Peady’s Selling Engagement sponsored by IRD Prospector
Welcome to the latest weekly episode of Peady’s Selling Engagement, now available in living
In this episode entitled The biggest gripe clients have with radio sales people Stephen Pead talks about selling direct to local business owners.
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The biggest gripe clients have with radio sales people
Recently I was in a regional market and got to spend time with several owners of local businesses – true SME’s. To put things into context – the forum where we met was a media presentation so naturally advertising, advertising results and media sales people were part of our conversation.
Problem is they weren’t really conversations but more of whinge…….by the way the business owners were whinging not me!!
So what was the problem? Us, more specifically media salespeople, you know those of us who sell newspaper, digital, radio, television, outdoor, magazines. It seems they don’t believe us.
Why? Because of too many promises that are made and broken. Promises such as:
- Audience size or readership
- Results and expectations
- Ad placement
- Bonuses and value added
- Creative
- Follow up meetings
The list goes on.
But the biggest gripe was being sold the wrong thing. A couple of the people I spoke with can live with many of the previously mentioned broken promises, after all one of them said “they are just reps” but it’s the lack of finding a solution to their problems or helping take advantage of business opportunities that really annoys them.
Another businessman who owns a large furniture outlet referred me to a book “The 33 Ruthless Rules of Local Advertising” and quoted from the section on media sales people “media salespeople are trained to sell inventory, theirs not yours” he added another quote from the same book “most media salespeople are only interested in their monthly budget”.
So, there you go. Surely it’s our responsibility as responsible sales people to prove to our clients that this perception is wrong?
Make the commitment this week, get out there and talk to your current clients and prospective clients about their business, how you and your medium can help; not what you want to sell them.
How you can help?
Schedule a meeting, have a strong business conversation, give them some ideas.
The change won’t happen overnight; sure many clients won’t believe you at first but it’s worth a try even if you start doing business this way to simply differentiate yourself from other salespeople.
Until next time good selling!
Stephen Pead is a media industry veteran of 30 years with significant experience in direct sales, sales management and general management. He is based in Sydney and specialises in helping SME’s market their businesses more effectively and providing training for salespeople and sales managers.
He can be contacted at [email protected]
