They won’t give you their money!

Selling Radio Direct with Pat Bryson

So, how do we get their time?

“Yes, hello, my name is _____ and I sell radio advertising for station KXXX. Could you please tell me who handles your advertising?”

“Good morning, my name is ____ and I sell radio advertising for station WXXX and I was wondering if I might come by and learn a little bit about your business?”

“Good morning, great to see you Mr. Prospect. Look at the great deal I’ve brought you today! You’re going to love these low rates!”

Do these opening lines sound familiar? At one time or another, most salespeople have used them. How’d they work for you? My guess is, not too well. At least they didn’t for me. It took a lot of contacts to get an appointmen.

Getting new prospects to give us their time is vital to our success. What was your attrition rate last year? We need new prospects to cover our attrition as well as to grow. We need to get our prospect’s attention. We need to “grab” their interes.

Somewhere along the line in my career I got a little smarter about how to catch the attention of a new prospect. I discovered that “People don’t buy radio advertising: they buy what they think it will do for them.” I learned to approach prospective new clients from THEIR WORLD, not mine. My ratio of appointments to new calls went way up when I began using these “grabbers”.

“Mr. _____, my name is _____ and I work for ______. I don’t know if we have anything to talk about, but I work with business people who are experiencing frustrations in several areas. Some of our clients just can’t find enough people to hire and we help them with their recruiting. Some are dealing with the results of inflation and they know to keep their profit margins they need to increase their top line revenue. We help them. Some aren’t comfortable in navigating the digital world. We have a complete division that helps them with that. Which of these might be the biggest concern for you? (Wait for answer). Would it make sense to take half an hour and discuss this? Would you be available this Thursday, say around 2:00?”

The magic in these opening lines is that you are positioning what you do in the WORLD OF THE CLIENT. You don’t sell radio or digital. You solve business problems. The business problems you list are those you are hearing from your current clients. Chances are, other business people in your area have the same concerns. And you’ve been successful in developing solutions for many other businesses. You are making a guess as to what will peak his interest, but it is an educated guess. Can you help this client? Maybe, maybe not. But you HAVE helped others and it would be worth his time to talk with you.

If you have a referral from a current client, this opening will work even better:

Mr. Prospect, I’m _____ with ____ and Mr. ______ suggested I call you. I’m not sure if you and I have anything to talk about but I’ve been able to help business people such as yourself and Mr. ____. He was experiencing some frustrations in finding good, quality people. We put together a campaign that helped him hire the staff he needed. He suggested you might need similar help. Would it be worth our while to take 30 minutes and talk about this? I could be available Wednesday at 10:00.

We use emotionally evocative words in these “grabbers”. People buy emotionally and justify it with logic. If we approach people with words that make them call to mind problems their business might be experiencing, and if they think we might be able to help them to solve those problems, they will give us their time. They must give us their time before they will give us their money.

In our next newsletter, we’ll explore how to use these over the phone.

Happy Selling!

Pat Bryson is an internationally known speaker and trainer specializing in training salespeople and managers.

She has consulted stations in the United States, Canada, Australia, Europe and Central Asia. Her career has included on air, salesperson, sales manager and general manager.

Since opening BBI, she has travelled extensively and has spoken at most major radio conventions on three continents.

Pat is the author of two books, “A Roadmap to Success in High Dollar Broadcast Sales” and “Successful Broadcast Sales: Thriving in Change“.

Pat has five times been named one of Radio Ink’s Most Influential Women in Radio.