Sales side

[babeontheair]

It seems there is alot of talk about the on air side of things. How do you all see the non Forever stations in Stae College stations combating the clear channel like market? Not postioning, how will they sell against the cluster?

 

[shilton]

> It seems there is alot of talk about the on air side of
> things. How do you all see the non Forever stations in Stae
> College stations combating the clear channel like market?
> Not postioning, how will they sell against the cluster?
>
Gotta target the LITTLE guys who don't care for big business...there are a lot of WALMART haters out there...those businesses are potential advertisers. Gotta give them the old HEY BILL...we know who you are when you call routine!

A little good one-on-one goes a long way

 

[mountaineer]

Forever keeps churning their salespeople, so the advertisers don't know who is calling on them from week to week. That's probably what really cost the last GM. Oh, yeah, they keep firing GMs, too--and they're on their 4th or 5th sales manager since they hit town in '98. So nobody ever gets a chance to build a working relationship with any of them. (So, selling against these people--whoever they are at the moment--doesn't seem to have been a big problem). Agencies? Well, it's the 250th radio market--not much agency biz to be found!


> It seems there is alot of talk about the on air side of
> things. How do you all see the non Forever stations in Stae
> College stations combating the clear channel like market?
> Not postioning, how will they sell against the cluster?
>

 

[captainrexk]

> Forever keeps churning their salespeople, so the advertisers
> don't know who is calling on them from week to week.

Keymarket (Froggy) keeps looking for AEs down here in Pittsburgh, you can count on a Sunday P-G classified at least once a month looking for new AEs. And, judging by the lack of local spots on their air, I don't think they're expanding like their ads claim.

 

[shilton]

> Forever keeps churning their salespeople, so the advertisers
> don't know who is calling on them from week to week. That's
> probably what really cost the last GM. Oh, yeah, they keep
> firing GMs, too--and they're on their 4th or 5th sales
> manager since they hit town in '98. So nobody ever gets a
> chance to build a working relationship with any of them.
>

Oh...Honestly I think your comments are being unfairly targeted at Forever. In reality evey station has a tough time keeping sales staff. Radio Sales in general is a tough racket. I think I read somewhere once that stats show that like 1 in every 6 people who try it work out. The rest bolt for whatever reason. Back years ago at Nittany Broadcasting, it was not uncommon for us to hire 2-3 new salespeople at a time and within 4-6 months MAYBE one would be left.

People come in thinking its going to be this windfall of money...a cakewalk of a job and then they realize there is a LOT of leg work to it. You have to hit the streets, do a lot of butt kissing...you have to defend your product when potential advertisers say silly things like "WELL I NEVER LISTEN TO THAT STATION...SO WHY WOULD I BUY THERE". Its not like any other type of sales racket...if you are a car salesperson and someone comes in the door, you KNOW they ARE looking to buy a car, so your odds are pretty good. How many times do these guys go out and hit a business only to hear "Get out of here...I hate your station and WE DON'T DO RADIO".

You are also hated by your airstaff...no kidding...How many of us used to joke about hating the "sales weenies" because they sold some silly package promo we had to get excited about on the air even though we knew it sounded awful...We never stopped to think that THESE PEOPLE ARE PAYING OUR SALARIES!

I don't honestly believe that Forever sees any more churn on sales staff than most other broadcasters do. It just seems that way because they have a much larger staff, so when the same percentage of people leave as do anywhere else, it seems like some sort of mass exodus.

Oh and by the way....don't know why so many sales managers at Forever, but I can tell you at least the last go around, they got a new sales manager cause the other one WAS PROMOTED! So its not all bad. For all I know they could have all gotten promotions. I doubt it...but remember sales managers have to be sales people themselves. Maybe they just had a bad bunch that didn't pull their weight.

 

[Spackler]

> > Forever keeps churning their salespeople, so the
> advertisers
> > don't know who is calling on them from week to week.
> That's
> > probably what really cost the last GM. Oh, yeah, they keep
>
> > firing GMs, too--and they're on their 4th or 5th sales
> > manager since they hit town in '98. So nobody ever gets a
> > chance to build a working relationship with any of them.
> >
>
> Oh...Honestly I think your comments are being unfairly
> targeted at Forever. In reality evey station has a tough
> time keeping sales staff. Radio Sales in general is a tough
> racket. I think I read somewhere once that stats show that
> like 1 in every 6 people who try it work out. The rest bolt
> for whatever reason. Back years ago at Nittany
> Broadcasting, it was not uncommon for us to hire 2-3 new
> salespeople at a time and within 4-6 months MAYBE one would
> be left.

Forever is especially bad. Sure, media sales in general has a high churn, but truthfully, Forever's is high even by those standards.

 

[missaretha]

How radio sales works

Remember during your freshmen year of college when someone said something like, "look at the person to your left, now look at the person to your right. These people may not be here in four years when you graduate?"

Same basic idea in radio sales. It's not easy. It's not 9 to 5, and it's not glorious. Not only do you need to know how to overcome objections but you have to overcome your "salesperson" label, and you must realize that you can't just sell to a client without servicing them after the sale. Clients want and need to be coddled.

I've been on the purchasing end of radio all over Pennsylvania and as a client, I loved having the lips of every salesperson I worked with planted firmly on my butt.

Now as bad as that sounds, think of it ths way. I wasn't demanding anything I didn't think I should have but the nature of my work required salespeople to be available to me when I needed them. They were aware of that before I ever signed any contract.

Of all the contracts I ever entered into, I only had to pull out of one because the salesperson thought she was going to collect the money and bail. Uh...no.

Strangely, it was the most amount of money I spent on any contract I ever negotiated. So I told a very huge station in Philadelphia to kiss my butt, stopped the checks and negotiated a refund of all expenditures to that date for complete failure of the salesperson to meet the requirements stipulated in my contract. Shortly after that, I negotiated and signed a contract with their closest competitor and got every penny's worth of what I paid for.

Radio sales is hard. If you're squeamish or can't take rejection, I advise against it. It's not for the faint of heart.

 

[mountaineer]

Sure it's tough, but the answer isn't unfair. Look at the other stations and they don't have that kind of turnover. Whether by firing or promotion or merger, the faces keep changing and each time a new rep walks in, the advertiser has to start all over again. They get tired of it. Don't you? The question was "how would the others sell against Forever?" The answer: as long as the advertiser needs a scorecard to keep track of their Forever reps, it shouldn't be a problem.

> > Forever keeps churning their salespeople, so the
> advertisers
> > don't know who is calling on them from week to week.
So nobody ever gets a
> > chance to build a working relationship with any of them.
> >
>
> Oh...Honestly I think your comments are being unfairly
> targeted at Forever. In reality evey station has a tough
> time keeping sales staff. Radio Sales in general is a tough
> racket.