BOOK EXTRACT: The Desk Closest to the Door – How to Master the Art of Selling Direct Media

Civility costs nothing

English proverb, 18^th century

Before you even write the initial page of a solution for your client’s problem I would recommend the first action you take when you get back from meeting a client for the first or the fiftieth time.

Sit down and write a thank you note.

Develop a thank you note strategy. What you might have noticed when reading these chapters is that I’m giving you a basic system to follow. Within a short period of time you have sent three or four communications including a Bio, Intro letter and/or free report. You have just completed your first visit and within a few days you should send a note thanking the clients for their time.

Many direct media salespeople will tell you that It is a tough old market out there at the moment. Everywhere we go, they are telling us that revenue is down, it may never recover to where it used to be, businesses are closing, and advertisers have stopped advertising. With all this doom and gloom talk going on, we may as well all pack up and leave—or we can do something about it.

One of the biggest mistakes I see time and time again is that that many direct media salespeople, along with their Sales Managers and General Managers, are forgetting their basics. Creating thank you notes is one of them.

There are 5 elements to a good thank you note

• Timing—send a thank you note to any new client within two days. Remember  that we talked about the forty-nine sales reps scenario and that you may be the fiftieth the client has seen this week. I would be willing to bet you that only a handful of these reps actually took the time to sit down and write a thank you note to that customer. Get the thank you in front of them within 48 hours.
• Get the name right! Always check to see if you have got the name right, the spelling, the title and the correct address. No-one likes their name spelt wrongly.
• Remember something of interest. Try and pick up something of interest during your conversation. It might be a sport they follow or an interest they enjoy. Includes a reference to this in the note. Add in a simple note like: "and good luck in the playoffs on Sunday!"
• Grammar and tone. This is just as important as getting the name right. Do not send a thank you note with bad grammar and/or handwriting that cannot be read or understood.
• Keep it short and relevant. It is a thank you note, not a novel. Two to three sentences max!  You want to thank them for their time, show how much you know about their business, and mention something they will remember you by.

A good thank you note will set you apart from the crowd. Don’t come across as the shark in the pack of salespeople.  At NRS Media we tend to advise that it often takes seven points of contact to build a relationship with a client. You have just completed, potentially, six.

• Information gathering on your client list via phone call.
• BIO and Letter of Introduction
• General Sales Manager Introduction.
• Free report
• Interview.
• Finally, a good thank you note.

Not far to a YES

Now is the time to put your best foot forward and build a proposal for your client. In some media companies they have a standard template, and I have some standard rules that I use and recommend to my clients that you may find useful in going back and presenting your solution to your client’s problem.

First, a story about standing out of the crowd with an A or action move.

What is an Action Move?

Send your client a door

How do you stand out from the other direct media salespeople that call on your clients each week?

How do you capture a client who is in deep with your opposition and will not budge, no matter what you do—yet whom you know spends most of his advertising dollars with your media?

How do you attract clients who have said no to you a hundred times, but you know that if you could just get their attention they would buy from you? What do you do? What is the one thing that might set you apart?

Try this. Send them a door.

The key to this idea came from careful research. I was working at a media company as a sales director and we were trying to get a local real-estate company to advertise with us.

We tried everything—phone calls, invitations to client functions, dinners, all the ideas that might work with reluctant clients. Not this one! We offered him trips to far off places but no—he always advertised with other media and that was what he would continue to do.

A large idea

We knew, though, that he had a rather large ego and we knew that he would appreciate something big enough to match that ego. So, at a brainstorming session we came up with an idea that we knew would set us apart from the competition—and if this idea did not work then there was nothing more we could do to get him to come with us.

We came up with the idea that we would send him a door—yes, a door—and the biggest we could find. So we went off to the local hardware recyclers and found just the door—it was in a pretty bad state but guess what? It was big!

This was going to be our A or attention move—a door delivered to his place of business all wrapped up with a large bow and with a message inside …

A delivery just for him

We discovered that he conducted a sales team meeting every Wednesday at his head office. We arranged for our courier to deliver the door personally to the meeting. The big day arrived, and off the door went. The courier driver delivered the door personally to the client’s secretary. Imagine what you would think if a huge parcel, beautifully wrapped with a huge bow, and addressed to your boss arrived just in time to coincide with a sales meeting. You would interrupt the meeting and take in the parcel. He would open it and get the surprise of his life!

That’s what happened! The door was delivered to the meeting. In front of the whole sales staff he opened it and discovered the door—but it was no ordinary door because of what was written on it: Now that we have finally got you to open your door we would love to do business with you—XYZ Media Compan.y

A client for life

It blew him away and positioned us in an instant—high up on his ego radar. Later that morning we called him just to check if he received a parcel from us. Yes, he said, and please come and talk to me. A few weeks later we signed up that real-estate agent to a major annual contract.

Not every client warrants a door being sent to him, but there are certainly other Action moves you could use to get his attention. Even a well-crafted thank you note is a form of Action move, if you think about it. Anything you do to stand out from the competition is an A move or Action move.

