You’ve mostly survived the holiday season and are ready to start the new year. Except you can’t seem to get moving. Or you are just going through the motions and feeling uninspired. It’s OK, it happens to all of us salespeople at some point.
Here are 7 great ways for media salespeople to jump start their 2014:
1. Expand your advertisers’ reach with education. Organize a sponsored webinar to share valuable information with your magazine’s audience. First, create a list of the five most common objections that you received as a media sales person in 2013. Then create advertiser education webinars to address those five needs. Hosting a webinar with Gotomeeting is easy and costs less than $100.
2. Collect success stories. Meet with your key advertisers and collect several success stories about what has worked well for them. Use these success stories throughout the year to share with new prospects. Be sure to find specific success stories within the niche you serve so that they are highly relevant to your new advertisers.
3. Look for inefficiencies in your sales process. Take a few minutes and write out in detail your complete sales process. Start with lead generation and conclude with advertiser retention. Be very detailed and look for areas where you see time-wasters and where you can improve. You may even want to share your process with your supervisor or a colleague for constructive feedback.
4. Expand your networking horizons. Look for opportunities nationally or regionally to get involved with associations and networking communities within your industry, or even your local market. Networking is often a low priority with media salespeople because it takes a lot of time. Networking leads to valuable business relationships. Look for those opportunities to meet and engage new advertisers or key decision-makers. Attend a conference and learn from your niche peers. You CAN get some fresh ideas for 2014.
5. Always look for ways to add visuals to all of your sales material. Because we know that 86% of people are visual learners, it is important that all of our sales material contains strong visuals. Review all your sales material and figure out ways you can use visuals to better make your case. You can find graphics online from stock photo websites like Istock.com, freedigitalphotos.net or others to better create sales sheets with visual appeal. Incorporate actual photos from your own successful events and programs too.
6. Practice your presentation skills. The very best actors will rehearse daily. The very best athletes practice daily. Begin to schedule time in your day to practice your presentations. It is always best if you can practice your presentations with another person that can give you constructive feedback. Remember– the tasks you hate the most are often the ones that will often bring you the greatest rewards.
7. Clean up your CRM tool. Your customer relationship management database is critical to your success. However, most sales people do not clean up their database on a regular or even once-a-year basis. This is a great time of year to re-categorize, delete old accounts or trade accounts with other sales reps within your company. In the sales space, a cluttered database will slow you down. Maximize the potential this important tool.
This is a GREAT time of year to get things done as a media salesperson. Start with a few of these tips and work your way down the list. Be sure to block out time on your calendar–and make them happen!
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More about Ryan Dohrn: Ryan is President of 360 Ad Sales Training, an internet & sales consulting firm focused on developing print and online revenue strategies for magazine publishers.
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