One of the key elements in closing is to accept that you’ve closed. Be quiet. Leave promptly. Mark McCormack calls it shifting to acceptance mode: “After scratching and clawing their way into the customer’s heart and mind, they can’t stop to relax and enjoy their victory. … They don’t know how to take yes for an answer.”
You may be tempted to summarize the discussion, but don’t do that. You’ll sound as if you’re renegotiating the deal. Worse, you may bring up objections that had been neutralized and make them real in the client’s mind again. There’s nothing to gain from lingering at the site of your triumph. Leave the customer as soon as common courtesy allows.
After you’ve reached a commitment for the sale, compliment your customer on their wisdom in choosing your plan, pick up your materials, close your briefcase, shake hands, and depart.
Mark McCormack says, “This body language sends a message of closure and finality to the meeting. The sooner you leave, the sooner you know you’ve wrapped up the sale. There’s nothing you can say to improve on yes, so why try?”
You sold the big account. The campaign was a big success. Why, then, didn’t the client call and tell you how wonderful a job you’ve done? Because you were doing the job you were expected to do. After all, you promised fair value for the client’s dollar. You promised to reach the right audience. You assumed success. Your commission is on the way. That may be all the thanks you get.
Even if the client raves about the job you’ve done, keep the words of Harvey Mackay in mind: “Don’t expect gratitude to last any longer than it takes for the recipients to say they’re eternally grateful.”
It’s Mackay’s tongue-in-cheek way of saying you’ve got to earn new gratitude every day. That requires going beyond the sale to implementation, to relationship building.80
By “implementation,” I mean getting the order processed and the copy into production. Sometimes that means giving facts about the advertiser to a copywriter or creative director. Sometimes that means that you will write the commercial message yourself.
There’s a file to be established and maintained for bookkeeping and billing purposes. Whatever the situation, there’s paperwork to be done—a lot or a little, depending on your organization.
Closing’s not the end of the process. Some even say it’s only the beginning.
Consider closing like a baseball power hitter who smashes a hanging curve ball and launches it out of the park. The crowd leaps to its feet! It’s a home run! Yet what if that player rounded second base, crossed third, and went directly to the dugout? If he doesn’t touch home plate, he doesn’t score.
For sellers, closing is the long ball out of the park, but after the sale comes the contract, the paperwork, the copy, the scheduling, the execution of the order. That’s the equivalent of touching all the bases. If your attention to follow-up is not as focused as your attention to the sales process, you haven’t scored.81
Servicing your account is the first step toward relationship building. Building and managing relationships will put you in line for repeat business. It means you and your client have reached a level of mutual trust and respect.
Since sales is a matter of solving problems for your client, service after the sale links you as the seller to the solution. You become the differentiation between your schedule and a campaign on another medium.
At some point in the sales process, you’ll have to guide your client through the most effective use of the commercial message you’re selling. Somewhere between “closing” and “servicing” is the copy phase. At this point, the deal may be done, but there’s no real closure until the commercial is written and produced to the client’s satisfaction.
During the needs analysis, you’ve gathered information about the client’s business. You’ve also taken the first step toward assembling information that will ultimately become a part of the commercial. Depending on your medium, you need to know how best to attract the ear, the eye, or the click-through.
If you’re selling for a major national network, your client’s agency has commercial material already produced, either a campaign with several related messages, or one commercial that gets the message to the listener or viewer.
In markets dominated by agency buying, your client may have a message already prepared by another radio or TV station, by a copy service, or by the advertising agency. Radio and TV stations sometimes (but not always) have a writer on staff to take the information you collect from your client and turn your sale into a persuasive commercial.
The smaller the media outlet, the more likely you are to do most of the follow-up work yourself. Local radio salespeople often write commercials for their clients. Some radio sellers are also on-air performers and they voice the commercials, too. That’s not generally a requirement, because the typical radio station has announcers who can take the salesperson’s copy and produce a commercial with background music, sound effects, and other enhancements. Some stations appoint a production director who supervises development and conceptualization of commercials, called production.
Local cable system salespeople are often called on to use a still camera to take slides that will be part of a client’s commercial. Other small-market cable and TV salespeople find themselves learning to use video equipment to develop or enhance a customer’s commercial because there ‘s insufficient staff to handle the job.
The larger the market, the more likely the station or system is to have full-time commercial production assistance. Major-market TV stations may have such good production talent on staff that they create a profit center making and producing commercials for a variety of local advertisers.
If you’re selling to an advertising agency, you’ll find the services vary from agency to agency. Some large agencies—especially those whose business is national in scope—create, write, record, and distribute commercials for their clients. Others write copy that the station or cable system must produce before airing. Some agencies are simply buyers who place the commercial time through a seller at an electronic media outlet and expect the outlet to do all the creative and production work.
One of Shane Media’s marketing directors joined our company from a TV station in Orlando. As a salesperson there she not only called on clients, she also wrote copy for her customers and occasionally acted in their commercials. One client used the kitchen at the salesperson’s house as the set for a series of commercials. Now that’s service after the sale!
There are some very good books on copy and production. Any attempt to add to that information is misplaced here. So I’ll skim a few basics instead.
To write a commercial message effectively, you need to know that consumers don’t buy soap, they buy “skin you love to touch.” They don’t buy lipstick, they buy “kissable lips.” They don’t buy mattresses, they buy “a good night’s sleep.”
You’ll also need to know the essential commercial criteria for your medium. Writing a 15-second video message calls on skills not needed for a 60-second radio spot. How many “click here” buttons do you see in an hour on the World Wide Web? The successful seller knows how to motivate the surfer to click.
Commercial messages in cyberspace have a different set of rules. Wired coined the term “netiquette” to remind online users about unsolicited commercial messages, among other new media manners.
I’ve mentioned David Ogilvy often enough to let you know I’m a fan of his philosophy and his work. He wrote the definitive rules for commercials:
1. Identify your brand early in the commercial.
2. Identify it often.
3. Promise the listener a benefit early in the commercial.
4. Repeat it often.
“Ninety commercials out of a hundred do none of these things,” Ogilvy said.82
In a speech to the Association of National Advertisers in the fall of 1991, Ogilvy reminded the group of an important premise about copy: “We sell or else.” He claimed that too much emphasis is placed on art, not enough on increasing sales. In other words, agencies want to win awards, while their clients only want to sell merchandise.
“If you spend your advertising budget entertaining the consumer, you are a bloody fool,” Ogilvy told the advertiser group. “Housewives don’t buy a new detergent because the manufacturer told a joke on television last night. They buy it because it promised a benefit.”
So there’s one more rule if you’re writing the commercials for your customer: don’t let the commercial get in the way of selling your client’s product.
Before I address the specifics of building and managing relationships with your customers, there’s one more step your operation may require of you as part of servicing the account—collecting the money due for the advertising schedule.
