Resources and Links
Before You Start
Thank you for joining The Todd Huff Show team as an Appointment Setter! This is a very important position because setting appointments with prospective advertisers quite literally is the only thing that separates us from being on nearly 100 radio stations in the US! We're looking forward to growing alongside you!
Day 1
It may be a good idea to listen to our show a little and get acquainted with our content. It may be very helpful to you in setting appointments. So here are some places you can listen
Day 2
Any time we start something new, there's always a 4-step process we have to go through. I like to summarize the steps as follows:
We don't know what we don't know.
We know what we don't know.
We don't know what we know.
We know what we know.
And it's my job to get you to Step #4 as quickly as possible. So, in order to do that, the best thing you can do today is focus exclusively on making phone calls. We've reviewed the script. You know the purpose of the call is to sell the appointment. And you know that you do that by transferring your feeling and belief to the prospect. More information isn't what you need right now. You need experience. You need real life opportunities. And so that's what we're going to do today: focus on making calls and setting appointments. There won't be any other official training today.
A couple of things to remember.
It's ok to take breaks. In fact, it's necessary. So be sure to work a few of those in.
Making more calls isn't the only thing that matters in this process, but it is a big part of the process - especially as you're starting. So focus on making as many calls as possible today.
Rejection is part of the process. We'll talk about this later in the week, but rejection is part of the process. Do not take it personally. If you do, it's going to be hard to succeed. People aren't rejected you. They're rejecting the opportunity or the show or the timing or whatever. Most of those saying "no" are doing so for other reasons, like they don't have a budget or they are preoccupied or whatever.
The more calls you make, the more people you can talk to. The more people you talk to, the more you can ask for an appointment. The more you ask for an appointment, the more will say "yes." The more who sit for an appointment and hear a pitch, the more can say "yes" to the opportunity to buy. The more who buy, the more success and income we make.
Let's get after it today! Commit to making as many dials as you can today and fill the sales funnel!
Day 3
Rejection Is Part Of The Selling Process. Do not take it personally.
You can get better.
Getting a lot of 'nos' is necessary to get 'yesses.'
Think of each 'no' as 1/5th of a 'yes,' for example.
Day 4
On today's training, Todd gives some advice on ways to set more appointments.
Here is a quick summary of some of the things he discusses:
Listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website. (And while you're there, it would be greatly appreciated if you gave the show a rating/review. This will certainly help you as you try to set more appointments.)
Believe in what we're doing and transfer that feeling to the prospect.
Understand the power of the talk radio/podcast medium and the relationship that is formed if Todd does his job well.
Scaling "word-of-mouth" advertising
Minimize how serious an appointment sounds.
Remind them there is no risk or obligation.
Remember that we have limited availability.
Tell them we just want to learn a little bit more about their business and share the opportunity. If it's a fit, great! If it's not, we can still be friends!
If someone wants to advertise, we can almost certainly have a solution that is within their budget.
If our listening demographic is who the prospect serves, don't they owe it to themselves to hear how we can help so that they could make an informed decision about whether it makes sense for them?
A sizable chunk of our prospects will love the content and mission of our show - even to the point that they will be cheering for our success. Don't be afraid to ask them, "If all things are equal, wouldn't you rather have an advertising partnership with a company who shares your values over one who has disdain for them?
Day 5
When you joined our sales team, we didn't just establish expectations for you. We established expectations for our company, too. And by now, I hope you know that we are very serious about doing everything in our power to help you succeed as a Sales Representative.
This is why we have developed this video training system. And it's why we hold daily Sales Huddles.
Today, we're going to talk about the third leg in the onboarding process stool: 1-on-1 meetings.
Our 1-on-1 meetings are private, 30-minute sessions designed to help provide you with feedback and direction so that you can achieve the goals you have shared with us - and so that we can achieve the sales we need to grow the reach of The Todd Huff Show. In order to prepare for the meeting, you should have completed all of the daily requirements we have asked you to complete. You should also have your reports ready and up-to-date. In addition, you should come prepared to ask any questions you may have.
During the 1-on-1 meeting, we will review your personal goals, your Sales Activity Calculator, and your weekly reports. The purpose is to help keep you on-track for reaching your goals and to help ensure company sales increase. We will provide coaching and feedback during these meetings, too.
The more prepared you are for these meetings, the more you will get out of them. And the more you get out of them, the shorter the road to success.
You should have scheduled the 1-on-1 earlier this week, but if you didn't, please let your manager know right away. Again, these will begin next week and will be recurring at the same time each subsequent week. Regardless of when you schedule, we will only be reviewing reports and data from the previous completed week.
Looking forward to it!
Day 6
Welcome to Week #2 of our training/onboarding program. As you know, last week our focus was on Setting the Appointment.
This week, we're going to focus our training on the next phase in the selling process: Making the Pitch.
For our purposes, a pitch is when we go through a presentation with a prosepctive advertiser and provide them with information that would give them the opportunity to become an advertiser with us.
Each pitch is broken into 5 phases, which we outline below.
Genuinely learn about the person and the company
Probe about advertising
Make the pitch
Ask them to join us
Get the follow-up on the calendar (if necessary)
In today's video, we go through the 5 phases of a successful sales pitch in detail. Be sure to watch it and take notes because at the end of the week, you'll be creating your own pitch to share with me!
