Making the Cut: Selling your online partnership

(This article was originally published in the latest edition of Inside Call Center, published by MacDonald Advertising Services.)

By Bob Davis

I love the story of the old-time logger who had always done his work with a two-blade axe. His son left the Maine woods to go to college, and while he was away he sent his father a gas-powered chainsaw. The son called home to ask how his father liked it. His father answered that it was all right, but he preferred his axe. The son was puzzled. How could his father not love the chainsaw?

The son came home on break determined to show his father what a great tool the chainsaw was. He gave a couple of sharp pulls on the starter cord while his father watched. When the engine fired up, the father exclaimed, “What’s that noise?”

The story provides an apt analogy to how most newspapers are selling the full functionality of their online partnerships compared to what they could be accomplishing. When publishers and advertising executives hear what these partnerships can do with their motors running, they will ask, “What’s that noise?” And it will be the sound of money coming in!

Most people tasked with selling online advertising have received product-knowledge training, but that is not enough. In fact, studies have shown that a salesperson’s product knowledge is only 15% of what is needed to be successful in sales. If product knowledge was all they needed, home builders would sell their own houses instead of turning the job over to REALTORS®. Selling skills are more important than product knowledge.

First, salespeople must be skilled at asking key needs analysis questions on every call such as:

• How hard is it going to be to fill that job?
• How many viable candidates are in the local market?
• Would you like to go after viable candidates rather than waiting for them to come
to you?
• What will it mean to you to fill that critical position more quickly?

The next selling skill is to use responses to questions like those above to create and present a customized solution to the customer in a compelling way.

Then comes the need to overcome objections. I spoke recently with a salesperson newly tasked to sell online employment ads. He told me he would rather make cold calls to a business that had never advertised with the newspaper than try to sell the online partner to an advertiser already running ads on the competitor’s Web site. Why? He said he did not know how to answer their objections.

There are so many features and benefits to sell — such as résumé search and candidate search — and we are just scratching the surface in selling these high-ticket items.

Just about everyone reading this article probably knows how to use needs analysis. I have little doubt that you also know how to deliver customized, compelling solutions and how sales success requires being able to overcome objections. But with so much money to be earned from online partnerships, I have to ask a question: What would it mean to your newspaper if your sales reps received intensive training on skills and knowledge that would empower them to sell all the online functionality more effectively?

Trying to sell without the right skills is like using a chainsaw without the motor running. It’s possible to make the cut, but it’s much less effective.

For more information on MacDonald Advertising Services, please visit GoMacDonald.com.