Happy Friday, everyone!
With this week's poll question, we're hoping to get a feel for future topics of discussion that would be pertinent and helpful to our members:
Whether you are a sales manager or an account rep, what is the biggest single challenge that you are facing right now in your job?
Looking forward to reading your answers!
Making sure that Recruitment is a PRIORITY for all of us!!!!
Chris,
Recruitment to add people (for growth) or to replace folks who've quit? What kind of turnover are you seeing in radio sales these days?
Jim Williams' observation was that 3 of 4 new radio advertising salespeople hired leave within the first year. Of the 25% who make it beyond Year One, 90% go on to make it a career. I wonder how much this has changed in the decades since.
Convincing clients of the viability of radio. Take in all the data, and they shake their heads and say nobody listens to radio anymore.
I feel that the biggest challenge is dealing with the image of radio being the cheap media. All to often look at us as the slick used car salesperson rather than a marketing consultant. I hear from sales people all the time "so and so is cheaper than we are" or "what kind of value added can we give the customer". Whoever created value added has made our media :let's make a deal" rather than let's build your brand. I for one am proud of the job we do building business.
Woody Woodward
General Manager KSUM KFMC
Aside from simply building up my client base, one of the bigger roadblocks I face is convincing clients of the inherent value in radio advertising. I'm in the fortunate position of working for a station that is not only extremely popular, but it has a powerful brand while being locally owned (Stephen King owns the group of stations I work for). Despite the powerful listener base, many clients have trouble climbing over the obstacle of the cost.
I have two challenges that I am currently facing.
1. The same one we all seem to face; prospects completely ignore the hard numbers I present to them and say, "no one listens to radio."
I had a potential client and look me straight in the eye and say, "I asked everyone I know, and not one of them listens to radio. They are all listening to Pandora and Spotify." Well, just a day before I had been talking to his receptionist and she told me that she listens to our station exclusively, and every single time she is in her car. In fact, so do her husband, brother, and 21 year old son.
I pointed this out to the potential client, and he said, "Well, I meant everyone I know who matters." !!! In front of her! IS her money less green than everyone else's? Just because she is an employee doesn't mean that she, or people like her all across our market, aren't potential client. You are a auto repair shop, not a private plane salesman! She IS your potential client base.
It killed me.
My #2 roadblock is one more specific to my area.
I am in South Florida (The Treasure Coast, to be specific) and we lose a large percentage of our residents during the summer, as they are all snowbirds who only live here during the winter. Because of this, many local business experience a noticeable drop in customers. If I had a dollar for every, "Come talk to me again during the season,"" I hear, I would be able to own these stations.
I try to explain that since their potential customer base shrinks, it is that much more important to woo the listeners who live here year round. That way, they can insulate themselves against the drop in population by having a local, year round client base. They just stare at me blankly and say, "I don't have the budget. Come back in October."
If anyone has any ideas on how to overcome either of these issues (other than a good stiff drink and a lobotomy) I would love to hear them.
Thanks,
Victor
Convincing Radio ad execs to try something new.
For number 1, that is a put off objection. Research shows that radio has a listening audience. Ever wonder why auto manufacturers install radios in cars if no-one listens? Ask them how many radios they have in their household, I'll bet they will be surprised.
For number 2, If they don't do any business in the off months why are they open? Realistically they should figure what amount of business each month represents and spend that percentage of their annual budget on advertising. If they stop advertising, the people who do live there will find other businesses to spend their dollars. Remember, if their doors are open they are doing some business.
Try to turn the conversation to return on investment. People don't just want data they want results. There are many quality articles on how to present ROI (return on investment).
The industry itself is the biggest challenge for all of us; in that radio refuses to take responsibility to be held accountable for clients' results. Yet, the vast majority of fellow broadcast owners and management continue to reject this approach, deferring to the status quo.
Given the way that radio industry revenue is essentially flat-lining year after year, in a media world ever-increasingly bent on measurement of outcomes, where those players that provide such are the ones outpacing others in revenue and profit, why our industry does not change focus for the benefit of the clients escapes me.
"I heard it on the radio" and "ROI selling" where "all you need Mr. Advertiser is three sales a month to break even" no longer exclusively addresses what increasingly drives advertisers in making their decisions: they want to make money, and know exactly what media choices are driving what amount of business.
To see the smiles on national and local advertisers' faces when they can measure their results to the penny is one of the best rewards of working in this industry - you know you're making a difference.