You’ll remember in the discussion of needs analysis about asking for money in advance when a prospect was not financially qualified to buy on credit. Money’s always a sensitive issue, and asking for it is even more delicate. All sellers must face the fact, however, that you won’t get your commission if your client doesn’t pay the bill. That means working on collections should be a part of the sales process.
When your client signs the order or contract, say right then, “Our terms are 30 days.” If done in a proper, professional tone, you won’t risk either business or respect. Most businesses tend to pay the people they think are most important first and wait on the rest. When you discuss it during the sale, you stress the importance of prompt payment.
Sales consultant Irwin Pollack suggests other techniques to assure your company is paid and you get your commission:
FIGURE 2-25 When it comes to billings versus collections, collections usually wins. By that, I mean that most operations pay on money collected, not on dollars billed or booked. You don’t get paid until your company gets paid. Here’s how the collections cycle works. It underscores the importance of qualifying your prospect.
• Don’t wait 60 days before calling delinquent advertisers. On the second or third of each month, salespeople need to call advertisers with a reminder.
• Once an advertiser has extended past the 60-day mark, send a Western Union Mailgram to demand payment. The Mailgram envelope indicates urgency.
• Recognize that most advertisers follow a consistent payment pattern. For example, they always pay between the 20th and the 28th of the month. If you detect a break in the pattern, act quickly to collect what’s due.83
Most operations have credit and payment policies. Some are formalized, written procedures. Others exist only as guidelines that are communicated verbally to advertisers. Collections procedures are instituted by the sales manager, sales director, or other management-level people.
Advertising agencies typically take longer to pay than direct accounts because the agency must first bill its client and then collect the money before passing it along to the media outlet. It’s not unusual for agency payments to arrive 60, 90, even 120 days after the schedule runs. (See Figure 2–25.) You’ll find more about collections in Chapter 4.
When my company consulted KILT in Houston, I’d often wait in the lobby for a meeting, intrigued at the sight of KILT salespeople rushing through a small door just behind the reception desk. That was the mail room, and the sellers were checking to see which of their clients had sent checks so they could walk them to the bookkeeper personally. KILT salespeople were responsible for collections and wanted to make sure they got the commissions they deserved for their selling. At the time, that station was the Houston market leader and collected approximately $58,000 on a typical business day. No wonder the sales staff wanted to get their share!
Step Seven—Relationship Management
What’s the easiest sale you can make? The answer is a follow-up sale to an existing customer who’s satisfied with what you’ve done in the past.
John Fellows of Giraffe Marketing in Portland, Maine, feels electronic media doesn’t keep enough customers. “It’s no secret that keeping customers is the key to growth, satisfying your customers is the key to keeping them, and servicing them above the norm (more importantly, above their expectations) is the key to satisfying them.”84
We’ve seen how to change a prospect to a buyer: work hard to get to closing. Then the job is to turn the one-time buyer into a customer—someone who comes back again and again because buying your medium works.
That’s why I separate “servicing” from “relationship building.” Building relationships goes far beyond the sale and the paperwork. The idea here is to strive for renewal from the moment you close the sale. Keeping clients is as difficult as closing them the first time, and I like to give it its own emphasis. Regis McKenna, the marketing expert whose work with Apple Computer won him national fame, says, “Service is not an event; it is the process of creating a customer environment of information, assurance and comfort.”85
That’s why I call it “relationship management.” Take a pro-active approach to developing and maintaining relationships and you’ll find follow-up sales easier to come by.
Creating customers boils down to three criteria, according to Mark McCormack:
1. Communication
2. Service
3. Added value
“How well you handle these is a reliable indicator of how long you’ll keep your clients,” McCormack says (in McCormack on Selling).86
For instance, it’s easy to communicate before the sale. We’re alert. We’re able to explain everything to the prospect. We return calls promptly because we’re focused on the selling process. After the sale it’s even more important to communicate with your client. “Are you accessible?” McCormack asks. “Do you listen as well as hear? Do you accept as a given that the client’s priorities are different and more important than your own priorities? Most important, do you work overtime at explaining why?” Most salespeople fall short after the sale, not during the sales process.
McCormack uses the word “service” as one of his three criteria. As you’ve seen at the end of the previous section, it’s an important one. “Servicing the account” is a catch-all phrase that means anything from a simple “thank you” note to giving your customer advice on buying other media. It also means working through billing problems for your client, sending articles about the client’s business, and, basically, keeping in touch.
“Service is not a sometime thing,” says Murray Raphel. “It is an ongoing, never-ending, always-increasing, necessary way of doing business.” Raphel developed the Gordon’s Alley pedestrian mall in Atlantic City and conducts direct marketing seminars. Here is an example of customer service from Raphel’s retail experience:
We had a basic, must-learn, always-used phrase in our retail shops whenever a customer was unhappy. First… we listened. Because that’s what the unhappy customer wants you to do. Not interrupting. Not commenting. Just listening. Then, when the complaint is fully described and the conversation stops, simply say, “Tell me what you want and the answer is yes.”
If the color in the shirt ran in the washing, they could ask for a new shirt, and/or their money back, and/or money for gas for driving to our store … whatever they wanted. And it was given with our apologies and thanks.
Here’s what happened: the customer was first confused, then bewildered, then amazed, and then, often, apologetic! They were so used to and ready for a confrontation that they simply could not accept such an easy solution.”87
The first point is vital and familiar: listen. And listen all the way through your client’s comments.
You won’t always hear complaints, because customers are more likely to complain to someone other than you. When they do tell you what’s wrong, listen with empathy and understanding. Take it as a good sign, not as trouble.
Respond to problems and concerns after the sale the same way you would during the sales process. Consider any question or concern from a client the same way you would as you answer and neutralize objections. If a client describes a problem to you, look at it as an opportunity to create service beyond expectations.
Media outlets often survey their clients to better understand how to cement relationships. Donn Seidholz, Triathlon Broadcasting’s market manager in Omaha, commissioned focus groups of Phoenix advertisers during 1993 while he was general sales manager at that city’s KMLE radio station.88
The research began with questions about the Phoenix broadcast industry in general, covering radio and television stations. Once general questions were answered, the study got specific about the way KMLE handled customer relations.
The project was a cooperative effort with KMLE’s national rep firm, McGavren Guild, which used the idea at other stations it represented at the time. Radio Only magazine documented the results:
Foremost the attendees were in agreement that the AEs with which each of them dealt were the sole eyes and ears of the radio station they represented. A station could have the best reputation in town, but that meant nothing if the rep that they worked with wasn’t following through and wasn’t taking care of them.
They felt that many AEs were in contact with them only when they needed something. They want to learn about changes in format or personnel directly from the AE for that station—not through the rumor mill. They do not like to be taken for granted by an AE after they had dealt with them for a while—the old phone call once every 3 months when they think a buy’s going to come up.
