Here are a few things I’ve recently come up with about Sponsorship and Advertising Sales. Read and enjoy…

– Focus on Controllable Factors: attitude, enthusiasm, how prepared you are to answer specific questions

– Open Well: Get the prospect listening, liking you, and thinking, “Tell me more.” Make sure they see the sponsorship opportunity you’re offering. You have approximately 45 seconds to accomplish this phase.

– Stay Customer-Focused: First ask questions about the prospect’s objectives. Make sure the presentation relates directly to their dominant reason for buying. Listen for all buying cues, diagnose objectives, prescribe optional sponsorship solutions that have been proven to maximize return on investment. (Do a survey later.)

– Stress the 3 Strongest Benefits: People buy benefits, not features. It’s not what it is, it’s what it does. What you are selling are consequences, so stick to the high points; don’t overwhelm prospects with too much detail. These same benefits can be great for a Press Release too!
– Be Sincere: If you’re truly committed to engaging in transactions that benefit everyone involved (win/wins), your good intent will shine through. No one cares about how much you know until they know how much you care.

– Master the Fundamentals: know your prospect and a bit of information about their business and industry. This knowledge combined with a mastery of selling skills and thorough knowledge of sponsorship packages will increasing closing rates.

I’ve found that, by implementing these things, advertisers I’ve worked with have been a lot more prone to re-invest with us at a later date. Here’s some feedback generated from a local event: Xtreme Danzz Competition and Highlight Sports Feedback

What are your thoughts?

I hope someone can help me with this advertising dilema. I sell ad space for one of my companies, Highlight Sports. Branding is a concept I’m attempting to engrain in the heads of clients I work with.

My role at Highlight Sports is to promote creative advertising. We provide completely customized DVDs at cheer and dance competitions. In my research I’ve come to the conclusion that a company buys advertising for one of two reasons:

Branding refers to the process of impressing a company name or a product name onto society’s collective brain. Branding happens with both new and existing products. When you see a billboard that says nothing but “Coke” on it, or you see a NASCAR car that says “Tide” on the hood, or you see a feel-good ad on TV about a car company or an oil company but there’s no mention of a product, that is branding. The advertiser doesn’t necessarily expect you to do anything today — the advertiser simply wants to impress itself on your consciousness. The question that comes to my mind is:

“How do you teach the importantance of branding to advertisers that don’t seem to know what they are missing out on, that base their advertising decisions solely on ROI?”

At www.dictionary.com “Confidence” is defined as:

1. full trust; belief in the powers, trustworthiness, or reliability of a person or thing.
2. belief in oneself and one’s powers or abiliites; self-confidence; self-reliance; assurance.

Why is this imporant when it comes to building a new internet (or any) business? Does it really matter if I’m confident in my own abilities?  Isn’t “self-confidence” like being boastful or proud?

In my experience with small business management, I would say the main factor that separates the successful businesses from those that are not is that one small word – CONFIDENCE! Synonyms for confidence are faith, belief, trust, reliance, dependance, and self-assurance.  I really believe strongly in the idea: “If you think you can, or you think you can’t – You’re right!”  I don’t know anyone who has achieved a high degree of success, be it money, leadership, recognition, or even a great family foundation, that didn’t have confidence.  It is one of the vital keys to reaching our full potential.

How can we gain confidence in our own abilities?  What steps can we take every day to build our confidence if we feel it isn’t there yet?  Here are a few steps I take that seem to help:

1. Write out a plan: “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”  I haven’t always done this but the more I do, the more I believe all the information I read about it.  A plan is crucial in any endeavor: football teams have a playbook of plans, contractors plan things out before building a home, professional speakers have a plan before they take the stage, teachers use a curriculum.

2. Review your plan frequently: Remember, remember, remember!  It’s so easy for us to make the excuse – I forgot to do that.  That’s why reviewing your plan at least daily can help.  Post the plan on your bathroom mirror, tape it to your car dashboard, write it in your planner, do whatever YOU need to do to remind yourself of steps you need to take.

3. Tell someone about your plan and ask them to hold you accountable:  It’s far too easy to quit and give up on yourself when things don’t seem to go as easy as you think they should. That’s why it’s good to have someone there to help you through and encourage you to stick to it.  Your confidant may be able to give you feedback that can help you get to new levels too.

