Phil Bernstein's Advertising, Marketing, and Sales Training Blog

Goin’ Back Home

When I was in high school, I wanted to be Mason Lee Dixon.

Mr. Dixon (this may not have been his real name) was a disc jockey on 630 KXOK Radio in St. Louis. I managed to get a job answering the request lines at crosstown rival KSLQ, and my radio career was born.

At KSLQ I met The Boogie Man (this may not have been his real name), the station’s Afternoon Drive jock. Mr. Boog had this advice for me: “If you want to make decent money and have some control over your career, go into sales.”

I ignored his advice and pursued an on-air career. It was a few years later at KBDF in Eugene, Oregon that I noticed the salespeople had nicer cars than I did.

After a couple of career detours, I landed at what became Clear Channel Radio (and eventually iHeart Media) in Portland, and spent 15 years making more money than I ever dreamed possible — in sales.

My success at Clear Channel got me an opportunity to go into sales training with Jim Doyle & Associates.

I’ve had a blast traveling the country working with television sales departments in 36 states.

But now I’m goin’ back home. To radio.

In my absence, “radio” has become “audio”, and now includes streaming, podcasting, and all sorts of cool digital advertising opportunities.

Beginning Friday, December 28, I’ll be back on the streets as a combination Senior Account Executive/Sales Trainer with iHeart Media in Portland.

It’ll be a chance to take everything I’ve learned, and taught, in the past nine years and put it to work. I suspect I’ll be learning a whole bunch every day, so this blog and newsletter will continue.

In addition, I’m planning to launch a separate blog aimed at advertisers some time in Q1 of 2019. Watch this space for details.

To all my TV friends and everyone at Jim Doyle & Associates: thanks for fabulous experience.

To my radio readers: I’ve been away for a while. Feel free to educate me on what’s changed in the last nine years.

And to the Portland advertising community:

Brace yourselves. I’m back.

Call Reluctance Doesn’t End When You Pick Up The Phone

How many times do you let the phone ring when you make a cold call?

I’ve made a lot of outbound sales calls in my career, and have no idea what my answer to that question would be. Here’s why it’s a metric to follow:

Mark Smith, VP of Sales at the English CRM company Womply, recently conducted an experiment involving 60 outbound sales reps and 8,000 calls.

52 of the reps followed their usual phone sales routine. The others got this instruction: they were to let the phone ring at least 8 times before hanging up.

8,000 calls later, here’s what the data showed:

The group that let the phone ring 8 times reached a live human 59.3% more often than the “control group.”
The “8 times” group reached a decision-maker 30.9% more often than the control group.

In his email newsletter, phone sales expert Art Sobczak had the same initial thought I did:

My first reaction was, what voice mail system allows the phone to ring eight times?

Apparently, enough voice mails systems do this that it made a a 59.3% difference in response.

My take on this:

Call reluctance doesn’t end when the AE picks up the phone. A substantial number of salespeople may be hanging up quickly to avoid an uncomfortable conversation.
If voice mail picks up, you might as well leave a message. Some salespeople prefer to hang up and call back… but your target may be sitting right next to the phone, looking at your name on Caller ID. It may take seven rings for them to decide what to do with your call.
In his book High Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results, Mark Hunter said there are three possible outcomes to your call if you stick around long enough: your target answers, you get a gatekeeper, or voice mail picks up. You can prepare in advance for all three. Don’t wing it.

I wrote a post last year about how to beat call reluctance. My advice focused on how to get yourself to pick up the phone and dial it. Here’s Part 2:

Give it 8 rings before you hang up.

[reminder][/reminder]

How to Make a Graceful Exit

Remember the flight attendant who quit by sliding down the emergency chute?

In August of 2010, Steven Slater of JetBlue cursed out his passengers, popped a beer, and slid down the emergency chute at JFK Airport in New York. He instantly became a hero to disgruntled employees all over the world.

It’s an attractive fantasy — what would it be like to tell your boss, and your pain-in-the-butt customers, exactly what you think as you ride into the sunset?

The aftermath, alas, hasn’t been so great for Slater. Last year, a Washington Post article indicated he’s had a tough time finding another job:

Slater said he now does some work with the disabled community and is “looking at some other things.” He has gone to interviews and been recognized as “the JetBlue guy,” he said. They usually have a laugh, but he does wonder if his history factors into their ultimate decision not to hire him.

“I understand it,” he said. “If I’m going in for some sort of a customer service position, I’m kind of like your worst nightmare.”