Clients had a real problem with incorrect statements in billing: preempted spots, spots that ran out of time, spots running that they didn’t order. They said many radio stations do a poor job of resolving these problems. However, they felt that it wouldn’t really even be a problem if only they were informed of it before they got their bills. It creates hours of extra work for them to try and rectify, so they would much rather hear about it from the AE beforehand.
Conversely, they didn’t want their time wasted by AEs who telephone or drop in with no specific agenda. They don’t like to be pressed for information about buys that will take place or what percentage of a buy a particular media rep receives.
A similar study conducted by Regional Reps Corporation of Cleveland reflected many of the same concerns on the part of advertisers.89 The company’s Stuart Sharpe says the most consistent frustrations reported by his customers deal with billing—“late billing, incorrect invoices, waiting interminably for credits and corrected paperwork. These are consistent complaints, along with finding out, long after the schedule ended, that spots didn’t run or ran outside of the dayparts ordered.” Another criticism deals with response time. Sharpe said advertisers told him, “There are always changes in orders and it takes too long for a salesperson to get back to us.”
Paperwork may be the most boring part of selling, but you can tell from these studies that advertisers rely on prompt, accurate follow-up to the sale. Getting the paper trail in order, advising the client about billing details up front, and getting sufficient information to create a commercial—are all a part of servicing the account and vital to building the kind of deep, trusting relationships that bring your clients back again and again.
Mark McCormack’s third criteria for creating customers is added value. He calls added value the toughest of the three to measure and deliver, “because what constitutes added value in your mind (i.e., extraordinary service that is way beyond the call of duty) may be standard procedure in one client’s mind and totally unnecessary in another’s.”
You’ll face that dilemma often. As McCormack relates, “Some clients come to us simply to increase their income. Measuring added value is a numbers game with them: How much did they earn before they came to us, and how much are they earning with us? They don’t care about all the extraordinary service we provide. It has no value to them. Other clients come to us precisely for that service.”
The point is that before you can add value to a relationship with a client, you have to learn what the client really values.
The phrase “added value” in electronic media often means promotion or merchandising in addition to an advertising schedule. As you’ll read in the direct and retail selling discussions in Chapter 5, added value can also mean bringing useful ideas to your customer.
When Diane Sutter, CEO of Shooting Star Broadcasting, was general manager of radio stations in Pittsburgh, her staff would conduct brainstorming sessions for clients. “The group included my chief engineer, who was very good at it; our sales people, and production personnel. We did lots of work with the Pittsburgh Pirates marketing team. On another occasion an agency was pitching an account and asked us for help. They won the account thanks to our brainstorm session,” Sutter says. Her group learned systematic brainstorming tactics from a professional trainer.90
“Spots are easy,” she says. “Everybody has spots to sell. Relationships are more difficult.” Yes they are, but they’re worth the time and effort.
The phrase “out of sight, out of mind” was recorded as early as the fifteenth century (by Thomas à Kempis). It could have been said about a sales representative who didn’t stay in touch with a client. The twenty-first century corollary is “What have you done for me lately?”
The following tactics are designed to keep your customer at the forefront of your mind, and to keep you constantly in the customer’s thoughts and (hopefully) in the budget:
Let the Customers Know Why They’re Smart to Do Business with You
Advertisers want to be assured that they’ve made the right decision when they use your medium to reach their customers. Your task is to reinforce the wisdom of that decision.
If a positive article is published about you, your company, or your medium in the local press or the trade magazines, send a copy to your customer. If your company wins an award or other recognition, let your customer know. Seize every opportunity to portray your operation in a leadership position.
FIGURE 2-26 How do you know you’re doing a good job? Ask! Shane Media developed this questionnaire for our client stations to assess their impact with their advertisers.
FIGURE 2-27 You keep building relationships to keep your revenues up. Warren Wright of Twenty-first Century Communications introduced me to this “revenue flow manager” to keep track of what’s likely this week and this month. Notice column 6 has a 1–10 scale to determine how likely a buy really is. Courtesy Warren Wright. Used with permission.
Keep Customers Informed about Themselves
Just as important as keeping the customer informed about your company is being a fact-gathering service for the customer’s own business. If you hear that a competitor is moving into the mall, let your client know. It’ll show your concern. If there’s time, put the information in writing and send it by messenger or fax, along with source material like an article from an out-of-town newspaper.
If time is tight, call and inform the customer by telephone. Pay close attention to your client’s print ads and those of the client’s competitor. If you detect a shift of position by the competitor, let your customer know quickly.
Deliver Bad News as Soon as You Can
A radio station in Kansas City changed from its rock format to country music during a live broadcast from a local merchant’s store. The salesperson on the scene had no idea the change was coming and had to be the bearer of bad news. The big question, of course, was whether the broadcast should continue. The client said yes, willing to pay for the new audience.
In this particular case, the news was too late. Better for the station to have announced its plans so the salesperson could get the news to the merchant in a timely manner. If it’s possible to provide news to your client without compromising confidentiality, by all means do what you can.
Give Your Customer Ideas
Show the client how to improve business operations beyond advertising. Salespeople are constantly inside all types of businesses, and there are basic systems that work, regardless of the product. Without divulging trade secrets or proprietary information, pass along helpful, time-saving tips. For example: “Charlie at Jones Motors found a new software package that keeps track of that type of sales tax. Why not call him and see if it would apply to your store?”
Demonstrate Continuing Interest
Advertising agencies and PR firms use internal “call reports” that are filed with the client within 24 hours of every contact. A one-sheet call report describes what was said, and what was promised. That may be too much paper for the average advertiser, but don’t overlook an appropriate substitute.
Would a copy of the production order show the client you’re efficient behind the scenes? Would the client like extra copies of the script? An audio- or videocassette of the commercial? A note by fax with specific times a TV, radio, or cable schedule will run? You’ll know best what to provide each client.
Ask Your Customers for Their Opinions
The finest form of flattery is asking “What’s your opinion?” Those words show you value a person’s ideas. It’s easy to hand out tickets to sports events and concerts, but the effect is not nearly as strong as letting someone be the expert. Most people don’t have sufficient opportunities to talk about their ideas. Anyone who creates that situation makes a friend. The questionnaire at Figure 2–26 does exactly that.
Give Your Customers Your Home and Cellular Phone Numbers?
Don’t print the numbers on your business card. Instead, when you present the card, turn it over and write them on the back. It’ll seem special and private. Also make sure that the client has the names of key people at your operation in case they need to get to someone when you’re not available.
When you’re working after hours, let the customer know. If the timing is right, call and say, “I’m here at home working on your account,” and use that as an introduction to a question, a comment, or an idea.
