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

Once you've conducted the first sales call, you'll want to return to the office and begin planning your strategy. First, determine if there's really a good fit between your newspaper and the prospective advertiser.

To do this, first examine what he told you about his target customers, specifically their demographics. For example, he may want to reach the high-income homeowners within a certain mile radius of place of business. Take a look at your readership and market studies and see how well you reach these kinds of people.

If you determine your readers' demographics match up with the profile of his target customers, then you need to decide if there are any problems with the business itself that advertising won't solve. Are they reluctant to address the issues people care about when buying the product or service from one place rather than another? This could make getting a response for them difficult.

Do they look like they're about to go out of business? Are they exceptionally rude to their customers or are they selling a product that nobody would ever buy?

While it's rare that a business is so poorly run that advertising wouldn't help them, be careful investing too much time into an account that may not be able to convert the response you provide into sales or stay in business long enough to make the time you spend with them worthwhile. And be sure to get their payment before they run.

If all criteria are met–your demographics match theirs, they have a solid business and are going to market the right way, then it's time to create a recommendation. First, determine the ad size and frequency the advertiser needs to run and create an ad strategy as we talked about in the spec ad section earlier.

If you have an artist willing to make the strategy look better, then send it through to him. Remember, never just throw an old ad back to your artists and say, "Be creative." You may get back a beautifully ineffective ad that'll look good but will be difficult to explain why it'll work. Only you know the account well enough to develop an ad that will work, not the artist.

While that's being worked on, you'll need to get together any information supporting the fact that you do actually reach a good amount of the prospect's target customers, and in the right places.

See what promotional pieces are in your media kit that support your argument and ask your manager what other information may be available that will help. Just be sure to keep this information brief and to the point. If you go over any more than a few pages of statistics, maps, and charts, you'll risk losing their interest. While major ad agencies may be interested, most local advertisers can only take so much of this information before tuning you out.

You'll also want to figure out an overall plan for your advertiser. Since it takes about a week for an average consumer to buy a product they're in the market for, you may want to recommend to the advertiser to run once each week on whatever day the majority of their target customers are about to buy and repeat this each week as the market turns over. Don't forget to add a recommendation for any appropriate special sections either. As we discussed earlier, this is the best time to sell these sections.

Then do some rate calculations, determining how much the ad will cost depending on if they choose to run once or on contract. It's also a good idea to figure out ahead of time the difference in savings between two or three contract levels, such as running a certain size 13 times and running it 26 times, for example. A $500 ad at the open rate might only cost $425/week on a 13x contract or $5,525 total for the 13 weeks. Extend it to a 26x contract and the cost would be only $350 for the same ad or $9,100 total for the 26 weeks. But there's a more attractive way to explain how cheap it is to add on 13 more weeks.

If the customer agrees to run the ad for 13 times at $425 each week, you could say, "That's great! Just so you know, if you add another 13 weeks by moving up to a 26x contract, it'll only cost you $3,575 more, which means those last 13 weeks really only cost $275 each." While, of course, all the ads on a 26x contract will cost $350 instead of $425, the cost of the additional ads above and beyond the $425, 13-week contract he already agreed to would really be just $275. By showing the savings this way, some advertisers realize how cheap it is to move up from the level they're considering to the next.

So make up a page containing information on the various costs involved and different options, even if it's for your own private reference during the sales call. When the spec ad comes back from your artist and your have your demographic information and costs together, it's time to make another visit to the account.

Next: The second sales call