Author: "Doctor" Phil Bernstein

Find a Problem to Solve: A Sales and Marketing Lesson From Ford

Every business exists to solve someone else’s problem.

salespeople can solve problems
Paperwork in the office by Photographee.eu
  • A mattress store can solve the “my back hurts” problem.
  • An HVAC dealer can solve the “it’s too cold in the house!” problem.
  • A restaurant can solve the “I’m hungry and don’t want to cook” problem.

As media salespeople, we can solve problems, too. The key is offering to solve a problem your client cares about. Sometimes that takes a little research and thought.

We can learn a great deal from Ford’s efforts to position their soon-to-be-released F-150 Hybrid. In the passenger car market, many buyers choose a hybrid to save money on gasoline, or to help protect the environment.

According to a recent Bloomberg Businessweek article, that doesn’t resonate with F-150 buyers:

People who buy F-150s don’t much care about fuel economy. It ranks No. 28 on their list of priorities, way below pickup essentials like durability and reliability, even the roominess of the cab.

According to Bloomberg, environmental concerns don’t drive buying behavior in this group, either. So Ford had to come up with another problem to solve.

By spending a lot of time with their customers, they learned about an unmet need for portable power:

“We would see our customers just literally buying generators from Home Depot and strapping them down in their truck beds,” [Ford product development chief] Hau Thai-Tang said.

There was the welder in Texas who lugged his generator in and out of the bed whenever he needed it for work. Then there was the builder in Denver who didn’t own one, relying on a jumble of extension cords that he stretched to an outlet to operate his saw. “He told us, ‘Access to power in any shape or form would absolutely help me do my job,’ ” [Ford research team leader Nadia] Preston said…

…To coax devotees into the greener future, the company won’t be stressing the benefits of cutting back on carbon-dioxide emissions or the costs of tanking up. Instead, the marketing will go something like this: The battery in the hybrid F-150 not only feeds the electric motor, it’s a mobile generator that can keep the beer cool at a tailgate party, charge your miter saw and run the coffee maker on a camping trip.

There are two lessons for those of us in the persuasion industry:

For copywriters: What problems can the client solve for its customers? Which of those problems is most important to new customers? You need to make an effort to find out before you start writing — the answer may not be the first one that comes to mind. 

For media salespeople: What problems do your clients have that advertising with you can solve? Unless you’re dealing with an advertising agency media buyer, it’s probably not the “I want to buy a cheap spot package” problem, or the “I want to see an 18-49 ranker” problem.

Here are some of the more common business problems you can solve:

  • “I don’t have enough traffic at my south side location.”
  • “My prices are great, but everyone thinks the big box stores are cheaper.”
  • “We’ve got the best Philly Cheesesteak in town, and nobody knows it.”

The best way to find out what problems are on a prospective advertiser’s mind? Ask.

What questions should you ask? My book, Breakthrough Prospecting, can help you solve that problem — Chapter 14’s got a whole bunch of thoughtful questions to ask.

Each week, as my boss and mentor Jim Doyle points out, thousands of Americans go to a hardware store to buy a 1/4-inch drill bit. But they don’t want a drill bit — what they want is a 1/4-inch hole.

So take Jim’s advice — sell the hole, not the drill bit.

[reminder]

Breakthrough Prospecting On Sale for $9.95 Through Monday

What should you get for the advertising salesperson in your life?
Best sales book breakthrough prospecting

My recommendation: get them a digital copy of  Breakthrough Prospecting: Jumpstart Your Media Sales Career and Make the Income You Deserve. It’s regularly $14.95, and on sale for just $9.95 between now and Midnight on Cyber Monday.

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In Breakthrough Prospecting: Jumpstart Your Media Sales Career and Make the Income You Deserve, you’ll learn:

  • 5 places to find great leads right now…including at least one you’ve forgotten, and two you’ve never used before.
  • A battle-tested call opening that will turn “Not interested” into “Tell me more!”
  • A comprehensive list of questions you MUST ask at the first meeting if you want to bring back a plan that’ll make ’em buy.
  • A proven 3-step method to get the client to give you their advertising budget — and tell you where they’re spending it!

Any media salesperson – radio, television, outdoor, transit, print, or digital advertising – at any level will find real value. The book is chock full of actionable tips that will generate new direct money fast. 

AE’s who’ve been in the business for three years or less will benefit the most. So will the managers who work with them. 

And between now and close of Cyber Monday,  you can download Breakthrough Prospecting  for just $9.95 — 33% off its regular price.

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That is all.

That Most Important Line In Your Commercial

“It was the day my grandmother exploded.”

That’s how The Crow Road by Iain Banks opens. The narrator has returned home for a funeral; Chapter One begins in the chapel of a crematorium in Scotland.

Although this is from a novel and not a commercial, it’s a great example of an opening line that compels the reader — or listener, or viewer — to stick around to hear what you’ve got to say.

In a print ad, it’s the headline. In a radio or television commercial, it’s the first sentence of your ad. Copywriting guru Dan O’Day calls it the “commercial for the commercial.”

If your opening line is good enough, the viewer or listener will stay put to hear the rest of your sales message.

The opening line has to grab the your target’s attention, and give them a reason to continue to pay attention. You either need to surprise them, intrigue them, or offer them, up front, a significant benefit.

If all you’ve got to say is “Family owned and operated since 1991,” they’ll change the station.

advertising lesson: your opening line matters
Photo by SeanPavonePhoto

That’s Copywriting Lesson #1 of The Crow Road. The first line was so good that I absolutely had to keep reading until I found out exactly how Grandma blew up. It took 22 pages to get to the detonation. 

