Be Prepared for “NO”

There are three things you need to know about business owners. They are savvy, they are extremely busy, and they are nice… most of the time! Oh, and they are extremely busy!

Because they are nice (most of the time) but busy, over time they have evolved and come up with four of the “most common” ways to stop radio reps in their tracks by saying…

1.    “My budget is set for the year. Come back next year.”

2.    “We are so busy we can’t handle any more business.”

3.    “Send me your media kit.”

4.    “I tried radio once. It didn’t work.”

 …and because they are savvy and can adapt and evolve faster than the average human, their latest and greatest objection, post-COVID is, “We can’t get any product, so there is no reason to advertise”.

Number one is rarely ever true. If you’re talking to the right person who establishes the budget, they can change that budget whenever they want to. Don’t buy this objection.

What he/she is really saying is, “I don’t know you. I don’t trust you and I have no reason to believe that what you offer will get me an adequate return on my investment”. If they did trust you or believe you, they would agree to see you. Or, if you were presenting to them and asking them to buy, they would either revise their budget or pay for the schedule with the additional business your idea would bring to their business.

Number two is also rarely ever true, as most business owners will always say, “doing great is never good enough”. They ALWAYS want more. If in the rare case it is true, you now know a category where there are one or more competitors that you can approach and help capture the business “Mr./Mrs. Busy” can’t handle.

Number three, the media kit, is just a polite way of saying “Get lost”, “I’m not interested”, and/or, “you’re a nice person, I just don’t believe you’re here to help me”. Besides, no one has ever bought advertising based on a “pretty” media kit.

When a prospect asks for a media kit, a seasoned professional will respond by opening the door to more productive questioning. The professional media rep will be prepared and tell their prospect that they don’t want to bombard them with irrelevant information and then dig into what they would specifically like to see in the “the media kit”. The questions and answers that follow can result in delivering a customer-focused presentation instead of a generic media kit.

…and number four, “I tried radio once and it didn’t work!” There are several reasons why it may not have worked. You need to be prepared to walk them through why it may not have worked.

If you would like to learn how to build a positive, professional relationship, and build trust with your suspects and prospects so they won’t say “NO”, reach out to us. We can help show you how. The investment to do so is much less expensive than one “NO” a year!!!