4. Record your progress:  “Small Success leads to Big Success!” I know, many of my clients probably hear this too much.  However, those that do it really seem to be getting to levels that they never imagined were possible.  It can be so rewarding to read back over the steps you’ve taken to get where you are, even if they are very small.  It’s always the little things we do every day which help us get where we want to go.

5. Revise your plan from time to time: Don’t be afraid to make adjustments.  If a certain defense isn’t working for a basketball team, a good coach will change things up, give the offense a different look to see if it will make a difference.  If he keeps doing what he’s always done, he will most likely get the same result.  So it is with our business plan: we will have to make revisions from time to time; especially if what we are doing isn’t taking us where we want to go.

What do you all do to increase confidence and bellief in what you are doing?

Since forming a partnership with Highlight Sports about a year and a half ago, I’ve learned many important things about Sponsorship and Advertising Sales. Here are a few ideas:

– Instead of talking about price, talk about “return on investment” or what they want out of the sponsorship (some may not care as much about ROI – they just want to show their support and brand their company name)
– When the question is asked about cost over the phone, set up an appointment to meet in person if possible
– Ask questions about what the company does for marketing
– Take notes
– Pick their brain about how what we are doing could benefit them, if not now, later
– Tie their needs back in to the presentation
– KISS: keep it simple stupid
– Listen for buying clues
– Don’t burn bridges: what may not work now could always work later if you leave a good impression.

Additional Notes I took on my learning curve:
– Mention competitors as options for sponsorship
– Use phrase like “We are considering your company as a potential sponsor…”
– Generally better to start a little high with numbers: you can always negotiate down, but not up
– Be willing to negotiate price and tools provided
– If they are hesitant with the pricing, ask something like: “Is there some things I could rearrange to make that package a better fit for you?”
– Show clients past work we’ve done

There are many different approaches that can be taken; these are some of the things that have worked for me. More to come….

What have you all learned?

Maybe I need to be a bit more controversial to get more response on the Everyone needs a sales job post! Or maybe, just maybe, the majority of you have to agree that EVERYONE should have at least one (or more) sales job(s) in their lifetime. Here’s a bit more about my background in sales:

My first year out of college I got a sales job with a great company in Utah. It was all based on commission, had a really tough learning curve, and was definitely “not for everyone” as I heard many times in the first 6 weeks. Looking back, I’m not sure if this was a hint that I should look elsewhere or what. However, this sales job literally changed my life. I can honestly say that I learned more in 2 1/2 years of sales training than I learned in my entire college education. College is great – however, the perspective I gained from this job was amazing. I learned about the power of mindset, motivation, positive attitude, and not being satisfied with mediocrity. I had a team leader who believed in his team: he was never negative, never pessimistic, and always gave me encouragement and positive reinforcement.

One of the things I did that I believe helped me really meet my potential at this job was the “Moller Mission Statement“. It went something like this:

“I am the best salesman at [put in your company name] with a 6 week average of over [specific amount of money] in sales. I am making [specific amount of money] per week which is helping me achieve and exceed my six month goal of [specific amount of money] by June 30, [year] and [specific amount of money] by Dec. 31, [year]. My keys to success have been confidence, focus, overcoming all fears, hard work, persistence, patience, and expecting to succeed, along with listening to the best, taking effective notes which I apply immediately, setting specific goals that I review daily, and focusing on getting 3 new sales per day, clients that need the products we are offering. I never worry about things I can’t change. I focus only on what I do have control over: attitude, knowledge, skills and work ethic. I’m happy to be running my business successfully and will continue to develop multiple streams of income. These multiple streams of income will help me achieve my life goal: [specific long term goal].

As I created this Moller Mission Statement and began believing in it, I saw amazing things happen. Sales increased, my attitude changed, and I really did do what I was saying. The funniest part was that I hit my year goal almost to the dollar, a goal that, at first, I almost thought was out of reach.

So, in summary, Everyone needs a sales job!

One of the common quotes I share with clients is “Small Success leads to Big Success!” To be really good at anything takes time, effort, determination, and, bottom-line – HARD WORK! There’s no such thing as “something for nothing” or “get rich quick”. Granted, some may fall in to lots of money or inherit millions, but for most successful entrepreneurs, it took strategy, planning, trial and error, (especially the error), and time to make things grow and progress.

One of the things I’ve recently thought and read about is localized marketing. What does this mean? Why local when there is a huge “World Wide Web”?

