Are you interesting?

Last week, I had the privilege of participating in a leadership meeting with a broadcast company that epitomizes what radio can be. Live, local and community-minded people who are passionate about what they are doing. I'm always inspired when I attend a sales meeting. As an industry, we do great work and it's fun to hear it firsthand.

As we discussed the frustrations in the various markets, Jeff said: "We have lots of proposals out there, but we are waiting for clients to pull the trigger. It seems to be taking longer if they respond at all." Because I know Jeff well, I was able to provide some radical candor. If your proposals aren't generating the proper level of interest or urgency, then your proposals aren't interesting enough.

In his book Non-Manipulative Selling, Dr. Tony Alessandra likens a sales proposal to a marriage proposal. He says, "If you weren't reasonably certain they would say yes, then asking the question would be premature." The proposal should be the logical next step to making a solution to a problem come to life. If you have "lots of proposals out there" and clients aren't responding, you may not have identified the most pressing issue or clearly identified how your idea will solve the problem.

I love a quote from David Ogilvy, who has been called the father of advertising. Ogilvy says:

"You can't bore people into buying your product; you can only interest them in buying it."

So, as harsh as it sounds, if they aren't interested, we aren't interesting. More proposals aren't the answer — better proposals are. Better proposals start with a better job of uncovering the problems and pain points.

Recently, we released the all-new RAB Customer Needs Analysis System. You can find it here on RAB.com. There are brief instruction videos to explain the how and the why. There is also a PDF to download that should cover every possible scenario for gathering information from a client. Each page is designed to be "stand-alone." You would never go through all the pages in one meeting. The Customer Needs Analysis is no longer an event or a single meeting. It's a process that happens over several meetings.

ChatGPT was released less than a year ago, yet there are "cottage industries" popping up trying to sell you "prompts" and "prompt cheat sheets." These folks have figured out that ChatGPT is only as good as the prompts you give it. To steal an adage, "garbage in, garbage out."

If your proposals aren't interesting or getting immediate and passionate responses from your clients, you are likely not addressing their most important issue or the one that causes them the most pain. That doesn't mean using color, pictures and some fancy font to make your proposals more interesting. It means the inputs or prompts may be off. The Customer Needs Analysis process provides valuable information for creating interesting, insightful and impacting proposals.

If your proposals aren't "wooing" your clients (marriage proposal analogy), it might be time to get to know them better. The better you know them, the better you can create plans to help them. We'd love your feedback on the all-new RAB Customer Needs Analysis System. Check it out and drop me a note at Jeff.Schmidt@rab.com.

Jeff Schmidt is the SVP of Professional Development. You can reach him at Jeff.Schmidt@rab.com. You can all so connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.