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Metaphorically Selling , by Anne Miller
Years ago I worked for Hearst Magazines on selling Detroit automakers on the concept that women bought SUVs. It should have been easy. You could sit at any stoplight and look to your right or left and see a woman driving a Jeep Cherokee or Chevy Blazer (remember those?). But advertising planners thought they had to target men, preferably in outdoor magazines, to sell the original SUVs. I was selling women's magazines at the time, and I could never get my potential clients over that hurdle.
We have all been there. We see the logic of our proposal, but the client doesn't. Client and agency contacts we sell to have a pre-existing point of view; they don't see the world of media the way we do or they'd already be customers. But how can you break them loose from the pre-conceived notions they cling to?
One of the principles I teach in many sales situations is get the client to agree with you on easy things, before you try to do it on the hard things. Metaphors are the way to do that in the most powerful way.
Metaphors work in advertising sales for two reasons. First they are memorable. And in most cases, even when you convince the person you are talking with, that person probably has to convince their boss or colleague or client of the same proposition. Giving them a metaphor gives them a weapon, an easily memorable way to carry your message. For instance, both business and consumer magazines in Texas, California and New York have tried to win business from "national" advertisers. When their sales person calls on the media planner who has instructions to buy national media, they have to not only change the prospect's mind but give their prospect the ammunition to sell the concept up through the agency or client. Texas Monthly and New York Magazine have done this for years, successfully making the case that Texas or New York "is as big as, and more important than most countries."
Second, advertising sales is very conceptual. Since advertising services can't be weighed or measured as well as clients would like, there is a very big element of opinion in the advertising purchase decision. High value advertising sales is not about showing a client that your CPM is better than the competition; it is about getting clients to make a conceptual leap to your view.
This is why Anne Millers' "Metaphorically Selling" is soooo worth it. It also helps that Anne has done a lot of sales training for publishing companies. So she knows sales from a media point of view, and uses examples that advertising sales people can relate to. The example of Nick the media planner at Monster Advertising agency will hit home for many a media sales person.
The cover blurb on Metaphorically Selling says "How to use the Magic of Metaphors..." You'll agree it is like magic when you find the right metaphor to turn prospect after prospect to your point of view.
To buy the book click here. Metaphorically Selling
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Dear Colleague: Was it a print bubble too?
Steve Ballmer called it a re-setting, not a recession. And I think we'd agree that this time it is different.
Perhaps what we haven't understood is that we were in a bubble in the media business too. We believed, for some reason that the market needed dozens of home magazines. We believed that the world needed hundreds of tech magazines and more than a dozen national parenting and baby care magazines. In many, if not most, business-to-business sectors there have been 3 or 4 or even five entries. In cities, there once was one city magazine. Recently there have been as many as three upscale general magazines, possibly a local wedding magazine, a local home and design magazine...you got the idea.
Then a few years ago the bursting of the dot-com bubble drove down technology advertising and the interest of technology marketers in moving money online began to poke holes in the technology magazine bubble. Some - okay many - tech magazines have folded. But journalists covering the media didn't say; "'ya'll there was a tech magazine bubble, now it's bursting." They said it presaged the death of print. (continue reading below) |
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Sales Tip: Clients Think You Have an Agenda ... So Have One!
How often have you ended a meeting or a phone call with a client knowing you didn't cover the things you needed to? Perhaps you failed to communicate key concepts, or didn't leave enough time (and opportunity) to ask the right questions or listen to the client? How valuable to your sales efforts would it be to say -- implicitly - to your contacts; "I value your time and have invested time to make sure you get the most out of our appointment." Setting an agenda at the beginning of every substantive phone call or meeting does just that.
There is an epidemic of "good meetings" in advertising sales. And I don't mean that in a positive way. Far too many sales people return to the office from a meeting telling their management they had a "good meeting," because the prospect was nice to them and perhaps told them a little about their needs. From these "good meetings," little results. Frequently the sales person will not even be able to get another meeting set up because they failed to "advance" the sale. In the world of advertising sales, the sales person's contact will usually be nice, but getting to the truth of what it will take to win the business is hard.
If you say "I have prepared a brief agenda, let's review it quickly and make sure we'll cover all the things you are concerned about," you'll be set up for success. After you tick off the 3 or 4 items you propose to cover you can ask your first probing question: "How does that sound? Is there anything else you'd like to be sure we cover?"
