Create Demand with your Key Accounts
Let us begin by reminding you that there are two – and only two – factors that contribute to year-over-year growth in media sales. The first is your ability to…
Here is our best advice.
Build New Key Accounts by growing them over the fence
As we’ve discussed before, there are two – and only two – sources of growth in the media business. First and foremost is the preservation of the Key Accounts. Nothing…
Time to take stock of your Key Accounts
The end of the first quarter offers you an important opportunity to take stock of what is happening with the accounts that matter the most: Your Key Accounts. Your…
Your job is to grow your accounts
Over the years, we’ve been very fortunate to work with a “Hall of Fame” of gifted sales leaders. One of them made a comment during a recent conversation that inspired…
Why should your clients do business with your sales people?
In the past, clients who asked a media sales person, “Why should I buy your media tools?” also were asking the implied question, “Why should I do business with you?”…
Your top performers are keeping your small accounts small
When we begin to work with a sales management team, one of the most eye-opening experiences is when we help them organize their business into what we call Individual Enterprises.…
Help your sales people get excited about a specific account
I was walking around a wooded area of my farm not too long ago when something caught my eye growing on the trunk of just one tree. As I moved…
Marketing ideas as persuasive campaigns. How you know you have one.
We are on a mission to help you use marketing ideas as the currency that creates results for your clients and earns you a premium for the marketing communication tools…
Your ideas: the only currency you can control
In this piece, I want to ask you to be thoughtful about the currency that is being used by your clients and their advertising agencies to establish the value of…
Manage your sales people with numbers they can control
What would you do if I asked you to be “better?” Would you get up earlier in the morning? Would you call different people on the phone? What would you…
The Line
Whether you call them sidelines, foul lines, or baselines, those lines that separate the players from their coaches might very well be one of the greatest inventions in all of…
The Rule of 10: Part 2
According to the Rule of 10, anytime a new initiative is introduced, out of every ten people affected by it, three will adopt it right away, three are never going…
The Rule of 10: Part 1
Have you heard of the Rule of 10? That’s the rule that says that no matter what new initiative you introduce or what new direction you set, your team will…
New is good. Effective is better.
Having bought hundreds of magazines at airports all over the world, I am quite used to the mild annoyance of having to pick up all the subscription cards that fall…
Help your clients tell stories that build their brands
Well-managed brands are built by telling a series of stories that consistenly communicate – even prove – the brand’s valuable point of difference. In some cases, the company takes control…
Never present anything generic to any client. Ever.
When my wife, Sandy, and I went to Sears to purchase a dishwasher, the sales person could not have been nicer. As soon as we told him what we wanted,…
Recognize the power of non-selling behaviors
The way some media sales people interact with their clients – even the most valuable ones – can too often be described as peaks and valleys. Clients get a lot…
What is the client doing with their marketing without your help?
I have to confess that perhaps the most difficult thing I have had to do in my career is shut up and listen to the customer. You know those occasions…