Use the Customer’s Product
If your client runs a clothing store, buy your clothes there. If the customer sells toothpaste, make sure you and your family use that brand. If the customer sells hats and you don’t wear hats, make an exception. If it’s possible to go a few steps further down the distribution chain, do business with your customer’s customers. If you drive an Acura, park it around the corner when you call on the Ford dealership. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
Let the Client Take Credit for Your Ideas
You worked hard to close the account and the clincher was the positioning line you wrote for the client’s commercial. Now you see the slogan in print and hear it on other radio stations. The client’s first TV campaign will feature commercials built around the new slogan. You hear about the client’s press conference to describe the slogan to the business editors of the local papers and writers for industry trade magazines.
Your response? Bite your tongue and congratulate the customer for his wisdom in positioning his business so well.
Stay in Touch with the Client When Commercials Aren’t Running
Off season, between flights, imply that you like your customers because they are who they are, not because of the money they spend with you and your outlet. In other words, treat them as individuals, not as a client category.
Do not forget anyone who has done business with you. Send birthday cards, anniversary cards, and notes about special events like a new baby or wedding in the customer’s family.
Give Your Customers Sales Leads for Their Business
Hand out your customer’s business cards to your contacts. Suggest that friends frequent the client’s place of business. It only takes one sale that’s traced directly to you to make your client take notice.91
For most companies, customer retention means big money. Some large companies report as much as 95% of their profits coming from long-term, repeat customers, according to Direct Marketing.
The 80:20 rule, first postulated by the nineteenth-century economist Vilfredo Pareto, suggests that 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers. There’s a variation on the 80:20 rule in every selling situation.
Is it always 80:20? No. The numbers vary, industry by industry, medium by medium, and media outlet by media outlet.92
At QVC network, for example, 4% of their customers account for 64% of their profits. At Sears Canada, 10% of customers represent 40% of sales. Another 40% of customers account for only 30% of sales. (See Figure 2–28.) Some customers are more valuable to us than others because they buy more.
The more often customers come back to you, the easier it is to serve them. The reasons are probably obvious:
1. Basic information has already been collected.
2. Copy points and positioning statements are known: earlier campaigns can be continued.
3. Your accounting department and the client’s accounting department have a working pattern.
4. Customers who get solid returns on their investment are less price-sensitive than new prospects.
5. Financial projections are easier to make when there’s history to trace.
FIGURE 2-28 Adding to the 80:20 theory is Arbitron’s finding that 38% of diaries account for 72% of average quarter hour (AQH) listening. That amount of listening defines the “PI” (Parallel 1) listener, the person who listens most to any radio station. Compare that to P2 listeners: 64% of diaries account for only 28% of quarter hours. Courtesy the Arbitron Company. Used with permission.
Repeat business is more profitable than new business, because it costs less to sell someone who is already sold. Some sources claim it costs five times as much to acquire a new customer as it does to service an existing customer.
In the rapidly expanding economic environment of the past few decades, there has been a tendency to seek new business, often at the expense of existing business. The rush to develop asset value in many new electronic media companies (especially the consolidated radio companies) caused the same thing. Sales departments were forced into “conquest marketing”—conquering new business rather than building relationships among existing customers.
Chris Lytle helps his electronic media clients put a dollar value on customer retention with his “Churn Calculation Worksheet.”
Here’s how Lytle explains the listings you see on the worksheet in Figure 2–29:
On the surface, you see a sales increase of $6,935 from one month to the next. We know how much the salesperson billed—but look at how they did it. Only five advertisers repeated from one month to the next. Twelve advertisers are no longer on the air. They have lost 75% of the advertisers and 76.6% of the billing from the previous month.
Are you still happy about the increase in sales?
As a rule of thumb, a business will lose 25% of its customers in a year. Some move away. Some choose to do business with the competition. It is one thing to lose 25% of your clients in a year. It’s altogether something else to lose 70% of them in a month.93
FIGURE 2-29 A business will lose 25% of its customers in a year’s time. Sales trainer Chris Lytle of the Lytle Organization looks at business month-to-month to examine what’s lost. His Churn Calculation Worksheet allows sellers to put a dollar value on customer retention. ©1998 Chris Lytle. Used with permission. Phone: 800–255-9853 or 608–284-1284.
Are there any businesses that do not need to worry about relationship building and customer retention? The souvenir seller on the beach has no reason to believe customers will return. You can probably think of a few others. But why try?
Electronic media sellers can’t be casual about customers. Customers are your company’s most treasured asset. They not only pay for advertising time, but if you listen to them, they tell you how to sell them again.
There are as many reasons for losing a customer as there are customers to be lost. Here are a few broad categories.
• You don’t deliver. The schedule’s not what the customer ordered. The price isn’t what you promised. Nothing happened on time.
• Sell and walk syndrome. Customers don’t want the salesperson to disappear after the sale. A good customer is buying into a personal relationship as well as into an effective advertising medium.
• Changes in personnel. Clients hate breaking in new salespeople, especially if they’ve been served well. It’s worse if they’ve been served badly, because they expect the new seller to be no better than the first.
• Lack of contact. A corollary to the sell and walk syndrome. Ad agency founder Fred Poppe puts it this way: “When you’re out of sight, you’re out of mind. And you will soon be out of pocket.” Poppe also outlines two essentials for relationship management: “Contact” and “More contact.”
• Ignoring details. You never know which tiny detail is crucial to the customer until you’ve overlooked it. The customer won’t.
• Getting caught. Whatever it may be that you don’t want the client to know about, expect the client to find out. Avoid sharing secrets, gossiping about the client, changing the client’s schedule. The client will find out.94
The most serious of all sins against customers is not knowing when they’re mad. Business writer Terry Varva says 91 % of unhappy customers will never again buy from the company that dissatisfies them.95 Worse, they’ll announce their dissatisfaction to at least nine other people.
I found an appropriate comment about relationship management in an article by Lois Geller in Direct Marketing: “When companies are interested in keeping customers for a long time, it is because they intend to be in business for a long time.”96
HOW TO DEVELOP REPEAT CUSTOMERS BY MARK H. MCCORMACK
1. SELL THE MARKET, THEN THE PRODUCT.
In the sports marketing business, our company is regarded as a pioneer and the market leader. So part of our sales effort has always been educating customers about sports. Before we try to sell them our brand of sports marketing, we have to get them excited about sports in general. We’re willing to take our chances on whether they eventually do business with us. Experience has taught us that if a company becomes dedicated to sports, we’ll pick up a little or a lot of their business. Customers come back to us because of the market we’re in, not because of our market share.
2. SERVICE FIRST, SELLING SECOND.
The moment a customer buys into one of our projects, we’re faced with a dilemma: Do we service the sale? Or while he has his checkbook out, do we try to sell him something else?
The tendency in our company is to devote all our efforts to servicing that sale and maximizing the benefits for the customer and ourselves. This is not all that bad. It’s a lot easier to go back to a customer with a certified success behind you than without one.
