To Do Today:

• Please read everything on this page
• Listen to Can I Tell You a Story (4:22)

(Please note that all audio and video run times will be indicated in minutes: seconds throughout Ignite Radio Sales)

• Download and print The Chart (PDF)
• Watch Let’s Go to Lunch (3:22)
• Watch The Crash Course in Advertising Results Part 1 (3:12)
  

Welcome to your very first day of Ignite Radio Sales. This is a time-released, multimedia, interactive and coached sales training system. You will learn how to secure the win at every step of the sales process. And you will develop a philosophy of selling and a philosophy of advertising as you proceed.

Training, is a planned program designed to impart specific knowledge, skills and attitudes to increase desired behavior in measurable ways.

I love time-released training rather than “traditional” sales training and classroom training. This audio clip will tell you why.

Click the audio player below to listen to Can I Tell You a Story:

The Chart, The Choice, The Challenge

Please click on The Chart icon below. Open and print out the 8-1/2 by 11-inch version of The Chart. Have it with you as you watch Let’s Go to Lunch just a bit further down the page.

Video is an important component of Ignite Radio Sales. In this first video clip, Let’s Go to Lunch, you will discover how The Chart shows accidental salespeople how to sell on purpose.

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The Chart is the foundation of Ignite Radio Sales. Like a GPS system, it shows you exactly where you are in the relationship you are having with an advertiser. Make copies of The Chart. Put one in your work area where you can see it daily. Carry a copy with you. Use it to evaluate a meeting or a sales conversation that you just had. And use it to pre-plan a more effective meeting with a prospect or customer.

Here’s the way I put it in my book The Accidental Salesperson:

The Chart adds a component to sales and sales training long missing: The Quality Component. Immediately, you can begin to apply quality standards and not just quantity standards to your sales process.

As you study The Chart, think about specific customers and prospects. Right away, you’ll be able to see what level you have attained with that specific person and envision exactly what the next level is going to look like when you get there.

The Chart shows you how to work smarter. For example, you could make 10 Level 1 presentations and not sell as much as you would if you were to make five Level 2 presentations.

When the first edition of The Accidental Salesperson was published, I was teaching a leadership program and telling my audience that they had Leve1 1, 2, 3, and 4 salespeople. Since I wrote the book and knew everything about selling, I glibly rated myself Level 4.

Then something happened. (“Something” always happens, but not everyone is open to the lessons that something brings).

A meeting planner called and got through to me instead of our marketing person. “I hear you wrote a book on selling and my client is thinking about bringing you in to speak at their annual sales meeting.”

“What kind of change is the client looking for?” I asked, trying to probe. “How do they want their salespeople to be different or better as a result of my presentation?” (Level 2, at least.)

“Look, Chris, I’m the meeting planner. I’m going to look at seven videos and seven fee structures and pick a speaker. Do you want to play or not?”

“Sure, I’ll play.”

“Then send me a video and your fees.”

As I directed our assistant to package and send a video to the meeting planner, I realized that all I was doing was sending Level 1 information.

And I wrote the book!

A veteran salesperson can have a Level 1 conversation in the morning—just like I did—and a Level 4 meeting in the afternoon. I have come to think of The Chart as a relationship analyzer or a meeting evaluator that allows us to see exactly how strong or weak our relationships are.

As best-selling author and leadership development architect Susan Scott so aptly put it in her book, Fierce Conversations—Achieving Success at Work and in Life, One Conversation at a Time, “Your last conversation is the relationship.” That is as true today as it was when she wrote it, because your prospects and customers are besieged by phone calls, e-mail, and meetings once you are out of their offices and don’t have time to think much about the meeting they just had with you.

If you approach them at Level 1, they will lump you with all the other product pushing, rate card wielding salespeople who don’t add value by their presence.

One more thing about The Chart and it’s a very important one. You can approach a prospect at Level 2 instead of Level 1 and that’s a 100 percent improvement. Don’t worry about getting to Level 3 or 4 at first. In fact, you really don’t have a business relationship until somebody writes you a check.

Only when you’ve solved a business problem for an advertiser and have spent some time on the account can you continually develop the relationship and take it to the next level.

Only NOW you know exactly what that next level looks like.

The Chart is really a one-page sales training program. You can see immediately how to sell differently (better) than the typical advertising sales rep in your market. The rest of Ignite Radio Sales simply build on The Chart to show you how to become a source of business advantage to everyone you approach.

Being a source of business advantage is better than being a source of “spots,” wouldn’t you agree?

 

The Crash Course in Advertising Results–Part 1

As I mentioned at the top of the page, training is a planned program designed to impart specific knowledge, skills and attitudes to increase desired behavior in measurable ways. As you learn skills like prospecting, getting the appointment, analyzing needs, writing and making presentations and acquiring orders, you will also be getting knowledge about how advertising works.

Do you have a university degree in advertising and/or marketing? You don’t need one to sell radio advertising. However, it is essential that you know how to “talk advertising” with your local advertisers. It is most likely that they don’t have a university degree in advertising and/or marketing either.

The Crash Course in Advertising Results gives you an unfair competitive advantage over the other advertising sales reps in your market. That’s because when you get results for your advertisers, it is much easier to renew the schedule and upsell the advertiser. Click on the arrow below for Part 1:

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Frequency is a key factor in radio advertising success. It is a crucial factor in learning how to sell radio advertising, too. You will benefit by re-reading this page. You will benefit by revisiting the audio and video clips. To make it easy to find and review, navigate from “The Media Center.” You will be able to gain direct access to any media file or form without having to look back through 30 different web pages.

Assignment 1: Hang up Your Poster

Part 1: Your manager should have given you your Personal Progress Planning Poster as you start Ignite Radio Sales. Hang it on the wall. Make Post-it Notes for at least ten prospects and clients you have been assigned. You will apply the training to these ten during the six weeks of this program. Feel free to have as many as 30 clients and prospects “on the board” or poster as you progress through the training. As you take an action with each decision maker , move the Post-it Note to the space that corresponds with that action. You’ll then have your next step for that account pre-planned for you. And you can schedule work to schedule that step in the next few days with the decision maker.

Assignment 2: What’s your story?

Please write a one page story about how you got into radio advertising sales and send it to your Coach: