Category: Sales

Does the Client Believe It’s Working?

In the advertising sales game, few things are worse than an unexpected cancellation.

The agreement was signed with great fanfare a few months ago. The ad looked great, the digital campaign’s performing well, and you’ve settled in for a good, long relationship.

Then the email comes out of the blue. “It’s not working. We need to go dark for a while.”

If “it’s not working” comes as a surprise, you may need to take a look at how you communicate results.

Your perception of the campaign matters less than the advertiser’s. Does the client believe it’s working?

sales success isn't magic -- does the client believe?
Photo by luckybusiness

A Quick Medical Analogy

A recent Seth Godin blog post pointed me to a New York Times article on “sham surgery.”

Sham surgery is a research technique in which patients (who are informed about and consent to this) are led to believe they are undergoing a surgical procedure. The procedure is supposed  to treat a real medical issue such as back pain or asthma.

The malady is genuine; the surgery may not be. Some patients get the real surgery; others just get anesthetic and an incision.

A 2014 review of 53 trials that compared elective surgical procedures to placebos found that sham surgeries provided some benefit in 74 percent of the trials and worked as well as the real deal in about half…

…Such findings show that these procedures don’t work as promised, but they also indicate that there’s something powerful about believing that you’re having surgery and that it will fix what ails you. [Orthopedic Surgeon Stuart] Green hypothesizes that a surgery’s placebo effect is proportional to the elaborateness of the rituals surrounding it, the surgeon’s expressed confidence and enthusiasm for the procedure, and a patient’s belief that it will help.

If the patient thinks it worked, it worked.

It’s much easier to keep an advertising client when the client believes the campaign is working. Ensuring this is up to you…and the elaborateness of your rituals.

It starts with managing expectations. 

What is the advertiser hoping to achieve with the campaign? Are their goals measurable? Are they realistic?

Do you know what they are?

Find out. Before the campaign starts.

  • If it’s an increase in sales, what sales? How much of an increase? By when? Doubling sales is great, unless the client expects sales to triple.
  • If it’s traffic to the website, how much traffic? To which page? How much are they getting now? Is there a mechanism on the page to take prospects to the next step in the buying process?
  • Are there any holes in the sales funnel — places where a customer might get confused or repelled along the way? The best idea can fail if it’s implemented poorly — you can read about a promotion I botched years ago here.

Are you checking in regularly with the advertiser to to see how the campaign is producing?

Don’t be afraid to ask — the client already knows (or thinks they know) whether it’s working. You’ll be in a much better position to address the issue if you know what they’re thinking.

Are there any unusual, emotional or quirky ways the client is measuring results? For example:

  • A savvy TV rep on the West Coast told me that when clients see their own commercial, they’re much more likely to feel like its producing. He makes a point of asking new advertisers, “What’s your favorite show?”
                                                                                       .
    If the client is a loyal viewer of one particular program, the AE always figures out a way to squeeze a spot or two into that show.
  • For years, I wrote all the radio commercials for a big home improvement contractor. Sales were important to him, but even more important was the good-natured ribbing about his commercials from his friends at the country club.
                                                                                      .
    Business could be up 20%, but if the other guys at the club didn’t tell him how funny he was on the radio, he truly believed the advertising wasn’t working.
                                                                                      .
    My eventual conclusion: it was his money, this was how kept score, and Job 1 was to make his golf buddies laugh. I wasn’t proud of this, but seven years of commission checks helped ease the pain. 

You’ve got a much better chance of building a long-term relationship if you make sure your customers see the results of the campaign.

Because if the client doesn’t believe it’s working… it’s not working.

[reminder]

Before The First Meeting: Have You Done Your Homework?

If you’ve spent any time as an advertising salesperson, you’ve learned that our reputation out there isn’t particularly good.

Too many of our colleagues and competitors walk into a prospect’s office with a media kit, a “new advertiser package,” and no knowledge of the client’s business.

