Great sales people are precious and are vital to the success of any business.
Finding good sales people is a real challenge, as it’s a tough job that not everybody is able to do. My solution was to recruit people from local newspapers. At Fox FM, most of the team were ex Oxford Mail. They tended to be slightly older, very experienced, with a known track record. But best of all, they had lots of local contacts, which they were able to move onto Fox pretty much straight away. They also loved the show business aspect of local radio and were keen to try something new.
Sales people are motivated by money and are very competitive, thus, decent salaries and an achievable generous commission scheme are essential. Accountants hate sales people earning lots of money, and will always try to water commission schemes down; either by unrealistic targets, or by making the schemes more complicated and difficult to achieve. This must be resisted at all costs, as when sales people are earning big bucks, the business is making even more.
At Fox, we couldn’t afford to pay big salaries and started off with modest salaries, and a not very generous commission scheme. To solve this, we sat down as a team to work out a better way forward. We came out with a commission based renumeration scheme. The team would earn 15% of all they brought in, and would be supported by a modest retainer and a “Foxmobile” fully expensed car. The results were magic and instant. Apart from a weekly meeting, we hardly saw the sales team again, and they didn’t need any managing. Revenue doubled and shot up to record levels and stayed there. The board were delighted, and so was I.
We ran geographic based sales areas rather than a list based ones. This enabled the team to really know their patch, and act as Ambassadors for the station. We also got together once a month, and ran the 6 “Foxmobiles” across the area to promote the station and have a bit of fun. We also ran an annual incentive for the whole team, including support staff, to encourage them to meet station targets.
This happened every year at all my stations, and started at Fox with a trip to Dallas for the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) conference. This was fantastic for team building and getting ideas from across the pond. We even got upgraded to club class on the way over. I myself won a trip to Barbados at Capital, however, it was flights only and I ended up spending £4k on my credit card – so make sure that incentives include all expenses.
Some of the simplest sales incentives are also the best. At both Fox and Scot I rented a sports car as part of the fleet. The top sales person then got to drive it for the next month. You wouldn’t believe the competition to drive that car! Keep on thinking of great ideas and always love your sales team as they are so important.