What Is Selling?

How many plan a career in sales? What is your image of salespeople? Why not? What is your image of salespeople? Was I pushy? What was my goal?

Erased de Kooning Drawing Robert Rauschenberg

Human beings are social animals. Human beings are born with an urge to be cooperative and help others. Gather nuts Help an old lady across the street To try to influence and persuade people is also human. People spend about 40% of their time trying to influence and persuading others.* * To Sell is Human, Daniel Pink

The Internet has changed the information symmetry. From old-fashioned selling when the sellers had information asymmetry in favor of the seller. To information symmetry with a tilt toward the buyer. To sell in the current environment requires: Empathy Listening Helping another person improve their well being. Personal Business

Selling Basic Assumptions People are complex and basically trustworthy. Can’t have a peaceful society if you believe the opposite. Selling is a worthy craft. Helping people The media are highly visible, important for an informed, ethical society and under attack, especially from the right.

What Is Selling? Selling is about getting customers and keeping them. It involves a process of helping customers get what they need. Often they don’t know what they need. It is not a manipulative process in which salespeople get prospects to do things they don’t want to do. Selling is about helping prospects, and is guided by three basic relationship rules.

Basic Relationship Rules Do unto others as they would have others do unto them. Treat them the way they want to be treated. Slight update of the Golden Rule. They may want to be treated differently from they way you want to be treated – the focus is on them. People like and trust people exactly like themselves. In their family or tribe People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care (empathy).

But relationships are not necessarily the key to success. Insights are the key to success. Research from the Corporate Executive Board, as indicated in The Challenger Sale, shows that in the current business environment, customers don’t always know what they don’t know and crave insights that can help them run their businesses more effectively and efficiently.

Thus, the most powerful sales approach is based on: Teaching Tailoring Taking control of the customer conversation

What Is the Purpose of Your Business? To “create a customer” Peter Drucker “To bring our audience and advertisers together” - KOMC/KRZK, Branson, MO “To help people sell more Fords,” Lowry Mays, former CEO Clear Channel Communications

What Is the Purpose of Your Business? The purpose of a media sales department or division is to maximize revenue by getting and keeping customers. You don’t keep customers unless you get results for them, as they define results.

What Are Your Sales Goals? To get results for customers To develop new business To retain and increase current business Presell Upsell Increase customer loyalty (service) Teach (give insights) Tailor Not one size fits all Easy to buy

What Are Your Sales Strategies? To sell solutions to marketing and advertising problems (“challenges”) Complete customer focus To reinforce the value of advertising and of your medium’s benefits Understand the ecosystem 7

Strategies To create value for your product To become the preferred supplier To establish, maintain, and improve relationships at all levels of the client and agency (keep agency informed) To provide insights and ideas

Strategies To manage expectations To innovate Underpromise and overdeliver To innovate New insights New packages, new products, new promotions New creative approaches New technology “The only functions of an enterprise: marketing and innovation.” Peter Drucker

What Are a Salesperson’s Key Functions? To help customers improve their well being To position your product to have a differential competitive advantage To align the features and advantages of your medium and you offer with an advertiser’s objectives To give insights 8

To manage relationships and build trust To create rapport To empathize To persuade To develop partnerships

Key Functions To educate To create a sense of urgency To communicate effectively internally – up, down, and across To keep your management and coordinator informed From the street, to bring back market and competitor information

Biggest Problem People do what they are paid to do. Wrong incentives lead to wrong, counter-productive behavior. Wall Street and bankers had the wrong incentives, and the sub-prime mortgage debacle led to The Great Recession Paying salespeople based solely on commissions on their revenue makes them focus on their interests not customers‘.

How Do You Start Doing It Right? With an ethical, non-manipulative, insight-oriented, solutions-based sales approach With the attitude that you are helping your customers get results, as they define results With an ethical, well-organized, analytics-based, strategic, disciplined sales system The right process that helps customers (an excellent sales experience) The right approach (The Challenger Sale)