Last week Jim Lyke reflected on 16 years of selling out of home for Lamar Advertising.  Today he talks about the importance of staying personally involved with your clients.

Staying involved with clients is key

When I finished up at Lamar, the number of active customers I had was way more than I had years ago.  You’re juggling a lot more customers.  We were brought up to be consultative salespeople, then to service your customers and have them rely on you.  Having assistants to help you with some of the details was an option I had never had before and it was an adjustment in mindset. But staying involved personally is still key.  One of the things I told the rep who inherited my accounts was to make sure and personally take care of your customers.  Even though we have assistants to help, don’t offload everything after the sale.  You still need to be the go-to trusted resource.  You need to take care of them. One of the things that I continued to do to the end was every day when I got the POP photos, I always insisted that I personally send those with a note to the customers.  It was a simple thing that only took a couple of minutes and it was always appreciated. You should take advantage of every chance to have a touch with a customer.

In the last couple of years, it was very strange to have customers I never met in person.  All of it was done on email.  A lot of it was new advertisers inquiring because they wanted to do a hiring ad; they were HR people, not marketing people.  They didn’t want to meet with you.  “We need to get an ad up.  Let’s do it.”  It felt very strange to me not to ever meet them or even speak on the phone.  I never got used to it.

Managing clients with high touch

I didn’t really have a specific preference between clients that needed a lot of servicing and those that didn’t.  Both could be rewarding. I dealt with somebody who owned four fast food franchises in the same city.  They were very easy to work with.  I would meet with them once a year and we would lay out the campaign for the next year.  Here’s where your signs will be.  Here’s what the message will be.  Here are new options that we have.  Every time their board got rotated I’d make sure to send them the POPs.  90% of those emails got responded to.  “Hey thanks.  Appreciate it.”  I had other people I sent POPs to tell me “hey, my other reps don’t let me know anything.”

I worked with a small jeweler in Rockford.  It started as one board near his store and then expanded. He eventually referred me to his brother-in-law who owned a bunch of cell phone franchises in the city.  You sat down and you got to know them and know about their families and it became much more than a business proposition.  You become friends.  He and his brother in law always referred to me as “Mr. Jim.”  They never wanted to send their payment through the mail or by credit card, they always wanted me to pick it up.  They weren’t late pays, they just preferred if I stopped by and I wasn’t going to say no.  Any reason to have a touch with a client – especially when they request it – is worth doing.

Want to learn to sell out of home.  Buy The Ultimate OOH Sales Guide for $69.96 plus $5 shipping.  Order your copy by emailing info@billboardinsider.com.  To learn more visit The Ultimate OOH Sales Guide.

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