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Do it Yourself continued
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Ordering advertising time from local television, radio and newspaper representatives isn't entirely a complicated process. Each station, group or print publication will send their nicely suited up sales personnel out to become acquainted with you. The best of the lot will ask you about your business goals, what you've done in the past and even empathize with you on market conditions and your competition. Most of these sales people will begin the process of building a relationship with you by getting to know your likes, dislikes, if you golf, drink wine, have a Miniature Schnauzer and more. These sales people will also likely start to do business with you to earn your business in return. As nice as these people can be, many will begin to bring you freebies to gain your indebtedness so that when and if you have money to spend on advertising on their particular media (radio, TV or print) you'll pick their company. Buying from these people may get you more time on the golf course for free, or more free meals. But, will this purchase gain you more dollars on your bottom line? Which will inevitably get you toward your ultimate goal, which for EVERYONE is to retire as early as possible, with as much money as possible.
Meaning that you sold a lot of product, or sold your business entirely for a huge profit, or that you are simply able to hire a really good and trustworthy manager to be on site at your place of business while you are able to afford to golf, travel or spend time with your family, on your terms not with some sales person tagging along.
I'm not saying that you should not accept free gifts from sales people, I'm just cautioning that if you accept their free gifts, make sure it's for the right reason on both sides of the table.
Our advertising agency appreciates the sales people whom we work with here locally as well as out of town. However, we don't spend our client's money based on who took us to lunch most recently or offered us free golf or concert tickets. When we get these free perks from them, we pass them along to our clients who then don't have to feel in debt with the media.
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