What Is Selling?

Basic Assumptions People are complex and basically trustworthy. – Cant have a peaceful society if you believe the opposite. Selling is a worthy craft. The media are highly visible, important for an informed 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 dont know what they need. It is not a manipulative process in which salespeople get prospects to do things they dont want to do. Selling is about helping prospects, and is guided by three basic relationship rules.

Basic Relationship Rules 1. 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. 2. People like and trust people exactly like themselves. – In their family or tribe 3. People dont care how much you know until they know how much you care.

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 dont always know what they dont know and crave insights that can help them run their businesses more effectively and efficiently.

Thus, the most powerful sales approach is based on: 1. Teaching 2. Tailoring 3. 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 Are Your Sales Goals? 1. To get results for customers 2. To develop new business 3. To retain and increase current business – Presell – Upsell 4. Increase customer loyalty – Teach (give insights) – Tailor Not one size fits all – Easy to buy

What Are Your Sales Strategies? 1. To sell solutions to marketing and advertising problems (challenges) Complete customer focus 2. To reinforce the value of advertising and of your mediums benefits Understand the ecosystem

Strategies 3. To create value for your product 4. 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 5. To manage expectations Underpromise and overdeliver 6. 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 Salespersons Key Functions? 1. To position your product to have a differential competitive advantage 2. To align the features and advantages of your medium and you offer with an advertisers objectives 3. To manage relationships and build trust To create rapport To empathize To persuade To develop partnerships

Key Functions 4. To educate 5. To create a sense of urgency 6. To communicate effectively internally – up, down, and across 4. Keep your management and coordinator informed 5. From the street, 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? 1. With an ethical, non-manipulative, insight- oriented, solutions-based sales approach 2. With the attitude that you are helping your customers get results, as they define results 3. With an ethical, well-organized, analytics- based, strategic, disciplined sales system – The right process (an excellent sales experience) – The right approach (The Challenger Sale)