The bad news: this makes it tough for everyone. Businesspeople are reluctant to let us in, because they don’t want to waste yet another hour with another unprepared peddler.

The good news: if you can get in the door, it’s not all that hard to set yourself apart from the others.

You just have to do your homework.

Radio television salespeople should do their homework
Photo by jminso679

 

Hubspot recently compiled a list of 18 Places to Research a Prospect Before a Sales Call.  #18 in particular stood out to me:

18) Yelp

Does your prospect work directly with consumers? If so, browsing their Yelp page is a great way to learn more about their strengths and weaknesses. For example, maybe 40% of their reviews mention their poor customer service. In your initial email, you can give a few suggestions to improve service. Or maybe multiple reviewers praise their reasonable prices. You might offer to share some strategies for directing customers to the most high-margin products.”

 

My book, Breakthrough Prospecting, has a chapter devoted to pre-call preparation, and a long section on preparing the right questions for a first call. If you don’t already own the book, you should buy it.

If you already own a copy, it’s worth noting that Breakthrough Prospecting makes a great gift.

[button href=”https://philbernstein.com/bernstein-worldwide-breakthrough-prospecting-order-page” primary=”true” centered=”true” newwindow=”true”]Buy Breakthrough Prospecting Here[/button]

 

Sam Richter, author of Take the Cold Out of Cold Calling, has an interesting method for using LinkedIn on a first meeting. You might call it the “Guess What I Found” method:

Richter searches the prospect’s LinkedIn profile for something interesting and different, and then makes sure to work it into the conversation:

Before I meet with people I like to do a little bit of homework. You’re a busy guy, and I don’t like to waste your time. Guess what I found? I was looking at your LinkedIn profile and I see that you are on the board of directors of the Hochstein School of Music and Dance. That’s really interesting, do you have a family member involved in dance? How did you get into that?’…

…It sounds a little bit corny, but I have to tell you it really works because the first part of that: ‘Hey, before I meet with people I like to do a little bit of homework.’ Right there you’ve just differentiated yourself from pretty much every advisor, every accountant, every lawyer, every salesperson this person’s ever met with… The second you say to somebody, ‘I did a little homework on you and guess what I found?’ When you say that phrase, ‘And guess what I found?’ you have the other person’s full attention. ‘What’d you find?“

As my boss and mentor Jim Doyle likes to say, the wing-it days are over. The information you need to be prepared is as close as your laptop or your smartphone.

It’ll take you 15 minutes or less to get ready. Those 15 minutes could be the difference between making a sale and getting thrown out of the office.

[reminder]

Please Call Your Voice Mail. Now.

Here are three salespeoples’ outgoing voice mail greetings I encountered on Tuesday, June 13. Names and numbers have been changed to protect people who should know better:

salespeople should fix their phone greetings
Photo by Drobot Dean
  • “The person you are trying to reach is not available. Please leave a message after the tone.” Delivered by an automated voice. 
  • “You have reached five, oh, three, four, seven, seven, four, nine, three, three. Please leave a message after the tone.” Delivered by an automated voice. When I tried to leave a message, the attendant informed me that the mail box was full and I would have to call back later.
  • “Hi, this is Bill. Our offices are closed for the Memorial Day holiday weekend. Please leave your name and number and I’ll call you when we reopen on Tuesday, May 30.” I was calling on June 13.

In the first two examples, I had no idea if I had called the right number. For the last one, at least I knew I’d reached good old Bill — but I was calling two weeks after Memorial Day and there was no way of knowing if he was in or out of the office.

I alerted all three of them to the problem (it was a surprise in each case) and strongly urged them to fix their greetings.

Today I strongly urge you to get on your cell phone and call your desk phone. Let it go to voice mail and listen. Try to leave a message.

Then get on your desk phone and call your cell phone. Let it go to voice mail and listen. Try to leave a message.

What did you hear? If you were a client or prospect and heard that greeting, what would you think?