Inevitably, we all leave our jobs. Sometimes the transition is voluntary. Sometimes we’re pushed out the door. Whatever the cause, there’s a right way and a wrong way to leave.

Here are a few tips on making a graceful exit:

1. Whatever your reasons for leaving, make a point of thanking the folks you worked with and for. Mention the things you learned and the skills they taught you — those skills will help you make the most of your next opportunity. Give credit where it’s due.

2. If you’re leaving out of frustration, resist the temptation to tell your bosses what you really think of them. You may need them later in ways you can’t predict. I know a salesperson who left his company in acrimonious fashion. Years later he applied for a great job at another firm. His old boss was there, remembered the harsh words, and blocked the hire.

3. Whenever anyone asks, praise your old employer. Do this even if your departure wasn’t voluntary. Never bad-mouth your old boss — not to friends, not to business associates, not to LinkedIn connections, and especially not to potential new employers. You won’t look good, and it may cause a hiring manager to wonder what you’d say about them.

4. Send a note or email to your old employers thanking them for the opportunity and wishing them well.

The things you say on the way out the door will follow you. Taking the high road will feel better later…and may pay dividends down the road.

[reminder]What’s the most unusual exit you’ve witnessed? [/reminder]

How to Prevent Email Heartache — Establishing An Automatic Delay

Have you ever sent an email you regretted? Have you ever realized, immediately after hitting “Send”, that you have just sent an email to the wrong person?

Radio Advertising Salesperson horrified at computer — Photo by Flashgun/dpc

A while back, I wrote an email expressing significant concerns about a particular person – and, due to my own inattention, entered that person’s name as the recipient of the email. I caught my mistake and corrected it before the email went out.

The very close call shook me up, and prompted me to go to Google.

I wondered if there was a way to delay outgoing emails for a few minutes… just to buy myself a little time and prevent some heartache.

It turned out that Outlook, the program I use, offers a “delay” mechanism as an option. Id known that there was a way to delay individual emails, and was delighted to learn you can create a rule that delays all of your outgoing email.

You can find written instructions for delaying your email messages here. The instructions can be a little tough to follow. A few years ago I put together a short video, and this method still works for the most recent versions of Outlook.

I made the video using Outlook 2013 a few years ago — but the method works the same way on the most versions of Microsoft Office, including Office 365. Direct link to the video is here.

Instant gratification has a significant downside. There are many reasons why we might want to add a short delay to our outgoing emails:

We’re about to send it to the wrong person by mistake.
We’re about to Reply All by mistake.
We’ve written a message in anger, or without thinking things through.

Making things just a little less instant by adding a short delay to each of our emails can prevent significant heartache.

Three Ways to Apply This Information Now

If you have Outlook 2013 or 2016, or Office 365, watch the video and then set your own delay rule.
If you use a different email service, Google “How to delay outgoing emails in [name of your service]”.
Share this article on your favorite social media site.

[reminder]What’s the worst email you ever sent — or stopped at the last minute?[/reminder]

Surprising “Best Times to Advertise”

When is the best time to advertise apartment rentals online? It might be Saturday night.

I recently asked the marketing director of an Indiana apartment complex what the busiest day of the week was. She said,

We get the most calls on Monday. But when we looked at our analytics, we realized that there’s always a jump in web and mobile traffic on Saturday night. It jumps at about 7pm, and the peak lasts until 10:00.”

Her theory is that couples spend more time together on Saturdays, alcohol enters the picture during the evening, and they start fighting. Eventually one (or both) of them decides to start looking for new living arrangements.

This is an example of oddball spikes in demand that are specific to particular industries.

Another example: Think with Google reports that YouTube video use is strongest on the weekends, with one exception:

Tuesdays are the peak day of the week for YouTube fitness videos on TV screens,¹suggesting people are building sweat equity right in their own homes.

This is consistent with data released by ClassPass in 2016, indicating that Tuesday is the most popular workout day nationwide.”

If you’re calling on a gym, you’ll want to put messages in front of viewers and Internet users when they’re most likely to be thinking about working out. Load ‘em up on Tuesdays!

Sometimes consumer behavior manifests itself is off-the-wall ways. A plastic surgeon in Omaha told me that he increases his marketing budget every February… because that’s when Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Issue comes out!

Women come home from work, and their husband or boyfriend is looking at Kate Upton in a bikini. They’ll be calling someone the next day, and I want it to be me.”

When you conduct your next needs analysis, ask the client if there are any unusual times when demand peaks for them. The answer may surprise you – and help make the campaign more successful.

[reminder]What’s the most unusual traffic pattern you’ve heard about from a client?[/reminder]