Time to share the thoughts of many business owners: Salespeople are annoying.  And unfortunately in my business of media, marketing and advertising, it’s not much better.

I never wanted to sell advertising, but I do.  I take a reverse approach. I help people buy.  There is a difference. Let me explain.

I ended up on an email mailing list from a person that sells advertising in a business publication.  A couple times a month I get an email from her with some offer or promotion that her bosses told her to sell.  The email opening is always the same: Dear Decision Maker, blah blah blah… She sends this email to everyone at once.  This is considered spam in the email world.  It’s just annoying to most recipients.  But it’s easy to delete too.

Another example.  I am helping a friend with their marketing plan. She and her husband were high school classmates of mine 40 years ago and we started talking this summer about how she didn’t have a marketing plan and that’s not her background, (she was a C.P.A.) but making decisions on advertising is her job because she pays the bills.  Because of my role as her marketing adviser, I went with her to a meeting at a local tv station that wanted to invite businesses to check out their “geo-fencing digital advertising options”.

She asked the salesperson who invited her if she could bring me as her marketing adviser and with a little reluctance, I was invited.

The day arrived and for nearly two hours we were in a conference room with one other potential TV client and 5 people from the TV station.  The first hour was all about the history of the TV station and their parent company and how big their signal is and on and on and on and on about how great they are.  We watch a short video and sat politely as they read from a power point.  We also heard plenty of insider jokes about living in rural Indiana along with one guys story about his daughter’s college basketball career cut short by….. stop. please stop I was thinking.  driving

At the end in was after 5pm, my friend mentioned she needed to be at a meeting at 5:30 and so the salesperson who invited us had to rush through a binder of information about a package that they were pushing connected to all of this.  The price was way too much for my friend to consider spending right now and when I heard there was a deadline of next Friday to sign up, that was the final red flag.

The details of the TV package where bad, but what I really found bad was the whole method that had for selling.   Like I said earlier it was backwards.  Instead of learning about my friends business and trying to determine how they could help my friends business grow, the TV people were more interested in selling their own stuff so their TV advertising business would grow.

I have worked for organizations like this TV station, that pushed packages with false deadlines and the focus is on selling.  It’s not fun.  It’s why I don’t work for those organizations anymore.

My focus is to help business owners and managers make wise decisions with their marketing and advertising.  I will recommend advertising options that they can buy from me when it fits, and I will recommend advertising options that they can buy from others too when it fits.  I’m all about their success in selling their goods and services, not mine.

There are about 100 or more people in the Fort Wayne area that want to sell you advertising.  I would rather help you buy advertising and marketing services that fit your business goals.

I work with WOWO Radio, Federated Entertainment, Federated Digital Solutions, under the Federated Media umbrella.  I was on the American Advertising Board of Directors locally for 7 years.  I know people at most of the advertising venues and agencies in the area.  I can and will help connect you with the ones that can help you.  But beyond that connectedness, I want to help you create a marketing strategy based on what your business needs, not on what people want to sell you.

See the difference?