“There isn’t a sales problem in the world that can’t be cured by more presentations! More presentations equals more sales! Period. Ask and I get, don’t and I won’t! Starting today I need to make more presentations.”
I first heard this quote, uttered by media sales guru Dave Gifford in 2005, while working for Simmons Media. I was fortunate enough to attend multiple “Giff” training sessions, despite initially thinking traveling from St. Louis to Albuquerque to listen to yet another sales trainer was completely ridiculous.
Giff was different, however. He not only held your attention, but like with the line about presentations, he would hammer home the key points so that no matter how little you may have listened during the training, you walked away with a clear understanding of the message.
In a funk – make more presentations. Need a raise – make more presentations. Boss getting on you – make more presentations. Just had a big cancellation – make more presentations. Market is down – make more presentations. Corporate flipped the format – make more presentations. Co-workers are driving you nuts – make more presentations.
So basically, what was being said was no matter the problem, everything is better when you make more presentations. Presentations lead to sales.
Do you know your closing ratio when it comes to presenting a good idea that is a solution to one of your clients or prospects? You should, and if you do know it, and your average sale, then you know exactly how many presentations it will take you to close the amount of business you need to get where you want to be.
Now, once you have that figured out, think about how many phone calls it took you to get those meetings. Everything in our business can all boil down to mathematics. Ultimately, you should be able to figure out how many dials it will take you to get the right number of needs analysis meetings with decision makers, to get to make the right number of presentations to get the number of sales at your average sale price, so that you know how you’re going to get the right number of clients on the air to make the money you want to make.
It’s like when the football coach tells him team they need to go back to the basics – blocking and tackling. You need to run the football to win, and you can’t run if you can’t block. You need to stop the other team from scoring as often as you can, and you can’t do that without being able to tackle.
Presentations are what lead to scoring in sports media sales and scoring is making money.
Another Giff quote that has stuck with me all these years is: “Business goes where it is invited.”
Think about that. Where do your clients get new business from? Hopefully, their advertising (or invitation to potential customers) is driving new business, which is most likely coming from one of their competitors. One auto dealer advertises a special that a person hears on one of our sports stations, and instead of going to their usual lot to buy a car, they try the competitor.
How does a business steal customers away from the competition if they aren’t inviting them to do so? This is a very powerful question to ask prospects. Where is your new business going to come from? Business goes where it’s invited, and you’re not inviting anyone. Even better, business goes where it is invited, and here’s a sample of a campaign we can run to invite more people to do business with you.
Whenever I attend a training session or read an article with industry information, my goal is to take one or two things from it to apply. These are two of many things I took from the sessions with “Giff,” but certainly the ones I refer back to the most.
Sometimes, we just need a little reminder to get us back to the “blocking and tackling” of what we do. In the end, the scoreboard will show how we did, and if it wasn’t enough to make us happy, we know the only solution is more presentations.
Dave Greene is the Chief Media Officer for Barrett Media. His background includes over 25 years in media and content creation. A former sports talk host and play-by-play broadcaster, Dave transitioned to station and sales management, co-founded and created a monthly sports publication and led an ownership group as the operating partner. He has managed stations and sales teams for Townsquare Media, Cumulus Media and Audacy. Upon leaving broadcast media he co-founded Podcast Heat, a sports and entertainment podcasting network specializing in pro wrestling nostalgia. To interact, find him on Twitter @mr_podcasting. You can also reach him by email at Dave@BarrettMedia.com.
