Ad Workshop Provides Useful Training

As many of you already know, the MDDC Press Service provides free Beginning Advertising Sales Workshops for member newspapers several times a year.

Our last workshop was held July 11 at the Star Democrat in Easton, MD. We had space for 20 attendees, which filled quickly.

These workshops give us the opportunity to share ideas and advice with newly hired advertising representatives on matters for which they may not have had extensive training. Topics covered include selling to different personalities types, prospecting and cold calling techniques, along with selling against other media.

One area of discussion at the Easton session included handling the objections of a client. When clients raise objections they are telling you they don’t have enough information to make a decision right away. Use the three R’s to answer these concerns.

· Repeat the objection back to the client. Example: "I can understand why you may be concerned that your customers don’t read The Main Street News." By doing this you are letting the client know you were actually listening to concerns they have.

· Do your Research. Example: "I can understand why you may be concerned that your customers don’t read The Main Street News. That is why we do detailed studies and research to make sure we know who our readers are, and you will be glad to know that 65% of our readers fit your customer’s profile."

· Resolve the problem. Share some success stories of other advertisers with your client. Let the client know that your goal is to make sure all of your clients have the same type of advertising success.

Benefits of these workshops to advertising reps include the opportunity to learn new selling skills and to brainstorm about some of their "real life" selling challenges with others. Our next Beginning Advertising Workshop will be held in October. Please keep an eye out for information being mailed out to member newspapers in September.