How long are the schedules you propose? You may be leaving money on the table.

Most of the radio and television salespeople I encounter default to one of these:

• Three months
• Through December of this year
• 12 months

When I ask how they arrived at the proposed length, it turns out there’s no formula. Sometimes the terms are set by an RFP, or a specific client request. Most of the time the salesperson just decides.

• “I didn’t want to ask for less than three months.”
• “December’s the end of the year, and that seemed like a logical time to end it.”
• “I always ask for an annual, and that’s 12 months.”

There’s logic behind each of these answers. But the one thing they have in common is that the proposed length of most proposals is completely arbitrary.

In other words, we make it up. 

As long as we’re making it up, why not go longer?

I’ve been experimenting with longer asks. With some coaxing, I’ve convinced AE’s and sales managers that they can, and should, ask for longer commitments.

Early in the year, we went for 13-month deals. For example: instead of a “March 2018 through February 2019” agreement, we wrote each proposal to run March 2018 through March 2019. 

What we found: if a client is willing to commit to 12 months, they’ll commit to 13. Rarely did we encounter an objection.

Recently, I helped some AE’s become even more ambitious. We wrote a series of proposals that began in the middle of this year and went through the end of next year.

June 2018-December 2019. 19 months.

There was nothing deceptive in our approach. We made it clear to each client exactly what we were asking for.

Out of 15 proposals in this particular market, 12 of them were for 19 months (the other three clients could only consider schedules that ran during their fiscal year.)

So far, seven clients have signed, and five of those signed for the full 19 months. 

5 proposals x 7 extra months per proposal = 35 months of additional advertising sold. That’s almost three full years’ worth of additional revenue, with virtually no additional effort expended. 

Note well: if the station doesn’t provide good service, or the advertising doesn’t work, or the marketing director gets fired, the usual cancellation policy applies. The money is not guaranteed.

But that risk applies to every schedule the station sells. These things are never final until the money’s in the bank.

For now, we’ve got five new clients who fully expect to run on our station until December, 2019.

Why? Because we asked them to.

The next time you’re preparing an “annual” presentation, raise your expectations. There’s no law limiting you to 12 months.

Question: What’s the longest plan you’ve ever sold? You can leave a comment by clicking here.