Ryan Dohrn virtual ad sales training sample - 10 mins

You don't know how to use silence to your advantage. So you call up, you want to get a meeting with somebody. I'm good. Good as in— and then be silent. Let them answer you. Well, we've got enough business. So I just recently was calling on a roofer, a roofing company. All right, I'm good. Good as in— listen, we've got business lined up for the next 6 months. We're really, really busy. My response: great. It sounds like we should move you from A new customer marketing plan to a thanking your current customers plan. I mean, you do want to thank your current customers, right? It's hard for an advertiser to say no to that. You do not. You you do want to thank your customers who helped you be as busy as you are right now, right? Now this leads to another side conversation though, and you guys know me well enough. I hope to know that I'm I'm poking at you. But I'm poking at you to help you grow. I'm poking at you to hopefully help you pay attention a little bit. Definitely not poking to hurt feelings. But if your feelings are hurt, you're probably in the wrong business. Sales is tough. You might be dealing with somebody, though, that you're calling on the wrong categories. If you're not hearing any advertisers say, I'm good, I'm really busy, I don't need any business right now, that is an indicator. Sales directors, ad directors, publishers, whoever's in a leadership role, If your reps are saying that you're not— if you're not hearing this, then I'm good and I'm pretty busy right now. More than likely, you're calling on only non-essential businesses, or your business you're calling are too small. You might be calling on the wrong categories. How about this one? I've got no budget. My budget's all spent. Well, I use— I respond back, well, what about Bill's Bait Shop and Julie's Interior Design and Bob the Builder. What about them? I truly feel that your absence is their opportunity. They are seeing results after a few months of working with us. I'll tell you what, why don't I just quickly show you, uh, some marketing ideas that are working right now for other business owners? And they have to be silent. Because most of the time, they will give you the opportunity to chat with them if you're calling at the right time and if you can show them some value. The value, friends, a lot of times comes from what you say and how you start the conversation. So let's talk about that for just a couple of seconds because I think it's important. If you pick up the phone, and the reason I bring this up is because I was working with a wonderful sales rep. Uh, on the— in upstate, uh, in the upstate of, uh, Northern California. And she was starting her phone calls with, um, oh, hi, uh, this is Suzanne. Could I please speak to the person that's in charge of advertising? And I said, how's it working for you? And she said, well, they usually just say they're not there, or they give me voicemail, and I haven't got through to anybody. I said, well, what else did you try? And she said, well, when they picked up the phone, I said, hey, this is Suzanne from such and such, and we've got some great marketing ideas I'd love to share with you. I said, well, how is that working for you? She said, it's, it's not. So remember, friends, going back to our training, you're not— that's not the way you open up phone calls with businesses. They're going to give you every objection that they know works on salespeople like you. The way that you start conversations is, hi, Don, I saw on your Facebook page that you're promoting the Z35 zero-turn mower. Over there at Don's Lawn and Garden. I've got a great idea to help you promote that. Some people want to see it. And then you stop silent. Well, what if a receptionist answers the phone? You do the exact same thing. You don't introduce yourself necessarily. You say, hey, I see on your Facebook page that you guys are promoting the Z35 zero-turn mower. Could I please talk to somebody about that? Sure. And they're going to put you over to somebody probably in sales. Or the person you need to talk to. Person says, hi, this is Don. Did I sound like Don Moore there? Hi, this is Don. Hey Don, I see on your Facebook page you're promoting the Z35 zero-turn mower, and I've got a couple ideas for you. Got some folks that might want to hear about that. Okay. And then you go into, you know, whatever you're— this is Ryan over at the Daily Herald, and I've got 3 businesses like yours that are seeing some pretty darn good results right now. Recovering what some of the— what they lost during COVID And I've got about 15,000 people I think would like to see, you know, about the zero-turn mower. Then they're gonna start throwing these objections out at you, but at least you got to the right— to the right person. Well, Ryan, what if they don't have a Facebook page? Well, if they don't have a Facebook page, they're probably not a very good customer for you. Probably, because everybody has a Facebook page, pretty much. Or maybe go to their website. But remember, a lot of times the way you start the call is gonna lead to the way that the call goes. So that's just something to think about, something to think about. Go back to our previous training. All right, how about, uh, let's see this one. I, I can only buy ads that can be tracked was what one of you submitted across, or something like that. My response: when