by Scott Howard | Feb 28, 2018 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Really? The Personal ScLoHo, ScLoHo Sales Tips, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, Uncategorized
I bought a car this month and thought I’d share some lessons for you and your business in this essay I’m calling Selling a Salesperson.
While I am keenly aware of the process because of my profession, the general public is more aware of the tactics too than ever before. Here’s the list of 9 observations I wrote right after buying my car:
- Customers may be smarter or better informed than you.
- Over reliance on certain sales phrases can actually work against you.
- Ask the right questions and pay attention to the answers.
- Using your customers name is nice, except when you get it wrong.
- Upselling works with some people but you have to be straight with your customer.
- Customers can walk away if they don’t like the deal you are offering.
- Tracking your advertising is usually a guessing game at best.
- Honesty wins and builds trust.
- Follow through helps with referrals and additional sales.
As I share my story, see how it applies to you and your business and what lessons you can apply to make things better for all.
My wife, Kathy, was driving home from a friends house and noticed the temperature gauge on her 1999 Chevy Lumina was sneaking into the danger zone so she pulled over and let it cool down before heading all the way back to our place. She took it to our mechanic who popped open the hood, opened a few things and pronounced the verdict: blown head-gasket.
(Kathy found this car a few years ago as a steal. Only 30,000 miles and in decent shape. Since then she has racked up another 20,000 miles and we’ve had to replace a couple tires, but she loves this classic beast.)
When I heard about the situation, I knew we were not going to spend a thousand bucks or more on this no matter how much attachment my wife had to her baby. I followed the advice of a friend to try a special sealant and when that failed, I started shopping.
I started the process online, doing research and asking the auto experts in my family that I trust for recommendations. On Friday night, while I’m at a hockey game, they are sending me links to cars they found online in my price range that were recommended. Saturday I narrowed it down from 10 to 2 cars and then Sunday, when the car dealers were closed, I visited and checked the two contenders out in person.
By this time, we decided that I was going to get a new (used) car and my wife was going to reluctantly inherit mine. Not that she didn’t want my car, but she LOVED hers and it was hard to consider saying goodbye to her baby.
Sunday night, I decided which car I was going to buy. It was because of who I was buying from more than anything else. A Toyota Prius from a used car dealer or a Honda Fit from the Honda Dealer, and I decided the Honda Fit would likely be my next ScLoHoMobile. After doing my online research, it was my gut that told me to check out the Fit and I sent the dealer a note that I was interested using the online form on their website.
Monday morning, I got a phone call from Ross, one of the sales guys at Don Ayres Honda to set up a test drive for 12:30. Remember point 1: Customers may be smarter or better informed than you.
When I arrived at the dealership, I knew who I was looking for because I looked on the Don Ayres website and saw a picture of Ross. I surprised him when I arrived and simply said, “Hi Ross, I’m Scott Howard.” It caught him off guard because we had never met in person before, but I did my research.
Your potential customers are also doing their research and may know more than you realize
In my case, I was better informed than Ross on this vehicle. I spent a few hours researching not just this model but also this particular car using the free Carfax that was in the online listing. When we got in for the test drive, Ross told me he didn’t know how to drive a manual transmission which was not problem for me, I did.
When I walked in and told started my conversation with Ross, before the test drive, I told him I was planning on buying the Honda Fit if the test drive checked out and the deal was good. I knew what options I had with payments so I was 95% sold before Ross saw me.
Before the test drive, Ross asked me numerous routine questions that would be used to start the finance process and I started noticing point #2: Over reliance on certain sales phrases can actually work against you. No matter what I said, he responded with, “Great!”, “Fantastic!”, or some other positive affirmation. Some of my answers were certainly not worthy of a “Fantastic!” like when I told him I’ve lived in my current house for nearly 4 years. I almost tossed in a comment like, “my Dad died”, just to see if I’d get a “Great!” but I controlled my tongue.
Which brings me to point #3: Ask the right questions and pay attention to the answers. Ross was not paying attention to the answers I was giving him. At one point in our conversation he asked me if I wanted to look at any other cars, I told him, “no, I’m hear to buy the Honda Fit.” A few minutes later he offered to show me some other cars and again I reminded him, “I’m here to buy the Honda Fit.”
Point #4: Using your customers name is nice, except when you get it wrong. My name is Scott, yet I counted at least 3 times that he called me Steve in our interaction. When I looked over the paperwork, I double checked that it said Scott Howard and not Steve Howard. I’ve been guilty of this every once in awhile myself but I am much better because I decided to overcome this kind of mistake.
