Three Ways to GROW Your Business in 2022
by Rick Fink
This is a conversation that I have often had when talking to business owners. But for today’s sake, I am talking specifically to media sales reps.
Your budgets are completed for 2022 and the expectation is that you need to grow your sales by 5%, 10%, or more, right?
So, how are you going to do this? The answer is more complicated than just selling more advertising than you sold last year, although, that is certainly one way to grow.
Understanding how to grow your business and understanding that there are only three ways to grow any business is a great place to start.
Here are the 3 ways:
1) Sell more of what you are currently selling
2) Increase the price/rate on what you are currently selling
3) Offer additional products/services to what you are currently selling
Regardless of how you slice it, everything you come up with will fall into one of these three categories.
Analyze your account list, both current clients and prospects, and identify how you can grow each based on these three factors.
1) Sell more of what you are currently selling. Which accounts can be or should be running more ads? The answer is... probably most of them. While you won’t get every client to increase their frequency, coming up with and presenting ideas that can help them reach more people just might be the nudge they need to consider adding more. For example: If they are currently airing ads from 6 am-7 pm, show them adding 1 or 2 ads in the evening. Or, if they currently schedule Monday – Friday, show them a Saturday schedule.
The truth is that most clients are airing too few ads. While adding 1 ad a day to a client that is currently airing 3 ads a day may not seem like a lot, it’s actually a 33% increase in their schedule.
2) Increase your rates on what you’re currently selling and all new sales. This is where you should start! Raising rates should be mandatory and NO, your clients won’t cancel or not renew based on a fair rate increase. A slight 3 to 5% rate increase will get you halfway to reaching your 2022 budget.
3) Offer and sell additional products. Additional products can mean a lot of different things. If you have clients that only air 30 or 60-sec ads, additional products might include sponsorships like weather, news, sports. It might also include live remotes, social, or digital. It could also mean offering 15-sec ads to increase frequency. Adding another radio station is an additional product.
While this all seems fairly basic, going through the process will help you uncover areas that will not only help your clients grow but will also help YOU grow your business.
As mentioned in the opening, this is a conversation that I often have with business owners. You’ll be surprised how many have never thought of growing their business in this manner. It’s a good conversation to have, and of course, you can certainly help promote two of the three areas.
Here’s to hoping that you have healthy sales growth in 2022!
NEVER Stop Learning - Get Better Every Day!
Rick Fink
605-310-2062
ENS Media consults, coaches, mentors and trains managers and account executives at radio stations across North America to increase their local direct sales. President Rick Fink is a 30-year veteran and managed one of America’s largest billing small-market radio sales teams. To learn how ENS Media can help increase your revenues and train your sales team, contact [email protected]
at February 24, 2024 7:41 PM PST