Creating new ideas, and keeping them fresh for prospects (I do traffic,programming sales, etc). Sometimes I get a little sluggish on ideas.We just signed our first regional agency advertiser. We got the standard "our budget has been spent". So I kept sending the buyer concepts and ideas. Guess what? Third time was a charm. We also just added High School Football (a school with a new football program). I have two other stations in the market that carry the primary teams, but that's okay. I will start selling our packages this week.
Make sure you get testimonials on the success of current clients. I ask them if prospects can stop by their business to ask how well we work for them. If gives the prospect, a new connection, and networking possibility also.
We have about a 90% retention rate with our clients.
Developing and implementing ideas that produce results for each particular client (each having a different set of needs) and doing it fast enough to keep pace with all campaigns. Good ideas take time, and making the process scale-able is a persistent challenge. How do you scale great idea development, and excellent implementation? I know it's an age-old question.
Get a RingWord for your clients. It solves all your problems.
1. Different needs, different words. New campaign? Update your word, or get a new word.
2. "Good ideas take time." It's already available. Fast and easy.
3. Unforgettable, and scale-able. Have a large automotive client? Get a word for each model. Get a word for each department, service. Nobody will ever forget how to reach your client and they can thank you for that with more business.
Stats available every time your RingWord is viewed or searched.
No risk. First word is free.
As an overall problem, I keep running into grumbling, whining and general negativity about the national and local economies (they tend to mix their economic information together). Our area economy is actually a little better than the state of Wisconsin as a whole. Unfortunately, trying to point that out to prospects has given me only limited success.
If only I could overcome this generalized negativity and pessimism with greater frequency, this would nicely enhance my - and my station's - sales revenue and income!
Hi there! I have been working on presenting ROI as a newer sales rep. Would it be possible to get some links for the quality ROI articles from you? Thanks!
Hey Kimmie,
I have uploaded a ROI schedule in excel for you and others to help show the value of your schedule with ROI.
You can customize it for your station and personal details.. the formulas are already in place for the ROI.
The biggest challenge NOW is convincing people to look into 4th Quarter already.
Enjoy the weekend.
Finding people to manage! I have a facility just looking for a sales leader (manager who is not glued to a desk) and I just cannot find them! WHERE ARE THEY HIDING??? 30 years ago I gave up body parts to land a sales manager job that later turned me into a GM that later turned me into an OWNER! (maybe I smell bad...)
Holy Crap JOSH... where are you these days>????
THANK YOU SO MUCH!
Is this an effective system, though?
It seems like a good idea...but they don't give any sort of indication on how it works. I'm assuming it's tied to a smartphone app; unfortunately, the RingWord app on Google Play has a whopping 10 downloads.
I love the idea of being able to reduce a phone number down to a single, easily recognized word...but, I'd hate to use this as a selling tool if it requires listeners to download yet another app nobody has ever even heard of. I'd essentially be building up false expectations because I'm guessing even savvy listeners in my market wouldn't have a clue what a "RingWord" even is.
Reverend Rolando - There's nothing like a little validation of your point, from people making big things happen in advertising and other marketing disciplines...
See Mahesh Murthy's slide #11 at http://www.slideshare.net/maheshmurthy/15-new-rules-for-startups-by-mahesh-murthy-of-seedfund-pinstorm
This is Mahesh Murthy - he earns his dough by being compensated by results he gets for advertisers. When more people in our beloved industry put proven processes in place to do the same, this will reverse the flat-lining revenue that is in part preventing us from recruiting and retaining good people:
https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=4571&authType=name&authToken=zrYm&offset=5&trk=prof-sb-pdm-thought_leaders-photo.
Dang it! I meant slide 12, not slide 11. Sorry about that. Here's the link again:
http://www.slideshare.net/maheshmurthy/15-new-rules-for-startups-by-mahesh-murthy-of-seedfund-pinstorm
I set it up for our station. I will monitor our stats and results.
Hi Damon,
Thank you for giving us a try. The major search engines should index you in a day or so, but we put you on our front page scroller to give them a nudge. You'll see your stats counter when you log in under "Your Account.
As for increasing those stats, it helps to let people know that your RingWord is WLYB or RingWord WLYB. So if you do a station ID, or give out a phone number for people to call in with requests etc., let your listeners know your RingWord, rather than your digits. They won't remember your digits anyway. They CAN'T forget your RingWord.
You might mention us to your high school football teams too. They can get their team a free RingWord. When they run their funding drives or sponsorship pledge drives they can mention their team name as their RingWord. Unforgettable and can be redirected to their own home page with their pledge phone number. They can change their phone number, update their RingWord and everything works flawlessly.
Thanks again!
Tom
