Year: 2021

It’s all about the tension levelsSelling Radio Direct with Pat BrysonI was teaching a new group of salespeople last week and we were discussing how to manage the tension level that usually arises when we are asking a prospect to buy. If prospects are uncomfortable, they usually won’t buy from us. It’s up to us to bring the tension level down, to make our prospects comfortable. How do we do this?We want to make sure that we use words from the world of our clients, not from the world of radio, TV or newspaper. Our industry terms should never be used outside our offices. Most of the time, our prospects don’t understand fully what we are saying. They may not want to ask us to explain. More than likely, they simply don’t buy. They are uncomfortable.We also need to make sure that we speak clearly. How’s your grammar? Do you use dialects? In some areas of the country, it’s considered acceptable to use improper English. Actually, it’s not acceptable. You might get away with it in a small area, but if you talk to anyone outside the area, you will come across as uneducated. This makes it difficult to establish credibility. After all, we’re supposed to be the marketing experts.What about those “ticks”, those physical things we do, often unconsciously, that signify that we are nervous. If we are nervous, soon our prospects are also. We transmit our nervousness to them.There are also some words that we can use to manage the tension level, to bring it down: authorize, approve, agreement, results, proven, easy, save, results, profit, let’s.On the other hand, there are words we should omit from our closing vocabulary because they will spike the tension level: contract, deal, sign, cost, buy, liable, obligation, price, pay, decision.One of my former students had been a newspaper salesperson for 15 years prior to coming to radio. When we were studying these words, he shared with me how he had used them in his former profession. When he was calling on a prospect who used a competitor’s product, he used the words like this:“How liable are you when you sign their contract? What type of obligation do you have to pay for their deal? With our agreement, we make it easy. All you have to do is authorize this campaign and the results have been proven by other of our clients.”In other words, he used the bad words when referring to the competition and the good words when referring to his own. Diabolical? Yes. Brilliant? Yes!Our job is to reduce the risk and stack the value. Doing so makes potential clients comfortable in saying, “Yes” to our offers. Higher billing awaits!Pat has a New Book […]

Content from BPRFew things are more unpleasant that program director/presenter aircheck sessions. Perhaps the best analogy is the apprehension that one has when going to the dentist. Nobody likes it!Few presenters that I have worked with enjoy the process. Few program directors look forward to the experience.Presenters dread aircheck sessions because they assume that their boss is going to point out their faults and mistakes. The often confrontational aspect of these sessions undermines their productiveness.Can aircheck sessions be productive? In most cases, the answer is yes. However, there are some basic rules to be followed.Rule 1. Give the review of the presenter’s work a positive spin. Don’t be afraid to point out the good stuff. People are more likely to pay attention if the session focuses more on the positive than the negative. When it comes to the negative critique, make it forward looking. Lines such as: “That didn’t really work so well but here is how you can make it better next time.”Rule 2. Ask questions of the presenter. “If you were faced with this situation again, how do you think you could improve upon it?” “How would you rate this segment?” By turning the tables on the presenter, you allow them to critique their own work. Sometimes you may find that they can point out areas of improvement that have not occurred to you.Rule 3. Space the sessions apart. It is not necessary to have an aircheck session every day. Once a week is probably enough. More frequent sessions may lead to needless repetition and fatigue. Avoid information overload. Human beings best process information in small doses.Rule 4. If possible, keep the sessions short. An aircheck session should probably never be more than a half an hour.Rule 5. Know your presenter. In my experience, a large number of presenters are fragile people. They can be insecure. In some cases, they may be their own worst critic (although they will never admit that to you.) Some presenters have out-sized egos but these personalities often are the most insecure of all. Approach airchecks sessions more like a psychologist and less like a judge and jury.Don’t expect the presenter to ever say, “Hey, let’s do an aircheck.” However, you can make the experience into something that produces positive results in both the short and long term.By Andy Beaubien, BPRIf you require further help with your own airchecks sessions, please feel free to contact us at [email protected] […]

Wayne Clouten is a principal of international broadcast content consultancy, BPR. He contends that too often we think purely about competition between radio stations when we are, in fact, competing for people’s attention with all kinds of media.Mr Clouten has  kindly contributed the following article.Much of the statistical movement we see in radio surveys, particularly TSL movement has likely nothing to do with an exchange of TSL between radio stations, it is more to do with an exchange of TSL between a radio station and other forms of audio”The problem is that with radio survey data the tendency we are drawn to is trying to draw lines between this radio station and that radio station, but the reality is that listening overall is much more fluid and radio only forms part of the bigger listening ecosystem.I believe a lot of “movement” we see in radio surveys is the result of what I call “proportional dilution”.It works like this: Imagine my station has 50 listeners listening for one hour each, and your station also has 50 listeners listening for one hour each.  So, in our little market there is 100 hours of total radio listening of which we both have a 50% listening share.  The next survey comes along and I gain 10 more listeners but my listeners are spending more time listening to something else other than radio so my radio TSL drops to 30 minutes per listener while yours remains the same as before.There are now 80 hours of total radio listening in the market of which your station now has a 63% share while my station drops to a 37% share.  None of my listeners actually went to your station, in fact they hate your station but it looks like your station gained from my station in the survey when that was not actually the case.All this doesn’t change the fact that my stations share of radio listening in the official survey went down relative to your station, what changes is how you interpret these share movements from a strategic and tactical perspective.I have been observing an exponential development of this issue in recent times.  COVID has likely accelerated this development in listening behaviour, but the trend was already there well prior to COVID.The degree to which radio listeners use other forms of audio varies quite a lot depending on demographic and station format.This is often particularly manifest in P1 listeners of a radio station.  They may love you and have absolutely no interest in any other radio station….when they are listening to radio…but that is not to say they don’t have a great interest in another form of audio and will spend more time with it in the future.The key issue is to appreciate that listeners are more than just radio listeners and for the average listener, radio is just part of a much broader listening ecosystem they have access to and can move within seamlessly to create the listening experience they want.BPR is an international media consultancy company working with market leading radio and television stations in major markets worldwide. We deliver clear and effective research based solutions for your programming, and marketing issues. […]