I was hoping for an epic blast, but the actual grandmother-explosion turned out to be a minor pop.

Before I got to Page 50, I put the book down. I never opened it again.

This brings us to Copywriting Lesson #2: Your opening line is a promise, and you’d better deliver on it.

As you read this article, somebody is watching television somewhere in the United States. The show they’re watching has just gone into a commercial break. In the next five seconds, they will decide to either

1. Pay attention to the first ad,

or

2. Tune the whole thing out and update their Facebook status.

If it’s your commercial they’re watching… how strong is your opening line?

[reminder]What’s the best opening line you’ve ever seen or heard?[/reminder]

Another Hotel Story, With a Quick Sales Lesson

There’s one sales approach more effective than a phone call.

Sales lesson: a human body gets attention
Photo by Viacheslav Iakobchuk

Not long ago I told the story of my attempts to book a hotel room near the airport in Lexington, Kentucky. You can read the full tale here, and you should. 

The sales lesson of the story was that a phone call is often much more effective than an online effort when you want to get a target’s attention and compel action.

After I put up the post, I heard from fellow road warrior and consultant Don Davis of Gabriel Media. Don is Senior Market Manager at Gabriel and a subscriber to this blog. 

He pointed out that when a phone call fails, there’s an even more effective option:

Many years ago I was stuck in a small airport in Alexandria, LA after delays then cancellation of a flight. This was before being able to book a room via internet.

I made some calls to the few local hotels and was told they were full. I decided I might have a better shot if I stood in front of them asking for a room.

I took a taxi to the biggest hotel and went in and told them of my plight and asked if they had anything available. Somehow they found me a room even though they were “full” when I called.

In each case, there’s a trade-off: efficiency for effectiveness.

It’s faster and easier to look up hotel vacancies online than it is to call each hotel on the phone. But my phone call got results when online attempts failed.

It’s faster and easier to make phone calls than it is to take a taxi to one hotel. Don Davis found that an in-person attempt got him the room.

When you consider your prospecting options, you’ve got the same choices: the efficiency of a social media post versus the enhanced effectiveness of a series of phone calls.

And when the phone and keyboard aren’t getting it done, remember this:

There’s nothing more effective in getting a target’s attention than a human body on the other side of the desk.

To Succeed at Sales, You’ve Got to Interrupt

“Nobody answers a phone that doesn’t ring.” — Jeb Blount

Salespeople must interrupt on the phone
Photo by auremar

Blount, author of Fanatical Prospecting, is a proponent of cold calling.

Mostly on the phone, but he’s not against other methods. The key, he says, is to interrupt:

If you want sustained success in your sales career, if you want to maximize your income, then you’ve got to interrupt prospects. You’ll have to pick up the phone, walk in the door, send an email or text message, or ping a prospect on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook and interrupt someone who is not expecting you to contact them (i.e., you don’t have an appointment or they are not waiting for you to call  or write) and with whom you are not currently engaged in a sales discussion.

Interrupting works. Here is a true story to illustrate:

How Phil Found a Hotel Room
A Sales Prospecting Parable

Last week I finished off a successful revenue initiative with a TV station in Kentucky. On Saturday, I attempted to fly home to Portland, Oregon from Lexington.

Bad weather stymied my first attempt. As I sat at the gate, my plane’s departure time went from 1:25 to 2:00 to 3:30 to 6:00 to…cancelled. 

There were no more planes out of Lexington that day. United Airlines put me on a flight leaving the next afternoon. I was going to need a hotel room for the night.

I set my iPad on a vacant gate counter and began to search online. No dice. Every hotel website within range of Blue Grass Airport was completely full.

  • The Hampton Inn was sold out.
  • Courtyard by Marriott and Residence Inn had no rooms available.
  • Comfort Suites…America’s Best Value Inn…Holiday Inn Express…no vacancy.

It was time to stop looking at websites and start interrupting real human beings. 

I pulled out my phone and began to call the same hotels whose websites had turned me down. Each time a front desk clerk answered, I got to the point quickly.

“Hi, this is Phil Bernstein. My flight’s been cancelled and I’m stuck at the airport. Is there any chance you could get me into a room for the night?”

The first three people I talked to were sympathetic, but it was simple math — every room they had was taken.

I hit paydirt on the fourth call. The clerk at Fairfield Inn & Suites said, “Hang on — we may have something.” I heard him tapping on his keys, and then he said four of the sweetest words on the planet:

“Got a credit card?”

Twenty minutes later I was in my room.

Jeb Blount sums up resistance to cold calling this way:

For thousands of salespeople, picking up the phone and calling a prospect is the most stressful part of their life. Many of these reluctant salespeople stare at the phone, secretly hoping that it will disappear. They procrastinate, get ducks in a row, and work to ensure that everything is perfect before they dial. Any excuse—and I mean any excuse—to do something else takes priority.

They work over their leaders, too. Whining that no one answers the phone anymore. Arguing that it is a waste of time. Complaining that people don’t like to be contacted by phone.

The complainers have a point: some people don’t like to be contacted by phone. If you call, they might send you to voice mail. Or hang up on you. Or curse you out.

Heck, not long ago I interrupted a car dealer. He cursed me out and hung up on me.

It’s the sort of thing that makes those hotel websites very attractive. They just sit there just waiting for someone like you to fill in the dates and hit “Submit.” No interrupting, no awkward conversation, no cursing. Just a few taps on the keys.

But on a recent Saturday evening, none of those websites had any opportunities. To get what I wanted I had to step out of my comfort zone.

Because nobody answers a phone that doesn’t ring.

[reminder]