6-3-2013
I learned about the Testicle Festival. More on that later?
Don Hicks, the outgoing MBA Executive Director of 29 years, told me Friday night, ?We wanted to have an NAB/RAB-type show on an MBA budget.? Just so you know?the MBA pays full freight and it shows. Eighty-two categories of awards as well as Hall of Fame inductees. Their goal is to give TV and radio stations recognition and rewards for giving airtime to MBA sponsors such as the National Guard. Their convention, in my opinion, is one of the best in the country. They had 320 people at their awards show on Saturday night and sessions packed on Friday and Saturday.
This was the sales 4 X 100 relay going into the MBA convention:
-- 1st leg: Brian Dodge. Amazing speaker out of Dallas. He?s hard to catch coming out of the blocks.
-- 2nd leg: Chris Lytle. The ?god? of broadcast sales training. Twenty-two hundred seminars in 30 years.
-- 3rd leg: Michael Lee. Social media sales, marketing, and trends.
-- Anchor: Sean Luce. Try bringing home that baton on Saturday morning at 9 a.m. and you?re the only thing going -- at a resort at Ozark Lake, Missouri, no less -- when you've had those three legs of the relay running in front of you! Remember, you?re only as good as your last sale.
Here are some of the things I learned from attending the convention and during my seminar. Even though you are speaking, you can polish up on the things you know and need to be reminded of; and also you?re never too old to learn some new things, even if they do have to do with testicles.
Brian Dodge: We forget that money doesn?t buy loyalty. We think by paying people so much money they will be loyal to us. I forget this sometimes also. Money doesn?t buy loyalty. Also, the 21-day re-programming came from World War 1 where it took 21 days to recondition the soldier?s minds after they had body parts amputated. They had to get used to not having their arms and legs since they didn?t have the modern medicine to help save those parts. So, if you want to re-program anything you do in life, it takes 21 days to create a new neuro-pathway or a good new habit.
Chris Lytle: In 1986, my first year in broadcast sales -- I?m dating myself now -- I was sent to a Chris Lytle seminar in San Antonio, Texas, at the Ramada Inn. I was one of the people who took one thing out of his seminar that day. I took the ?why advertise checklist? and thought??that makes sense.? Get your clients to check off what they want you to do, rather than you sell some ?package? down their throats. A version of that ?marketing checklist? is the staple in our CMPs (customer marketing profiles) that are used by media companies all over the world now. Thank you Chris Lytle!
On Saturday morning:
1) Speechless at your own seminar: I?ve never been speechless at my own seminar?ever. I was speechless on Saturday morning. Typically, in my seminars, after the first break, when people start to filter back, I have a segment where I ask the audience what is the most embarrassing thing that?s ever happened to you on a sales call. I always preempt them by saying that I can beat any of their stories. At my Bakersfield, California, 1998 seminar I had just bought a new wireless wrap-around microphone and when I broke the attendees up into case study groups, I then went to use the restroom. I of course had left the microphone on and everyone could hear me. Try coming back into the auditorium after you did that? Nothing but very loud giggling.
On Saturday morning, one of my attendees, Shantel from Columbia, Missouri, told a story about what made her the most embarrassed on a sales call. Shantel was celebrating her first true customer needs analysis ? she'd just started selling radio. She?d also served in the military after graduating from the University of Missouri. It?s hard to describe this story without a picture of Shantel. Shantel will now be permanently in Sean Luce seminars under the most embarrassing thing ever done. I just need a pic or a video so you?ll understand the story. Shantel can really rip it!
2) The Testicle Festival: We encounter 250 to 5,000 advertising messages each day, according to "Advertising Age" magazine. What ads do you remember from yesterday? Not many! Maybe you can remember one or two? The point being that your advertisers need to be on your media consistently because people forget what they encounter every day.
I asked this question to the audience on Saturday morning. One person fired back, Kelley Foust from a Joplin TV station: ?I remember the signage on the highway driving here for the Testicle Festival. That was it?just one person could remember one ad out of a group of 80 media reps. I laughed. It was also the only ad I remembered from the day before. I thought how strange that festival must be. Though, it was the 20th Testicle Festival.
Make sure your ads rise above the clutter because, as the signage says inside the festival (complete with pictures) coming back Saturday night, ?Size does matter! ? Remember, this is the ?Show-Me State? we?re talking about -- Missouri!
Sean Luce is the Head International Instructor for the Luce Performance Group and can be reached at sean@luceperformancegroup.com or at www.luceperformancegroup.com.
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