Making Radio Stronger In A Disaster
Wayne Ens
I Ship My Pants
Virtually every radio account executive has had a business owner ask, “How can I make my advertising stand out?” The short answer is, “Quit playing it safe.” "Safe" advertising is what causes most ads to disappear into the never-ending landscape of competitors’ advertising, versus becoming a landmark in that landscape. CLICK HERE to view one of this Spring’s most popular "viral" ads.
The Move From Fear to Hope
You know that a cliché is defined as "an over-used word or phrase that becomes meaningless over time" -- especially if your competitors are flogging the same over-used phrases as you. Today, virtually everyone claims to do “needs-based selling” or to sell “solutions.”
Win, Place, or Show?
Win, place, or show…does it really matter? You’ve probably seen shady characters in the movies or at the track who hot "tips" to help race enthusiasts bet on the winning horse. Advertisers eager to see their website win the race against competitors’ websites can be the victim of similar tipsters, calling themselves S.E.O (Search Engine Optimization) consultants.
Finding The Holes
Your competitors are afraid to tell the truth and the whole truth. The Internet is one of the greatest sales tools you have at your disposal to create valid business contacts. Researching online, you can usually find your competitors’ entire sales pitch! But more importantly you can also find the holes in their presentations.
What Winning Account Executives Know
The top-producing account executives we work with always know the answers to these 10 questions about every client: 1. Who is the real decision maker? Not to be confused with the decision-allocator. In the case of a car dealership, for example, the sales manager might decide which stations or what media they choose, but only the real decision maker, the dealer principal, can increase the budget.
Selling Yourself
Selling yourself is said to be the oldest profession in the world. But that’s not the kind of “selling yourself” I’m talking about. I’m talking about salespeople who try to sell themselves in pursuit of career opportunities.
The Fear of Rejection
When we first began ENS Media Inc., I seriously considered investing in a consulting or training franchise because they offered recognized names and templated systems. I attended the various business franchise introductory seminars, presentations, and previews.
Why Cookie-Cutter Solutions Don’t Work
Every time we facilitate our sales workshop on how to craft customer-focused presentations that sell, we receive emails and phone calls from account executives looking for cookie-cutter short cuts. They ask us to forward presentation samples for them to copy. I refuse to do so.
Are You Competitive?
With more than 20 million small and medium businesses (SMBs) in the U.S. alone, SMBs have become by far the largest, most lucrative target for advertising salespeople. But selling advertising to SMBs has never been more competitive.
Do You Have An SEO Package?
Local marketers today have a dizzying menu of new and traditional media to choose from. The new media bandwagon is a hip and exciting place to be. Virtually every business has a website today. Websites can post more up-to-date information, and they are cheaper and more accessible than old-fashioned print ads or brochures.
What Advertisers Want
I have an 8-pound cylindrical automotive part about 11 inches long and 6 inches in diameter with a pulley on one end. I’ll often lug the ugly brute into a seminar and ask the audience, “Would anyone like to have one of these for their car?” Of course, no one wants it.
Does Charlie Need The Money?
At age 71, famed Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts has contracted a masseuse to help him deal with his back pain during the Stones’ upcoming live performances. Why do you suppose he puts himself through this back pain at his age? Does he really need the money from more concerts? Of course not.
"No" Doesn’t Mean No
When it comes to securing co-op support for your advertisers, no doesn’t always mean no. Many manufacturers and suppliers publish co-operative advertising (co-op) programs that, at first glance, do not appear to work for you or your station. Some might even suggest they don’t support radio campaigns at all. To secure support from these manufacturers or suppliers, you must first understand why suppliers budget for co
Your Salespeople Have A Free Franchise
(By Wayne Ens) Does your sales staff fully appreciate their FREE franchise? Think about it, what do typical franchisees receive when they invest their life’s savings in a franchise?Franchisees pay for the rights and privileges of using a recognized name and trademark. Your station name, heritage, format, and logo provide a strong brand for your sales people to represent.
