Sleazy…or just stupid

The things our AE’s do sometimes really make me fear for our future.

So the questions is, could either of these have come from one of you AE’s?

Sometimes you think your sales team is pretty good, only to find out that one of them has done something really stupid. Last week I saw two powerful examples of stupid.

Stupid Example #1 – An AE from a TV station trashed the coverage of cable using a statistic. The buyer asked him for documentation of where he got the number. Here’s part of his written answer:

It comes from the marketing firm, Jim Doyle and Associates, who have done extensive research on TV, radio, and newspapers. It’s based on Nielsan research over the last 10 years. The networks ALWAYS dominate TV viewing. The 23% watching hundreds of cable channels makes it virtually impossible to attain reach in cable. That's why it's so cheap! You can buy it for $5 a pop, but you only reach the 9 people watching the History Channel.

There were only a few problems with that answer.

Problem #1 – Jim Doyle and Associates hasn’t done any research on that topic. And never will.
Problem #2 – The agency buyer was a friend of mine and a former member of our Achievers Circle, so she called me (bad news for the AE).
Problem #3 – The buyer used to sell cable. Can you see this AE slipping deeper into a hole?
Problem #4 – Oh yeah, he spelled Nielsen incorrectly.

We need to remind our AE’s of three things:
– Liars get caught and when you’re caught you’re toast.
– You should assume that anything you put in writing is seen by a competitor.
– You never, ever win by trashing a competitor, especially when the buyer loves that competitor.

In case you thought the above was an exception, here’s an actual email exchange between a large market AE and an agency. Tell me if you think this AE has any chance of getting this order?

Email from Rep:
Subject: On air schedule
Bob, looking for an update. Thanks, Joe AE

Agency response:
Subject: Re: On air schedule
Almost, Don. Will know which way I go next week...you're delivering good reach but you're
short on frequency when I compare what your competitor has sent me.

2nd Response from REP
Subject: Re: On air schedule
Thanks, as you know TV is a reach medium and the idea is to let the MOST people know about you and if they are hunters or thinking of going hunting then they are paying more attention to the ad, plus radio will help bring that frequency up cause (as you know) radio is a frequency medium.......Thanks and I hope we are able to do something. Joe AE

And the agency replies:
Subject: Re: On air schedule
Respectfully, I disagree. TV must do both or it does neither. In fact it should be able to outdeliver radio in both cases.

Final AE response…for today and maybe forever with this buyer:
Subject: Re: On air schedule
We agree to disagree..........or maybe we don't!! Have a nice day.

The AE got a simple price objection and totally ignored it. In fact, the rep basically tells the agency that he was stupid to even bring it up. I’m sure that went over well. This is a rep who is clearly more interested in winning than making a sale. And that is not smart. What frightens me is that I think this kind of thing goes on much more often than we managers think. Scary.