3. SHARE THE WEALTH WITH YOUR PEERS.
In our organization we put a premium on in-terdivisional cooperation. That’s often the key to generating repeat business. A customer who is already doing business with our golf division may not have the budget or the need for more golf projects. But this same customer may be intrigued by a concept from our tennis or winter sports division. It’s my job as a manager to encourage colleagues to share the wealth with their peers.
Unfortunately, this is not as easy as it sounds. There’s a part in all of us that gets possessive with a customer or client. We don’t want someone to dilute our relationship, or become a better friend of that customer, or siphon funds from our profit center, or take the credit for our spade work. A compensation system that recognizes and rewards cooperation—that shares the wealth with those who share, if you will—will usually cure this problem.
4. USE THE CALENDAR.
In the right hands, a calendar is a sales tool.
Nearly every customer has some dates during the calendar year when he is more willing or able to buy and, consequently, most vulnerable to a sales effort. Florists, for example, know that people buy flowers around certain holidays. So they remind their customers (with advertisements, flyers, and letters) and get their repeat business several times a year—each year.
A similar pattern exists in corporate sales. Fiscal years vary among corporations. But nearly every company is more willing to buy at the beginning of the fiscal year, when the coffers are full, than at the end.
5. THINK SMALL TO GET BIG.
When it comes to generating repeat business, there are several compelling reasons to think small. Small sales are easier to close, easier to service, and far less risky to your reputation. Mess up a small deal and the customer may forgive you. Mess up a big deal and the customer may not be around to buy again.
I find it’s helpful to think of customers as revenue streams. If you start with a trickle, the flood will come later.
For example, I have a reputation for asking big numbers. But some of my best sales have been very small. I once called on a company about an expensive client-entertainment concept. Minutes into our discussion, it was apparent that their plans weren’t nearly as grandiose in scope as I had imagined. So I shrunk the proposal, suggesting that they take four people to a prize fight and let us arrange the evening for them. They agreed. To me that’s a success. It gives us a foot in the door at their company, gets them used to seeing our face, and starts them thinking of us as a business resource. If we do our job well, we may never have to call on them again. They will call us.
6. DON’T SELL RELIABILITY SHORT.
No matter how well you master the five points above, when all is said done there’s no magic to winning repeat customers. The successful executives in our organization are the people who deliver what they say they will deliver when they say they’re going to deliver it at a cost that they originally quoted. That’s a rare combination. Customers will rush to do business over and over again with people like that.
I’ve never met Mark McCormack, but I’ve read so much of his material, I feel I know him. This is reprinted from Mark H. McCormack on Selling, published by Dove Books. ©1996. Thanks to Geoff Hannell at Dove for permission to use Mark’s excellent work.
Review Highlights and Discussion Points
1. Selling is involved in all human activity.
2. Even though everybody sells, not everybody has the temperament to be successful as a professional salesperson.
3. Some salespeople put their emphasis on researching their customers, while others make lots of calls, increasing their opportunities for more sales. Still others are closing specialists who know how to ask for the order and get it.
4. Whatever their individual strengths in the selling process, the common thread among successful sellers is a belief in themselves and the will to win.
5. Most lists of attributes for winning salespeople begin with the word “attitude.”
6. Other attributes of the effective seller are “discipline,” “attention to detail,” “organizational skills,” “listening,” and “persistence.”
7. Tenacity, flexibility, preciseness, industry knowledge, self-confidence, resilience, and energy, are also on the list of attributes.
8. David Mayer and Herbert Greenberg call “empathy” and “drive” the two essential qualities for a salesperson.
9. In the new selling environment, product knowledge means the advertiser’s product. The message of selling is that the customer is the center of the selling relationship.
10. The “ask for the order” paradigm is a thing of the past. No longer is sales a matter of coercion, manipulation, or out-thinking the prospect.
11. Wilson Learning pioneered consultant selling for the insurance industry with the Counselor Salesperson program, and Ken Greenwood added important dimensions to it for electronic media sales.
12. As a seller of electronic media, your primary objectives are (1) developing new business, (2) maximizing revenues, and (3) retaining current business.
13. The seller will work in a sales department under a person whose title may be sales manager, director of sales, or marketing manager.
14. Your manager will outline your job specifically and set the strategies for your selling. There is no single structure that works for every electronic media selling team.
15. Ken Greenwood outlines the four stages of selling as (1) the novice, (2) the learner, (3) the competent, and (4) the professional.
16. Before you sell any product, you have to sell yourself. Shane Media’s Power Selling Tactics outlines ten key strategies for marketing you.
17. Sellers must set goals in order to be successful. Planning is essential. Goal setting is a process of establishing, reaching, and revising.
18. Effective self-management enhances relationships and achieves results. Says Steven Covey, “Organize and execute around priorities … put first things first.”
19. A number of time management systems contain day planners, calendars, priority lists, and other aids to assist the seller in keeping first things first. Of course, no system fits every need.
20. As sellers, we might equate money with happiness, but money is simply a means to an end, not an end in itself.
21. Sellers may start with a draw or salary, but soon shift to a commission. The trend in electronic media is toward spending more on commission than on salaries.
22. First-year salespeople spend more time learning than earning. High-learn equals low-earn.
23. The steps toward closing a sale include prospecting, qualifying, needs analysis, presentation, and answering objections. That is the sales cycle.
24. “In sales, you get the customers you deserve,” writes Mark McCormack, who also provides guidelines for identifying the perfect customer in his book What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School.
25. First and foremost, sales is a numbers game. Tom Hopkins tells us that in all of selling the average is 10 to 1. Ten prospects yield one appointment. Ten appointments yield one sale.
26. Phil Broyles cites five practical steps to getting a seller’s contact rate up.
27. All potential advertisers start as prospects, and prospects are typically already advertisers in other media. This is a good place to begin the search for customers. Check out newspapers, Web sites, Yellow Pages, billboards, cable, radio, television, and direct mail.
28. Cold-calling means walking into a prospect’s place of business unannounced—cold. When cold-calling, be prepared for rejection, and always prepare a reason—a pretext—for being there.
29. As a salesperson, you will likely have 100 or more accounts on your list—some active advertisers, others inactive—which require ongoing tracking. As Michael Keith writes, “A record of a call will put you back on point.”
30. Maintain a database of targeted prospects and potential clients.
31. One of the mistakes first-time sellers often make is concentrating on advertisers whose budgets are too small.
32. Customers who pay their bills on time are better customers than those who stall and make excuses. Checking credit rating and payment history will be near to the top of your list as you qualify potential advertisers. Qualifying is information gathering.
33. All your sales efforts will be for nothing if you do not present your story to the person with the power to make the buy. The key is getting to the person making the buying decision.
34. Determine whether the potential customer has the ability to spend money on what you are proposing. Does the prospect have the dollars required to commit to an advertising plan you develop? Is the client creditworthy?
