Friday Poll: Who's Your Youngest Sales Rep?

    • 1373 posts
    April 29, 2022 12:30 AM PDT

    Happy Friday, everyone!

     

    In a recent Radio Ink article, Dealing with the Younger Generation, hiring expert Laurie Kahn discusses tips for helping young account executives understand and be successful in their new role.

     

    So for this month's poll question, we'd like to know:

     

    Does your station employ young sales reps?

     

    What has been your experience working with them?

     

    If you are an AE under 30 years of age, what have you found challenging or rewarding about selling radio advertising? 

     

    Looking forward to reading your replies!


    This post was edited by Rebecca Hunt at April 29, 2022 12:35 AM PDT
    • 170 posts
    April 29, 2022 1:04 PM PDT

    In a college town and we employ young interns and part-time sales regularly. There are exceptions but in very general terms we find they do not communicate what they are doing effectively or regularly to management - we have to ask him/her every day v. having them, as requested, regularly report in on how this sales call went, share info on what they encountered or who they visited with that day. They almost across the board are systems-reliant, i.e., seek formulaic ways of gathering info, reporting, assembling a presentation, et al and so the kinds of activities in sales that would fall into an 'on the fly' category or a more intuitive response is not something they're comfortable with.  There is a strong tendency for them to not communicate in person as often as they need to for success, using email and phone instead.  This is a symptom of being task-oriented in that they check the boxes for contact but do not always realize they are not using the most effective way to continue contact.  They tend to be presenters v. persuaders, more process-focused than outcome-oriented.

    So now recognizing this has changed the way we approach training and overseeing the sales effort. These are not independent go-getter personalities.  They need pushing, reporting structure (forms) and a lot of guidance and follow-up to begin to feel comfortable thinking on their feet and trust their instincts.  It's a longer process.