First off, I want to mention that I've spent the past couple days browsing some of these discussions and I'm pleased to say that I've gleaned a good bit of information and helpful tidbits. You folks have been extremely helpful already without even knowing it.
I recently embarked upon a new career path and came on board with a strong, well established locally owned station. In fact, I just got started on the 26th!
This is, in a nutshell, a rather significant transition for me. I've spent the past 10 years in retail, specifically in a management capacity, and I decided now was the time to try my hand at something different. I'm very well versed in the concept of customer service and working directly face-to-face with my customer base. I also have about three years worth of selling experience via telemarketing, where I sold credit cards, balance transfers and other banking-related services.
In short, radio sales is an entirely new venture for me. I'm confident I can pull it off and be successful, but I'm faced with learning an entirely new business, complete with an entirely new set of challenges and opportunities.
In short, I'm a newbie looking for any and all forms of advice.
Thanks in advance!
Clifton, congratulations on your new career, and welcome to RSC! I appreciate your kind words & am glad you've found some helpful information.
I'll be sure to include your post in our newsletter, and I'm guessing you'll get some great advice from our members. Chris Rolando is a veteran of the radio industry, and he put together an excellent series of radio sales training videos entitled "Crawl, Walk, Run." Search for it on You Tube.
Clifton,
Welcome to wild and wonderful world of Radio! I would give you two pieces of advice to start...
-Relationships (AKA trust) sell... build the relationship by being knowlegable in all advertising mediums, not just radio, and be a media consultant, not a salesperson.
-Typically, approx. 80% of your revenue is generated by 20% of your clients... look after them!
Happy selling!
Welcome, Clifton, both to radio sales and to the Cafe.
As you've begun to discover, the collective wealth of experience and expertise of this group is extraordinary. Take advantage of it. Many of us wish something like RSC had been around when we started our careers in radio ad sales decades ago.
The "New to Radio Sales" area is packed with good stuff; going through it methodically, a bit at a time, may be helpful to you. The RSC Sales and Advertising Library is another area of the Cafe that you'll want to explore early-on, for audio recordings, videos, and books to get you up to speed faster.
Echoing Rebecca, Chris Rolando has been generous to our industry in making his sales training available to anyone that wants it -- even competitors in his own market. Improving our industry starts with improving our individual performance.
Best wishes to you as you embark on your new career in radio advertising sales!
Welcome to what should be your final career!!! You'll find lots of opinions here on what you should and should not do. Here's a hint... hear everyone and evaluate for yourself.
Baseline: Learn the business!!!! We have people in my market who walk around with ratings sheets and think that is the answer to everything. We have people who are major relationship builders as if being someone's friends bring them reults. We have people who never take a stand on anything... and will take anyone's money even if they know the advertising will not work for what the people have in mind.
Understand that if you are not pissing some people off you are not doing your job. If you try to be a pleaser you are not helping them. Advertising is a tough expenditure for people... price of a car for what? They cannot see it or touch it! You better have answers and yes you CAN quantify marketing expenditures. BUT, you are going to piss some people off over time..... Can't make a cake without breaking some eggs.
List, I come from a MICRO radio station group in the middle of nowhere. We only bill about $350,000 per month so don't just take my word for it. Talk to some of the big guys too and see what THEY say. LEARN... from everyone. There is a good course that I offer (FREE and worth every penny) at RadioSalesSchool.com. See if you get anything from that. Read some of the magazines, websites and books suggested there. Listen to people here, especially the REPS.
This is a great career and if you remember that you are in it to make money, not friends you will earn a well above average income.
I definitely plan on absorbing as much information as I can from as many sources as I can find; although I'm familiar with sales in general, this is quite different from everything else I've done up until this point. Minus a snow day or two, I'm a week into the job and I know I've got a lot of work and learning to do.
I'll definitely take a look at your course; committing a little bit of time over the course of 15 days sounds reasonable enough, especially for the price!
I do appreciate the help you guys are offering!