Here’s what Seattle Job Recruiter Lora Poepping thinks:

I will hang up when your voicemail doesn’t give your name.

Please, please have your name mentioned in your outgoing message. Why? Because I don’t want to leave a message about wanting to speak with you about a potential new job if I don’t even know if I’ve reached the right person. If you don’t want to record something, just default to using your name. You may have missed your chance to be considered for a position.

A robotic voice mail message will send your prospects to a competitor. 

Indulge me, longtime readers. I’ve written on this subject before. Experience tells me the problem hasn’t gotten any better — and some of the people I’ve alerted in the past have never bothered to fix the problem.

My advice? Fix it. Now.

  • Record a greeting in your voice, giving your name. Don’t make your customers guess whether they got the right number.  Nothing fancy — just invite callers to leave a message and promise to call them back.
  • If you’re feeling adventurous, you can include a short positioning statement on the greeting. Example: A floor store owner did a great job selling on his voice mail.
  • If you’re going to be out of the office and unavailable, change the greeting to reflect that. But don’t forget to change it back as soon as you return.
  • If you’re one of those people who doesn’t listen to your voice mail messages and prefers to be contacted another way, your greeting should say that clearly.
  • Empty your mailbox. If callers can’t leave a message, they’ll call someone else.

A bad voice mail greeting is a big hole in your sales funnel. Fix the hole, and the money is much more likely to flow to you.

[reminder]

How to Manufacture Sales From Manufactured Holidays

I’m sorry to report that somehow, you missed National Hug a Plumber Day on April 25.  Don’t worry.  There are many other holidays you can celebrate…and profit from.

Salespeople can celebrate holidays like hug a plumber day
Photo by WavebreakmediaMicro

Hug a Plumber Day is one of thousands of “holidays” declared by corporations, civic organizations and individuals looking for a little extra attention. They are often covered by media outlets looking to fill holes in a slow news day.

National Public Radio’s Planet Money Podcast recently devoted an episode to the business of manufactured holidays:

These events are also great opportunities for enterprising media salespeople to make contact with potential advertisers. 

The most comprehensive list of events is the Chase Calendar of Events, a 700-page doorstop of a reference guide. Planet Money’s Kenny Malone called it “the Oxford English Dictionary of holidays.” The 2017 edition goes for $75 on Amazon, and there’s a downloadable Kindle edition as well.

Money Saving Tip: This is one of those cases where an older edition can serve you just fine. The 2015 version  has the vast majority of the holidays shown in the new version. As I write this, used copies are available on Amazon starting at about three bucks plus shipping, 

There are also free online resources like National Day Calendar. 

Hug a Plumber Day will come around again in April, 2018. This gives you a ready-made excuse to start a conversation with your local plumbers early next year.

In the meantime, here are some August “holidays” you can be working on now.

  • August 4 will be International Beer Day — create a promotion with a brewpub!
  • Also within August: National Bargain Hunting Week (perfect for any retailer on your list); National Cleanse Your Skin Week (got an aesthetic medicine clinic?); and National Motorcycle Week
  • August is National Eye Exam Month, National Golf Month, and National Peach Month — if you’ve got an optometrist or Lasik doctor, golf course or sporting goods store, or grocery store, this gives you something to talk with them about.

Finally, a day you should mark on your calendar, even if it won’t make you any money: November 6 is Broadcast Traffic Professionals Day. This would be an excellent time to take your Traffic Department to a nice lunch. A really nice lunch. Believe me, they deserve it. 

[reminder]What’s the craziest excuse for a promotion you’ve ever seen?[/reminder]

How to Recover From a Massive Screwup

Something bad is going to happen. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, or next week. But if you sell advertising for a significant length of time, somebody will screw up and you’ll have to clean up the mess.

salespeople have to mop up the mess
Photo by Focus Pocus LTD

The dust has finally settled on the United Airlines “doctor dragged off the plane” affair of April 2017. I won’t focus here on the incident itself — pretty much everyone agrees that what happened to David Dao was outrageous. 

