Don’t Just Hunt The Opportunity – Be The Opportunity

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(By Loyd Ford) You often know when something isn’t right, but you don’t always know. The truth is that the radio business sees employees in two different lights.

  • Those that come in the building as a liability
  • Those who enter the building often with a check (or revenue)

If you’ve thought of your on-air people and others as liabilities and salespeople get most of your attention, it’s not your fault. It’s easy to get hooked on checks rolling in. However, it is time for an adjustment if you want to survive and thrive in the 2020’s because content is what drives your value and is what you are selling today. It’s suddenly become more important than anyone imagined.

Why?

Brand is trust. That’s what it is. “I trust you.” Your audience is highly distracted. Let me put it another way, the people that your customers want to attract and turn into customers are highly distractible. Your on-air people build a high trust with your audience and that is worth a lot.

In fact, it should be the story you are selling. Relationship and trust with new customers (for your clients).

What’s Your Frequency?

Most local clients will need between 7 and 11 interactions with a sales rep before they will be motivated to a potential action. Unfortunately, nationwide sales reps place 1 call or makes 1 visit on average.

How Valuable Is It To Be An Expert & Regularly Offer Solutions?

Studies year after year show that clients want guidance and they crave interaction with knowledgeable experts that can help them understand and place effective marketing, yet year after year this need goes largely unmet. I’m not making this up. The business owner struggles along.

People are not often going to say yes on the first or second or third visit. It just doesn’t work that way. You have to build the relationship.

And you have to tell radio’s real story.

How Do You Become The Opportunity?

It might be the hardest mindset to adopt: Instead of focusing on individual sales outcomes, focus on:

  1. Building a reputation through your consistent actions of bringing solutions regularly to clients.
  2. Regularly bring ideas to your clients instead of just ad buys.
  3. Up your frequency of visits, phone calls, email with purpose to grow real opportunities to serve them.
  4. Find resources that you can share with clients and potential clients about their industry and the latest trends that can help them move ahead.
  5. Prospecting is critical and important with existing clients as well as new potential clients, but be willing have regular contact with your clients bringing ways you can be the opportunity for them (instead of them always only being a potential opportunity for you).

So much focus is placed on the sell-it-right-now attitude with radio that worry is developing about the most important thing local radio should have with clients: Relationship.

“Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

If you sell radio, 2023 has to be a year you focus on telling radio’s story better. But radio has something that clients want if we help them realize we have it: The trust of the local consumer.

And clients can rent this to make their business more profitable. Be the hero in this story and you will do very well for yourself.

Loyd Ford is president of Rainmaker Pathway Consulting Works. Reach him at 864.448.4169 or [email protected].

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