Lives of outdoor professionals is increasingly becoming difficult. Be it media seller or media specialist. With competition increasing every day, it is important for all the outdoor professionals to become as much competent and have competitive edge over the other.

This can be gained through learning and education on sales, marketing, advertising and most importantly on the outdoor medium. I am sure each company has its training and mentoring facilities, so I am not here to try those. But here’s some of the traits followed by unsuccessful outdoor professionals that would do world of good if not followed.

Bad habits inventory:

Service:
The most common reason for this is the feeling of working under pressure. The reason cited is: I am under too much pressure and can’t give as much time on the account as the client demands. And all that clients want us to be is slaves, but I have other clients to handle as well. Moreover my service is way too dependant on my colleagues and regional office support. What am I to do if they flounder? Look at our industry! Its unorganized and uncertain, it’s never possible to be perfect in deliverables.

Though we might be trying to rationalize our shoddy work but the fact is that clients wants something to remember, something to talk about and nothing to complain. Your service has been bought by your client to get good night’s sleep and not to keep him awake.

Preparation:
The client was looking for a campaign of 25 sites and my buyer worked out the best deal and I forwarded it to the client. Why do I need to research about the brand, market, target audience, etc? The client and the creative agency has spent a lot of money and time on this, they know better than what I can contribute. No, I didn’t probe the client as well, as I fear he will get annoyed. And what’s the point in probing, I know what’s the kind of site list would be prepared (as plan) irrespective.

Are you selling hoarding or are you supposed solve a problem or a need? Another common bad habit that needs to be addressed.

Depth of knowledge:
My job is to sell outdoor to my clients and ensure reasonable revenues earned. Why break my head in learning the nuances of marketing and advertising. I know there’s lot of information these days available on the internet, but I don’t have the time! My client doesn’t ask questions concerning these details nor is he/she interested to hear anything other than billboard size and location. Oh! And about the outdoor sites! Why do I need to know all the sites in the city? We have a team of buyers, and it’s their job!

In most such cases the client has more knowledge than you, not just on marketing and advertising but in outdoor. You are supposed to be a specialist and a consultant to the client. Do you think the client will entrust you with his outdoor budget of crores of Rupees?

Presentation:
Want to give a bad presentation? Here’s a recipe for that:

• Use busy background and blend the text to the background so that no one can read.
• Use various fonts and sizes in each slide.
• Use as many clip arts and animations.
• Put as much information in a slide as possible. Right paragraphs and then read them out.
• Just write the client’s brief in the initial slides followed by the list of outdoor sites. Who cares for research, logic and route to the plan?
• Don’t practice your presentation, just open up the slideshow and start reading.

A perfect recipe for client’s distress and your company’s disaster.

Communication skills:

Here’s another recipe to get your clients annoyed and disinterested in you and your offers.

• Talk as much as you can. Don’t give the client any chance to speak up.
• Be very curt when the client is friendly in nature or try and be very friendly when the client wants to be precise.
• Use lingos

Action and  promise:
High on promise and low on delivery. This is another professional breach that outdoor media professionals can be accused of. There are quite a few types in this category.

1. Big bullshitters, who thinks they are the greatest sales man. Selling something and delivering something else.
2. Cowards, are those who don’t have the guts to reveal the truth when things go wrong.
3. Loosers, are those who fear loosing a sale or a campaign and promise their clients the moons and the stars. God forbid if they become successful, they get promoted to perennial bullshitters.

The result: clients loosing their faith in the entire system. They look at all of us with a specs of disbelief. And such professionals are seeing hopping around from one agency or company to the other every year.

Yeah, I know these sound a bit trivial, but actually they’re very important. The bad habits are like holes in a inner tube.  If you don’t plug them up, you’ll end up pumping yourself all the time, just to keep yourself afloat!

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 8th, 2011 at 12:03 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.