(By Loyd Ford) Radio has changed over the last thirty years. Well, everything has changed. You already know. So we won’t spend time talking about smartphones, social media, and AI here today. We will go back to the essential question:
Are you doing what everyone else is doing?
We spend our time focused on consumers thinking about the brand and how to create value.
But, if you are doing what everyone else is doing, are you building a brand?
I’m not talking about your Country station, your Top 40, or your Urban station. I’m talking about what gets talked about less:
Your sales brand.
Welcome to the 21st Century. This is a place where consumers rule. It’s harder here… and easier.
So, here is a question. Should your Sales Manager actually be your Director Of Solutions?
Maybe other questions could shift our thinking toward new growth.
- What are you offering advertisers they can’t get anywhere else?
- How much time do you spend training salespeople in your market?
- How much encouragement do you share with your sellers daily?
- How much strategy do you build into advertiser experiences with your company?
- How much individual presentation practice do you do with your sellers in sales meetings (so the team can help individuals rise)?
- How much thought leadership do you put into making sure that you have consistent value growth (not just revenue growth)?
We’ve lived under the pressure of conformity and making things more generic for thirty years. By the way, there is value in making the experiences the same in every single McDonald’s or every Home Depot. The question to ask yourself is this: What is the value in making the experiences advertisers are having with you look like the experiences they are having with every other radio station, cluster, and radio group everywhere else?
You sell more when you provide and communicate more value to clients. You sell more when clients don’t want radio – they want you.
And if you want to play the extreme value game, it starts with how employees and sellers feel about the purpose of their work and how their bosses appreciate them.
If you work in sales management or you are the market manager where you work, there is value in what I call management by walking around.
Keeping your eyes on what others are doing to look for people doing something right (not just correcting behaviors) can be amazing.
Everyone you know wants to win. Hear me. They are just doing what they think winning looks like. No matter what you may think, your value is about showing what makes you, your brands, and your solutions different from others.
This job called sales isn’t really about sales for the superstars. It’s about value. Be valuable and customers don’t want radio, digital, and events. They want you.
That’s because you are a unique sales brand.
Loyd Ford is president and chief strategic officer at Rainmaker Pathway Consulting Works (RPC). They help local radio with ratings and revenue. Reach him anytime at 864.448.4169 or [email protected]. Read Loyd’s Radio Ink archives here.
