Category: Advertising

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.

Do you use jargon in your sales presentations? Industry terms that, while understood by your  colleagues, mean nothing to your customers? Jargon can scare your prospects away without your even knowing it.

Plain talk makes sales. Fancy talk makes you sound lame. – Jeffrey Gitomer

I once watched a TV salesperson present some online marketing ideas to the owner of an insurance agency. One of the items in the proposal was labeled “PPC”, and the AE referred to “PPC” several times during his remarks.

Finally, the exasperated client raised his hand to stop the presentation and said, “What the heck is PPC?'”

Only then did the rep explain that it stood for “Pay Per Click” — the text ads on Google (advertisers only pay Google when someone clicks on the ad).

We were lucky our prospect asked. In many cases, customers are afraid to speak up because they don’t want to look foolish. The result can be a lost sale — people won’t buy what they don’t understand.

[shareable]If they don’t understand it, they won’t buy it.[/shareable]

It’s time to eliminate jargon from your vocabulary.  Your “inside” expressions — the ones you use every day with co-workers and advertising agencies — don’t belong in the sales conversations you have with your direct clients.

Here are some terms your co-workers understand but your customers may not:

• Demo — the furniture store owner doesn’t have a demo. She has customers.
• DMA — the PI attorney doesn’t know what your DMA is, and doesn’t care. He might be interested in how far your signal goes, or what counties you’re carried in.
• “8a-10a” — the real estate agent you’re calling on doesn’t get to the office at 8a. She arrives at 8am, or 8 in the morning.
• OTT — the newest addition to the industry gobbledygook list. The auto body shop owner has no idea what “OTT” is. He’s never heard of “over the top media”. But he’s got a millennial daughter who watches Hulu on her phone every night.
• SEO — the insurance broker has no idea what “SEO” is, but he wants to show up higher when people are searching online.
• PPC or SEM — same as the above. Talk about the text ads people click on when they go to Google.

Sales expert Jill Konrath summed it up this way:

“Our goal should always be to ensure clear communications. That means we need to speak like we’re talking to normal human beings. Sometimes that’s harder than it sounds. But, by keeping things simple, we all benefit.”

Whether you’re talking to customers online, on paper or in person, ditch the jargon. Your sales numbers will be glad you did.

“If I advertise, I won’t be able to handle the business. I can’t find employees!”

Smart salespeople handle this objection by turning the conversation to recruitment advertising. If the client goes for it, how do you structure the campaign?

The strongest campaigns use the “tradigital” strategy Tom Ray recommends in his book, Branding Is OUT, Results Are IN: Lessons For The LOCAL Advertiser.

I recently encountered a very good recruiting campaign in a Southeast market.

Hiller Plumbing, Heating, Cooling and Electrical is a major force in Tennessee and Alabama. Like many in the industry, they are constantly in need of employees. They use a “tradigital” strategy to get them.

The traditional portion includes television (note: it’s possible they use other media as well). Here’s the TV commercial, which ran recently in the local morning news:

What can you learn — and borrow — from this?

• They use an custom web address. Interested viewers are sent to HillerIsHiring.com. The URL reinforces the core message, and is easy to remember. In addition to TV, the URL is simple enough to work on radio, a billboard, or a transit sign. You can deploy this technique, too: go to GoDaddy and buy “[name of your client] Is Hiring dot com.”
• Hiller doesn’t make the mistake of sending people to their home page. HillerIsHiring.com redirects to a custom landing page that’s about one thing, and one thing only: getting a job at Hiller. If your media company builds landing pages, this is a digital revenue opportunity for you. If not, recommend that the client build a page and host it on their site.
• Take a good look at the landing page at HillerIsHiring.com, It’s very simple and clean. The page doesn’t discuss anything other than job opportunities. There are three easy-to-understand CTA (call-to-action) buttons. “AVAILABLE OPPORTUNITIES” and “STOP BY AN OPEN HOUSE TODAY” are near the top, with one final request for action – “APPLY TODAY” – at the very bottom. It’s a good model to use when you build one for a local client.
• They use branding elements, such as the jingle, from their “regular” advertising. Thousands of people who see the ad might not be candidates for employment…but they could turn into customers. Consistency helps the recruitment campaign reinforce the company’s selling message.

 If a prospect can’t handle any more business, make recruitment part of the conversation. It can bring new clients on board, and help keep existing advertisers on the air.

Do you have an advertiser who just can’t get you their copy on time? You might be able to change their behavior with a creative pricing strategy.

My Client From Hell
A Story From My Radio Sales Days

In my iHeart Radio days, I worked with a car dealer who constantly missed deadlines.

I wrote all of his copy for the market; I needed information from him in order to get it done.  

• Manufacturer incentives.
• Interest rates.
• Goals for the month — were his new cars a priority this month, or was this a time to push used?

I needed time to get a high-quality script written.

Matt Jones, my Production Director, needed to schedule a recording session, which usually involved the dealer reciting some lines.

Without a script, we couldn’t schedule the session.

Without a recording session, there’d be no commercial. 

As each new month approached, the dealer would stop returning my calls.

Eventually, with enough pleading and pestering, he’d send me something.

I’d write as fast as I could, we’d rush the client in to read his lines, and Matt would somehow turn our efforts into something special — a skill he continues to exhibit to this day.

How could I convince a recalcitrant client to get me the copy points on time? I never came up with a good answer.

This went on for years. 

Since I’ve become a media sales trainer, dozens of AE’s have told me similar stories.

Is A Rush Discount The Answer?

Josh Bernoff, author of Writing Without Bullshit: Boost Your Career By Saying What You Mean,  has a method he calls the rush discount. He explains:

“We’ll agree on the deadlines. I’ll go as fast as I can. And if you get me everything I need in the time frame I need it to meet those deadlines, you get the work for 10% off.”

This is not a completely new invention. 

“Added value” incentives for signing by a certain date are not uncommon. Some companies allow discounts to clients who pay for several months’ worth of advertising in advance.

A “Rush Discount” is a new way of using this old concept to influence another kind of behavior.

How to Implement This*

Here’s one way to do a Rush Discount:

• The campaign is scheduled to begin on August 6.
• Your Production Department wants at least two weeks to produce a spot (this is just an example —- your mileage may vary).
• The client is a well-known serial procrastinator.
• The campaign investment you’re proposing is $5000 per month.

You would put two numbers on the agreement:

• $5000 per month.
• $4500 for July if all necessary materials are turned in by COB on July 15.

*You’ll want to check with your company’s business department before implementing this strategy.

Would it work? Maybe, maybe not. 

Is it worth a three-month experiment to see if it restores sanity to the process? I submit it is.

If you try it, let me know how it works! You can email me at phil@philbernstein.com.

[reminder]What’s the most creative way you’ve gotten a client to meet a deadline?[/reminder]