Business : Sales & Marketing : We Don't Need Higher Rates, we ...

Let's ask the question, do we want higher rates or more total revenue? Think about it ? I can get good rates but still lose money or not make quota. Treating rates as a separate subject doesn?t work. Imagine an airline with lots of empty seats that raises prices. Imagine a poorly performing baseball team raising prices on stadium seats.

Now understand that's what we're doing when we're asking for a big rate with no additional element and we're at less than 80% sellout.

There's are two ways to come at it: Product and Sales

Product
The irony is that the same companies who are shouting about higher rates are the companies removing value from the product. Let's create a scenario. Can you imagine . . .

• Two ad agency account execs having coffee saying, "Hey did you hear what they did on Q-102 this morning?"? Or,
• A parent dropping children off at daycare, saying to another, "I absolutely love Ben & Jerry in the morning on K-97.
• Do you know many media buyers who actually listen to a radio station - over-the-air?

Hello - reality time. That ain't happenin' like it used to. Hundreds of those morning shows and personalities are gone. In the financial world they're known as "Soft ROI" so they got cut; and chances are slim that the medium will return to the exciting days of yore - when you could find real entertainment and local talk - and even weather.

OK, if that can't happen, what do we need?
We need a set of cojones. How come we're not calling on CostCo, Wal-Mart, Steinmart, Kohl?s?? Locally! Not showing them reach, frequency, CPP blah, blah, blah, but rather? a whopper of a multi-media presentation with great creative. When the idea is good, they care less about rate.

Right now we consider getting 50% of a six-week flight as ginourmous? success. Hey, that's Media Chump Change. We need to crank up some big products with a big presentation with a BIG idea and call on the biggest businesses in our core success categories. Then we need to either decrease inventory or add more salespeople making far more ask presentations.

The reality: We don't determine rates, the market does.

• The market will tell us what they think we're worth. My drug of choice is a Dairy Queen Heath Bar Blizzard. DQ has the right to price it anywhere they please.
• Let's say they price it at $1,000. I'm sure nobody would buy it
• What about $500? $50?
• Maybe somewhere around $8-9 somebody would buy one.

Only when they get down to a level that the public perceives to be fair ($2.50) they'll go flying out the door.

Southwest Airlines recently looked forward and saw they had a substantial amount of unsold seats. When they announced an online sale, with rates ranging from 10-40% lower than usual, the demand was such that their servers couldn't handle the traffic; the software went berserk making national headlines. They decreased inventory and can now ask for higher rates.
?
Sell the station out
Sell the station out at whatever rate you can - that's the REAL rate - not the fairy tale rate in our minds. If I want $100 bucks a spot and get it - and I'm only 50% sold - my REAL rate is $50 bucks.

Raise rates when you find out what you?re really worth. You can increase demand by:

• Adding attractive, desirable product,
• Adding salespeople creating demand on the inventory,
• Make large-budget presentations to large budget advertisers, and
• Make more of them.

We need to earn the right to raise rates.?

Source: http://www.radio-info.com/business/sales-marketing/we-dont-need-higher-rates-we-need

old school nick swisher jaco san jose sharks humber perfect game ufc 145 fight card ufc145