Radio Sales Café

Hello all!

Here's this week's poll question:

What is the single most valuable piece of sales advice you have ever received, and from whom did it come?

Please post your replies below.  Thank you!

One of the most valuable pieces of sales advice I ever received was when you don't know the correct answer to a question from a client or potential client, never lie or try to make up an answer. It will surely come back to haunt you. Simply explain honestly that you are not sure of the answer and you would like to check the facts and get back with them. This doesn't make you look stupid, it actually makes you look quite smart.......and honest! Just make sure you get back to them with the correct answer(s) in a timely fashion.

An early mentor, Neil Cary, gave me a piece of wisdom that has stuck with me. "90% of sales is just showing up" He said this after I had landed a 3 station buy from a spur of the moment walk in. It was December, and my client had just learned he has $$$$ in co-op money that had to be spent before the end of the year. I "showed up" at just the right time!

Working in radio sales if you aren't careful you can become your own worst enemy.
From my father Sturat K. Lankford. Advise given years ago.

Kent Lankford
WAKO 103.1 FM & THE BIG AM 910
Lawrenceville, Ill. - Vincennes, Ind.

I was a 21 year old rookie when a grizzly seasoned veteran (probably in his 50's... oops that's my age now) told me "Son, a sale is not a sale until the money is in the bank".

To ALWAYS Follow Up!! The fortune is in the follow up!
This came from the first really tough sales manager I had Terry Pritchett.:)
He is one that I dedicated my first book, Field Guide To Sales, to.
Happy Selling This Week!:)
Deb

When you come out of a client's office/store, stop and look across the street. Look to the left and to the right. Prospect!
Shared by the GM at my first Radio station.

Two pieces of advice from my father. 1. "Can't make any sales if you don't call on people." 2. "Build a relationship first, before you sell anything to them, a friend for life is sales for life."

Don't be a chiquita. (dollar your customers to death) ask for the big business and the long term It works most of the time and helps you to qualify your clients for futre business. Learned from Paul Weyland and a KBA session. Most everything he says is accurate. His blogs are a must read!!!

two pieces of advice given to me years ago. NEVER ASSUME CLIENTS BUDGET, and SELL YEAR CONTRACTS NOT PROMOTIONS. also another one just for kicks. tell your sales people to go out and try to get 10 consecutive no's. if your doing it honestly it wont happen. good luck, randy brooks

This is going up on a Post-it note on my computer monitor right now - love it!

Here are 4 rules.
1. GBS calls it "The Golden Silence" It was taught to me as, " After you say the cost, the first one to speak loses." I actually hit a newby for continuing to pitch the format after we told the client what the cost was.

2. The first thing a salesman sells is himself.

3. RAB teaches, "Go in as the doctor, not as the beggar."

4. RAB also teaches that when you advertise a sale, you cut your gross twice.

The best advice I received was from my brother who is my sales manager here @ WMEL Talk Radio...the advice is basic and to the point..."50% of sales is just showing up for your appointment with your client". Vern Harper GSM WMEL Talk Radio Cocoa Beach/Melbourne, Florida

Since my clients are all long-distance, I sell by phone, and one of my favorite tips is, "Always talk with a smile on your face." Unfortunately, I can't recall the source - maybe Art Sobczak? - but it really does make a difference when it comes to connecting with customers and prospects.

I especially like #3. You really hit a newby? Wish I could have been a fly on the wall for that sales call. :-)

Giff Gifford at an RAB Seminar: (paraphrasing here...)
If you want to have a successful future, get out of the radio sales business and get into the marketing business. Business people don't care if you are good at selling your stuff. They are hoping and praying for someone to come along that can help them sell THEIR stuff!

Couple that with what Chris Lytle said: (again, paraphrasing and embellishing with what I do and teach)
What you say and how you say it is every bit as important as where, when and how often you say it. Maybe even MORE important. Your stations are just delivery vehicles for the message, like trucks. Instead of selling trucks, bring your client/prospect something good to haul in your trucks and they'll lease of whole fleet of them from you and ask you how soon you can get them out on the truck routes.

I agree that there should be silence after asking for the order...but never understood how your client could lose by buying what you proposed. "The first one to speak owns it." is how I learned it.

"Never work on anticipated income"...advice from my mother long ago that is relevent in personal life and in broadcast sales. Same concept as as Mr Hill's comment about a sale is not a sale 'til the money is in the bank...

Do not limit yourself by simply conforming to the work ethic standards of your fellow salespeople ...set your own..after all...it is your talent...your income and your future!

Advise from my father...who worked on the railroad his whole life...and never sold a thing...or did he?

I've had 10 sales managers over my 32 year career, all for the same station. Out of those 10 managers, only 2 were great managers. On my first day in sales, my first Sales Manager, David Middleton compared great sales people to great fishermen: There are days you never get a bite or a catch. Just when you want to give up, you nab the biggest fish in the lake. Same thing with sales: Just when you're ready to give up, call after call after call, you hit the big client. I never forgot that analogy.
My 4th Sales Manager, Claude Duffault, valuable piece of advice was: Be yourself, don't be a fake, grow with the client. Be human not a robot.
I have exercised these 2 managers's pieces of advice all the way throughout my career.
Luckily, my 11th Manager, Tim Thompson, at my new station, is a combo of both of these gentlemen.

Mine would have to be from my mother. She told me that with sales you must be confident.... and it works..

Bill Giddens taught me that, while the radio station is technically my employer, the client is the one who really pays me and I work for him. A good sales person makes sure that his or her client gets the best product and service that he is entitled to for his budget.

Prospect, Prospect and Prospect some more.

25 year ago management teacher Peter Drucker said that, "The fax, the phone and the modem is the office of the '90s." In the 21st Century e-mails and all of the other Social Network systems are a vital part of connecting with clients.
Door-to-door cold calls are so very 20th century. I get most of my billing from my desk. Or should I say, the iMac on my desk. How else could I handle a list that runs from South Carolina to Portland to Orange County. When gas was 25 cents a gallon you could afford to drive all day. The business is right here on my desk, along with the Radio Sales Cafe and the RAB website.

Steve: I agree. A phone call and an email just don't seem to have the same level of connection for me. Now I am not saying that others cannot do it, but I kn ow how I can be when on the phone with a sales person... hurried and some times distracted. My average rep is "calling on" about 50 accounts... 25 on a weekly basis. My town in about 15 miles across and even the worst of their cars can do that on a gallon of gas. I think it's worth the investment. But.. I could be wrong.