35. Qualifying eases the way to needs analysis, which continues the sales cycle’s information-gathering process.
36. The telephone is the best organizer and time-saver, although a seller will make thousands of phone calls trying to set up appointments with only a few call-backs.
37. Pam Lontos suggests making at least 30 phone calls a day, all within a short period of time, say between 9 and 10 a.m.
38. The seller’s job is to use all available tools to help prospects and clients solve their advertising and marketing problems in a mutually profitable way.
39. Mike McCaffrey believes that “the single most effective selling tool you have is the ability to ask questions well,” and he calls asking questions a “highly learnable skill.”
40. Sales trainer Chris Lytle suggests starting a client interview with a fact about the client’s business.
41. Sellers would do well to become acquainted with Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a means of better understanding human nature and the client. These include self-actualization, esteem, social relationship, safety and security, and physiological needs.
42. Today’s selling environment is as much about questioning and listening as it is about presenting and closing. A seller’s presentation is better targeted if his or her questioning and listening skills are sharp and well-honed. The objective of questioning is not to sell, but to find out what the prospect needs.
43. There are three inviolable rules in question-asking, according to Harold Bausemer: “Never ask a question that the client cannot answer, never ask the same question twice, and never ask more than one question at a time.”
44. Clients are not buying advertising; they are buying business solutions, which are the product of a seller’s thorough needs analysis effort.
45. Presentations are an opportunity for sellers to demonstrate just how well they understand a prospective advertiser’s problems.
46. Research from Learning International shows three key reasons why customers buy: (1) business expertise and image, (2) dedication to the customer, and (3) account sensitivity.
47. A key step in presentation is believing in yourself. If you demonstrate no faith in your own ability to sell, your prospect will develop none.
48. Affirmations are tools for subconscious image impression. Using a positive assertion about yourself and your selling situation is a specific way to program yourself for success. With affirmations you give yourself inner strength and the resolve to keep going.
49. Eighty-nine percent of sales to new accounts are made after the fifth call.
50. Your prospect should expect you to demonstrate your trustworthiness, competence, objectivity, and expertise throughout the selling process.
51. Make no assumptions when it comes to your prospect’s needs and concerns. Tell your prospect why they would benefit from buying advertising on your medium.
52. Get to the point of the presentation. Time and attention are the chief currencies of the twenty-first century.
53. Keep your presentation colorful. Have interesting (but brief) stories to tell.
54. Make sure the numbers in your presentation tell the story, not garble the issue. It is best to keep figures to a minimum and use them to illustrate a point, not as the point themselves.
55. Keep your prospect involved with the points of your presentation, and use media kits to make your product more tangible.
56. Keep the presentation moving forward. Do not get bogged down. Use powerful words to generate desired pacing.
57. Keep in mind that an objection by a prospective customer is simply an expression of concern about advertising. Do not take an objection as a rejection. Deal with it, then move forward in the selling process.
58. When the negotiations begin, the close is in sight. If you cannot close, you cannot sell.
59. Servicing the account is the first step toward relationship building. Part of the “service” for a client is getting the commercial copy written and produced.
60. Some electronic media outlets require salespeople to collect money due for the advertising schedules they sell.
61. Relationship management means creating repeat customers, not just onetime buyers.
62. Mark McCormack lists three criteria for customer retention: communication, service, and added value.
63. Advertisers rely on prompt, accurate follow-up to the sale. Getting the paper trail in order, advising the client about billing details, and getting information for the commercial are all vital to building deep, trusting relationships.
64. Customer retention means big money. For most companies a small number of customers accounts for a large amount of business. That theory is called the 80:20 rule, although the ratio varies industry by industry and medium by medium.
1 “Everyone sells,” says Zig Ziglar. His take on the selling process and the story of the shoeologist can be found in Reaching the Top, cited previously.
2 Jim Savage’s “Your Key to Winning and Success” appeared in the Ziglar Corporation’s magazine, Top Performance, January/February 1989. I wanted to show you one of Jim’s “scouting report” charts, so I called him at his Florida home. Unfortunately, he hadn’t keep them.
3 Martin Antonelli’s list of attributes was first published in Broadcasting, February 25, 1985. I clipped the article then and kept it in my sales file.
4 I interviewed Lee Masters of E! Entertainment Television on December 22, 1997. More from Masters appears in Chapter 7.
5 Sharon Drew Morgen takes a truly ethics-based approach in Selling with Integrity. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1997.
6 David Mayer and Herbert M. Greenberg wrote about empathy in “What Makes a Good Salesman” for the Harvard Business Review, July-August 1964.
7 Charles Friedman was quoted on the psychology of selling in Michael Keith’s The Radio Station, cited previously.
8 Steven R. Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is a must-read for any seller. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989.
9 The booklet, “Finding and Selecting TRUE Salespeople,” was published in 1995 by the Omnia Group, Inc., of Tampa, Florida. Mary Ruth Austin’s “Faux Salesperson or Superstar?” is a separate report. ©1996 Omnia Group.
10 When I read a magazine ad for The H. R. Chally Group, I didn’t connect the company to the book, The Quadrant Solution, which had been on my bookshelf for a while. The book, by Chally’s Howard Stevens and writer Jeff Cox, is a novel, which is an unusual format for a business book. New York: AMACOM, 1991.
11 How to Select a Sales Force That Sells. 3rd ed. Dayton, Ohio: The H. R. Chally Group, 1997.
12 These are from Dave Gifford. There are several good articles by him in The Radio Book, Volume One: Management and Sales Management. West Palm Beach, FL: Streamline Press, 1995.
13 The stages of a seller’s competence are outlined by Ken Greenwood in High Performance Selling. West Palm Beach, FL: Streamline Press, 1995.
14 Allen Shaw of Centennial Communications sent a personal note by fax when he heard I was collecting ideas for this book.
15 Mike McCaffrey with Jerry Derloshon. Personal Marketing Strategies: How to Sell Yourself Your Ideas, and Your Services. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Spectrum Books, 1983.
16 The Shane Media workbook, Power Selling Tactics, was published by our company in 1990 and is still available through the National Association of Broadcasters.
17 I’m so happy that Tom Hopkins gave me permission to use his material. His advice on goal setting is from How to Master the Art of Selling, cited previously.
18 Skipper Dennis Conner’s The Art of Winning: A Hands-On Plan for Systematizing Success, written with Edward Claflin, was excerpted in Success, January/February 1989.
19 On the subject of affirmations and visualization, Tony Robbins is the best. He has written several books, but I recommend his Unlimited Power audio programs, available from Nightingale-Conant Corporation in Chicago. 1–800-323–5552.
20 Covey’s time-management (or life-management) ideas are from The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, cited earlier.
21 “Pick the future as against the past,” says Peter Drucker, urging concentration on one thing at a time in The Effective Executive. New York: Perennial Library, 1967.
22 “Enhancing Happiness” was distilled from a special report in The Futurist, September/October 1997. The magazine drew from author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. New York: Harper Perennial, 1996.