Day 7
Much like the pitch you watched yesterday with Paul Crouse, this pitch was the result of a cold email. This was the first time I had spoken with Matt.
Shortly after this pitch, Matt decided to invest a little over $5,000 in an ad campaign with us. I broke it into 3 equal payments that he paid over 3 months.
After watching this pitch, please take a little time to record your observations. Be sure to watch closely and analyze what happened in this pitch so that you can become excellent at doing them yourself. Remember: I'm not looking for people just to get as good as I've been. We want to help you become better because this will be your only focus - and we want to help others on the team learn from you, too.
And don't forget: at the end of the week, you're going to be practicing your own pitch with us!
Day 8
We reached out to Jason Pelcha through cold calls and cold emails. I believe he ultimately set an appointment through a cold email, though.
I believe I had spoken briefly with Jason on the phone prior to this pitch. But this was our first meeting of any real substance to be sure.
I had to follow-up mutliple times with Jason after this pitch. In fact, he was on my list for one final call when he decided to pick up and pull the trigger with us!
After watching this pitch, please take a little time to record your observations. Be sure to watch closely and analyze what happened in this pitch so that you can become excellent at doing them yourself. Remember: I'm not looking for people just to get as good as I've been. We want to help you become better because this will be your only focus - and we want to help others on the team learn from you, too.
And don't forget: on Friday you're going to be practicing your own pitch with us!
Day 9
I connected with Christopher through through cold emails. (By the way, I know that cold emails were used as the primary outreach tool for many of the pitch videos you've watched this week. However, that is only because we weren't doing many cold calls during the time I was recording this set of pitch videos.)
Chris is a podcast advertiser. He is located in Fort Collins, Colorado, and he serves several states in that region. He isn't a prospect for radio (yet) because of where our current radio station markets are located.
I wanted to include a podcast advertiser so that you could see how this process works. It's, of course, very similar to the radio pitch. However, podcast ads are sold per thousand impressions.
While our podcast is in the top 5% of all podcasts in the world today (and we have listeners in all 50 states + DC, plus dozens of other countries), it may be difficult to get large quantities of ad impressions in certain regions/markets. That is why our basic podcast package includes a listing on our website and up to 1,000 impressions per month. (Technically, we are giving them up to 12,000 impressions per year so that we would have time to get to the target number of impressions. I will do everything I can to hit these targets, but the prospect needs to understand that it is "up to" a certain number of impressions, too.)
After watching this pitch, please take a little time to record your observations. Be sure to watch closely and analyze what happened in this pitch so that you can become excellent at doing them yourself. Remember: I'm not looking for people just to get as good as I've been. We want to help you become better because this will be your only focus - and we want to help others on the team learn from you, too.
And don't forget: TOMORROW you're going to be practicing your own pitch with us!
Day 10
This week, we shared our 5-part pitch roadmap with you. Then you watched 5 sales pitches we conducted with other prospects.
Now it's your turn!
What I'd like you to do now is record your own pitch on Google Meet. Obviously, you cannot do the entire portion of the pitch alone. So I only want you to focus on the 3rd and 4th part of the pitch roadmap.
Those parts are as follows:
Share our story.
Give prospects an opportunity to partner with us.
So here is what we'd like you to do:
Go to your Google account (toddhuffshow.com email).
Select Google Meet.
Start a meeting by yourself.
Click "record this meeting."
Pretend that you are presenting to a prospect who has just shared a little about their business (part 1) and a little about their exprience with and thoughts about advertising (part 2).
Practice part 3 of the process (sharing our story) and part 4 (giving them the opportunity to join us through a presentation of possible packages).
After completing this step, please email a link of the video to your manager and post your video on our Circle Community (Sales Team Forum). Be prepared to talk about this at our next weekly 1-on-1 coaching session.
Please take a moment to watch at least 1 other Sales Representative's video on Circle and provide some helpful feedback. (Let's make sure that each Sales Representative gets feedback from at least 1 other rep.)
Day 11
When we close a sale, we really need to think about 2 things. First, we need to think about getting the prospect to agree to become an advertiser. We'll spend most of our time this week going through that process and talking about tips, techniques, and stories that should help you overcome objections and close the sale.
Second, we need to learn the steps we need to take to close out a sale and move a client into the production process. That is what we're going to focus on today. This video is designed to help lay that process out for you.
We will review how to complete the advertising agreement for the client. Your manager will walk you through this process the first time or two, but you will eventually need to learn these steps.
You'll need the following links to complete this process:
Docusign (you'll be given a login once you're ready to do it on your own)
Advertiser Agreement Details (this Google Document will help you fill-in the agreement)
Day 12
Objections are part of the selling process. And they have to be seen for what they are: opportunities to persuade a prospect to partner with us as an advertiser. Getting objections is a good thing. In fact, an objection means that the prospect is continuing to engage with you. It's actually when they don't engage, ask questions, and voice objections that we should be concerned. Today's video focuses on one specific objection we get on occasion: we've tried radio before and it didn't work.
Watch the video above and take note of some of the ways that you can better overcome sales objections from your prospects.
Happy hunting!