“I am out here for you. You don’t know what it’s like to be ME out here for YOU. It is an up-at-dawn, pride-swallowing siege that I will never fully tell you about, ok? Help me….help you. Help me, help you.”
What a great scene from an even better movie. Tom Cruise, as player agent Jerry Maguire, with Cuba Gooding Jr. in the role of Arizona Cardinals receiver Rod Tidwell. “Help me, help you.”
So how does this movie quote relate to our jobs selling sports media? In more ways than one…
“Help me, help you” is a great way to describe what the relationship should be like between the seller and the client. The first step in a business helping you help them is simply by getting the chance to talk with them about their business and their marketing strategies. We all know that many businesses need help with their marketing plan, or even worse, need a marketing plan to begin with. Getting them to sit down and take the time to talk with you about their business is another story, but when they do, it is their way of saying “I need help.”
“Help me, help you” is also all about the business owner really putting thought in to their answers and not just giving you the stock answers like the car dealer favorite, “our target is anyone who can drive.” In order for us to really be able to help the business, we need their help in identifying their targets, their core messages and more. It should be a partnership where both parties are trying to find the answers, we should be bringing a consultative approach to marketing and they need to be providing us with the answers or information about their business that only they can know.
“Help me, help you” can be critical when it comes to copy and putting the campaign in motion. While many of us are very capable of going to a website and pulling off a couple of things that look really important about the business, we all know getting input from the client is much more helpful and not always the easiest thing to make happen. Make that client understand the importance of them providing you the answers you need, so you can put forward the best campaign versus something incredibly generic.
“Help me, help you” can refer to what happens once the advertising and marketing strategies are put in to place. Too many sellers forget to ask up front about expectations and if you are unsure of how you are being judged, how can you have anything to base the campaign off of? The goals and expectations should be clear from the beginning and have to be quantifiable. The client also has to be willing to share the information needed to measure.
“Help me, help you” can also be about your relationship with your manager and co-workers. Our jobs are really a team effort. Ideally, you have a situation where you and your teammates and manager regularly collaborate, share ideas and brainstorm opportunities to drive new business. With your manager, always be cognizant of their time and the fact they have to help everyone on the team and not just you. One major way you can help is by bringing ideas to a conversation and not just asking for help without having put forth any effort and really just wanting the manager to do it for you. With your teammates, you know there will be times when you need assistance whether it be because you’re on vacation or maternity leave or just out of the office and need a file. Be willing to help others when they need it, so that when you need it, it isn’t hard to find.
“Help me, help you” in the movie, was all about one part of a partnership helping the other make “selling them” easier. When you think of it that way, it’s easy to see how there is a lot of “help me, help you” in our world of sports radio. We need our clients, our teammates and our managers as partners to make things go well, so we can all be doing what we want to be doing and that’s making sales and being able to yell out, “Show me the money!”
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.
