Three people entered the meeting: The radio salesperson (sorry, “marketing consultant”), the internet sales manager (ISM), and the prospect. All came in and sat down, and after exchanging a few pleasantries, the marketing consultant started the conversation: “Thank you for taking the time today… I reeealy appreciate it, I know you’re busy… so, let’s get right to it. Tell me a little bit about your business?” At that very moment the smile left the prospects face and his eyebrows dropped. From this description, I can tell you EXACTLY what the prospect was thinking: “You’re wasting my time.”
After three attempts to schedule this meeting, and two rescheduled appointment times – this marketing consultant had focused 100% of her effort on getting the face-to-face time, and 0% of her time planning what she actually wanted to discuss with the prospect.
Fortunately, the ISM was able to jump in before the tension grew too intense: “I noticed you’re launching a new initiative surrounding “blah, blah, blah” – that’s an interesting approach… is there a lot of room for expansion in that category, or is this a seasonal tactic?”
The prospect immediately sprang back to life, and began to rattle-on about the long term opportunities and implications of the new initiative. That was obviously a hot button for his business growth.
During the meeting the prospect and the ISM bounced ideas, questions, and concerns back-and-forth. The ISM suggested a Facebook promotion to further expand awareness of the initiative and the prospect responded with enthusiasm, suggestions, and even more questions. By the end of the meeting (which was scheduled for 30-minutes and lasted well over an hour) the prospect requested a formal outline and proposal for all of the things discussed.
When the sales person and the ISM left the meeting and made their way back to the station – the girl just couldn’t believe “how well that meeting went”. “How did you know about that initiative?” she asked the ISM. “It’s called Google” the ISM replied.
The proposal was delivered to the prospect by weeks-end, and with a couple of modifications – the contract (a mix of on-air, online, and social media) had been sold.
Bulletin: The role of the “marketing consultant” has changed. Clients are looking for more than just how many spots you’re gonna run and at what price. They are looking for “IDEAS” to help their business grow.
I know without asking that there are managers reading this article that shuddered when they saw someone representing radio suggesting Facebook… why? If not you, who?
We run across small to medium size business owners every week that want to talk about “Facebook, Facebook, Facebook” – yet, in many cases, they have no idea how to use it to benefit their business… most don’t even know how to set-up a Facebook account. The station in this example offered not only a solution, but a targeted solution – using a mix of traditional and digital.
What’s more – the client loved the idea, but had no clue on how to implement it. Again, radio became the expert. Dare I say, the ISM played the role of a true “marketing consultant”, outlining the grandest of schemes, and then scaling all of the ideas back into a tidy, comprehensive, integrated marketing proposal. Win!
So here are the take-aways:
• Do your homework BEFORE your meeting. Google the client’s industry, their website – look at their recent news, press releases, social media accounts to see what they are working on. Build your conversation from there. Knowing something about your client BEFORE the meeting is no longer a nice idea – it’s a necessity for success.
• If the ISM is not present at a meeting (perhaps you don’t even have an ISM) – would your salesperson be able to deliver the same results on their own? If not, what are you doing to train them as a true “marketing consultant” – not just for your traditional marketing assets, but digital marketing assets as well.
• The approach above not only resulted in a sale, it delivered a true convergence sale using both traditional and digital media elements. No dollars were traded from traditional to digital – in fact, one could argue the digital idea secured the traditional buy.
–Chuck Francis, VP New Media Strategies, Remerge Media. Remerge is a multi-media consulting firm, specializing in new media integration and simultaneous media solutions. Remerge works with radio, TV and newspaper clients to help them understand, integrate and generate revenue from new media through custom sales solutions, and providing traditional media sales personnel with highly specialized training.
