12-19-14
It was back in March that Pandora ended its one-time annual charge for paid subscribers. Pandora notified users on Twitter yesterday that the annual subscription was back "due to high demand." There's no discount for the annual payment, it only saves users from seeing a recurring charge. Existing subs paying $3.99 per month can now pay the one-time $48 charge. New subs will pay $4.99 or $55.
2-28-2012
How much time do you actually spend in front of prospects or clients each day? Is it as much as 45 minutes per client? Most of us work eight to nine hours per day. Could one more call be squeezed in per day? The answer in most cases is ?yes?. I want to discuss how to make that extra call every day. Salespeople are in front of qualified prospects only 40% of the time which means a rep being is in front of the wrong decision maker 60% of the time. The most successful sales reps invest better than 50% of their time in front of the correct decision makers.
Here are 10 techniques that will eliminate time wasting calls:
1. Prime selling time. Sixty-four percent of successful closing sales calls are made before noon. Prime selling time is usually defined as 9 a.m. to 3-4 p.m. depending on the market and average time between appointments. Flip-flop the call mix. Make the closing presentations in the morning and the new calls in the afternoon. This method will increase the closing ratio as prospects like to close early and fight fire later.
2. Salespeople love to set up appointments with prospects. Many times the potential clients are not qualified. Walk their showroom (if possible) and research the company?s website. Try to determine whether the prospect is serious about doing business before meeting them. Surveys of major selling organizations have determined that each outside sales call costs an average of $144.53. If two of your calls are made on unqualified prospects, those calls add up to almost $300.00 that has been wasted.
3. 20 minute increments. Busy executives look at their time in 20 minute increments not by the hour. Set up your appointments on the 10, 20, 40 and 50 minute periods of the hour. It is another technique to appear busy even if it is not the case.
4. Drive time. If a rep has an average commute of 30 minutes per day, that time adds up to 120 hours of commuting per year. Those hours do not include driving to sales calls. This is quality time that should be used for training with such things as CD?s and podcasts. Poor territory management of sales calls is also another large time waster.
5. Meetings: Monitor how much time is actually spent in front of the prospects during a meeting. In certain cases, an hour has been scheduled, but the call could be wrapped up in half of that time. That is not to say that an hour in front of a prospect is not time well spent. Make sure to maximize the time though.
6. Time suckers: I never had one of my co-workers buy advertising from me. If they want to chitchat over coffee, make sure they do it on their time not yours.
7. Post: Even in the ?digital world?, there is still a good reason to prospect with the U.S. Postal Service. It is such a surprise anymore when someone receives something by snail-mail. A hand written letter can be used to state a specific reason for a meeting or let a prospect know that you had visited their business recently. Using the mail service is not the norm which makes helps the rep rise above the clutter of email.
8. CMS: Contact Management Systems and smart phone calendars can streamline appointments, to-do lists, schedule meetings, eliminate paper shuffling, and help make sure nothing falls through the cracks. Sometimes just the proper use of a planning calendar will do the job. Believe it or not, the norm which sales people is not necessarily a good time management system. Get one!
9. Service: Nothing beats the warmth of seeing the prospects in person. Far too often, we discount that a client does not need to see us in person. While you put off that personal visit to the client because of the relationship, the competition has teed them up and developed a better relationship. Don?t let that happen.
10. Supplies/Propaganda: Carry all the necessary tools which include a good computer to feature ads, media kits, credit applications, testimonials, etc. in order to conduct business in a professional manner. Otherwise, time is being wasted driving back to the office. If you make $75,000.00 per year, every hour is worth $38.42. Make every minute of every hour count?. starting now!
Sean Luce is the Head National Instructor for the Luce Performance Group and can be reached at sean@luceperformancegroup.com.
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The new WTOP (www.wtop.com) website is a lot more user-friendly with cleaner, easy-to-read text and a lot of pictures which is the way the web is headed these days. WTOP (103.5 FM) which is the number one radio station in the Washington, DC area and top-billing in the country says it is growing its web presence at WTOP.com to rival its broadcast success and provide additional news services to its audiences. WTOP General Manager Joel Oxley (pictured) is on the upcoming cover of Radio Ink magazine to be released on August 22nd. WTOP Radio has served the Washington region since 1926 and has been Washington?s all-news radio station since 1969. WTOP is the most widely listened-to radio station in the nation?s capital.
Over the past nine months, WTOP.com has doubled its staff and restructured the online department under the leadership of Director of Digital Media, John Meyer. ?We are in the process of transforming our operation into a digital news organization. Whether it is radio, web, mobile, text, photos, video, social, or whatever comes next, we are using all these tools to best further the story across as many platforms as we can,? said John Meyer.
?We are striving to provide our audience with interesting and actionable information so WTOP becomes part of their DNA, in order to accomplish this we must continuously reevaluate traditional roles and restructure how our news room operates,? said Digital News Director Mike Gartell.