WWW stands for the World Wide Web. However, if we are looking to build an effective internet presence, starting at the local level can be a great idea. Keep your eyes open for on and offline marketing opportunities; begin practicing localized marketing as soon as you can. Using keywords like city names, states and other related phrases within the content, meta tags and anywhere you can on your site will very easily bring your marketing down to a localized level and improve your ranking overall. A marketing strategy like this will prove longevity and success with your eCommerce business.This is such an important factor for brick and mortar businesses that have an internet presence. As we all know, or should know, if you don’t have an internet presence, you probably are maximizing all revenue building capabilities. In such a large corporate world, it seems like there’s only a few companies that own everything – Can you say ‘monopoly’? The best news is that the internet has given us an edge on cost effective business marketing; now, if done correctly, internet marketing can help local businesses stay afloat and potentially expand and progress.

What are your thoughts? What examples have you seen of localized marketing? Here are some I’ve seen:

http://www.eplanit.biz/blog – SEO Blog | Utah Search Engine Optimization | SEO Tips | SEO Information

http://www.doorcountyreviews.com – Door County Reviews | Family Vacation Destination

http://www.fishingzoo.com – Surf & Maine Fishing | Fish Product Supply | Tackle | Information

More information will be coming so come back soon…

Wanted to make a quick post about UtahSEOPlanet.com – a new blog just for Utah Marketing based blogs.  Christer Edwards, a friend and colleague, is amazing and getting SMO’d by digg, delicious and other sites.  Check it out when you get a chance – you’ll find http://mollermarketing.com there.

I wanted to ask some questions, share some insites, and just vent about branding…

• What is branding?
• Where do I start?
• Why is branding so helpful? or Is it really that helpful?
• Is branding something you can track?
• Can you get an ROI on branding?
• Why do companies choose branding as a marketing strategy and tactic?
• Are there just long term effects of branding or can they be short term as well?

This is what en.wikipedia has to say about a brand:

“A brand is a collection of images and ideas representing an economic producer; more specifically, it refers to the concrete symbols such as a name, logo, slogan, and design scheme…A brand is therefore one of the most valuable elements in an advertising theme, as it demonstrates what the brand owner is able to offer in the marketplace…”

Branding is a key factor in business building.

Need I say more? Does anyone not know what this is? It’s extremely effective “branding”!

I’m reading a marketing book right now that talks about the importance of developing a marketing strategy before you create marketing tactics. This means that you need to know WHY you are doing what you plan to do before you start implementing specific marketing tactics. Creating a brand starts with a well thought out mission statement and/or vision. You must answer the question:

How is what I’m planning on doing going to help others?

If you are able to answer this question in two or three sentences and feel strongly about it, you have taken one of the first big steps in building a brand.

More to come…What are your thoughts?

I had a client ask about marketing with podcasts or video. I did some research and this is what I found – not new news, just some help.

1. Make the video quality stuff. If it’s not good, it’s probably not going to be worth the time invested.

2. Put the site name in the video. (Not all video farms allow links.)

Here are a few sites you can share your video with:

youtube.com
myspace.com
google.com
spikedhumor.com
revver.com (this one pays you)
metacafe.com (this one too, but I’m yet to make a dime on it)
stupidvideos.com

Here are a few websites to propagate your video:

digg.com
milkandcookies.com
reddit.com
stumbleupon.com

Do any of you have anything to add?

“If you are small and niche I don’t think it hurts to link out to competing sites or even to feature their brand or their owners as content. You can get exposure and work your way up the social ladder by siphoning off their brand value. But I think there is far more value in featuring them and recommending them than in having them mentioned in an ad. Interviewing people, for example, is an easy way to get great content and build mind share.” – Aaron Wall, www.seobook.com

Wow, this is an interesting, yet compelling strategy. As many of you know, one of my sites is www.clogon.com where I sell clogging shoes and taps. One of my competitors is Trevor Dewitt, owner of clogdancing.com. They don’t sell clogging shoes but are #2 for traffic in the clogging industry (right behind ClogOn.com!) It would be interesting to hear his reaction when I call and ask to feature him as a “Featured Fellow Clogger”. I’m sure it will get a great response and, like Aaron says, “…get exposure and work [my] way up the social ladder by siphoning off their brand value.”

What do you all think? Have you seen any results from this type of marketing?