Media Sales need to think like Media Agencies

Media sales need to rethink how they deal with agencies if they want to differentiate themselves from the pack. As salesmen they are taught to be always be closing; you need to sell your assets to your clients at the best price possible. Throughout this natural order of procession the client's business objectives and goals are not always considered.

And agencies have been hip to this order of business for sometime now. But they make it work because it is the norm in the industry; everybody is doing it. Very few sales people are really bucking the norm and providing exceptional service to their agency partners. The ones that do belong to smaller companies that are nimble, innovative and flexible. The big boys argue they are too big and it's not possible to operate like those smaller companies.

But the change is simple enough that any media sales company can do it. The idea is to simply think and act like an agency.

This means that media sales companies should create a Strategy Team that takes a client's RFP and create a strategy using the media property to accomplish the client's business goals/objectives. That means putting together a presentation that shows the client's request, the objectives, the challenges, the media property ideas/executions, why it works and accountability metrics to show success. To be strategic in how all the media properties working together to accomplish the client's goal.

That is simply it.

But many sales people have never worked at an agency and do not understand this way of thinking. And they will find excuses why it will never work. Plus, sales company are not structured to operate this way because of the bureaucracy that exists.

The thought is not groundbreaking but it is different. Their is a right of passage and existence for sales people that they cherish. But if sales people can start to think and argue like agency people then product and service will improve and everybody will win!