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

Even when you've moved the account through the sales process properly and things go well, the account may have some sticker shock or offer some other objections at the end of your presentation.

Remember, it's at this point, and only at this point, where you deal with the real objections. On the first call you weren't exactly overcoming objections as much as you were stopping the account from thinking about getting rid of you so you could move on to use the consultative selling process.

By holding off directly addressing objections until you've made the complete case that you and your newspapers are uniquely qualified to get the account a dramatic response, you're in a much better position to deal with any objections.

On the second sales call, objections take on a different form. They'll be much more specific, dealing with the particulars of your recommendation.

The ad is too big
First, to lower resistance, agree that you can shrink it down if he wants, then calmly explain your reasoning. You've got a lot of credibility now.

Most likely your explanation would include that his competitors are running bigger, that his average sale should pay for the ad with only a few responses (don't make this a promise, though) that it needs to be big enough to fit in all the information people need to make a decision, and that not enough people will see the ad if its too small and therefore a smaller ad won't be profitable. Try to avoid the "you've got to spend money to make money" or "you can't afford not to" rebuttals, which are overused and insulting to the prospect's intelligence.

I can't run this more than once
Explain that the market turns over every week or less, so people who needed the product last week might be gone, but new people will be in the market next week, and he has to be in there when they're ready to buy.

You can also point out that his competitors are in the paper each week, so he should as well. You can also mention that not everybody reads a newspaper every day or week, some might have missed it for various reasons so he might need to run it multiple times to get complete saturation. You can also point out how much he'll save with contract rates.

It's not the right time to advertise
There are major Christmas tree decoration shops that stay open and advertise year round, so it's unlikely that your advertiser's business is so seasonal that there aren't a few people about to buy his products at any point in time. Sure, there are peaks and valleys, but if business is slow, that only means he has to work harder to bring in business by advertising.

Other objections
Of course, there are other objections as well, but these are the main ones appropriate for a basic ad sales course such as this. Many of them are simply common sense and are almost always trace back to the account not believing you'll make him money, only cost him money. Focus on that and you'll find that there are very few, if any, objections remaining at the end of the sales call. Because when an account believes there's money to be made, they'll sell themselves.

If you run into others, email me and let me know about them. I might be able to help. Just be sure to include your name and the name of the publication with which you're working.

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