For those in the media sales business, the real lessons are in United Airlines’ response. 

It is unlikely that your company will ever administer a physical beating to a paying customer. But you will one day check your email and find out that something’s gone badly wrong. Such as:

  • Your client’s commercial didn’t run the week leading into their biggest sale of the year.
  • The wrong spot ran for a month — or longer — before somebody caught it.
  • The production department missed a crucial deadline.
  • Your company’s credit office — which is now a computer chip in a Cheyenne, Wyoming basement — denied credit to your big new direct account.

Handled correctly, a service failure can sometimes increase customer loyalty — a phenomenon known as the “Service Recovery Paradox”. It’s tricky to accomplish, and requires some training. 

Customer support expert Len Markidian points to Disney’s approach to service failures:

Their approach to service recovery is a five-step process, easily remembered with the acronym H.E.A.R.D:

  • Hear: let the customer tell their entire story without interruption. Sometimes, we just want someone to listen.
  • Empathize: Convey that you deeply understand how the customer feels. Use phrases like “I’d be frustrated, too.”
  • Apologize: As long as it’s sincere, you can’t apologize enough. Even if you didn’t do whatever made them upset, you can still genuinely be apologetic for the way your customer feels (e.g., I’m always sorry that a customer feels upset).
  • Resolve: Resolve the issue quickly, or make sure that your employees are empowered to do so. Don’t be afraid to ask the customer: “what can I do to make this right?”
  • Diagnose: Get to the bottom of why the mistake occurred, without blaming anyone; focus on fixing the process so that it doesn’t happen again.

It’s fair to say that in the first 24-48 hours after the incident, United didn’t bother to Hear or Empathize. They eventually got around to Apologizing and Diagnosing. They are now attempting to Resolve, but there will be lots of lawyers involved.

If you’re dealing with an angry client, and there’s even a small chance that the situation is your station’s fault, here are some “United Lessons” to heed:

  1. If you’re not sure what happened, find out before expressing your opinion. United dug itself a big hole early in the process by issuing statements that blamed the customer. No law says you have to issue a verdict right away. Promise the client you’ll get to the bottom of it… and then get to the bottom of it.
  2. Make a point of accepting all of the blame, even if it hurts. If you think your customer’s partially at fault, resist the urge to say so.  If your client goes from angry to angry-and-defensive, you lose. 
  3. Don’t point fingers. United CEO Oscar Munoz could have pointed out that the incident didn’t happen on a United Airlines flight — the United Express flight was operated by Republic Airways, a separate company. The flight crew and gate agents were Republic employees, not United employees; the people who dragged Dr. Dao off the plane worked for the Chicago Aviation Police. To his credit, Munoz understood that regardless of the legalities, this was a United Airlines problem. Your client won’t care if it’s the fault of Production, Accounting, or “Corporate.” If it happened at your station, and you’re the Account Executive,  it’s your problem to fix.
  4. Deliver the message in language your customer uses. If your response sounds like corporate-speak it will come off as insincere. When Munoz said, “I apologize for having to re-accommodate these customers,” he lost everybody.
  5.  Make it right — give the client much more in return than they lost — and do it quickly. United took three days to offer refunds to the passengers of Flight 3411, and lost the chance to generate some goodwill. If you’re not sure what will make the client happy, ask. 
  6. Figure out what caused the problem, and how you can prevent it from happening again. United has announced some significant policy changes to make sure that paying customers already in their seats can stay. If you don’t have the ability to change policies, you may have to get creative.

 Bad things happen to even the best salespeople. With the right mindset, you can correct a big mistake and position yourself as a true professional.

[reminder]What’s the worst customer service fail/mess you’ve ever had to clean up? What did you do to resolve it, and what did you learn from the experience?[/reminder]