Friday Poll: How Does Your Station Handle Agency Accounts?

    • 1373 posts
    August 8, 2014 12:10 AM PDT

    Happy Friday, everyone!

     

    This week’s poll question was submitted by a Radio Sales Café member who wishes to remain anonymous:

     

    How does your station handle agency accounts?  Does one person handle agencies?  If a business has been buying direct from the salesperson and they go to an agency, does the salesperson lose the billing?

    Looking forward to reading your answers!

  • August 8, 2014 5:53 AM PDT

    Everyone in my sales department has at least one agency account. The only issue that has come up is when an agency lands a couple of small accounts in the market that belong to other reps, the person who has the contact with the agency keeps the agency account and it's clients.

    • 8 posts
    August 8, 2014 7:03 AM PDT

    At every station I have worked (all small market stations) Agency accounts are "house" accounts and not paid commissions on therefore they are handled either by the Sales Manager or GM personally. Honestly after dumping out 15% on the agency commission it only make sense this way.

  • August 8, 2014 7:12 AM PDT

    At Our station the client goes with the rep. We are not agency assigned .....which is only FAIR...

    • 15 posts
    August 8, 2014 8:43 AM PDT

    When a company has a cluster of stations that the client uses sometimes the account is split depending on the client's needs. Some AEs know the match with station and client better, especially small ($$) accounts.

    However if the spending does exceed a certain level it is given to one AE  or the National Rep. and most cases the AE losing is compensated with another account. I have been personally on both sides of this situation (mostly losing) however it is fair for the client and agency having only one AE to work with

    • 455 posts
    August 8, 2014 9:10 AM PDT

    So, a salesperson works with the business directly and builds that into nice annual billing. Then, an agency comes into play and the salesperson loses the billing? Seems like that would crush someone's spirit. 

    • 455 posts
    August 8, 2014 9:11 AM PDT

    Does anyone have more than one salesperson working with the same agency?

    • 1 posts
    August 8, 2014 11:02 AM PDT

    If account has been on air with a local salesperson they continue to work with agency because they have the relationship with local retailer.  We have a regional and national salesperson they handle all agencies.

    • 39 posts
    August 8, 2014 12:36 PM PDT

    We get very little local agency business, so it doesn't come into play much. On the local end, mostly we keep the account with the AE who sold it.

    • 41 posts
    August 8, 2014 1:15 PM PDT

    At our station the two owners, Tom and Monica handle all agency and political accounts.

    It is my understanding that if a local account uses any kind of agency services, it reverts

    to the owners. I get to sell only NET RATES to local clients.  And due to the paperwork

    and regulations the same is true with Political clients.  It's not that big of a deal here so

    I don't worry about it, and let them know when I run into an account that is using an agency.

    • 15 posts
    August 8, 2014 1:22 PM PDT

    oh I have been CRUSHED !!!  
    however as I commented earlier I was a winner also.....

    • 121 posts
    August 10, 2014 9:22 AM PDT
    The company I joined last year made a major switch a few years ago to separate major agency accounts from local direct and small agency accounts. We have one person who handles nearly all of the big agency biz as "transactional" which is based on CPP data. She does this for all of our 5 stations in our market. This frees up the local sales staff to deal with local "relationship" business.
    • 993 posts
    August 13, 2014 11:49 AM PDT

    We do.

    Local agency (ex-radio salesperson; sound familiar?) with a few accounts.  When a salesperson has worked with the client for years and has a good understanding of the client's business, it doesn't make sense to pull the rug out from under that relationship.

    Besides, the agency is not the client; the agency is a third party hired by the client to handle mostly administrative tasks relative to advertising.  Personally, whenever a local business (often a franchise owner, sometimes an independent) hires an agency, I maintain regular contact with the owner as well as with the agency.  Agencies come and go; the client remains a local business.

    • 993 posts
    August 13, 2014 11:59 AM PDT

    Jan, how would you characterize your experience/relationship with your regional/national rep?

    I hope it's better than I've witnessed over the years.

    Too often, I've seen "station" reps taking the agency's part in trying to negotiate lower rates, "added value," etc. not extended to local clients whose business is worth far more to the station.

    It's not unusual for the same rep firm to "represent" competing stations in the same market, effectively playing both ends against the middle.  If one company won't acquiesce to the agency's demands for concessions, the whole buy goes to the company that will.

    And then there's the issue of s l o w   p a y.  In one instance, the rep actually had collected from the client but used the money to pay other bills, making the station wait to be paid.