Salesmen, All
by Jay Trachman

Thumbing through old newsletters for some inspiration, I came across an article in The Lund Letter which fascinated me because, while they were writing for sales people, the principles apply nicely to air personalities. It’s about “the four basics of persuasion” and here they are, with my comments on how I think they apply to us…

First, Expertise: When a perceived expert makes a claim, it is more believable, so bring in such a person or make a reference to one in your sales argument. Primarily, we’re experts on being ourselves. One would hope that this “self” would be someone who’s friendly, interesting, occasionally funny, caring and well-informed. But if you claim to be my friend on the radio, you’d better be convincing about it.

There are other areas where a reputation for expertise is useful: most important is, “What’s going on in our community.” Read the local activities section of your paper, and know who’s coming to town for a concert, what plays the local performing groups are putting on, where the new office building is going up and which side of the street gets which day for alternate parking or watering.

It’s nice to know a little bit about a lot of things: the music and artists, sure; but also local weather patterns, local traffic bottlenecks, current school problems. By making frequent reference to what’s going on in your listener’s world, you position yourself and the station as “experts on the community”; the ones to tune to when they want to know “what’s going on.”

Second, Liking: If you or a spokesperson you use is likable, the audience is more likely to buy or believe in your product or service. We establish our likeability by taking risks — revealing tidbits from our personal life when they’re interesting or funny. We show it in the way we treat other people on our show, like the newsperson, weather person, etc.; and contest phoners-in. If you’re always formal, you give the listener nothing to grab hold of and like. If you always follow the script, and nothing but the script, with callers, then you’re not a person anyone can become attached to, emotionally. Root for your callers; get involved with their feelings, whether success or failure. Be supportive — out loud — whenever you can, and never miss a chance to boost someone or something local, personally. That’s a very “likable” trait.

Third, Similarity: People tend to be favorably influenced by mirror images of themselves. At least. Let me risk just the slightest disagreement of what The Lund Letter said here and mention that they’re also influenced by those who are like their fantasy selves. We can’t all be George Clooney or Oprah Winfrey, but we can, in our dreams. We establish similarity with our listeners by sharing our feelings, and the little things in our lives that are universal. But we establish ourselves as people the listener would like to emulate, by sharing the events we’re involved in that make us — not egotists — but “larger than life.”

Fourth, Trustworthiness: Your station’s general reputation can be a highly valuable asset in sales to a client, or acceptance of the commercial message by the listener. As performers, much of our credibility is built on subtle signs. For instance, it’s okay to kid a co-host or even a caller — but always make sure your listener feels included in the joke. It’s one thing to do broad satire — “We’ve decided to move Christmas up to tomorrow, since all the stores are ready for it, anyway.” But when your humor is more subtle, there should be cues that say, “I’m only kidding.”

Another thing that affects your credibility is “emotional authenticity.” At the most basic level, if you always talk in the same “up and bright” tone, any listener who’s paying attention soon knows it’s an “act”; humans don’t behave like that. Occasionally, you’ve got to show your serious side, your tender side, your silly side.

You also have to treat the listener honestly. Let me tell you a little story: I was just a teenager, one weekend when I was listening to “Monitor,” the ancient weekend magazine series on the NBC net. The host was Gene Rayburn and he was introducing some feature, and billboarded it by saying something like, “And here’s a live report from” so & so. And then the voice began — and the tape jammed. To this day, that’s my memory of Rayburn. My only memory.

Jocking ain’t selling. Different approaches, different types of people, different motivations. And yet, on some very basic levels, there are parallels. Salesmen know that in order to succeed, they have to sell themselves as well as their product. There are an awful lot of similar products out there, so personal relationships often make the difference. Similarly, when there are several stations in the market playing more or less the same music, the relationship between the listener and the DJ will make the difference in listener loyalty.

How does that old adage go? “At KJT, we don’t think everyone’s in the sales department; we think the sales department is everyone!”

Jay Trachman is publisher of “One to One,” a weekly information and humor service for broadcasters. Jay can be reached at: phone (559) 448 0700, fax (559) 448 0761, e-mail at 121@att.net, or www.121online.net. Reprinted with permission. 

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