WTOP has focused on growing its traffic coverage with two full-time staff members dedicated to tweeting about incidents, closures and delays while also writing a daily traffic blog on some of the wide-ranging issues affecting motorists in the DC area. Online visitors can also access a ?custom commute? tool that allows them to monitor traffic cameras along their chosen route so that conditions can be seen before hitting the roads. A mobile version of wtop.com was recently launched allowing users to access all the benefits of the website on any mobile device. Mobile has grown to one of the top 10 sections of the website in just the two weeks since the launch.
In addition to WTOP?s efforts with its own website, the station is also growing its presence in the social media world. WTOP?s Facebook page recently enjoyed a 500% growth in ?likes? and many WTOP reporters are sharing updates regularly on Twitter. Facebook and Twitter, along with text messages and e-mails, are utilized as alternative ways of communicating and distributing information and breaking news.
WTOP Radio has been widely recognized for its writing, reporting, and overall excellence as a news station, including multiple awards for ?Best Website? from organizations such as the Associated Press Broadcasters Association and the Edward R. Murrow Awards. For more information visit WTOP.com or check out WTOP on Facebook and Twitter.
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July 8, 2011
?Maybe the difference between winning and losing is not quitting? - Walt Disney.
Far too often we give up when success is just around the corner, or at least we are on the road to success. In a Radio Ink article (August 6, 2007), I wrote about a small website in Kelowna, British Columbia, population 160,000. The city is situated in the Okanagan Valley which is 250 miles east of Vancouver. Kelowna sits on Lake Okanagan. The community reminds me of Lake Wobegon which is Garrison Keillor?s fictional town in Minnesota.
Lake Wobegon is the perfect utopian paradise. In my opinion, Kelowna is Canada?s equivalent of Lake Wobegon. Except it is a real city, and this website is the real deal. When Nick Frost, owner and operator sold SILK-FM in January of 2007, Nick decided to keep the website Castanet.net. That little website is currently pacing at $3,000,000 dollars per year with no funding from a radio or TV station property.
Not long ago, I was reviewing the top web revenue/radio station in the USA. WTOP (The Digital Revenue Machine-Radio Ink May 2, 2011) bills around $3 million per year in Washington, DC; a top 10 rated US market. Looking at some quick analytics on those population numbers, Washington DC is the 9th ranked Arbriton market with a population base of 4.4 million people. Kelowna has a population of 160,000 people. That is roughly a difference of 4.2 million, yet the revenue is the same. Hmmmm?.How can a small website in the middle of British Columbia be billing the equivalent income as the #1 revenue radio website in the US?
Born of Radio: Castanet was developed in November of 2000 as Kelowna?s home page. Castanet was in the red for several years. According to Nick Frost, Castanet lost in excess of one million dollars during the early years. At the beginning of 2007, Castanet started to turn a profit. The radio station, SILK FM, was sold that same year. Until the sale, SILK-FM had provided the ?Air Force? that drove locals to the ?Ground Force? website, Castanet. In the meantime, Castanet was mastering the local content which gave viewers a reason to return for the latest news and information. Every radio/TV station has this same opportunity as long as the content is compelling. The Castanet unique visitor traffic averages around 220,000 per week which is incredible in itself.
A website can create significant numbers in traffic, but learn how to sell the website. The Castanet reps have been taught to sell professionally first and their website second. What does that mean? Castanet does not sell by cost per click. The most important factor in selling a website or any other media is to find the emotional connection with the prospect. The connection is established with a tailored Customer Marketing Profile (1st call needs analysis) designed exclusively for Castanet reps. The same templates that are used to sell Castanet are used by many of our other media properties. With Castanet being a ?pure play?( a stand-alone web site) digital media property, we can measure, source and track the ads. However, tracking is not the end all. At the end of the day, the reps are focused on providing results for their clients. A customer can have a .4% click-through ratio on their ad. However if the ads are not generating traffic for the business then it can all be for naught. One of the primary tools that Castanet uses is sourcing at the client level. The reps use a Return on Investment Interactive calculator as a guideline for conversions of in-store traffic and measuring results for their customer. This ?ROII? calculator can be found at www.luceperformancegroup.com.
How is selling for a website different from selling other media? There really is no difference. Chris Kearney, General Manager/Sales Manager of Castanet still has to manage by supply and demand. He has to create the depth of inventory. The production department still has to pump out the spec ads which run about 30-40 per month in new customer ads. The spec ads are generated in-house. Over the past few years, Castanet has developed several different franchises to place under the Castanet umbrella. Some examples include an Automall, RV Powersports Mall, Showhome Showcase and Shopping Central. These add-ons take away direct mail/newspaper insertion money, and put it in Castanet?s pocket.
The most important point is to develop the local clients? results! Does this sound familiar? It should. Maybe the difference for radio stations is not quitting on their local websites. I see quite a number of good radio stations achieving respectable revenue and pulling in high traffic numbers. My real message here is don?t quit! Maybe it is time to revamp the website, keep the content in line with what the local viewer wants to see. Providing quality subject matter to the viewers will in turn keep advertisers returning. If the new game of digital is being measured by selling results and turning a profit, maybe we need a little ?old? school (selling techniques) in our new game of digital?
Sean Luce is the Old/New School Instructor at the Luce Performance Group in Houston, Texas and can be reached at sean@luceperformancegroup.com.
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