I
have no money
With the thousands of presentations I've made to advertisers, in all types
of areas--in some of the smallest towns to the largest cities, to extremely
depressed areas to booming markets, I don't think I've ever ran into an
advertiser who actually didn't have any money. They're really saying "don't
sell me because I'm not in the mood to buy anything". I usually say, "that's
OK, I just wanted to introduce myself. There might be a time in the future
when you do have money and give me a call then. By the way, you have a
great place here. What do you sell most of, anyway?" and begin the
sales call information gathering process. I guarantee that if you take
that information back to the office, make up a great spec ad and go back
and make a presentation anyway, then more times than not the advertiser
will end up buying.
I
have no time
You'll know if the advertiser really has not time by looking around the
store. If it is really busy, then get out of their way and return another
time. But if it's empty, you might want to tell them to call you when
they do have time, and then slide into your question and answer part of
the call once their resistance has lowered and they're more willing to
talk to you. Then, just like the I have no money objections, you'd continue
with the two meeting sales process, returning later with a presentation.
I'm running with or I have a contract with another paper/radio/tv station.
Say something like
"Good, I hope its profitable for you. But I'm not here to get you to spend
more money. I just want to get to know you and your business better and
if I think I can come up with a way for you to make money with our newspapers,
I'll come back with a strategy and show it to you. But I'm only going
to suggest you try us if we're going to be a revenue producer, not simply
another expenditure. So who do you compete with anyway? And then launch
into your first sales call."
The truth is, advertisers
break contracts all the time if they see something else they think will
be more profitable.
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