4-28-2014
I'm honored to participate in Radio Ink?s Convergence 2014 June 4 and 5 in Santa Clara as our industry gathers to listen and learn about seizing digital opportunities. The panel I?ll be moderating is called Innovators and Inventors: Looking Ahead on the Digital Highway for Solutions and Road Maps Driving Tomorrow's Platforms. Between now and then I'll be investigating the "technology buzz" by talking to some fresh thinkers whom we should all consider in our own incubation process. Tim Haller (pictured) is our first interview. Haller has a fascinating story to tell with his Boston- based company, Sales Gauge.
Buzz Knight: Tim, please tell us about your company, Sales Gauge. Why does the company exist?
Tim Haller: I launched Sales Gauge five years ago in order to bring modern prospecting and social selling techniques to B2B sales. The core of our program and the reason we are successful is because we use specific, customized techniques that empower sales professionals to hunt for and acquire business with our ?Show Me You Know Me? ? also known as SMYKM ? approach. This powerful technique is all about getting to the top members of your target companies through social media, mobile devices, and the phone.
BK: What do you do to differentiate your company?
TH: At Sales Gauge, our entire approach is quite unique. First, with every contract we sign, Sales Gauge guarantees the results or our clients get their money back. We also deliver executive responses from 10-15 percent of the folks we reach out to during the training sessions that are conducted in person or online. During these sessions, we spend the majority of time emailing, calling, and using Linkedin and Twitter to make connections with the executives live in every class. In this way, sales reps learn and internalize the techniques during the training. And Sales Gauge complements every methodology out there, from Miller Heiman to Power Selling and beyond. Rather than focusing solely on sales theory and role-playing, we use a technique-driven approach that drives real results.
BK: How do you think your techniques could help a radio organization?
TH: We all know that the role of media has changed substantially in recent years. Sales Gauge clients like CIO magazine, Dow Jones, and The New York Times will tell you our program makes them more efficient, focused, and forces out-of-the-box thinking. The world of radio has changed dramatically, as well. The competition is not other radio stations; it is Pandora, Apple, and social media. The sales process in your business is relationship-based and transactional at the same time. The first question I would ask is whether you are tracking your current clients, and if/when they move to another place. Do your salespeople understand how to tell the radio story in a 30-second sound bite to inspire curiosity with the prospect? In the end, the salesperson that knows how to use public information and social media to keep tabs on their network and build pipelines will be successful only if they know how to tell a great story.
To learn more about Sales Gauge, visit www.sales-gauge.com. Tim Haller can be reached via LinkedIn or at thaller@sales-gauge.com. Follow Tim on Twitter at @salesgauge.
Buzz Knight is the Vice President of Program Development for Greater Media and he can be reached at bknight@greatermediaboston.com. Knight was named among ?Best Programmers? by Radio Ink magazine in 2007 and 2010. He has served on the programming subcommittee of the National Association of Broadcasters(NAB) and is currently a member of the Arbitron Radio Advisory Council and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) COLRAM Committee.
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