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I hadn’t planned on blogging tonight, but after my horrendous sales call today, I feel the need to share a few tips for Sales Professionals.
To clarify, everyone at some point can be considered a Sales Professional. Every time you meet new people, go on a job interview, etc., you are selling something; yourself. With that being said, the below pointers can be applied to anyone, but they are specifically for Sales Professionals who sell media.
1. Be prepared. This ranges from being prepared to carry the conversation to educating the advertiser about your product to knowing the answers to tough questions. If you really want to wow or connect on a personal level, do some background research. Information on companies can be found on their website (totally shocker) or Wikipedia. If you want to try connecting on a personal level, the advertiser most likely has a personal, public profile on Linkedin. Researching both takes all of five minutes.
2. Have a presentation and sales pitch ready to go. You may not use it, but won’t you look like a fool if you can’t talk about your own product?
3. There’s a few questions that are always asked – “Who are your competitors?”, “What sets you apart from them?”, “Do you offer targeting? If so, what types?” and so on. You should have answers to
the latter down pat. The answers should roll off your tongue just like your sales pitch.
4. I could be wrong, but most companies plan on some sort of schedule, be it calendar year, fiscal year, quarterly, etc. If you’re calling towards the middle of one of those periods, don’t be shocked when the advertiser says their budget has been spent and you’ll be reevaluated during the next cycle. At this point, you probably shouldn’t act like a dick either. Personally, I don’t spend money with rude people.
And finally, just a suggestion… if you’re not charismatic, hate talking to people or get really nervous giving presentations, a sales job might not be for you. Just throwing that out there…
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