Get an Easy Yes
By proposing an agenda at the beginning of a phone call or meeting, you will be able to start listening early in the selling process. And perhaps you can get an easy yes when you ask: "Does this cover all the things you'd like to cover?" You'll also be telling the prospect that you have built time in to hear their concerns, issues, suggestions, questions, etc. That way they can relax and concentrate on your pitch, knowing you'll give them time to speak.
Savvy sales people know that the first step of a sales conversation is achieving a rapport with their client or prospect. You can be business-like and casual by saying "I have prepared a quick agenda of what I think we need to cover and would like your reaction to it, but first, how are your kids?" That way, you can get the pleasantries out of the way without losing control of the conversation.
Creating an agenda for every sales call is a powerful way to be organized and prepared for a sales conversation with little investment in time.
Click here for more sales tips. (Next issue: Are your sales calls like a bad blind date?) |
Why Advertisers Need Print
I started my business by training advertising sales people how to sell Internet advertising. I showed iVillage how to use the Ziff Davis structured sales approach to sell the initial advertising that put Parent Soup, the first iVillage brand, on the map. But today, the greatest challenge for media companies seems to be how to sell print advertising. So how can we sell print better?
The answer is much simpler than most expect. Start with what advertisers need. Advertisers need ways to expose their advertising in media that enable a rich creative delivery, in an environment that holds attention and/or attributes some of its trust or other 'environmental' qualities to the advertising message. But any digital media is subject to so much user control that it is hard to get a rich-media ad in edgewise. Yes, banners and skyscrapers and rectangles do work. But some readers block 'images.' And ads that are too intrusive are generally avoided. Pop-up blockers are commonplace.
Soon enough, all TV will be delivered digitally. We see the beginnings of this with TIVO. When users have control, it is hard for advertisers to deliver advertising. Yes, some advertisers can do product placements; but this provides no product explanation, no claim, just awareness.
Print, on the other hand, delivers ads that are accepted. And exposed. And trusted. A print campaign in magazines - or in newspapers - can reach far more of the country than any but the largest buys on TV or cable. In time, that advantage will increase as TV delivery becomes more fragmented. Already, the control (and impatience) of consumers of digital video has reduced the 30 second commercial of television fame down to 8 to 12 seconds for 'pre-roll video ads.'
Learning how to use print better should be at the top of the list of every major advertiser and agency. And learning how to define the clients' needs should be at the top of the list for print sellers...when advertisers understand their needs correctly and clearly, advertisers will understand the need for print. |
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(continued from Dear Colleagues above)
 And the death of print mantra has been passed on as home magazines have closed, and parenting magazines have closed, newsweeklies have reduced their circulation or frequency. And the death of print drum beat has been louder than ever from the hand-wringing journalists losing their jobs in the death of the number two newspapers, in markets like Denver and Seattle, newspapers that would have died many years ago were it not for the creation of an artificial life support of the anti-trust exemption and joint operating agreements for two local newspapers to collude and share resources. All of this is a necessary preamble to a simple message to you, my colleagues. Maybe print will die; more likely print will be restructured. Where there were two there will be one. Where there were three there will be two. Even if you believe the end of the trend is zero in every category, in the short run you are all competing for your survival. The habits and practices that worked on the way up will not work in the Darwinian competition to be 'the one' or one of the 'the two.' Yes, this is a commercial for my services. Or this is a promo for the services of one the handful of other sales consultants who can help you achieve and maintain a competitive advantage in salesmanship. Salesmanship at the New York Times drove the Herald Tribune out of business in part because of the marketing and sales savvy of Monroe Green. Xerox, Merck and IBM are supreme companies that have been built on - among other things - a serious commitment to sales training. Ziff-Davis, back in the day, achieved its stunning success - first in special interest magazines then in computer magazines -- with a structured sales training approach that was designed in a way similar to the Xerox structured approach. Pharmaceutical, computer and financial companies train their sales people for months before they go on their first call. But for some reason, many in the media business think it is ok to hire an articulate and motivated person, give them a rate card, and send them on a call to sell an important business to business service that is often the single largest discretionary (at least they think it is discretionary) spending decision made by a business. So let's be clear. It was a bubble out there. But you can help your company survive - and prosper when there it less competition -- with superior salesmanship. If you wish to consider giving your sales people, and your company, the advantages of serious sales training, the Ziff-Davis structured sales training approach updated for 2009 and 2010, ambro.com can help. Contact us if we can help.
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