Arming Radio's Troops

 

Embarrassment. That was the feeling I had recently while being pitched over the phone by a radio rep who was trying to get me to spend money on his stations. I was embarrassed because this seller was grasping at straws and was not well armed with the data points he should have known. But it's not his fault.

It's been estimated that 65,000 people are on the streets selling radio in America today. At many stations there's a 30-, 60-, or 90-day "make it or break it" policy, resulting in high seller turnover. With so many sellers coming and going, and new sellers starting every month, it's nearly impossible for a manager to properly train her or his people. Too many sellers are sent out on the streets with a rate card and no real grasp of radio. They don't have a chance to succeed.

Though your goal is to sell your station first, my goal is to get you to sell radio first. Imagine how much more successful we would all be if every seller on the street was evangelizing the power of radio and bringing new radio accounts into the market every week. Instead, inexperienced sellers are sicced on clients who roll their eyes as they get yet another "Hi, I'm your new account executive" phone call or e-mail and count the number of times they've heard it before. Though I understand the need to make people produce or move them out the door quickly, I also understand the damage we do to our industry and our own brand when advertisers are seeing their 25th seller in three years.

How are you arming your salespeople? Every new seller needs to be armed with data points about radio, needs basic sales skills, and needs to understand how radio works best. Instead they are loaded up with data points about the radio station and told, "Go sell something." Meanwhile, managers and sales managers complain that there is no time to train people because they have to keep on top of ever-increasing paperwork.

We need a national depository of radio training that is available to every new radio seller, and we need to set an industry standard among all radio groups to ensure that all sellers meet some minimum requirements. Though the RAB certification programs are great, they are underutilized. Frankly, if every seller were required to become RAB-certified, it would eliminate a lot of problems. But, as one manager told me, "We don't bother to put anyone through RAB programs until we know if they're going to succeed." I was stunned -- that's like saying, "We don't teach people how to drive until after they get their license."
 
Though our competitive nature means we want to hold on to every advantage, in sales training or anything else, I think every seller hitting the streets should be required to have received an agreed-on minimum amount of training. Maybe it's as simple as having each new seller watch a few hours of DVDs, then take a test. Anything would be better than sending them out unarmed.

In talking with Bob McCurdy, President of Katz Marketing Solutions, I discovered he had a similar passion to empower salespeople. That resulted in the creation of a website where he has compiled all the relevant data points about radio to arm our radio sales troops. He took the initiative to load all his data and anything new he finds on to a site for all sellers to use, whether or not they work for Katz clients. Bravo!

This is especially smart and shows that Katz understands that a fully empowered industry benefits us all. You can find this resource at www.kmsradioprimer.com, and every radio seller in America should be required to visit it frequently so they can understand the basic data points about our industry and be ready to share them with clients. It's an excellent starting point. As McCurdy told me, "Every person selling radio has got to become a student of radio. They have to learn and figure out how to become marketers instead of radio sellers. I revisit these facts before I go into any client presentation to sharpen my knowledge of radio. Every radio seller should re-read these facts at least monthly, and of course we update the site with more facts at least once a month."

I agree with Bob McCurdy that all radio sellers need to sharpen their skills and refresh their radio knowledge on a daily basis. Knowing radio in and out and how to make it work is critical.

The recession virtually wiped out training in many radio companies, doing away with corporate "universities" and putting the pressure back on the local sales manager. That means training is inconsistent from station to station and group to group -- though any training is of course better than nothing. But some sales managers are not good trainers, and others simply don't have enough time to train people effectively.

Having a universal program and a commitment that no seller will hit the streets without this training would be ideal. It's something the RAB could produce and distribute to every radio station in America, whether or not they are RAB members. Perhaps that would lead to deeper training relationships with the RAB's own certification programs.

In the 1980s I had a Ken Greenwood audio program that provided the basics of radio selling. If there is something like this on the market today, I'm not aware of it. But it's badly needed. Empowered sellers reduce turnover and increase success. I hope every radio company will collaborate on a basics program and suggest that RAB produce it, with the full commitment of every group leader. Groups can then expand on the basics with their own internal programs.

If every new seller entering radio went through a consistent training program, and if every seller at every level had some form of ongoing training -- even as basic as viewing a video once a month to refresh them on the various positive aspects of radio -- our industry would be rich with additional sales, we would have much lower turnover, and we would not be putting unempowered sellers in front of our clients.

 

Comments

[Sales Training]

This type of literary movements should go on, because it makes sense of peace and intelligence.
Regards

[Paul Wells]

Have to agree with a point several of the comments made, in addition to the truth of what Eric is saying. To underscore this, a friend with a long history in radio (mostly on-air) and in sales over the last decade in a number of industries, was driven back to Copier sales by the offer of a commission only position at a long time ratings leader in the San Francisco radio market. As Rick pointed out, the long-term collateral damage of deregulation has led to the denial of the importance of talent and knowledge on both "sides of the hall."