23 Because of its age, Charles B. Roth’s book, Secrets of Closing Sales, may seem heavy-handed and too focused on closing rather than building relationships. However, there are still a lot of basics to be gleaned from the book. I have the fifth edition, which Roth wrote with Roy Alexander. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1983.
24 “The Perfect Customer” was adapted from “How to Recognize the Perfect Customer” by Mark McCormack in the Southwest Airlines magazine, Spirit. May 1989.
25 Tom Hopkins’ How to Master the Art of Selling was cited previously.
26 My neighbor Tom Vann, who manages a brokerage office, introduced me to Phil Broyles’ columns, called “Tools of the Trade,” written for financial sellers. Broyles’ “Our Business Is a Contact Sport” appeared in Research, April 1991, and a Shane Media editor condensed it for our client newsletter, Tactics: Sales.
27 Where to go to find prospects came from a number of sources: The Radio Advertising Bureau’s Media Facts; Michael Keith’s Selling Radio Direct, cited earlier; Irwin Pollack’s “25 Prospecting Sources”; Tom Hopkins; Chris Lytle; Jim Taszarek’s Large Market Radio Selling; Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau’s Cable Facts 1997; and the Television Bureau of Advertising.
28 Michael Keith’s Selling Radio Direct was cited previously.
29 Chris Lytle’s “concentrating the force” was part of his article, “A Whole New Ball Game,” in Radio Ink, March 1, 1993.
30 Ideas from “The King of Cold Calls” and “How to Get Past the Gatekeeper,” Selling, July/August, 1994.
31 At a Texas Association of Broadcasters meeting where I was a speaker, I met Rick Alan, who also did a seminar there. He allowed Shane Media to reprint some of his materials in our newsletter, Tactics:Sales, April 21, 1992.
32 Mark H. McCormack’s On Selling was cited previously.
33 Sales automation software changes as quickly as new ideas are conceived. Selling Power publishes a software directory each year. I used the 1998 edition from the November/December 1997, issue. Also check SalesLogix online at www.saleslogix.com, a video sales meeting program at www.cuseeme.com, and Gold-Mine at www.goldminesw.com. (Selling Power is a great resource for sellers. Motivational expert Gerhard Gschwandtner is the publisher.)
34 Warner and Buchman’s Broadcast and Cable Selling was cited previously.
35 Ted Kerley, a sales planner at Nickelodeon, assembled a “buy” for Shane Media on both Nickelodeon and Nick’s TV LAND network. It’s used as an example in Chapter 3.
36 Pam Lontos’ tips for getting appointments appeared in “Dialing for Dollars: Get the Appointment, Then Make the Sale,” Radio Ink, June 21, 1993.
37 The Radio Advertising Bureau’s Welcome to Radio Sales is a basic course in selling as well as an introduction to the radio medium. It’s published for member stations by RAB, 1320 Greenway Drive, Suite 500, Irving, TX 75038.
38 Harvey Mackay’s Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive is still one of the best business books ever, in my opinion. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1988.
39 Mike McCaffrey’s Personal Marketing Strategies was cited previously.
40 On the subject of taking notes, there’s the Warner and Buchman opinion. Then there’s my opinion. So let’s break the tie: in Rogers’ Rules for Success (New York: St. Martin’s/Marek, 1984), Henry C. Rogers suggests that taking notes flatters the person being questioned.
41 Peter Drucker’s Managing for Results was cited before.
42 “Maslow” and “need” are said almost simultaneously because of Abraham H. Maslow’s Motivation and Personality. 2nd edition, New York: Harper & Row, 1954. Maslow’s Toward a Psychology of Being. 2nd edition, New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, 1968.
43 The serious student of needs should also consult Carl Jung’s Psychological Types, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971.
44 Marc Porat’s speech was covered in “Trying to Change the World,” an article in Mobile Data Report, November 19, 1990. Dennis Waters, the publisher of Mobile Data Report, was the first radio person I knew who understood the impact of new media. When he couldn’t convince anyone in radio to listen, he began newsletters like Mobile Data Report and Microticker Report for those who would.
45 The idea of looking for clues came from Warner and Buchman, Broadcast and Cable Selling, cited previously.
46 Larry Wilson is quoted by Ken Greenwood in High Performance Selling, cited previously.
47 Sharon Drew Morgen’s Selling with Integrity was also cited previously.
48 The IBM questions are from Mike McCaffrey’s Personal Marketing Strategies, cited before.
49 Harold Bausemer wrote “What’s Your Focus” for Tuned In, July 1997.
50 Sales Questions That Close the Sale by Charles D. Brennan Jr., president of the Sales Development Institute. New York: AMACOM, 1994.
51 Steven Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People was cited before.
52 The article about listening in The Wall Street Journal was “The Crucial Question For These Noisy Times May Just Be: ‘Huh?’” by Cynthia Crossen, July 10, 1997.
53 Listening is called “the unused potential” in “Listening to People” by Ralph G. Nichols and Leonard A. Stevens, in the Harvard Business Review, September/October 1957, reprinted in HBR’s Paths Toward Personal Progress: Leaders Are Made, Not Born in 1982.
54 Rogers’ Rules for Success was cited previously.
55 It’s true. I’m a real fan of Mark McCormack. His On Selling is a great resource, as cited previously.
56 Chris Lytle quoted the Learning International research in “The Real Reason Clients Buy” in Radio Ink, October 4, 1993.
57 The data on the fifth call was collected by Harry Spitzer for Impact Resources in 1988. I first quoted the figures in Shane Media’s Power Selling Tactics.
58 Lester Wunderman’s book is not about electronic media, but it’s sure fun to read. Being Direct. Making Advertising Pay. New York: Random House, 1996.
59 Howard Upton wrote “The Perils of Information Overload” for the “Insider’s Digest” column in Southwest Airlines’ Spirit, May 1990.
60 “How to Improve Your Negotiating Skills” by Amy S. Bly and Robert W. Bly of the Center for Technical Communications, Dumont, NJ. Find it online at www.smartbiz.com/sbs/arts/bly60.htm.
61 Tom Hopkins’ “triplicate of choice” is in How to Master the Art of Selling, cited previously.
62 Michael Keith’s Selling Radio Direct was cited before.
63 Kerby Confer does a terrific speech on creativity for broadcast groups. He always rolls the “big deal pen.”
64 The ideas in “Dress Up a Presentation” are from Shane Media’s Tactics: Sales information service for our radio station clients.
65 Examples of “rejection words” and “pedestal words” are from Tom Hopkins; Ken Greenwood, Power Selling Tactics, and from Words That Sell by Richard Bayan, Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1984.
66 If it doesn’t break down, it’s a condition, not an objection, says Tom Hopkins in How to Master the Art of Selling, cited previously.