What I want to show you now are some basic guidelines as to what you should include in a client presentation. These may assist you in building a template for proposals that have the client’s interests at heart rather than just yours.

Useful Tips for Direct Media Presentations

• Customise each presentation to the client. One mistake that many media companies make is to have their logo all over the presentation, which comes in a bold and bright front cover saying, here we are, aren’t we fantastic? But It is not really about your media company. It is really about showing your potential client that you have their interests at heart.
• Have the client’s logo on every page. I am forever seeing media templates with a media company’s logo front and centre. I usually like to present the media information, pricing and options at the back with the logos attached, but not anywhere else.
• Do your homework. If you spend time researching your client, finding out what his problems are, looking for opportunities and industry trends—anything that can show that you have a least taken the time to find out about their business—it will stand you in good stead.
• Be creative. For example, next time you present to your client, take a photo of their premises beforehand and place it on the front cover of the presentation. These days, It is easy to do with digital cameras and mobile phones, coupled with cheap colour printers.
• Be specific in your presentation. Always provide a solution to a problem that you and your advertiser have identified.
• Don't be on automatic pilot. Don't just walk down the corridor at your radio, TV or newspaper company, pick up the same old presentation document, the same stuff— usually photocopied—that every other salesperson uses. Spend time on the presentation and be proud of it.
• Don't take the easy way out. Don't insult your client with a poor presentation. Make that extra effort. It certainly does pay off, and at a time when the economy rewards people that make an effort, what have you got to lose?
• Rehearse your proposal before you visit your client. This is critically important. If you rehearse every line, every part of the package, every area of recommendation, it will come through favourably in the presentation. You will be taken seriously. Clients notice.
• Be diverse in your presentation techniques. Everyone learns differently. Include some lecture, some group activity and some visuals in all of your presentation. Let your audience use as many of their senses as possible.
• Use humour. It is okay to laugh. Give examples of campaigns and case studies that did not work. Humour lightens your client’s mood and allows him to relax
• Show your expertise and originality. Why should a client listen to you if all you have to offer is what every other media company is offering? Show a new understanding of your topic. Make your client realise, I've never thought about it like that before. Look for new trends in advertising, successful promotions by one of your other clients that worked and could be part of your client presentation.
• Humility doesn’t hurt. You do not know it all. Be humble and admit it up front. People will buy into your authenticity.
• Maintain the pace. Keep your presentations moving forward. Limit yourself to only one or two themes or points. Have fun, be focused, and above all don’t be boring!

Tell a story
Stories are a great way to illustrate a point, break new ground with a client, and give you some tools to stop you simply jumping in to make the sale.

Pitch or Laugh?
One of the biggest mistakes salespeople make is to pitch the sale straight away. You may want to just dive in and sell your proposal immediately, but clients pick up on that. They know when you’re jumping in too quickly and often they just switch off. Stories are a great way to open up the conversation. Such stories break the ice and allow you to demonstrate a lesson your client needs to learn.

Here is a story about a salesperson who called on a retailer that had a store by a church.

The church was located on a large hill, above the town, and his store was the last one on the street leading up to the church. The sales rep had tried repeatedly to get this storeowner to buy. Every month she would visit the retailer and every month he would give the excuse that he was not going to advertise, that things were fine—maybe next time?

This went on for months. Up she would go to the retailer, present her latest promotion, get to know the client a little better. He would say the usual and one day, out of total frustration, she asked him, “How long has the church been on the hill?”

“My church,” he said, “has been there over a hundred years, young lady, and it’s going to be there a while longer too. Why do you ask?”

She looked him in the eye and said, “Well sir, even though it’s been there for a hundred years, they still ring their bell every Sunday to remind their congregation they are there!”

My colleague at www.talkingmediasales.com, Ben Shute, sums up presenting this way. Be yourself, do not be wooden. Don’t stand in one place; do not speak in monotone and barely make eye contact. Engage me.

Not knowing what you are presenting sucks the life out of it.

Preparation need not be difficult, but simply reading it in the car on the way to the meeting won’t cut it. Here are three quick tips for you

• Read it and practice it. More specifically, read it and practice it well in advance. Reading it over in the car on the way isn’t preparation. Especially if you are driving! Get familiar with the flow, the content and the timings. Change it if you need to, until you’re comfortable with it.
• Leverage multimedia. Asking people to listen solely to you for a period of time can be a tall order. Breaking it up with video or other multimedia gives people a chance to review what you’ve been saying or something new to focus on and bring them back to the table. It is a good way for you to refocus as well, if you have lost your way or begin to feel uncomfortable. As a direct media salesperson you can use any of all media to engage your client.
• Don’t be Distant. Prepare your own material. Don’t rely on a presentation prepared by others. You need to be familiar with what is in the presentation. You need to present in your own words, not someone else’s.

Mike Brunel has been retired from an active executive role at NRS for 5 years.