[Rick Hayes]

I agree with almost everything said by everyone and I understand the crisis. To my way of thinking, the sales talent crisis was a completely unintended consequence of eliminating the on air talent in favor of voice-tracking. We survived the fractionalization caused by Docket 80-90 by running radio stations in a box. In so doing, we eliminated the farm team for new sales talent and we find ourselves in a situation where we have to train new sales recruits about the basics of radio. What a pickle.

Rick Hayes. [email protected]

[Jim Schlichting]

The horse is long ago out of the barn Eric.

Remember when "consolidation" took place? While consolidation was taking place the radio sales professionals were shown the door.

They were shown the door by the new generation MBA take-over Sales Manager who had the computer program that told how many cold calls had to be made in order to make a sales quota. No other effort was acceptable.

The established sales professionals knew that it was not quantity or sales calls made but it was the quality of the sales calls made that made the station money.

Take a look at the radio industry today. It is in deed as you and I have described it to be. Sales driven by computer models. Computer models controlled by the new generation MBA take-over Sales Manager.

At what point does management face reality? Reality being that it is the quality of sales effort that matters, not the quantity of sales pitches. That is what you are calling for in your writing. Consolidated owners will not listen.

Reality being that the new generation MBA take-over Sales Manager is the whore of the industry who has turned tricks to get their name on the long established accounts. That is where the once legacy accouts have gone, no longer in the hands of the professionals who knew how radio works.

Part of their whoring has been to drop their pants to take whatever dollars they can find as their computer model quantity sales effort has failed.

The overall industry is bust Eric. Any legacy stations [those that have remained profitable] has held onto their quality people. The consolidated management has simply ignored profitable sales in favor of computer models that please the financial community.

As I said in the beginning, thae horse has long ago left the barn. It's now a dead horse and the efforts to give it CPR are absurd.

JJ Dueling has been a long time programming pro. His efforts are to be admired. Too bad that his efforts are likely to be ignored by management.

It is nice to be retired from the industry. It is so sad to see the industry wandering and not knowing what they are all about.

[Rod Schwartz]

Eric,
Appreciate you providing the information on the Katz site and the resource it represents to new radio sellers.
I'll be sharing that information and link with the members of Radio Sales Cafe, another terrific resource for radio advertising sales professionals, that you might also wish to mention.
Among the 2000 members of Radio Sales Cafe are 20-, 30-, 40-, and 50-year veterans: salespeople, owners, managers, along with many younger folks still in their first decade--and in some cases, their first year--in the business. The discussion forums are filled with examples of members sharing resources and ideas, helping one another address sales problems, improving their knowledge and capacity to serve advertisers, and learning to avoid the pitfalls that others have discovered the hard way. It's a thriving, vibrant community of people who are passionate about our medium.
There are plenty of other good people across the country that are helping to train radio's next generation of sellers. You know most of them, I imagine, some better than others. There's Roy Williams (who, by the way, is offering a free teleseminar for radio sales people on Monday); you crowned him Radio's White Knight a decade ago, and he's been every bit of that. There are terrific full-time radio sales trainers, people like Paul Weyland (also in Austin), Jim Taszarek, Darrell Solberg...and part-timers like Chris Rolando, who practices what he preaches at his stations in Lake Havasu City, AZ, and is so generous in sharing his expertise and resources with his colleagues in radio, even his local competitors! Then there are copywriting and advertising experts--Dan O'Day comes to mind--who offer easy-to-absorb training on CD and other media. Jeffery Hedquist's ubiquitous articles and newsletters are filled with tips and techniques to help salespeople create effective commercials for their clients. And, as you pointed out, there's also the RAB, an important resource for research and training. If one's station isn't a member, the RAB offers affordable personal memberships to individuals.
I haven't even touched on all the books that are out there to help radio advertising sales people gain proficiency on a daily basis; many such titles have been recommended by members of RSC, who also share how and why a particular volume was helpful.
The point is, if someone in sales WANTS the help, it's available in abundance. If that person DOESN'T WANT help...doesn't care to learn...he's not going to be around for long, regardless of the resources available to "empower" him.
It's management's job to hire new recruits who are eager to learn, to provide them with the appropriate resources, and to make sure that they (the managers themselves) aren't putting obstacles in their sellers' way that would hinder their success.
Maybe I've been spoiled by the company I've been keeping, Eric, but I don't believe that Radio's problem is the lack of an industry standard for newbies. If anyone's at fault, it's managers who are so preoccupied with numbers that they fail to develop their employees' talents, nurture their aspirations, and give them the help they need to be of genuine, meaningful service to their advertisers.

[JJ Duling]

How true this is. And, it's been going on for years. At several stops, I've had sellers asking me, six months after they joined us, who was our afternoon talent or "oh, YOU'RE on-the-air?". Not only are too many not students of radio, they're not even students of their own stations. Most of them are actually sharp people but get too little help for the reasons you've mentioned.

I've tried to do my part as a Program Director, including walking the sales floor several times a day, giving all new sellers printed materials on what we're all about, who we target and our talent schedule. I fear that the pressure to "hit that number!" is so great, though, that their focus is on surviving more than succeeding.