(By Pat Bryson) When I was first selling, and later as a sales manager and market manager, one of my biggest nemeses was a gentleman named Les Boyle. He also happened to be one of my biggest clients.
Les owed ROI Media, a buying service that placed millions of dollars each year. Every now and then, he would email me about some pet peeves of his resulting from how we in radio called on him. He had read one of my newsletters on “word whiskers” and it spurred the email. I ran across this email and decided to share it with you. Here are his thoughts:
“You have triggered a couple of thoughts that kind of fit in your rephrasing the whiskers. All too often we see reps who do not have a clue as to what my client is selling. Yes, how can your station help if you do not know what we are trying to sell and how we are going to get there? After you shave the whiskers, tell me how you are going to help me, and my client get the job done. Tell me how what you are giving me is going to help. I do not remember the last time a rep asked what we were trying to do for a specific client.”
Wow! It would be difficult to come up with a bigger indictment of what we do and DON’T do. A couple of years ago, I heard a speaker at a convention give the results of a 1000 retail client survey on what they thought of their radio reps. 62% said that radio reps don’t understand their (the client’s) business. 68% said radio reps don’t understand advertising. Is it any wonder that radio continues to earn only a small percentage of marketing dollars?
When will we learn? It is NOT about US: It is about THEM, our clients. When we learn to ask client-centric questions, to truly try to understand our clients’ businesses, problems, and goals, we will be in a position to craft campaigns to help them achieve those goals. Too often we approach our clients with what we need to sell instead of what they need to buy. And we won’t know what they need to buy until we live in our clients’ worlds.
Not to sound self-serving, but my book, available on my website, has several chapters about questions to ask our clients to uncover their world. Today’s client needs analysis is far different from the ones we grew up with. It’s time to sharpen our skills! Know where your client wants to go, their goals, and aspirations. Create campaigns to help them get there. Higher revenue awaits both you and your clients.
Happy Selling!
Pat Bryson is the CEO of Bryson Broadcasting International, a consulting firm that works with sales managers and salespeople to raise revenue. She is the author of two books, “A Road Map to Success in High-Dollar Broadcast Sales” and “Successful Broadcast Sales: Thriving in Change” available on her website. Read Pat’s Radio Ink archives here.
I buy from local media reps for large, local clients, in our home market. I have *one* rep who understands my clients’ business and what we find valuable from our media reps…1 out of 10. Aside from that person, exactly one other rep asks questions beyond “When will you be spending again?” &/or “What’s your budget?”
That one rep who works hard for us always seems to be taking fun vacations.