Finally it was time for me to talk with Taylor in Finance. I had a few minutes between the time I was first introduced to her and when we went to her office to work out the final details so I Googled her from my smartphone and found her LinkedIn profile. From that I learned that this was her first job in automotive and she had been there less than a year. I knew where she went to college and that she had worked in a coffee shop awhile ago. In my conversation with her, as she was trying to get me to buy stuff I didn’t want to buy, I sprinkled some of the information I learned into our talk, not in a creepy way, but just enough to throw off her pacing of her sales pitch.
This part of the car buying process is not my favorite but I’ve made it a game. Taylor was there to seal the deal and get as much money from me as possible. Those Finance people are also sales people, sometimes better than the salesperson on the floor. Which brings me to our next point: Upselling works with some people but you have to be straight with your customer.
Because I was buying a used car that was out of warranty, they offered me three additional warranty options. Each time I declined. Why? I did the math and I knew my own risk tolerance. The first option would add $100 to my monthly payment for the life of my loan. That would mean paying about $5,000 extra. I knew that if I needed a repair for my Honda Fit that cost anywhere up to $5000, I had the means to pay for it myself. The other options she offered were not anything I wanted either.
Under most circumstances, customers have an alternative to spending money with you.
Remember I was 95% sold on buying the Honda Fit from Don Ayres Honda, before I talked to Ross or Taylor. It was their deal to lose. Because, point #6: Customers can walk away if they don’t like the deal you are offering.
In the end, I bought the car and Taylor asked me to tell her how I decided to shop at Don Ayres that day by using a tracking sheet, On a sheet of paper where various advertising and marketing options and I was asked to circle the one that fit. I circled the Cars.com logo and no further questions were asked. Point #7: Tracking your advertising is usually a guessing game at best.
Cars.com is not why I bought the car from Don Ayres. It just happened to be the website that first introduced me to the car along with several others. And it really wasn’t the website, it was my son-in-law who sent me a link to the car and also recommended both the car and dealership to me. Cars.com didn’t deserve credit for that sale. But when I was given the choices on the sheet of paper, my son-in law was not listed as one of the choices.
If you want to track the effectiveness of your advertising and marketing, you need to ask the right questions otherwise you are bound to get inaccurate answers.
Point #8: Honesty wins and builds trust. I may be coming off a little harsh as you read this, but overall I really like Don Ayres Honda and here’s a couple reasons why. Ross told me at the beginning of our conversation that he is not a car guy. Not that he doesn’t like cars, but he is more like me, someone who doesn’t know all the ins and outs of what’s under the hood and I really don’t care, except for my car. My expectations are that everything works and that leads me to what happened after the sale was complete…
I noticed when Ross and I were talking that there was only one key, so I asked for them to provide me with a second key as part of the deal. No problem. That night however I noticed two additional items that were not discovered during the test drive. The interior dome light was not working and the heater blower only worked on high speed. I wrote an email to Ross and mentioned that I was sure that these couple of items were probably overlooked by the service department when they prepped the car for sale, and I asked them if they would fix the light and heater.
Ross introduced me to one of Don Ayres Service Advisors, Pete, and got permission from Carlo, the Used Car Manager to get those items taken care of at no charge. Pete gave me his business card that included his cell number and told me that he would let me know when the parts would be in and we booked an appointment to get everything taken care of.
Which brings me to our final point: Follow through helps with referrals and additional sales.
The day I came in to get the repairs made on my new Honda Fit, Pete told me that Ross is no longer working for Don Ayres, but if there was anything I needed, to please contact him (Pete). There was a slight hiccup in the repair paperwork that Pete took care of and I have written positive reviews online and shared with friends and family my experience and recommendation for Don Ayres Honda. As you can tell, everything was not perfect and smooth sailing but that was okay.
What matters most is how you take care of those customers and potential customers along the way.
I learned somethings about the way I conduct myself in business, what lessons can you apply to you and your business?
by Scott Howard | Oct 24, 2017 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
For most people who see, hear, or read your advertising, The Answer is No.
And that is okay.
Today we are going to talk about realistic expectations when it comes to advertising and marketing. Some of the people who sell advertising are not going to like what I am about to share, but that is okay too.
By the way, this article was inspired by a conversation I had with my friend Dennis last week and also by an article by Seth Godin, where he talks about why negative reviews are sometimes okay.
Often advertising sales people will tell you about how many people will see or hear your advertisement, which may have an element of truth to it, but you need to understand what that number represents and what it really means in relationship to your business.
First some numbers:
Those people in the outdoor advertising business that sell billboard signs that you see along the side of the road usually use the estimated traffic count of how many vehicles drive by that section of road per day. They then do some math and multiply that number of vehicles by 1.5 passengers and tell you that your ad will be seen by all these thousands of people.
