Friday Poll: How Do You Put the Fun in Selling?

    • 1373 posts
    September 7, 2018 12:48 AM PDT

    Happy Friday, everyone!

    Yesterday's Radio Sales Today* featured a short piece by sales trainer and speaker Paul Cherry, who pointed out that since selling is a stressful occupation, it's good for sales managers to "[throw] in some fun along the way" as it "can help the sales manager’s team remain motivated and keep their morale up. After meeting a really important sales projection, take time to celebrate with the team. Everyone needs a chance to relax before diving back in for the next milestone."

    So for this week's poll question, we'd like to know:

    How does your radio station's sales team have fun while selling? What contests, prizes, and celebrations do you have?

    Looking forward to reading your replies!

    *To get Radio Sales Today delivered to your inbox every weekday, just click here. It's a great resource!


    This post was edited by Rebecca Hunt at September 7, 2018 12:51 AM PDT
    • 121 posts
    September 7, 2018 9:15 AM PDT

    At WOWO, having Fun is important, but what I really appreciate is the honest to goodness team building that we do.  Every year that I have been at WOWO, nearly 5 now, we have beat the previous years revenue numbers and we lead our cluster most of the time in dollars.

     

    Each of our 6 local stations have our own sales teams. With the WOWO sales team, we take a day in the summer and again at the end of the year for Team Building with the sales staff.  Summer is usually a day of golf, winter is a team Christmas lunch.

     

    We also have very honest and open discussions in our WOWO sales team meetings.  We'll talk about the good, the bad, struggles and successes.  We want each of our team members to succeed. There are usually one or two struggling, a couple doing really well, and the others are okay, but it changes too.

    On the side, we have a group text message that includes only the WOWO sellers, not our manager where anything goes.  That sometimes helps team members a lot.

    Locally, with our 6 stations, we also have about 3 or 4 cluster wide events.  Besides the company Christmas party for employees and a guest, we also have a local awards event (called the Feddys, since we are Federated Media) at a suite during a local hockey game in February.  Also twice a year we have a cleaning day for all local staff.  Those days begin around 9 with about 90 minutes of "deep cleaning" of the building and station vans, followed by a catered cookout and games in the afternoon.  All food and drinks, including a keg, provided.

    • 993 posts
    September 13, 2018 10:22 AM PDT

    Scott, I'd love to learn more from you about what you see as the plusses and minuses of having separate sales teams for each of your company's stations. 

    At first blush, it seems that would turn your colleagues into competitors for the same dollars. On the other hand, such an arrangement makes it less likely that the company is leaving money on the table.

    Care to elaborate?  Thanks!

    • 121 posts
    September 13, 2018 1:05 PM PDT

    Sure, Rod.  One of the challenges in our business is finding enough qualified sales people.  Separating them out the way we do at Federated Media in Fort Wayne could be challenging if we didn't also have strong stations that can be sold separately. 

    Our music stations have smaller sales staffs than our talk stations.  Here's how it is currently set up:

    WMEE (Hot A.C.) has a 3 person sales staff

    WQHK (Country) has a 3 person sales staff

    WMEE and WQHK have the same sales manager and the same program director

     

    WBYR (Rock) needs a 3 person sales staff but we are short two people.

    WFWI (Classic Hits) has a 1 person sales staff.

     

    Our salesperson for WFWI is also selling for WBYR since they are short sales talent.

     

    WOWO (News/Talk) has a 5 person full time and 2 person part time sales staff.  The two part timers are either semi-retired or also having programming duties to fill their day.

    WKJG (ESPN Sports) has one sales person who also hosts an afternoon talkshow.

    Both WOWO & WKJG have the same sales manager and all WOWO sales staff can also sell WKJG.

     

    Rod, you asked if our sales people from different sales teams are selling against each other.  That rarely happens.  Instead we will team up when appropriate with a seller from another station.   Recently I had a bank that wanted to use WMEE, WQHK and WOWO so I got rates and schedules from the other sales people and we all got some of the buy.

    Sometimes that doesn't work. Ruth's Chris Steakhouse opened their first location in Fort Wayne this spring and they originally wanted to consider WOWO and WBYR.  I teamed up with a proposal from my co-worker from WBYR but the media buyer changed their mind and decided to place all their dollars on WOWO.

     

    Before joining Federated Media 5 years ago, I worked for two other groups that each had a combined sales staff for all stations.  One group had 15 sellers for 5 stations and that was tough because we had 15 people competing between ourselves for accounts.   And from my experience, that group took in a fraction of the sales that Federated Media does with our separate approach to sales teams.

     

    At Federated Media, our stations really compete with stations from the other groups and not each other for listeners or advertising dollars.  

    Total shares in the last rating period had Fed Med with 42.7, followed by Adams with 22.4 and S/T with 8.1.  Adams actually has more stations than us but they are niche formats so if a salesperson from Adams gets shot down, they can offer a different radio station.  At Federated Media, we have the leading stations with 4 of the top 5.  We have 6 total out of 27 stations in the market.