Take a Stand
I got kicked out of a sales call the other day.
Seriously.
The client abruptly ended the meeting and declared that I had “wasted his time”. While there was no violence, this was the professional equivalent of being thrown out the saloon door.
The meeting is over. Hit the road, bub.
So, you are probably wondering what I did to get kicked out and I’ll tell you. But first, I will tell you that while originally ambivalent about the situation, I am now quite pleased. Not pleased that the prospect felt I had wasted his time – because that was exactly the opposite of my intention – but pleased that I was not kowtowed into changing my position simply because the prospect acted in a blustery, semi-belligerent fashion.
The prospect – an attorney – was referred to us by a television salesperson and wanted to explore the possibility of buying advertising from our radio group. I assigned the prospect to one of the sellers and he took the prospect through the process of asking pertinent questions to better understand how to help before setting up a face-to-face meeting.
When a meeting was established, I decided to tag along. My primary reason for going was that I wanted to advise the client not to use radio advertising as a direct, lead generation device.
After twenty years of selling radio advertising, I have strong opinions about how to use it and what works best. Many clients buy time with an unrealistic expectation of what is going to happen when their ad is broadcast. In my experience, one of the unrealistic expectations of personal injury attorneys is that lots and lots of people will call them upon hearing their message. The reason this is unrealistic is that people who have been injured do not go to their radio (or TV), turn it on and then wait for a personal injury attorney to advertise so that they know whom to call.
Instead, they proactively seek out help. In 2010, this is done is via internet search engines. Our attorney prospect has a very poor web presence and doesn’t show up in any of the typical searches. Consequently, the only people who would respond to his radio advertising campaign would be either 1) those recently injured but who had not yet taken action or 2) those that had been injured some time ago but for whatever reason had decided not to take action.
The first of those groups is tiny and the second of those groups is undesirable. And, both groups would have to make note of the phone number at the time they heard the ad in order to reach our prospect because no one would find him if they were to search for personal injury attorneys.
Before you think of me as some whacked out purist, let me tell you the story of Mrs. Moran – my high school Latin teacher. Mrs. Moran liked to decorate her room and her often elaborate decorations required picture hangers and nails be driven into the walls. In order to do that, Mrs. Moran used - a stapler. Many people told Mrs. Moran that she ought to use a hammer to do those jobs but Mrs. Moran didn’t have a hammer. So, she wrote on a piece of masking tape – “This is a hammer” – and then affixed the tape to the top of the stapler. The next time some smarty pants student told Mrs. Moran that she ought to be using a hammer she showed them the sign on the stapler.
Problem solved.
When I told our attorney prospect that he was unlikely to be satisfied with our lead generation until such time as he had a stronger, more effective presence on the internet he became indignant. He told me he was a media expert and that we needed to fit into his plan. I told him that we weren’t a utility but rather a professional services provider with a keen understanding of how our product works. He told me that he didn’t need or want my expert opinion. And, you know the rest of the story.
Media sellers shouldn’t act as if their media is all things to all clients. Explain what your media does well and offer ways to do that well for a select number of clients who believe in you and your product. The most successful sellers that I know are those that have carved out a personal brand in the market place. They enjoy long-lasting, deep relationships with clients that commit a significant percentage of their media expenditures to them and then honor them further with recommendations and references. Those are the media sellers that have chosen to stand for something.
The other day, I ran into the TV rep that was the source of the initial referral and I asked him what it was like doing business with his attorney client. Turns out the attorney is never satisfied with the number of leads generated by his TV ads and is constantly harassing the TV rep for more spots, better times and cheaper rates.
Of course! One is almost always dissatisfied when using a stapler to do a hammer’s job.
Categories: Selling techniques
Tags: sales loudmouth sales selling techniques tim rohrer
Clients want what they want, they don't want to be sold, educated or told what to expect from the so called experts. They buy for their reasons. So understand it is what it is and take the money while you can. And keep turning over rocks.
Tim Responds: That works for a lot of products but when one's product is specialized the professional seller has an obligation to educate. A friend of mine sells oncology pharmaceuticals and he agrees that it's his fiduciary responsibility to advise doctors about the correct and incorrect use of his cancer treatment drugs.
Reply to this
Bravo! The prospect should have been impressed with your honest appraisal of his ROI--and your solid advice. You could have taken the money, but preferred to have a satisfied client.
I've sold media for over 30 years and feel so strongly that the guidance we give has to benefit the client, the audience, and media brand. If any of these three elements is missing, then the relationship will be short term.
We are better served developing clients for the long term. Selling for the long term yields better results for everyone involved.
Reply to this
Excellent article. Probably the reason there are so many dissatisfied customers who, when it comes time to renew advertising, feel that they got no ROI. They were sold a stapler, and told it was a hammer!
Reply to this
Very interesting post Tim. Loved the story, and when you brought it all home: "Media sellers shouldn’t act as if their media is all things to all clients."
I often tell my clients that our ad product cannot do all things for all people. We don't work well in a vacuum, nor does any other media. There is a mix of media that must be utilized in order to sell the message. In this case, a strong web presence with a broadcast ad.
Reply to this
Kudos for the balls to tell a potential advertiser the truth... but....
"When I told our attorney prospect that he was unlikely to be satisfied with our lead generation until such time as he had a stronger, more effective presence on the internet he became indignant. He told me he was a media expert and that we needed to fit into his plan. I told him that we weren’t a utility but rather a professional services provider with a keen understanding of how our product works. He told me that he didn’t need or want my expert opinion. And, you know the rest of the story."
Prepare to surrender to all the other competitors if you can't even supply a landing page, et al.
I have too much respect for you to say "duh". But I want to.
Tim Replies: We most definitely could have proposed to add a profile page for the advertiser. This type of landing page would be linked from our site, though, and wouldn't show up when prospects searched "personal injury attorneys".
Reply to this
Excellent story and quite the antithesis of what I suspect takes place in 99% of these situations. In these times, it's difficult to walk away from the money, but in the end, I believe that it is always best to sell to your strengths and consult with client satisfaction in mind. This is the stuff great reputations and solid business relationships are built on.
Reply to this
That's a strange coincidence, I specialise in SEO a result of an accident that left me unable to walk, so learning marketing on the net was the only real thing that I could see a future in for me. Here's the thing, the personal injury lawyer that I chose, their website only appears for solicitors, so as any good salesperson would, I saw an opportunity local SEO isn't difficult. I quoted a price of £500.00 (I'm in the uk) to optimize their site to get it to rank p1 of search engines for buyer keywords related to 4 major aspects of their services. Too much money for them, and even though the sales presentation clearly indicated that they would benefit greatly from an increased web presence, and optimized web property, they were not interested, both partners agreed that business was not great, but wouldn't invest £500. So I proposed a lead generation site that I would build and asked for a referral fee for each referral of £30.00, again the answer was too expensive, and here is where relevancy comes into play, as I was driving home a few weeks ago on local radio was an advert for the same company on radio. I was previously a marketing manager for a large sports company, so I know the cost of their ad campain, and I also knew how little an impact that campain would have on their business. Very strange how established business people appear to resist change and continue to use a fading media souce at a higher cost than the most effective media for their business in the 21st century. I cannot work it out for the life of me.
Reply to this
I totally agree on your take on this subject. I have had experiences with basically getting kicked out of phone meetings for no reason. Keep the articles coming, I'm gong to link this to our Facebook page.
Glenn Wright
VP of Marketing
Partner Source
(Ranked #2 for Service/Cost: B2B/B2C Appointment Setting | Lead Generation | Market Research Company)
Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
www.thepartnersource.com
Reply to this