Author: "Doctor" Phil Bernstein

At a recent holiday gathering, a group of us landed on the subject of the Shmoo, and how it relates to advertising sales in 2016.

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The Shmoo was a character in the 1940s and 1950s comic strip Li’l Abner. It’s a little hard to explain, but here’s a description from the Wikipedia entry on the subject:

• Shmoos are delicious to eat, and are eager to be eaten. If a human looks at one hungrily, it will happily immolate itself — either by jumping into a frying pan, after which they taste like chicken, or into a broiling pan, after which they taste like steak. When roasted they taste like pork, and when baked they taste like catfish. (Raw, they taste like oysters on the half-shell.)

• They also produce eggs (neatly packaged), milk (bottled, grade-A), and butter—no churning required. Their pelts make perfect bootleather or house timber, depending on how thick you slice it.

• They have no bones, so there’s absolutely no waste. Their eyes make the best suspender buttons, and their whiskers make perfect toothpicks. In short, they are simply the perfect ideal of a subsistence agricultural herd animal.

• Naturally gentle, they require minimal care, and are ideal playmates for young children. The frolicking of shmoon is so entertaining (such as their staged “shmoosical comedies”) that people no longer feel the need to watch television or go to the movies.

By its very existence, The Shmoon (this is the plural) appeared to provide for just about all of humanity’s needs. But rather than making people happy, Shmoon  created as many problems as they solved, and were ultimately set upon and destroyed by society.

The Shmoo in Advertising Sales

In broadcast sales, the Schmoo is the big agency account. A few times a year, the Schmoo issues an RFP, and you submit. Hit the cost per point, throw in some added value along with some concert tickets for the buyer, and you get the money.

For decades, many media reps made a good living on Shmoon. Young AE’s waited for veterans to leave, eventually inherited big agency accounts, and soaked up the money as the RFP’s came in. It was a good ride while it lasted, butthe Shmoo Ride is over.

As businesses bought each other, consolidation made some of the big local accounts disappear. Other agency accounts went national. Now agencies, often with station help, are automating the process. Soon that RFP will go from one computer to another, and the buy will happen automatically, untouched by human hands.

If you’ve been making your living by riding the Shmoo, you’re going to have to find another way to do it. The easy, automatic money is just about gone. The Schmoo isn’t coming anymore.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that there is still plenty of opportunity to make money. with local direct. Local direct, alas, is a Shmoo-free zone.

The money is there, but it’s not coming to you – you have to go get it. That means looking for leads, interrupting strangers on the phone and convincing them to meet with you. Doing thorough needs analysis calls, coming back with great ideas, and asking for the business.

It’s the kind of selling I teach every day.

It’s not easy. In fact, it looks a whole lot like work. But if you’re willing to make the effort, study the techniques, and skip the shortcuts, there is still great money to be made.

Stop waiting for the Shmoo, and go call a customer.

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Coming in early 2016: a new networking site for television/digital sales professionals. Be looking for information about TV Sales Cafe™ in the next few weeks!

I’d love to say that clients always accept my advice and do exactly what I tell them.

There are some furniture store owners and auto dealers who think they know more about advertising than I do.

Sometimes they’re right. But not often.

Let’s make a deal. If you don’t tell me how to write your ad copy, I won’t show up at your funeral home and tell you how to embalm the bodies.” — Something I once thought about saying, but did not, to a client.

This is a topic of much conversation among well-trained advertising salespeople. You are held accountable for results — if the advertising doesn’t deliver, you be blamed. But you are on commission — if the client doesn’t run with you, you don’t get paid.

How do you handle it?

As Dan O’Day points out, much depends on how your customers perceive you:

If you want to provide your clients the most for their money, you need to:

1. Educate yourself to the point where you do have genuine expertise in radio advertising.

2. Make that expertise clear to the client at the beginning of and throughout your entire relationship.

As an Account Executive, I made a point of talking about the books I’d read, the CD’s I’d listened to, and the seminars I attended. I sent a monthly email newsletter to my clients that talked about marketing, not about my stations.

I started a blog in 2008 — the one you’re reading now.

In spite of the credentials I built up and trumpeted at every opportunity, I would sometimes find myself sitting across the desk from a business owner who was determined to write his own laundry-list commercial and run it on my competitor if I didn’t like it.

If you run into a situation like that, you have two choices:

1. Refuse the business. Tell the client that you would love to have the business, but cannot accept the order when you don’t think it will accomplish the client’s goals.

2. Give the client the best advice you can, and then take the money.

Here’s the approach I settled on:

• If the order was a little one, I’d refuse it. I set a minimum dollar figure (my “Evangelista Number“) below which the business wasn’t worth my time. If it was below the Evangelista Line, I was happy to let my competitor suffer.
• If the dollar figure was substantial, and the only way to get the order was to run the ad my the customer insisted on running, I’d accept it — but only after saying this:

Advertising Sales Tip:
The “Two Responsibilities” Gambit

Mr. (or Ms.) Client, I have two responsibilities. The first one is to my station and my own checking account, and it’s this: if you want to give me your money, I am prepared to take it.

But I also have a responsibility to you to tell you if I think your plan isn’t going to work. And I don’t think it’ll work. If you still want to go ahead and do it, let go ahead.

Sometimes the campaign failed and the client ultimately agreed to try it my way. Results, and the customer’s perception of my expertise, generally improved when that happened.

Sometimes the campaign failed and the client just stopped advertising. In that case, I’d shrug and move on to someone else who was willing to listen to me.

Occasionally customer was right and the campaign worked after all. As Joaquin Andujar was fond of saying, you never know.

In a perfect world, you could walk away every time a client wanted to advertise the wrong way.

Alas, the world ain’t perfect.

You have bills to pay, and a budget to hit.  Winning the argument might feel good, but allowing your competition to cash your commission check does not.

Under the right circumstances, using the “two responsibilities” gambit will allow you to cash the check and still sleep at night.

[reminder]What’s your best strategy for dealing with a client who won’t listen?[/reminder]