At the recent RAB convention, the group heads panel produced some telling quotes about the state of radio sales in 2008 (as told by Tom Taylor of Radio-Info)
Lew Dickey: "I’m frankly surprised radio’s done as well as it has (because of staff and budget cutbacks)."
Peter Smyth, noting the paucity of sales training: "I’d rather have smart people (selling), because if you put dumb people out on the streets, you’re gonna have 100 people selling spots for $5."
Both these observations sadly tell an accurate story about why radio continues to fall short in the sales arena. I cannot tell you how many times in the past 12-18 months, a GM or CEO has said something like this to me: "Fred, it’s not the ratings. They’re fine. We just can’t sell them."
And this applies to all the Rock formats we work in, and many highly successful, iconic personalities. And in conversations I have with other broadcasters, sales problems are rampant in all formats, and in all market sizes. Rates are cratering. Sponsorships of signature events go unsold. Webcams that are generating page views that are off the charts are unsponsored. Clearly, there is failure for the transactional side of our business, and it’s crippling the industry’s ability to keep putting out a competitive product.
Sales training is either non-existent, or it’s ineffective. Many stations, clusters, and companies have multi-layered sales management teams, but strategy, innovation, and new initiatives are few and far between.
Twelve years after the Telecom Act of ’96, and companies are still struggling to figure out successful sales models. We continue to watch clusters "experiment" with different configurations – each station having its own staff, one staff for all five stations, sell the Rock stations together, etc. And more often than not, a strategy is scrapped after a year only to be replaced by another failing concept.
As the industry now races toward digital products and content, how do we expect to sell and market these new offerings when we continue to falter with the tried-and-true :30 and :60 spots? If we’re not careful, there’s going to be a lot of $5 units out there before long.
Jacobs Media has consistently walked the walk in the digital space, providing insights and guidance through its well-read national Techsurveys.
In 2008, jacapps was launched - a mobile apps company that has designed and built more than 1,300 apps for both the Apple and Android platforms. In 2013, the DASH Conference was created - a mashup of radio and automotive, designed to foster better understanding of the "connected car" and its impact.
Along with providing the creative and intellectual direction for the company, Fred consults many of Jacobs Media's commercial and public radio clients, in addition to media brands looking to thrive in the rapidly changing tech environment.
Fred was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2018.
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you’re not alone Fred –
from publishing 2.0
https://tinyurl.com/25tr53
“When you think about it, it makes perfect sense that technology companies should take over the advertising industry. Nobody in Silicon Valley will win a Clio Award, but they will help clients get more than $1 back for every $1 of advertising they spend — and advertisers have always cared more about their bottom lines than Madison Avenue’s ego.”
This industry does practically nothing to recruit and develop young sales talent… these are the very individuals who are comfortable with and embrace digital products and content.
Imagine that you are a soon-to-be college graduate interested in media/communications and possibly sales. You read that Clear Channel (as part of a multi-billion dollar deal) is spending nothing and doing nothing — to the extent that it doesn’t even want to hire new sales people (the ones that generate the money) right now. Think you’re gonna apply?
Radio does have a growing problem with sales, but I don’t think that’s triggering the revenue slide – simple delivery metrics are doing that. Radio’s top line slippage is very close in percentage to its delivery losses in key demos and that connection is more than coincidence.
Forcing radio’s priorities rather than reacting to client challenges (more fallout from less is more), lower comp, non competes, lack of training are all making matters worse – but the sad reality is that if radio offered more good sales training the sales people would probably not be allowed to implement much of it.
The best trainers advocate better prospecting that focuses on larger clients who can spend real money to address identified problems. They preach the use of valid business reasons for client contact and proposals that are tailored to client needs. Radio seems to be focused on pushing the agenda of the week, be it 30s, 10s, website banners, the volume of proposals in the field or the number of sales meetings held. Sales training doesn’t dovetail with those priorities.
FWIW, I’m not sure I agree that radio is racing toward digital product and content or that the page views for what’s available now are as robust as you suggest – but I think enhanced performance there would cure a lot of the current radio sales problems – the way that good ratings did back in the old days.
Better sales people with more training would be a wonderful investment that could help forestall the inevitable. But there’s no sales training that can overcome the revenue losses that are part and parcel to progressively dwindling audience delivery. Digital platforms that do more than pay lip-service to the concept…ones that offer content and community not available elsewhere will attract revenue and good sales people. Especially if they get good sales training and are allowed to use it!
Fred…
Thanks for dragging the elephant out of the basement and into the Living Room.
Since Day #1 of Consolidation, Radio’s dirty little secret has been Pitiful Sales. Once guys like you and I started seeing Sales Managers in the Programming Research meetings you knew it wasn’t working down the hall in the sales cubbies. Most of the Sales VPs were in our meeting to hedge their bets and do recon, less likely to learn how to sell the product more effectively or understand the station’s target audience.
And, how many top-5 stations have you and I had to flip because we’ve been told, “…we just can’t sell it.” Translation: there are no avails for this demo coming over the fax machine -or- I had 2 sales calls today and both of them said ‘no.’
Well, gosh, maybe that’s why we call it “SALES,” as in:
exerting effort and skill in moving a prospective client from ‘no’ to ‘yes,’ while matching the client’s goals with the audience delivery of your radio station.
I think Peter Smyth is right; we need sales professionals, not order-takers, and not guys and gals who are rejects from the Geek Squad at Best Buy. But, I’m just a simple Programming fella who has been watching Sales Departments fake it for more than a decade.
And, one more thing: We may be standing at a once-in-a-career chance to get the Sales part of it right thanks to PPM. We woke up one morning with Radio a cume medium. Lots of paradigm-shifting and re-training will be necessary as the industry moves away from its almost total reliance on TSL and AQH. This might be just the right time to round up some really smart folks we can start on the right foot from PPM, Day #1.
Thanks for shining the spotlight on this one, Fred.
Bob