Sales – 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]

What Are You Doing Friday Afternoon?

It was a Friday, about 10:15 in the morning. I was working on some auto dealer copy. At a nearby cubicle, a couple of my radio sales co-workers were talking.

For the purposes of this story, I’ll call them Greg and Bill.

Greg and Bill were discussing all the reasons they weren’t going to hit their budgets that month.

The economy was lousy.
The ratings were down.
Their account lists sucked — other AE’s had all the good accounts.
The competition was dropping its pants.

This conversation went on for about half an hour. At 10:45 I left the office and met with my auto dealer to get approval on the script. Then the dealer and I went out to lunch.

After lunch, I met with the owner of an HVAC company, presented a creative idea with a schedule on my station, and closed a $21,000 new direct sale.

I got back to the office around 3:00. Greg and Bill were gone — they’d left at noon to get an early start on the weekend.

This article is appearing a few days before Labor Day Weekend of 2018. When Friday afternoon rolls around, your office will look like a ghost town. Most of your coworkers will figure out a way to sneak out early.

(Many veterans will remember this sentence with fondness: “I’ve got to go pick up a tape!”)

So will your competitors across town.

That doesn’t mean you have to leave.

Here are some reasons to see if you can make an appointment or two this Friday afternoon:

Retailers will be open.
Auto dealerships will be open.
Medical practices will be open.
Restaurants will be open.

Most of your competitors will be long gone. Even the ones who stay will be reluctant to make sales calls.

There may be fewer fish in the pond, but you’ll have the pond to yourself.

If you sell on commission, and you sell something on Friday afternoon, you’ll be paid for it.

That money might make your Labor Day weekend just a little bit more fun.

What are you doing Friday afternoon?

Are You Underselling?

Are your clients investing enough to get results? If not, the fault may be with your proposals.

Radio and TV salespeople should ask for enough to get results — Photo by ivanmateev

When I prepare for a market visit, I like to ask managers and salespeople how much money it takes to generate measurable results on their station.

The answer I get varies depending on market size, rates and ratings, but there’s usually a consensus among the staff on the minimum monthly spend necessary to move the needle.

And often, there are advertisers spending well below that number.

Recently I accompanied an AE to a “save” appointment. The client was threatening to cancel because he felt his advertising wasn’t working. It was my job to come up with a way to save the business.

“What’s the minimum an advertiser needs to spend on your station to see a return?” I asked the AE.

“$3000 a month, at least,” she said.

“How much is this guy spending?”

A look of embarrassment crossed her face. “$1950.”

“Why are you letting him do that if you know it won’t work?”

She replied, “He told me that’s all he had in his budget.”

This AE is not alone. Every time I go out on the road, I encounter at least a few clients who have big expectations for tiny budgets. They are destined to be disappointed.

When a client underspends on a campaign, there are three losers:

The advertiser, who won’t get the return they expected.
Your station, who now has a customer telling their associates: “I tried [TV or radio] and it didn’t work.”
The salesperson, who loses confidence in the power of the medium.

If you’re a sales manager, this is a great subject for a sales meeting.

Before your next meeting, ask your sellers to email you a number – the minimum monthly dollar amount they think is necessary to get results on your station or media platform.

Compile the responses, lead a discussion on what it takes to generate results, and agree on a range.

When the meeting ends, ask your AE’s to go back to their desks and pull out their last ten direct proposals. How many of them were above the number?

You – and they – may not like the answer. Many will have to admit they’re not asking for enough to get the job done.

In my book Breakthrough Prospecting, I recommend setting an “Evangelista Number” – a minimum dollar amount for every proposal that goes out the door.

The Evangelista Number may vary for each AE depending on experience level and market conditions. But it should always be above the minimum necessary to get results.

As marketing professionals, it’s our job to educate advertisers on the right way to do things. That includes investing enough money to get the job done.

[reminder preface=” “]Confession time: As a radio sales rookie, I once accepted an order for $20. What’s the smallest order you ever took?[/reminder]

Is Jargon Killing Your Sales?

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.