Building Better For 2013
Remember vinyl records? Do you know why the larger records, called LPs, had the small center-holes, and the smaller records, called 45s, had the larger holes? I discovered the reason when an old record company press room foreman shared the answer to the mystery of the holes with me. He explained that 45s were actually manufactured with the same size holes as LPs, but they were sent to a separate press to punch the holes bigger.
Making Your Network Work
Networking is one of the most profitable marketing strategies that sales professionals can employ, but all too often we confuse networking with glad-handing. Like any marketing strategy, networking must be properly planned and targeted to maximize results. To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, “Ask not what your network can do for you, but what you can do for your network.” Following that advice is the best way to profit from your networking efforts.
1 Plus 1 Plus 1 Can Equal Six
As a professional radio marketing consultant, you need to be able to articulate the marketing buzz words your clients are exposed to in their trade publications and at their industry conferences and clearly position radio as a player in the new media environment.
A Look In The Mirror
I’m frustrated and annoyed with many of the managers in radio. We manage the most powerful and persuasive medium in the world and we don’t use it to market ourselves! When was the last time you heard anything on a newscast about new research outlining radio’s role in the new media landscape?
When It Feels Like Christmas
(By Wayne Ens) You know "the early bird gets the worm." You probably also can guess what date you can expect Christmas this year. Yet many radio account executives will be panicked and running around like frantic last-minute Christmas shoppers, trying to pick up the crumbs left by more professional account executives who captured their prospects' Christmas budgets while they were still in the planning stages.
Searching For The "Natural Born" Seller?
Are great salespeople born or are the top performers groomed and trained to be the best at their craft? It's an age-old question that's bound to spark debate and a wide variety of opinions.
Selling By Seminar
(By Wayne Ens) Old business-to-consumer sales tactics no longer work in the business-to-business sales arena. Gone are the days of "tricky closes" for example. Your prospects have taken those same tricky-close sales courses, or have had other sales reps try those tricky closing tactics on them, and they see through them as just that…sales tactics.
Survival Of The Fittest
Canada's equivalent to the RAB, the RMB (Radio Marketing Bureau) went the way of the Dodo Bird a couple of years ago, leaving Canadian radio broadcasters with no formal industry sales training program.
Are You Sold?
I recently facilitated a workshop where the host broadcaster felt their sales people's competitive edge was to take a consultative approach to selling rather than a traditional sales approach.
Are You Marketing or Just Selling?
My father once told me, "Never buy a car owned by an auto mechanic. After they've been paid to repair other people's cars all day, the last thing they want to do is take care of their own car for free." Most radio stations suffer from the same "mechanic's syndrome": After creating innovative marketing campaigns for their local clients all day, they neglect the marketing of their own stations.
You Know What Advertisers Want
Ever since department store magnate John Wanamaker quipped, "I know half of my advertising is wasted, I just don't know which half," advertisers have been trying to measure the R.O.I. (return on investment) from their advertising. Many new-media advocates have brought accountability, measurability, and R.O.I. to the forefront with the suggestion that advertising can be measured by clicks, likes, online buzz, or page views.
Multi-ply Your Sales!
Our word for today is ‘multi’. Everyone seems to be multi-tasking and advertising on multi-platforms in a multi-media environment. But the key to successful selling today is to make multi-dimensional presentations.
Selling To The Audio-Impaired
Every market has them. "Ad agencies" that are nothing more than glorified graphic artists. They'll push for print and online strategies that naturally lend themselves to the advertiser needing more artwork. Believe it or not, the "ad agencies" that don't like or understand radio can be a huge source of new revenue for you! Here is the secret: You can be as successful, as long as you are willing to let those "agencies" take the credit for your work.
Sales Rules of Engagement
(by Wayne Ens) Yesterday I heard a radio ad inviting listeners to “Go to our Facebook page and say you like us, and we’ll give you a free ice cream cone.” Do you think anyone believes that everyone who hit the ‘like’ button for that mall truly and sincerely likes them? Or is the credibility of those ‘likes’ jeopardized by the ice cream bribe?
