The "Helpful" TV Salesperson

Characteristics of the kind of salesperson you hope to have assigned to your account:

1. What I would call a "helpful" salesperson asks a lot of questions about your business. She listens more than she talks.

2. She tries to imagine herself as your prospect and talks about how she would react to your proposed commercial if she saw it on TV.

3. If she thinks your offer is not likely to work, she tells you that, tells you why not and how it might be improved.

4. She has actual ideas about how to put a commercial together. She may even be able to write one.

5. She doesn't automatically agree with you about everything. If she thinks you're wrong, she tells you.

6. If her station doesn't have any programming that she thinks can possibly work for your offer, she may even suggest another form of advertising or even another station.

7. She encourages you to test your commercial with a small amount of budget before spending more money running it.

8. She doesn't try to sell you by reciting a list of reasons why your commercial will definitely work. Instead, she talks about other businesses similar to yours that have advertised on her station and explains what they did or did not do to achieve success. In other words, she helps you to benefit from her experience.

9. She tries to get you on the air at the lowest rate she can get past her management. (Unfortunately, this is exactly what she will tell you she is doing, even if she's not.) She takes a long-range view and tries to get you the lowest rate that she thinks will not get bumped out by other advertisers paying higher rates and that her management will approve. The helpful salesperson knows that if you get the lowest possible rate you are more likely to succeed and that if you succeed you will stay on the air. So while she represents her station to you, she also represents you back to her station, selling her management on why you should get a low rate and any other perks she can get for you.

Unfortunately, they're not all helpful: The "unhelpful" TV salesperson.