11-26-2012
2013 is a little more than a month away. By now, all budgets and expectations for next year are in place or will be shortly. Unless something in our industry has changed dramatically, everyone reading this will be asked to increase revenue productivity over 2012. Here are 10 tips to help you stay focused on achieving your numbers in the upcoming 12 months.
1. KNOW YOUR NUMBERS: Know exactly where every market, every station, and every seller ended 2012 in all revenue streams: spot, interactive, and NTR. If a market has four stations and delivered 100 percent of budget in 2012, but one or two of the stations under-performed, know exactly what the plan is to grow those stations.
2. ASSIGN SALES BUDGETS WISELY: Have a logical, variance-based budget, for every seller, in place by December 1. If your station has to deliver $100 next year, you must assign that station a minimum of $105 as a budget. By seller, station, market, or company, a minimum of a five percent cushion must be applied.
3. INCENTIVIZE: every GM and Sales Manager to insure making budget every month, quarter, and the year. Whatever the number is must be foremost in their mind all the time!
4. SPECS and GREAT CREATIVE: Be very certain every market has a great pool of copywriters and production people. If not out-source it to someone solid like Jinny Laderer at vCreative. You must be in the SPEC business and more confidently than ever before.
5. WHAT DO YOUR SELLERS REALLY WANT TO EARN? Be sure all GMs know the earnings goal of every one of their sellers. A seller could make budget and earn their $60,000, but they long to hit $75,000. GMs should know this number and show the seller what must be done to earn that amount. If you want to blow away the budget, build your sales department on hitting earnings goals!
6. RECRUITING NEW SALES TALENT: Be certain, as COO, you?re excited about every market's sales recruiting plan. What are the specific plans for building a bench of talent, weekly, monthly, and all year?
7. SALES MEETINGS: Be certain each market has a specific plan for sales meetings in 2013. If you have a GM that thinks one per week is enough, you and they, are in trouble. What?s their plan? When are they training? Who?s teaching? How often are clients joining as guest speakers? Are sales meetings exciting?
8. ARE YOUR SELLERS ASKING FOR THE BUSINESS WELL? As COO, have every seller in your company send you a copy of what they believe was their best new-business presentation from this past quarter THAT SOLD? Then read them and respond to the seller.
9. NEW BUSINESS: Have every market send you a spreadsheet reporting new business for the quarter, by station, seller, account, and amount. Share these results on conference calls. A minimum of 10-15 percent of billing should be new business!
10. PREFORMANCE RECOGNITION: Does every market have a plan for recognizing great sales performance? Every market should have a ?Wall of Fame? ? first time to hit a $25K month, a $100K month, or whatever, based on your market size. I love ?The President?s Club? concept. Every seller who hits 100 percent of their annual budget joins ?The President?s Club? earning a one-percent bonus check, an award, and recognition at the President?s Club dinner in February.
We, all, could add 30 more to this list, but these 10 can be success insurance for the new year!
Rob Adair is the President of Pinnacle Solving. His company provides revenue growth solutions, branding and differentiation strategies to radio and other industries. Adair is a former radio industry COO and Sr. VP overseeing 25+ stations and multiple major markets. He can be reached at 405-641-0458 or by e-mail rob@pinnaclesolving.com
(11/26/2012 5:00:44 PM)
This column seems like something out of 1982. Point 7...Adair is advocating more sales meetings?! Seriously??!! Wow. Old school, pre-digital mentality like Adair DOESN'T GET IT ANYMORE. The key to driving more sales, and NEW sales, is NOT tying up more of salespeoples' valuable selling time with more "meetings"!! Who cares if you EVER see a salesperson, if they are OUT SELLING. And if you want to "know where someone is"...there is this new device called a CELL PHONE...
(11/26/2012 7:59:13 AM)
Only because of my own bias, I would make #4 - SPECS and GREAT CREATIVE - numbers 1., 2, and 3.
The facts include: Even if a station is number 18 in a market of 30, they still have only the creative to influence the audience they do enjoy.
How this simple reality passes the management by may always leave me befuddled.
However, if creative is agency-supplied or other-station supplied, the managers do have a handy and already-packaged excuse.
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