Stop Complaining About Competitors Dropping Rates
(by Wayne Ens) In a recent survey of 110 AE's we asked “What's the biggest hurdle you face each day?” The most common answer? “Our competitors are driving our rates down.” I’m sorry, but your competitors don’t set your rates at the local level, you do. Find it!” Here are six ‘better ways’ to help you take control of your rates immediately. We'll post six more Thursday.
20 Tips To Create Upbeat Sales Meetings
(by Wayne Ens) 89% of radio sales reps say sales meetings were "usually a waste of time". The irony is that properly planned and focused sales meetings can be one of the most productive, unifying and motivating uses of everyone’s time. The sales meeting is also the ideal place to consistently reinforce and promote the company’s mission statement or battle cry.
6 Easy Steps To Helping Clients Succeed
Success coach Anthony Robbins often tells the story about a major shopping center that experienced a failure in their elevators. It was costing them thousands of dollars a minute in lost sales. The mall manager was panicking. She had called several service companies, but none of them seemed to be able to fix the problem. Finally, she called someone who was able to fix the problem in 60 seconds flat by simply pressing a few buttons…. Then he invoiced her a whopping $10,000 fee “for services rendered."
The Radio ‘Crises’
My last article talked about the important role of selling as teaching in a confusing and rapidly changing media environment. We need to teach our advertisers why radio deserves the dominant share of that 75% ‘traditional’ ad spend and we need to accelerate print’s decline.
Seven Keys To Successful Selling
Why does a lawyer earn more than a garbage man? Because nearly everyone is capable of doing the garbage man’s job, but the lawyer knows something most of us do not. So she makes more money. Why are accountant’s paid far more than the average person? Because they know something the average person does not. Knowledge is power and knowledge earns big bucks for those who have it in the new economy.
The Empathy Index. Perfect For Your Next Sales Meeting
Last week we critiqued a total of 22 different radio presentations from 22 radio account executives who were asked to send us their “best presentation or one-sheet.” It saddened me to note that only one of the twenty-two alluded to what they were going to do for the client. The rest may have well been titled ‘All About Me’ or ‘All About My Station’. How do you feel when you try to talk to someone who can only talk about themselves or their business, and in a jargon you don’t understand? It's time to change that and this article explains how.
The New Way To Sell Radio
The three worlds of the typical radio account executive have all changed dramatically; 1. New media have certainly changed the advertising landscape 2. Our traditional retail clients have come under enormous margin pressures from big box stores and online shopping 3. The sales strategies that got us where we are today are now our industry’s bench mark rather than our competitive edge.
Understanding Who You Call On.
Did you ever wonder what a buyer was thinking before you went in on a sales call. Well, I can tell you. And, I can tell you, I learned a lot more about selling radio when I was buying radio at my ad agency than I ever learned when I was trying to learn how to sell radio. Here are ten things I learned as an agency buyer that you should keep in mind when trying to sell to one:
4 Ways to Avoid Ticking Off Advertisers.
Motivational speaker Zig Ziglar once said “An optimist is someone who goes after Moby Dick in a rowboat and takes a jar of tartar sauce.” While the image that quote conjures up might bring a smile to your lips, you need to approach every sales call totally prepared like Zig’s optimist. In the old days, we were able to differentiate ourselves from our competitors by simply asking a few questions and filling out a standard CNA, Customer Needs Analysis.
Maybe Radio Does Have A Sales Problem
In a recent Radio Ink article, Editor Ed Ryan wrote “With 242 million people listening, and radio revenue only growing slightly, maybe our problem is a sales problem. But that's an entirely different article.” This is that article. With that simple statement, Mr Ryan has hit the nail on the head! (Einstein said “Genius is making the complicated look simple”).
Oh, No! Not Another "Secret"
I received no less than 11 emails this past Monday offering to reveal "secrets" to me. I’m well aware that there are words like "free" or "new" or perhaps "secrets" that are proven to capture attention. Here’s my big "secret." The words you choose have to be the truth if your claims are to be believed and sustainable.
