The art of advertising sales involves four major steps. The first step is the most mechanical, and yet the hardest for many;  simply getting appointments. In the world of local media, sales people may be able to walk into a store and ask for the owner. But in most media categories getting ad-sales appointments for in-person or virtual meetings on the phone and/or online is the key first step.

It has been hard for years now to get ad-sales appointments. As advertisers have more and more choices, and as advertising agencies receive more pressure to produce media plans quickly, their time only becomes more precious, and it only gets harder to get their attention.

Fewer and fewer prospects listen to voicemail.

Now there is even more news confirmation of the difficulties of reaching prospects. The Coca-Cola Company has announced that they will offer employees the option to do away with voice mail. There has been suspicion for years that many prospects don’t listen to their voice mail. Now it’s becoming official.

Getting more of the right ad-sales appointments is the first step to success.  In our Strategic Sales Tactics training we have focused for years on teaching sales people to leave succinct and effective messages to get appointments.  Whether these out-bound communications go by phone, by email, or Linkedin or even Twitter, “showing up” as Woody Allen said is 80% of success.

If you can’t get the appointment your charm and knowledge and logic can’t do their job.

If you can’t take time for custom training for your sales team, try sending one or more of your ad-sales team to our public seminars: Masters of Media Selling that are staged in partnership with MediaPost. Next two opportunities are April 15 and 16 in the LA area, and May 18 and 19th in New York City.

At ambro.com we monitor the most effective ways to reach out and touch a prospect. But despite Coca-Cola’s recent decision, telephone calls followed up by voice mails and emails are still the best practices in most industry categories. Let ambro.com help you and your team make more effective calls.