Television stations, radio stations, they both get ratings numbers from an outside company that estimates how many listeners or viewers a station has. Again, there are hundreds, even thousands of people that are watching or listening, right?
Some media and advertising companies use a different kind of method, like the phone book companies would say that they reach the entire population of your city. These days we know from our own behavior, that the percentage of people who take that phone book and immediately toss it in the trash grows every year.
Digital advertising has some track-ability to it but it’s a flawed system too.
But I’m not here to discourage you from advertising, so I better return to the topic, the headline of this piece which is The Answer is No.
What in the world am I talking about?
I’ll tell you.
For the majority of the people that your advertising message is exposed to, the answer right then and there is no. They are not going to buy your stuff at that moment. Just because I see or hear an advertisement or marketing message for you and your company, I am not going to immediately react and spend money with you right then and there.
And that’s okay.
Your business is not capable of handling all the potential customers that your advertising reaches at the moment your advertising message is seen or heard.
Can your restaurant handle 30,000 customers at lunch today?
Can your auto repair shop take care of 100 new customers tomorrow?
If everyone that sees or hears your advertising this week wanted to become your customer would that be a blessing or a nightmare?
Fortunately only a fraction of the people will become your customer at any given time.
Each have their own reason too.
I went thru this exercise with my friend Dennis who owns a service business. Dennis has a goal of how many customers he wants to add to his business this year and he’s a little short. And he also has a couple of slow months coming up where his main goal is to stay in business. He’s pretty smart about it and knows the up and down months so he plans for them. That’s part of his success.
I presented him with an idea using my radio station, WOWO radio in Fort Wayne, Indiana, that can help him fill up the rest of his year and also transform those slow months into busier months. I wrote three words on a paper and asked him where he was right now with my idea.
Those words were:
Yes
Maybe
No
Yes meant we would take the next step to implement my idea.
Maybe meant there were still questions and things to consider.
No meant no way.
Then I added a few letters to the word no on the paper and changed the No to
Not Yet
That’s where Dennis really is right now.
There are a couple of items that need to be taken care of first, like adding to his team and training his new employees. Then we will look at the timing and see if my idea can be implemented.
Consumers go through this all the time.
Just because someone who sees or hears your ad doesn’t say Yes right now, you might think they are saying No.
Some of them are really saying Maybe or Not Yet.
And that’s okay.
The reason you need to advertise long term or more than once is to continue to reach those who are saying Maybe, and Not Yet, because they will often say Yes one day.
Want help with your marketing plans and advertising? Let’s connect.
by Scott Howard | Oct 3, 2017 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
Measuring Return On Investment Is Fake Science. At least the way some people try and convince you that it’s measurable. Or I could say Measuring Return On Investment of your advertising is problematic. Here’s why and what’s really important.
When I talk to business owners and managers about advertising options, they want to feel good about the money they are going to spend.
Did you see that?
They want to feel good.
They want to feel smart, confident, happy and wise.
Often times this feeling comes from examining facts and figures and from calculating the Return On Investment they will get from spending (investing) in advertising.
This is such an imperfect science that we should eliminate it all together but like I said, people want to feel good when they are going to spend money.
I was talking with a friend recently and we came up with a return on investment that looks like this:
For every $3000 he spends, he needs 3 sales to break even and the 4th sale produces a profit. This is based on 3 years of being in business and the knowledge that he has of his average sale, expenses and those operating numbers.
Great information, I wish more business owners knew this.
What we don’t know is how to accurately track the Return On Investment of each individual advertising and marketing message.
Here’s why: His truck is logoed up and has his contact info. When he is driving down the road or sitting in traffic, his truck is planting marketing seeds (impressions) on future customers. You can’t accurately measure the Return On Investment of his vehicle wrap can you?
He takes part in consumer trade shows. Hundreds of people have seen his display and dozens have spoken with him each year. Only a small percentage of the people who see his display (the ones he talks to and gets contact info from) are trackable for Return On Investment measurement.
Advertising and marketing messages overlap. We are exposed to a business via multiple methods which nullifies the results of tracking the Return on Investment of each individual advertising and marketing message.
The web was supposed to be the ultimate source of accurate and fool proof tracking, but it falls victim to the same limitations of measurement that off line marketing has.
You could try combining the two which might help, or produce some really weird and useless ad campaigns like this one from 2012 that tried combining Billboards with QR codes: 
So how do you deal with Return On Investment as a way to measure the success of your advertising campaign and more importantly how do you feel good about spending money on advertising?
Ask the right questions.
Know the limitations.
