resources | sales skills tips
 

Put Listening on the Agenda

     With so much time-pressure on sales calls, how can you as a sales person get the most out of your meetings?  The days of "so tell me about your business" are past.  Clients expect you to arrive prepared and knowledgeable about their business.  You can find out lots of historical information on the Internet; past advertising spending patterns, competitive reports on how the prospect's product is doing, sometimes even strategic plans presented to an investor conference. But detailed plans for the future, and personal opinions and prejudices are rarely known in advance or published on the Internet.  So listening is critical.  (continue reading here).

Build Relationships Through Objections

     What is the most important element in any relationship?  Truth. 

     And what does this have to do with sales?  Aren’t sales people untrustworthy?  Don’t we train sales people how to lie with statistics?  NO!

     Successful media sales is a relationship business.  Those relationships are built on truth and trust.  The first opportunity the sales person has to build trust is when the first objection is brought forth.  If the prospect airs an objection and the sales person responds well, trust begins to grow.  If not, the prospect will hesitate to offer honest objections, and the sales person will have lost the ability to communicate in a constructive way that can grow into a consultative selling conversation, and grow sales.  (continue reading here)

Structure Time to Get Appointments
     If sales start with sales calls, then it is imperative that sales people structure their time to get appointments.  Many of my clients tell me that they accept 5 to 8 sales calls a week as reasonable for a property selling national advertising because so much time most go into preparing for calls and servicing clients.  After all advertisers and agency people often say they don't need to see sales people.  The trouble with that is that clients will keep doing what every they have done in the past; buying from your competition, or buying less than they should, until your sales person gets that appointment and begins to persuade them to view things differently.
 
     If you are a sales person or manager who wants to lift their number of sales calls you can start here.  Continue reading here.

Use Change as your Selling Ally

     No advertising agency, nor ad director, will ever say to you, “you worked really hard to win our business last year and we made a mistake not buying your magazine.”  Every media plan is presented to management as “the optimum buy.”  So how can you go about your renewed selling efforts to win the business this year?  Focus on how things are changing.  Continue reading here.

Gain Market Share with "Thank You" Power
      What is your biggest sales problem?  For many it is renewing customers.  Returning customers should be your biggest source of business.  A decade ago, print publishers generally could easily renew about 70% of their business each year.  So they needed 30% new business to stay even.  Sales growth required sufficient new business to replace the advertisers who didn’t return, and then some.  As we approach the second decade of the twenty-first century a 50% renewal rate for advertisers might be good.  Half of your advertisers who thought advertising with you last year was a good idea have probably decided against it this year.  Continue reading here.

Negotiate Up!

     Once upon a time negotiation was not a factor in print media sales, but we can safely say that is no longer the case.  TV, Radio, Cable and more recently Internet have long been negotiated media.  Even companies like Conde Nast in the consumer magazine industry and Crain Communications, the publisher of Advertising Age in the world of b2b publishing, have found that while they may say they don’t negotiate page rates, they do in fact negotiate the so called “value added.” We can now say with confidence, if you want to know how to sell print advertising, or how to sell online advertising, you must know how to negotiate.  Read more here.

Tell a Story to Make a Sale  

     Selling requires persuasion.  And optimum persuasion involves storytelling.  Advertisers are jaded.  They think they know enough about your property.  Agencies are pressed for time.  They think, what more could you tell them about your site?  Whether it is Parade, or Popular Woodworking or Practicing Pediatrics, advertisers see it in their newspaper or their mailbox or inbox, and they think they know all they need to know.  How are you as sales people going to break through this complacency and make a difference?  Keep reading here.

Don't Let Sales Calls Be Like a Bad Blind Date!

     Are your sales calls like a bad blind date?  I mean for the client.  Have you noticed that if you talk about yourself too much you won’t get another date?  Hello!  This is what many sales people do.  They talk too much.  They show too little knowledge of and interest in their client, and although the client is nice, they never return your call afterward.  Duh!  Keep reading here.

Get More Appointments
    Sales-person-ship matters, maybe more than ever, in these tough times.  Yes, even in this age of results oriented analysis that makes advertising clients view media as a commodity.  Why?  Because results can't be forecasted in advance...only observed and learned from after the fact.  Since salesmanship matters, interpersonal relationships matter.  And the quick and strong way to build interpersonal relationships is in-person sales calls. Read more here.

Ask for the appointment for the right reason

   Sales calls -- appointments -- in-person or on the phone are the single most quantifiable and controllable metric for sales success.  Lets face it; more appointments equals more sales.  In order to get them, more of them, with the buyers and influencers who matter, it helps if sales people ask for them for the right reasons. 

    Your prospects are busy.  They have been functioning in their business lives just fine without you.  So why do prospects want to agree to an appointment with you?  Will they meet you to help you? No!  To get 'updated?'  No.  To learn about your property?  Not likely, unless they already think they are interested.  And maybe they are interested but busy; why not have the meeting later?  Anytime you approach a client or prospect you should view your request from their point of view.  Continued here.

Treat objections like an old friend.
    Most sales people think of objections as their enemy.  But the most successful sales people welcome objections with open arms.

    When a prospect gives voice to an objection, you have engaged them successfully.  In today’s high pressure business life, many clients are afraid to speak their minds because they don’t want to take time to deal with the response.  Many clients think they know what your answer will be, and they just want to get out of your meeting and on to their other priorities that day. So they don’t voice the real issues…and you don’t have the opportunity to address the issues and win the business. Read more here.

A question is your best answer.
    Whether selling or negotiating, sales people often feel ‘on-the-spot’ to answer an objection, a question, or a negotiating demand quickly.  It’s easy to feel pressure to give the response immediately, and to feel pressure offer the answer you think the client wants.  But rather than answer, it is almost always best to ask at least one question first, maybe more.  Continued here.

A much easier way to climb the (sales) mountain.
    How much easier would mountain climbing be if you could always start at the top?  You would rappel down, and have the aid of the rope during the climb up!  That principle applies to selling to organizations too. 

    Many advertising sales people start their client relationship at the bottom because it is easier to get that person to return a call or take a meeting.  Client or agency staff at the bottom flatter themselves that they are decision makers because they have been assigned to gather information or even assemble a recommendation.  Some sales people flatter themselves that they are talking to decision makers too.  But good sales people know that approval at higher levels is required to close a sale.  So we know we’re going to have to influence those at the top of the hierarchy.  Continued here.

Clients think you have an agenda.  So have one!
    How often have you ended a meeting or a phone call knowing you didn’t cover the things you needed to?  Perhaps you failed to communicate key concepts, or didn’t leave enough time (and opportunity) to listen to the client?  How valuable to your sales efforts would it be to say -- implicitly – to your contacts; “I value your time and have invested time to make sure you get the most out of our appointment.”  Setting an agenda at the beginning of every substantive phone call or meeting does just that.  Continued here.