Tips, tricks, news & other wisdom from the team at Inspire.
I received an email last night and just knew I had to send it on.
It’s written by a friend and colleague of mine, Mark Creaser. I call him the ‘Jeremy Clarkson of Business Consultants’!
Take five minutes to have a read. I think you’ll be glad you did.
I finally changed my windscreen wipers the other day.
In truth, they’d been deteriorating for some time now - doing less and less of the job they were designed to do.
But over the summer, during that generally good weather, it was a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ - I didn’t need them, so I didn’t consciously notice just how bad they were.
It was only a couple of weeks ago that their condition really shone through
As the weather starts to cool off, things are hotting up at Inspire Media HQ, everyone is into 5th gear, ensuring we deliver on our media sales services.
Thankfully for me, our Legendary Senior Project Manager, Charlotte Turnbull - the Queen of Implementation - is on hand. Charly is a vital part of everything we do at Inspire Media, and I thought I’d take the opportunity to introduce her.
In life, deadlines drive decisions.
Whether it’s moving house in time to get the children into the right school catchment area, hot-footing it to the shops before they shut, or ordering a pint at the pub when the bell goes, the reality is that most of us are familiar with the way that deadlines can force us to take action we would have otherwise taken much slower, or not taken at all.
In the world of media sales, it’s no different.
At Inspire Media we’ve been working so hard these past few weeks, I briefly stopped to look up and was shocked to see it’s August tomorrow!
That means — summer holiday time.
Read more →
And I don’t doubt that you’ve earned it too!
I was having dinner with a friend of mine last week, chewing the fat about all manner of topics.
My friend’s name is John, he’s a lovely man, and – among other things – he’s a mortgage advisor.
And inevitably, we ended up talking about business, and about the various different marketing strategies we’re both deploying to get more customers and grow our businesses.
One of the things that became really obvious during the conversation was the truth of what’s known as “Pareto’s Law”, otherwise known as the 80:20 rule.
We media people don’t always have it easy these days, do we?
We’ve been around for longer than most of the new media platforms put together, and that should tell you that we’re doing something that works.
However, in a world where business owners worship ‘the new’ at every turn, it certainly feels like familiarity can often breed contempt.
I was in Denmark last month.
Not to take in Legoland or the Tivoli Gardens, but I did have a couple of very enjoyable days with Radio ABC Group, delivering sales training to help stimulate their advertising revenues.
I usually try and keep my training sessions collaborative, rather than boring presentations with fifty million slides, and on this occasion I’m very glad I did.
You see, one of the best takeaways of the workshop came from one of the delegates, Tina Sørensen Strangholt…
You know as well as I do that local advertisers can be tricky customers.
Selling them into advertising on any media can be challenging - often they’ll give it a go for a month or two, only to give up because they don’t feel like they’ve got the return they should have.
But in my career, I’ve discovered something important; something that has helped to sell more advertising and develop more long-term relationships with good quality clients.
An educated buyer is a better buyer.
I’ve been in media sales for a long time, and I’ve seen more than my fair share of media sales operations.
And over the years, I’ve come to a realisation:
One of the biggest problems with media sales, is that it’s too often focused on short-term initiatives, that there’s not a solid enough strategy that delivers positive and dependable results.
I’ve mentioned one of mentors – Nigel Botterill – a couple of times before, and there’s a good reason: he really knows his stuff.
And today I just wanted to touch on one of his ‘rules’ for success:
‘Your most valuable asset – bar none – is your database.’
When you think about it, it’s incredibly accurate…
Someone asked me recently, 'What's the greatest sale you ever made?'
It took me a while to consider it, but here’s the story...
I know a guy who’s a tremendous salesman. A natural. Ice to Eskimos, coal to Newcastle, the whole thing.
He also spends money like it’s going out of fashion. It’d be slower to set fire to the stuff...!
He was telling me about his latest purchase the other day, and it got me thinking about an old truism - as relevant in advertising sales as it is anywhere else.
Not so long ago I had a conversation with a guy called Paul Smith, he’s the Station Director at Signal 107 in Wolverhampton.
He told me a story that I just HAD to share with you, so here it is…
I’ve always believed in the power of learning, no matter how accomplished you already are.
One of the people I’ve been learning a lot from recently, is a guy called Grant Cardone. You might have heard of him – he’s very American, very salesy, but he’s got some really excellent stuff to say.
In his book Sell or Be Sold, he makes a terrific point that hit me head-on…
The one thing you need to get ahead, is to sell.
With that in mind, here’s 7 sales lessons that’ve stood out so far:
Well, 2019 isn’t waiting around for anyone is it?!
As I write, February is in sight, with Christmas a distant memory, and we’ve had the busiest start to any year I can remember. Which is great.
We’ve got huge plans for this year, which means that we’ve needed to knuckle down and put a lot of the foundations in place during January.
Thankfully for me, our newest member of the team has been a vital and integral part of everything we’ve done this year, and I thought I’d take this opportunity to introduce her: Chloe Dunn.
I had an interesting response to my email on Jose Mourinho last month (which is highly topical now that the ‘Special One’ has been dethroned at Old Trafford!).
It was from Neil Gough, Sales Manager at WLR FM in Waterford, Ireland. He expanded upon the point I’d made about Mourinho making the best of the squad he had, his first time around at Chelsea.
Here’s what Neil said:
“A person once said to me: 5, not 50. Look at the businesses in the 5-mile radius around you – there’s probably more opportunities there than driving 50 miles to do business.”
It’s a powerful and true insight.
I was flicking through the channels the other night and I caught one of those football shows, ‘The Premier League Years 2004/5’. It was the season that signalled the arrival of ‘The Special One’, Jose Mourinho.
It was 14 years ago now, but there are two big 'sales & marketing lessons' in the changes that Jose made to Chelsea, and I wanted to share them with you.
Before I go any further, I want you to banish all thoughts of what a successful sales and marketing message should look like.
Because what I’ve got to share with you goes completely against the grain of what most people think marketing is – we call it the ‘Re-activation Email’.
Quite frankly, it wouldn’t be too harsh to consider it the runt of the marketing litter. It’s a bit of an ugly little bugger, but it sure does get results.
As I mentioned the other week, I’ve always believed in the power of mentors – having someone who’s already trod the path that you want to go down is a very smart way to shortcut success.
Last week I mentioned one of my oldest mentors; this week I want to refer to one of my newest – the inimitable Nigel Botterill.
Botty’s a bona fide UK business superstar, with bags of sales and marketing experience. Last year, he introduced me to a very clever approach, that can be used with great effect in the advertising industry…
.... "Get in touch and we'll be more than happy to discuss your media sales challenges and opportunities." .. "Póngase en contacto con nosotros y estaremos encantados de atender sus retos comerciales." ....
David Barker, ....Founder & Managing Director .. Fundador y Managing Director....
david.barker@inspire-media.com
+44 (0)121 796 5340
