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Hope everyone’s week is off to a great start. I want to talk about the equivalent to gold for salespeople in this week’s sales meeting. I cannot stress to you how important these two things are to your overall career. Generally, they are two things that work hand in hand, and they are success stories and referrals from clients.
I’m not going to spend a lot of time on writing about the challenges you face trying to differentiate yourself and your products from other people. These days not only are you responsible for selling what is different about your station(s) as far as overall demographics, but many are selling the exact same digital products and trying to win business with ‘your new amazing dashboard.’
The question is always, ‘how do you separate from your competitors?’ No, not the other stations, the other salespeople, that is who your competition is.
The best way to do it is by selling success. You worked with client x, they were looking to solve a problem, you created a campaign that addressed the problem, you increased their business. If when talking to new prospects you uncover a problem, and it’s one you’ve addressed for another company and had proven, documented success, the best way you’re going to sell that new customer is by using that success story.
What makes that even better is if you have the business owner from the successful campaign referring you because of your role in the success of the campaign. This can be done several ways, but the easiest way is to record an interview with that client and have them talk about working with you and the successful campaign. You can do it on your cell phone and then you have it for whenever you need it. It’s a referral that walks around with you and you can use whenever you need it.
Now, let’s stop and talk about what success is. You need to show that you helped that business grow revenue. You can also talk about all the other metrics such as how many people visited the website within a certain window after a commercial, how many clicks they received on a banner ad or what the open rate was on an e-blast. However, none of that matters if the revenue isn’t there.
You need success stories with real results that will resonate with a business owner and all they care about is more customers and more cash. If you are walking around telling people that because they got a .15 click through rate and they were three times the national average, you need to go back to digital training and learn another line. That one isn’t helping you sell anything. Real, measurable growth.
Now, think ahead to when you have 5, 10, 15, 20 success stories and referrals from clients saying that you and the campaign you came up with led to direct, measurable success for their business. Can you imagine how powerful that is to use and be able to talk about with your new prospects?
Now you are no longer saying you think this can be successful, you can show them results to prove it and have actual customers singing your praises. Some clients are willing to go an extra step and allow you to give prospective customers their phone number or email address so they can vouge for you if anyone ever needs additional reassurance.
Of course, you should always be asking your clients for referrals and don’t be afraid to mention some companies or people you are trying to get in with. It may make the client realize they know someone who can help. One way to get an idea of who they might know is to see who they are connected with on LinkedIn.
Overall, as mentioned several times in this space, the business needs to do a better job of promoting the business. When we have campaigns that a client is extremely happy with, we need to tell the world. If for some reason the client doesn’t grant you permission to use their name, tell the story anyway with what category the business is in, what the identified problem was, what was presented as the solution and any measurable results so long as an increase in customers or cash is one of them.
You have one of the hardest jobs out there, so when you succeed, don’t keep the success story to yourself. Stand on top of the mountain and tell the world.
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.