67 “Selling Begins When the Customer Says NO” is from Shane Media’s Tactics:Sales, October 27, 1992.
68 Discussing the problems, not the solutions is a caution from “Selling 101: The Seven Basics of Successful Selling,” in Selling Power, June 1996.
69 “Old-style selling” is something to avoid. Ken Greenwood addresses how in High Performance Selling, cited previously.
70 Comments from Lee Masters of E! Entertainment Television, Cheryl Vannucchi of Santa Rosa’s Cable One, and Jennifer Baird of CNN are from my conversations with each of them.
71 Mark McCormack’s comment is from On Selling, cited before.
72 The classic text on negotiation is Gerard I. Nierenberg’s Art of Negotiating, recently re-released by the International Center for Creative Thinking. Also see Nierenberg’s The Complete Negotiator from Nierenberg and Zeif, 1986. Both are available through the online bookseller amazon.com.
73 Thanks to the Smart Business Supersite www.smartbiz.com I came across Peter B. Stark’s work on negotiation. It’s Negotiable, San Diego, CA: Pfeiffer & Co., 1994.
74 The reference to Amy and Robert Bly was cited earlier.
75 The quotation from Victoria Ruttenberg is from “Most Things Are Negotiable: Here’s How to Get Good at It” by Hal Lancaster in The Wall Street Journal, January 27, 1998.
76 “If you can’t close, you can’t sell” is the premise of Secrets of Closing Sales by Charles B. Roth and Roy Alexander, cited earlier.
77 Bill Good is based in Sandy, Utah, and operates a sales consulting firm for the financial industry. His articles on closing appeared in Research, in January and March, 1992.
78 Chris Lytle’s comment about “doing the consulting for free” was in “Spec Work: A Novel Idea,” Radio Ink, October 19, 1992.
79 Closing techniques are difficult to document. The ones I’ve chosen are combinations of reading and learning. Thanks to Zig Ziglar, Tom Hopkins, Charles Roth, Charles Warner, and Bill Good. Then add a long list of sellers in electronic media who have shaped my ideas and responses over the years. I’ve given specific credit where due.
80 In addition to Harvey Mackay’s Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive, cited previously, he also contributed Beware the Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt. New York: William Morrow, 1990.
81 Every sales trainer uses analogies. I think the “long ball out of the park” is from Zig Ziglar. I chose it because I wrote this chapter during baseball season.
82 David Ogilvy’s Ogilvy on Advertising has been cited elsewhere. The speech to the Association of National Advertisers was printed in ANA’s magazine, The Advertiser, Summer 1992.
83 Irwin Pollack’s advice is from one of his online sales tips, accessible at www.irwinpollack.com.
84 John Fellows wrote “Keep Your Customers, Grow Your Sales” for Radio Ink, February 1, 1993.
85 “Successful sales personnel develop customers, not just orders,” says Regis McKenna in The Regis Touch, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1985.
86 Mark McCormack, On Selling, cited previously.
87 Murray Raphel is a columnist for Direct Marketing. This is from “Tell Me What You Want and the Answer Is ‘Yes,’” which is a great title. It appeared in October 1996.
88 The KMLE customer study was documented by Radio Only in an article “What We Learned from Client Gripes,” September 1993.
89 Stuart J. Sharpe of Regional Reps Corp. in Cleveland told the story of his customer study in the Small Market Radio Newsletter, September 1997.
90 Diane Sutter shared her Pittsburgh experiences during an interview with me on June 20, 1997.
91 “Relationship Building Tactics” are from Power Selling Tactics, Houston, TX: Shane Media Services, 1990.
92 Examples that support the 80:20 rule are from “The Marketing Manager’s Job Is, Above All, to Make Sure That the Clients Are Satisfied” by Henry Whitney in Direct Marketing, October 1997.
93 Chris Lytle’s “churn calculation worksheet” originally appeared in Radio Ink, March 29, 1993. Lytle updated the information and provided clarification for use in this book.
94 “What makes customers mad” was inspired by Mark McCormack and collected from all sorts of people. Fred Poppe, who led the Poppe-Tyson advertising agency for years, contributed 50 Rules to Keep a Client Happy, a thin book (87 pages) worth many times its weight in insight. New York: Harper & Row, 1987.
95 Terry Varra’s comment about 91% of unhappy customers is from Aftermarketing: How to Keep Customers for Life Through Relationship Marketing, Homewood, IL: Business One Irwin, 1992.
96 Lois Geller wrote “Customer Retention Begins with the Basics” in Direct Marketing, September 1997.
Here are a few Web sites that relate to this chapter and additional reading not included in the Chapter Notes.
www.ama.org/index.html—The American Marketing Association site provides information and ideas for both the marketing and sales dimensions
www.amanet.org—The American Management Association. Their scope is much broader than sales, but they offer sales and sales training courses on CD-ROM plus a full catalog of business books through AMACOM Publishing
www.amcity.com—American City Business Journals, access to sales and business columns
www.covey.com—Steven Covey’s site with time-management and life-management information
www.hoovers.com—A search engine for business information with background data on virtually any industry
www.imarketinc.com—A subscription-based online prospecting service with links to business and industry lists. While the site is national in scope, you’ll find information specific to local areas, too
www.inc.com—Inc. magazine’s site with tips for small business people—your customers
www.naa.org—A look at the other side from the Newspaper Association of America
www.peoplesuccess.com—Self-development books, tapes, and seminars from motivational experts
www.primenet.com/~th—Tom Hopkins International
www.xmission.com—Another online resource for self-development and motivation
Bayan, Richard. Words That Sell. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1984.
Beckwith, Harry. Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing. New York: Warner Books, 1997.
Delmar, Ken. Winning Moves: The Body Language of Selling. New York: Warner Books, 1984.
Geraghty, Barbara, Michael Larsen, and Fred Hills. Visionary Selling: How to Get to Top Executives and How to Sell Them When You’re There. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998.
Good, Bill. Prospecting Your Way to Sales Success: How to Find New Business by Phone, Fax, Internet and Other New Media. Complete Revised Edition. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1997.
Gordon, Josh. Tough Calls. New York: AMACOM, 1996.
Merrill, David, and Roger Reid. Personal Styles and Effective Performance: Make Your Style Work for You. Radnor, PA: Chilton, 1981.
Rackham, Neil. SPIN Selling. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988.
Robbins, Anthony. Awaken the Giant Within. New York: Summit Books, 1991.
Schiffman, Stephan. The 25 Habits of Highly Successful Salespeople. Holbrook, MA: Bob Adams, Inc., 1994.
Schiffman, Stephan. Closing Techniques That Work. Holbrook, MA: Bob Adams, Inc., 1994.
St. Lawrence, Michael, and Steve Johnson. If You’re Not Out Selling You’re Being Outsold. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997.
Tronnes, Mike, ed. Closers: Great American Writers on the Art of Selling. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.