customers call or, or stop in, do you ask them where they heard about you or where they saw your ad? What does every advertiser say? Of course, yes, always. We always ask. Okay, you and I both know they don't always ask because you've been to their store before and nobody asked you anything, right? We know that it happens. So my response: human nature is to recall the last thing you did or the last thing that you saw. That is 100% normal. That's why Google or the internet will always get credit for every marketing idea that you try. Even if a customer just saw your ad in our paper like 10 seconds ago, if they pulled out their phone for even 1 second to look up your address, they're gonna say Google is where they saw you, or on my phone, or whatever the circumstances. It's just the way that we operate as humans. Plus, we always research everything before we engage. Everything. It doesn't matter if you're looking for a coupon for buying a plant, or if you're trying to find a dentist or a chiropractor, or you're looking for the furniture store or whatever. So for me, and you've heard me talk about before, guys, for me, I tell advertisers this up front. When they're buying newspaper or magazine ads from me, human nature is to recall the last thing you did or the last thing that you saw. 100% normal. That's why Google or the internet is gonna always get credit for everything that you do in marketing. Guys, even if they buy radio ads, they buy radio, TV, the paper, whatever they're buying. When people come into a store. Hey, how'd you hear about us? Uh, the internet. It's their default. Google is their default. The internet is their default. Well, Ryan, this one time somebody came in and brought in the paper and showed them the ad. Well, that one time is not a good scientific study. It happens. It does. People will mention the paper. They just do. That's— it used to be stronger. Why was it stronger? Because more people were reading the paper. No, it used to be stronger back in the '80s because we didn't have so many other media options. It was easier for our brains to track. Right now we're highly distracted and we remember the last things that we did. So for me, this is the way that I work through it. Now they might say to you, well, I like digital because digital can be tracked. So then I could work through the exact same word track. I recognize that getting those reports are great. Well, I like Facebook. When I get a like on Facebook, I know my ad's working. First, let me say I love social media too. It's great that you believe in advertising. Tell me, how do you translate a like to someone coming to your store to buying something from you or engaging with you or whatever that circumstance is? Start down that— start down by that path. Here's another one from some of you. We've been hit hard by COVID. No budget. And somebody wrote they're firm about that, like 6 exclamation points. You might consider saying something politely like this. I absolutely understand your concern. If I may ask, what is your plan, though, to get back what you lost during COVID And they're not going to— they're not going to have an answer. Friends, what's been happening is advertisers have gotten so good at giving excuses. Now they're ecstatic because they've got even more excuse— excuses to give you. So it used to just be, I have no budget, nobody reads the paper anymore, or I only do digital, or I love Facebook. We're going to talk about that in a second. Now they've got a whole nother batch of excuses they can give you. And then they're not giddy about it because nobody wants to be giddy about COVID That would be completely cold and heartless. But they've got a whole nother batch and we're not prepared to handle that new objection. And so we're just like, oh, when should I call you back? We've been hit hard by COVID is a new objection. And guess what? A lot of you are buckling under the pressure. You're buckling to it. So very politely, I think I always might add in there, I can totally understand your concern. But if I may ask, what is your plan to get back what you lost during COVID here? Now, I recognize that some businesses, even in Texas, are shutting certain things back down. They haven't started doing it too much here in, in South Carolina. But they might say, listen, Ryan, I can barely pay the bills as is because that first one didn't work. You didn't fall victim to that one. So they give you another one. I can barely pay the bills as is. I can barely pay the rent. You want me to advertise? My response: I would agree with you that these are challenging times for sure, but what about Bill's Bait Shop and, and Julie's Flowers and Bob the Builder? What about them? We've been helping them bounce back to business and they're really loving the results. I'd love just to take a few minutes to discuss what we can do to help you bounce back to business too, or something along those lines. You'll notice, guys, I'm not reading exactly what's on the screen, so maybe you like what I'm saying better than what's, what's on the screen. But these word tracks are, are important, whether you record yourself, whether you practice with a friend. Whether you practice with your dog, your spouse, your partner, your colleagues, whatever, the only way you're going to get really good at this is if you practice. And don't practice on your advertisers. That's not really the way to go.