The Sales Call
First call: straightforward objections

	The Sales Call Introduction Consultative selling Sales call structure Introduce yourself Lowering resistance Explanation of products Asking questions Back at the office The second call Smoke objections Straightforward objections Second call objections The fastest way to increase sales! Participate in this award-winning, newspaper-specific ad sales course on-site or in a Webinar.  • Get past upfront stalls and objections without any pushing  • Make the account believe he really needs you  • Get better information from your prosepct  • Develop quick ad strategies that work the very first time  • Eliminate size, frequency, content, cost and most other objections before they ever arise  • Get dramatic responses for all kinds of advertisers  • Never have to push an advertiser to run again click here

Of course, some of the objections you'll hear when you walk into an account may not be smoke. The prospect may be being straightforward with you, giving you his honest thoughts on why he doesn't want to run with your publication.

Here are some of the top straightforward objections you'll hear on the first sales call:

Your newspaper doesn't work
This is the mother of all straightforward objections, since nearly every other objection is born from this one. If you prospect was sure your newspapers were going to make him a big profit, there wouldn't be anything to argue about–not about response, rate, circulation, size, or frequency.

These objections are a little easier to deal with than the smoke objections, but are handled pretty much the same way.

Rarely, by the way, is poor response ever the newspaper's fault. As long as your publication is reaching plenty of the right people in the right places (even 2,000 circulation weeklies have 4,500 readers–plenty for a strong response), the vast majority of the time an advertiser's failure to get a response lies in the ineffectiveness of the ad.

It's almost always the ad. It could be that the ad was too small or it didn't contain the right elements, or the product or services weren't offered competitively. At this point, however, you'll only insult the advertiser by blaming his ad for the poor response by saying something like, "Perhaps we can take a look at the ad you ran and see where the problem is." Don't say it!

Always be sensitive to the fact that the advertiser might have made up the previous ad and really likes it, truly believing your newspaper is to blame instead. Remember, advertising is still considered a creative process (even though it isn't) and criticizing his ad will be similar to saying his baby is ugly.

Instead, agree with him, saying "You know, we have other advertisers who have told me our newspaper don't work, and do you know why? Because every time they ran with us, they didn't get any response. Certainly not enough to justify our ad rates."

Next, show a case study of an advertiser who didn't get any response and how you helped him with an effective spec ad, similar to the way we approached the smoke objections. Once the prospect believes you're uniquely qualified to get him a response, you'll find that it'll be easy to move on to the next phase of the sales call by saying something like, "I'd be happy to come up with an ad for you, but I'll need a little more information."

That's where you'd move on to the questioning phase of the first sales call. And you did it without ever insulting his old ad, which would have just raised his resistance.

By the way, your newspaper is a great testimonial. In cases like these I've held the paper up many times and said look, see all these advertisers? If this paper wasn't making them a whole lot more than they were spending with us, then they wouldn't be advertising. Yet they're in here consistently, week after week. However, since you're really not trying to sell the account on the newspaper on the first sales call, this "everyone's doing it" argument may serve you better during the final sales call.

Your newspaper is too expensive
For most advertisers, this objection is the same as the last, since if a newspaper didn't provide them with a response, then the cost would be high. It's funny, those advertisers who are making money from a newspaper rarely hesitate running again and higher rates don't stop them. You could talk about "you get what you pay for" if the paper he's comparing it to is more down scale or a smaller circulated publication, but this may be too early in the consultative selling process to push this hard.

Instead, convert the "too expensive" objection back to the "no response" objection by means of a bridge statement such as "So, what you're telling me is for the money you need to spend on an ad in our newspaper, you don't think you'll get the kind of response you need to be profitable, right?

They always agree with this statement, and when they do, you can move on to showing them other examples of advertisers who felt your publication was too expensive and how you worked with them to get them a dramatic response and ultimately find that you were the least expensive medium in the market since you make so much money for them. Again, it's classic selling theory–selling value instead of price, and it works extremely well. That's the basis of our advanced course.

The other paper's cheaper
The account is telling you that he's only measuring the value of a publication based on money out, not money in. This is probably because they don't understand that various publications, and more importantly, various advertising representatives, can dramatically effect response rates, which is what they really care about. Don't make the mistake of answering the objection directly by saying, "Well, on a cost per thousand basis, we're actually the cheapest advertising medium in the area." That's not what they want to hear.

Instead, get back to the response objection with a bridging statement, "That's interesting. You know, we have another advertiser that felt the other paper was a better alternative since they didn't seem to get any better a response with us, so they just went with the cheaper vehicle. Once we sat down with the account and applied some proven advertising principles, we got them a dramatic response and they found we were much less expensive because we were much more profitable."

Then go on to show them how you got the other account a better response, which, again, will naturally lead you into the questioning part of the sales call.

I'm happy with (or have a contract with) another publication/radio/tv station
Don't make the mistake of questioning his judgment with, "May I ask why?" Instead say, "Good, I hope it's profitable for you. I just stopped in to introduce myself and see if I could help. By the way, we have other advertisers who were running with that publication/radio/tv station because they just weren't getting the response they wanted from our newspaper, especially with our rates."

Most likely you've just stated the real objection he has. I'm sure by now you can see where this is going. As discussed before, show the account an example of someone who didn't believe in your newspaper and explain how you helped the account get a dramatic response using some proven advertising techniques. This will will lower the account's resistance so you can move forward and start asking questions.

As for "I've already signed a contract," you'll probably find out sooner or later that advertisers break contracts all the time if they see something else they think will be more profitable. Don't let this statement stop you. It's probably more smoke than anything else. Besides, the advertiser doesn't need to break the contract to run with you. You're going to show him how to make your newspaper a revenue generator, not an expense, so at the end of the day, it won't cost the advertiser anything more.

You don't have enough circulation
You could say, "I guess that depends on how much is enough. Sure, we might not have the circulation of the other newspaper, but our advertisers have found that we have plenty of circulation to get them a dramatic response."

Instead, I'd approach it the same way we dealt with the rest of the objections listed here. Use a bridging statement to get back to the response objection such as, "So what you're saying is that with our circulation you don't think you'll get the kind of response you need to make a profit? You know, you're not the first person to tell me this."

Then continue the sales call as described above.

After a while you'll be able to see what they really mean when they give you an objection, and rarely is it what they're saying. More importantly, focus on what really motivates the account–making a profit–when overcoming first sales call objections and you won't go wrong.

Next: Second call objections