Only 3% of Prospects Are Ready to Buy Now

Stan Katz

What is the key to sales? Here’s a clue, it’s not the old adage: “to be selling all the time.”

More specifically, it’s in the magic of consistent follow-up.

And here’s why understanding this is the key to sales.

According to Chet Holmes, dubbed “America’s greatest sales and marketing executive”, only 3% of prospects are ever ready to “buy now.” This applies to just about every industry, including radio. Right now, however, with the volatility and uncertainty in the economy, and with businesses questioning their adspend, that number may be even less.

How can you close the other 97%+ of prospects who may be interested later? You need persistence and cadence. In the online Ultimate Radio Sales Course, we teach that if you want sales, you’ve got to stay top of mind. You’ve got to position yourself as the best option, and you’ve got to be there, ready to go when your prospects are. How do you do that? With consistent follow-up. There’s no way around it.

Perhaps you’ve heard of the “Law of Frequency,” a principle of association stating that the more often ideas, events (e.g. stimuli and responses), or other items co-occur, the stronger the connections between them. In other words, the more your prospect sees you, hears from you or has some type of contact with you, the more they trust you.

Another fact: 92% of businesses, marketers and sales professionals give up after the 4th touchpoint, but 80% of prospects say “no” four times before they say yes according to MarketingDonut.

By knowing that information upfront, it can inform the right strategy or approach you should utilize to build relationships with the right kinds of people that will generate both short-term sales and long-term opportunities with the perfect buyers for your station’s airtime.

Of paramount importance is that you have selected qualified prospects. By this I mean you’ve selected them according to the following criteria: There is brand synergy with their product/service and your station; you’re dealing with the decision-maker at the company/agency; they have the budget. The more qualifying criteria the better. Prospecting is the lifeblood of selling, but you have to ensure that they’re the right prospects.

Following up does not mean hounding them. That would be counter productive. What you’re doing is building a relationship based on trust and mutual respect. Here’s another fact: All things being equal, people prefer to do business with friends. All things not being equal, people still prefer to do to business with friends. This leads to another concept known as “Relationship Currency”. Simply put, this relates to what people say about you when you’re not present. Another way of looking at it is the “Inverted Pyramid of Friendship” which starts with one friend and builds from there as others sing your praises. By the way, the most effective means of selling anything is with testimonials.

The follow-up naturally entails sending insights that help in the decision-making process, but it also means taking a personal interest in the person you wish to befriend. If you know what their personal interests are, send them items of interest that you come across. This includes anything that might uplift them during these unprecedented times. Use memes on social media sparingly, or not at all.

In normal times, we’d build relationships with activities like wining and dining, known in ancient times as “breaking bread together”. We look forward to a return to those times sooner rather than later. In the meantime, it’s up to all of us to find creative ways of winning friends and influencing people.

A final thought on following up. Many people understand the importance of following up in order to close a deal, but equally important is the follow-up after the campaign has flighted, also known as after sales service, or post-campaign analysis. You want to know that the client’s expectations were met and if not, you want to do damage control. A happy client leads to ongoing business and, hopefully, referrals. Remember, advertising is not an exact science, so if the client was unhappy with the results you want to know what went wrong and, where possible, remedy it.

The last thing you want is the client telling all and sundry that they tried radio and it didn’t work. Too many reps are reluctant to follow up because they don’t want to hear bad news, but it’s vital, it’s professional and it could salvage the situation and build the relationship.

Make sure you learn the necessarily radio sales strategies online with Stan Katz and fraycollege, to keep your clients happy and coming back.

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Email radio@fraycollege.com with any queries.