The Strange Case Of The Disappearing Salespeople.

They say that good salespeople are hard to find. They say that good salespeople are hard to keep. Sometimes they leave for financial reasons. Sometimes they leave for personal reasons. But sometimes they leave for a completely different reason. One that nobody thinks of, not even the boss. Sometimes they leave because they realize that the quality of the product or service they are selling has gone down. And in some cases "really" gone down. They may feel that they can no longer ethically promote such a product or service. Or they believe that the quality has gone down to such an extent that it's just no longer worth trying to sell. Translated: They can't make any money off of it.

I believe this to be especially true in the broadcasting business. Or to be more specific, radio. The emphasis no longer seems to be on sales and selling. Now the emphasis seems to be on saving money as in letting people go and saving by no longer paying them. But you are not making money by doing this. You're just saving money and while that may look good for the short term it will eventually bite you in the transmitter in the long run. With all this desire to save a few bucks have you been paying any attention to the product that you are turning out, i.e. the format? Are you giving your salespeople something they can sink their teeth into when they go out to meet with prospective clients? Does your station present a professional sound 24 hours a day? Is there periodic dead air because the equipment doesn't work right? Are you hiring good, professional on air personalities? Assuming of course that you have any live and local ones to begin with. Do you have any connection to the community that you are broadcasting to? Is your format any good? In other words do you provide your salespeople with the best possible product available so that they can sell it? Or do you just throw a rate card at them and say, "sell or else."

Most salespeople are very good at reading "the handwriting on the wall." They can see when things are starting to go downhill. And that's when they start to look elsewhere. Because they know that the true value of a radio station is its people. And when you let people go and replace them with satellites and automation you are eliminating a very important selling point. And this makes the salesperson's job that much harder. This strategy of doing more with less is not a good business philosophy. Especially when it effects the quality of the product or service that you are providing. When there are problems within various departments of a company it will eventually filter down and effect sales. And sales should be the one thing that you should not want to effect negatively. And please don't blame the salespeople. Want to keep them happy? Don't just give them something to sell. Give them a reason for selling it.