What, indeed, makes the world go around? The immutable forces of physics would be one answer. In our more prosaic world, and something I know more about, it’s the creative and destructive forces of the economy. Every day the sun comes up, it’s a new day of opportunity. New products […]
Since more and more customers interact with their bank using digital means, bank locations will be less important, and banks should be pouring more investment into marketing and advertising to attract the deposits that support growth. Advertising with trusted brands, is the starting point for building trust. Consistency is another principle of trust-building. And advertising in print is especially important because it is a trusted medium, and print targets customers with money.
Great ad-sales people never rest. When it comes to prospecting and engaging with customers, they seek an edge every day; rising earlier, making more calls, and gathering more information that will be useful to their prospects. While the days of cold-calling are not over, the Masters of Media Selling use […]
The solution of preventing advertising fraud by creating an approved list for advertisers to limit their advertising to will only solve 1/2 of the problem. Advertising on known sites is a start. But the traffic to those known sites must be verified to be real. This is where auditing comes in.
Sales people lose sales when they are not trusted and respected, and they can’t communicate effectively with senior executives who have the final say. That is why tops ad-sales people need to bring value to the call; not about their media, but new information or new perspective about the prospects market.
Many senior managers, without experience in sales, try to increase sales by setting deadlines and adding bonuses that hurt sales and hurt business. According to Ken Krogue, writing in the Harvard Business Review, “It is a vicious cycle. And companies know it. Yet they continue the practice, month after month and year after year, perhaps unaware of how much it’s really costing them.”
Email is 1) the strongest consumer connection on the internet short of a paid relationship, and 2) a fantastic way to deliver content and advertising, and 3) by far a bigger opportunity for publishers than social media because everyone has email…it’s required to register for social media.
Challenger Selling is simply the re-booted and re-packaged Structured Selling process that made Ziff-Davis famous. By presenting a “challenge” that the customer is facing, like losing market share or missing sales, providing important information about that challenge, the sales person can better capture the attention of any prospect to engage them in a sales conversation that leads from the challenge — read their needs — to the solution being sold.
You might think that a super-star like Heismen Trophy winner Johnny Rodgers would just go to a meeting and clients would through money at him. But as the group discussed how to break new accounts and build the relationships and trust that leads to business, Johnny pointed out that in his experience it takes 7 “touches” to build a relationship to be ready to do business.
Your opening lines, whether your prospect answers the phone or you leave a phone message, must be smartly specific to that prospect and that business. When you can cite a specific data point about that business, the prospects ears immediately perk up. It’s a data-driven version of a warm call.
