance to work. It had nothing to do with ratings or rankings!

Continually spending money, year after year, on information that is reliable for only a matter of months or one year seems silly. Dump Nielsen NOW and invest that money into training your sellers and on-air team to sell radio correctly, and create, write, and produce GREAT radio ads.

We can help, and I can assure you that our fees are far, far, less than paying for ratings, and, we will deliver a much higher ROI than Nielsen or any other ratings service.

And… the knowledge you and your team will learn will certainly last longer than a year!

If you would like to visit about our approach, our fees, and our results, click here or give me a call.

Getting a “YES” to Renewals with an Upsell

Continuing from last week where we discussed “when” to start the renewal process, today we are discussing the process on “how” to prepare for an upsell at renewal time.

Let me first say that upselling should not only be limited to renewal time. At any point when you uncover a need or the client has given you buying signs, you should prepare and present your plan that includes the upsell.

As we suggested last week, the renewal process should begin two to three months before your current agreement ends.

First, ask your client to set up a time to discuss “their” coming year. When requesting this meeting, choose your words so that the meeting is about them and their business, not about you and your advertising proposal.  Say something like, “Mr./Mrs. Client, before we talk about your advertising plans for next year, I would like to set up a time to visit with you about what you think your business will look like in the next 12 months, what your plans are, what your goals are, and look more closely than ever on how to achieve those goals.”

After you have conducted this meeting, and any subsequent planning meetings, you then need to come up with a plan, including the “ideas” that will make your client consider investing more dollars with you and your station(s). Simply asking for an additional investment with no reasoning other than that you’re a rock-star media rep, and radio is a great medium, will generally fall on deaf ears and get you a NO to your proposed upsell.

I said generally. This doesn’t mean that if your client is receiving tremendous success from their current plan that they might not consider adding to their current program. They might!  We’re only suggesting that if you have “ideas” it will make it far more enticing to say YES!

Here’s the icing on the cake that will impress nearly every business owner. Create an “Annual Re-cap” of their advertising agreement with you and your stations. This should be done just as you would with a formal multi-page proposal to include a cover page, their prior-year agreement/contract, the total number of ads they received, any promotional support and the value, copies of any photos or media coverage from events or promotions they held, and every script they ran throughout the year.

When you finally get to sit down with your client and make the renewal presentation, start with the annual re-cap. Then, under a separate proposal, move on to your recommendations with the upsell for the new year.

Showing your clients that you are interested in their success by preparing and presenting in a professional manner, and going the distance that most other media reps are not willing to go, will greatly increase your chances of getting your client to say YES to your upsell!