How do you manage multiple sales staffs? How do you treat each station equally? How do you make sure all clients are taken care of properly. Those are just a few of the items sales managers and D.O.S’s have to deal with on a daily basis. To help you understand how to succeed at those tasks every day we turned to four 2019 Radio Ink Radio Wayne finalists.
First: The people you hire (and that your managers hire) and what level of performance and behavior you’re willing to accept on the team. What you accept is what you expect (at least that’s what the team will think), which will either raise or lower the performance of the team depending on where you set the bar.
Second: Be the parachute for your cluster. They’ll jump if they know you have their back. Having their back means rolling up your sleeves to teach them when they don’t know, guiding them through decision making and problem solving on their own, giving them feedback for improvement and growth, recognizing their strengths and empowering them to run with those strengths. Lastly, it’s essential to celebrate the wins along the way — big and small.
When you lead in this way, it shows you care, and when you care, you are creating a culture of commitment vs. compliance. Since taking over in 2016, using this approach has allowed us to take our market from $6.5M to over $10M in 2019.
Megan Caldwell
Digital Sales Manager
Cox Media Group/Digital
Tampa
Three areas are key to success. Number one, recruiting and retaining talented salespeople. Just as salespeople need to prospect for new business, sales managers have to make a concerted effort to spend time looking for great talent. The goal is to interview at least two people per month, even when you are fully staffed.
Secondly, be disciplined on having a process that everyone knows and follows. Weekly sales meetings that are informational about different products available to sell, as well as having a training element to stimulate learning. These need to occur every week at a set time and last no longer than one hour. This process also includes key and target account development and how many calls salespeople and sales managers should be making weekly.
Bob Mackay
General Sales Manager
Entercom/KILT-AM, KIKK-AM, KILT-FM, KHMX, KKHH, KLOL
Houston
The ability to lead a diverse group of people, with diverse personalities and goals, to work as a team to achieve a common goal. Just like any family you’ll have bumps in the road, but I believe quickly addressing any interpersonal distraction and keeping everyone moving forward toward our overall goal is the surest way to annual success.
Brian Tyndall
General Sales Manager
Mid-West Family Broadcasting
Springfield, Missouri
A DOS’ success is absolutely contingent on communicating and sharing ideas with other managers who bring so much to the table; on being fair and making difficult decisions when necessary. A DOS can only be successful if they can positively influence their teams to bring their best game forward.
Daisy Ortiz
Director of Sales
Liberman Broadcasting, Dallas
NOTE: Radio Ink’s Radio Wayne awards will be handed out on Thursday morning, September 26.
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Rick,
I love your comments! Would you send me your compensation plan spreadsheet?
Thanks,
Jan Fritz
GSM
Texas Rebel Radio Network
Most of my fellow broadcasters are frustrated because it takes so long to get new salespeople ramped up to full productivity and that this is holding their business growth back. If a salesperson can not handle 5% of their workweek doing the dirty work of TeleProspecting, they are most likely not the right person for the job. (I will send to you our compensation plan spreadsheet)
Every day that an employee works for you, the cost of their turnover goes up exponentially. Within the first few months according to traditional estimates, the cost is around $5,000 to $6000 but recent studies blow those numbers out of the water. Consider the lost productivity, lost customers, the cost and time to hire and train a replacement. Instead of months to determine if a salesperson will fill the mold, using this program, they are soon gone on to their proper career within two weeks. This accelerates training tenfold and saves your company thousands of dollars.
Managed your station’s most valuable asset…your account lists from the beach or anywhere you get WIFI or cell phone service!
Just ask and I’ll send you the spreadsheet for a new sales team and how much to expect to get the most out of this process for your market. Our competitors are crying foul on us. We love it!
We have some scripts for recruiting new sales/marketing candidates.
I would be shocked to find someone who believes that TeleProspecting is not important. If you find them, please have them call me. PLEASE!