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Advertising and Media Sales Technique
- 7 Questions All Advertisers Should Ask - & Media Should Be Prepared To Answer. (via MediaScope) - As a media owner and advertising sales professional are you prepared to answer these key buying questions?
- Sales Advice from 16 of Australia's Most Successful Media Owners (via MediaScope) - Highly worthwhile insights straight from the advertising sales coal face.
- It's Not What You Sell, But HOW You Sell It (via Doug Weaver's Upstream)- Salespeople frequently point to the lack of product innovation as the reason they’re not making more sales. If only our product had feature X or function Y…then they’d buy from us. This can often begin a damaging cycle of rushed product improvement or feature activation.
- Sales Trends for 2012 - Adapt or Perish. - (via Sue Barrett) Today’s business and sales leaders need to examine their go-to-market strategies and sales force structures as well as demonstrate courageous leadership as they navigate these unchartered waters. As you read these trends, think hard about those that will have the greatest impact on your sales efforts.
- Top 10 Sales Negotiation Tips. (via Sue Barrett) - Everybody needs to negotiate from time to time; at work, at home, as a leader, as sales person, and as a consumer. For some it seems easy, but others view the process of negotiation as a source of conflict to be resisted and avoided if possible. Negotiation is a process and a skill that can be developed.
- How to Make Your Advertising Sales Department Unique Without Entering the Price War (via Talking Media Sales) - Does your media sales department have a unique selling point (USP)? Your USP is why people come to you rather than your competitors – even if your product is more expensive media buyers will want to do business with you.
- 4 Thoughts on Customer Service. (via Talking Media Sales) - Let’s face it, without customers, none of us have a business. One of the key things to remember is that customer service need not be difficult, or a chore. It’s the small things that make the difference.
- What Media Sales People Need to Know About Facebook (via Talking Media Sales) - Insights into selling your brand where FB's huge audience & targeting capabilities are available to advertisers.
- Selling Is Not About Relationships (via Harvard Business Review) Every sales organization has a few stellar performers. Who are these people? How can we bottle their magic? To understand what sets apart this special group of sales reps, the Sales Executive Council (US) launched a global study of sales productivity involving more than 6,000 sales reps across nearly 100 companies in multiple industries. Here we introduce the new sales star - The Challenger.
- 7 Personality Traits of Top Salespeople (via Harbard Business Review) - Top sales performers were tested and results were compared against average and below average performers. The findings indicate that key personality traits directly influence top performers' selling style and ultimately their success. Do you recognise yourself here?
- Strategies to Develop Your Sales Forecast. (via Bnet) - If you run a one-person consulting practice or a 1,000+ employee enterprise, you should be looking into the murky glass of sales projections. It can be a painful process as the various departments -- always through much back and forth -- hammer out what is in all reality a fairly imprecise guess at best. To help, here's a very basic template for your use.
- Test Your Sales IQ. (via Bnet) - Test how much you know about sales as a career through this quick 'myth or fact' quiz. Interesting comment stream too.
- The Sales Presentation - (via IdeaTransplant) - Sales presentations have a specific setting. Often, the audience is relatively small. Here are some observations to help you design better sales presentations.
- How to Present at Trade Shows - (via EzineArticles) - practical tips for showcasing your brand & product and maximising opportunities when appearing at industry trade shows, expos & events.
- Pimp My Sales Team (via inPublishing) - If you think you can get more out of your sales team, it’s very likely you can. This article offers insights into how to take a poor performing sales team and turn it into a slick operation.
- Top 30 Open Ended Questions (via Just Sell) - Open-ended questions are one of the most important tools for those who sell (as long as you listen). They help you gather information, qualify sales opportunities, and establish rapport, trust and credibility.
- 12 Simple Lessons on How To Lose Sales. These delightful cartoons from 1941 are a worthwhile and enduring reminder of the basics of sales.
- Close the Deal: 3 Ways to Shorten The Media Sales Cycle (via e-Media Vitals) - Long sales cycles for media sales people can be a drag on any business. But there are plenty of ways to shorten the advertising sales cycle while building trust and relevance in your budding business relationship.
- Small Publishers: 5 Direct Ad Sales Tips. (via E-Consultancy) Like it or not size does matter to media buyers, however this segment of the market does not have to settle for a second class existence - but should adopt best practice sales processes.
- How to Get What You Want in 7 Minutes or Less (via Open Forum) - Transform your sales presentation and management style. Get ready to start taking orders. If you’re a manager, get ready to sit back and take ideas. Getting what you want is really just a function of three things.
- How Sales has Changed in an Information Age (via Open Forum) - The way we access and interact with information has been revolutionized. Nowhere is this more evident than in our purchasing decisions, whether as consumers considering major appliances for our homes, or as businesspeople considering goods and services for our firms. Interesting points relevant to advertising sales in this article.
- What Advertisers Say About Ad Sales Reps - A US media company asked 1,000 of it's key clients what they wanted in an ad sales person - great insights for media owners and advertising sales professionals in this short YouTube video.