Deal with trustworthy people.
Here’s a question I usually ask when I am talking with a potential advertising partner:
How are we going to determine the success of your advertising?
And then we will dig in with the knowledge of the limitations I mentioned and come up with an agreeable formula.
Or sometimes we won’t.
In the situations where we know it is impossible to track a Return On Investment of dollars spent versus dollars earned, we look for other methods to determine the success.
Those methods can include:
Year to Year growth.
Perceived name recognition.
Anecdotal stories.
Increased website traffic.
I even have some advertising partners who spend money with me because of the extra stuff that I do that others don’t. The marketing consulting and coaching that I really enjoy.
I strive to provide value that goes beyond dollars because I see things differently. I have a few decades of experience working with a few hundred business people and organizations that were my real life laboratory in this science.
That’s why I say Measuring Return On Investment Is Fake Science. In the advertising and marketing world, it’s an ongoing combination of art and science with the knowledge that it is rare, possibly impossible to be 100% accurate. But that’s okay.
by Scott Howard | Sep 20, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Media, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard
It’s a question that some people ask out loud and others may not ask me directly but they are thinking, “Why Does a Radio Guy Also Sell Digital Marketing Solutions?”
Excellent question.
Here’s the answer.
My background is in radio. From the time I was 16 until I was 26, I loved being on the air. Then I moved over to the business side creating ad campaigns in Detroit for my radio clients. I became a student and teacher of marketing, advertising, sales, persuasion, and something I call human relationship marketing.
Jump ahead to 2005 and I started using digital (the web) to market myself using the same concepts I had learned 15+ years earlier.
With me, Scott Howard aka ScLoHo, you get to work with an individual who understands both the traditional broadcast world and the newer digital world. I walked away from my paying jobs in radio twice in recent history to work full time in the digital world. The first time was in 2011, when I joined a website development firm. A couple years later, I joined a multi-million dollar e-commerce biz as their Social Media director.
Now I work for WOWO radio which is one of the stations owned by Federated Media. Federated Media also has a digital division, Federated Digital Solutions. 
Federated Media created Federated Digital Solutions because many of their radio advertising clients were also looking for ways to market themselves online. Federated Media decided to invest in creating another division of the company. During my three years, I have seen our digital division grow and we now have 20+ people working for Federated Digital Solutions.
Those 20+ people at Federated Digital Solutions (FDS) have a wide range of backgrounds and experiences. The goal was to find the best available talent in the country and create the FDS team.
But there’s more.
Several of the digital solutions use outside vendors that we have access to that you simply can’t buy on your own. We also have two layers of expertise working on all of these digital marketing campaigns. There’s the expertise of our vendors and the expertise of the FDS team.
With me, you actually get a 3rd layer of expertise. Me. Scott Howard aka ScLoHo.
Because of my background, experience and knowledge, I really do know more than most of my radio co-workers. No, I’m not a know-it-all, but I do know how to Google to get the answers on stuff that I don’t know.
Here’s something else that’s important.
I care more about my reputation than what I sell.
I care more about your success than what I sell.
When I started at WOWO, I sold next to nothing from the digital solutions offered by FDS. I wanted to see the results and I wasn’t willing to use my advertising partners as test subjects. But as I watched, observed and questioned, I saw that the performance of the Federated Digital Solutions team was top notch. I also got the opportunity to see what other companies were selling and through that comparison, I saw how we were superior to others.
I’ve seen what Nexstar Broadcast Group was trying to sell as digital solutions and it was crap.
I’ve seen the actual results of Dex Media and what they sold to come of my advertising clients and did digging and found a huge pile of manure.
There are a couple of local companies that are selling digital marketing solutions that are worthless. My friend Kevin, called it marketing malpractice when we were discussing what I was seeing, and Kevin is one smart dude when it comes to doing digital marketing correctly.
Advertising agencies, both local and national are understaffed and under-qualified to be doing the digital work they are selling.
This summer I found out one of my advertising partners bought a website for $27,000 from one of these advertising agencies and it’s really messed up. Sure it looks okay to the naked eye, but it is impossible to optimize for the search engines (SEO) due to the platform they built it on. We can rebuild it for less that 1/3 that cost.
One last item in answering the question, “Why Does a Radio Guy Also Sell Digital Marketing Solutions?”
There actually is a study that shows how broadcasting works best in driving people to your website. A couple lines from the article that caught my eye:
Here’s why radio and TV have the advantage: While print media requires hands, broadcast media leaves them free to do other things . . . like type in a URL, tweet something, or click “like.”
Want to talk? Let’s connect
by Scott Howard | Aug 23, 2016 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom
I’m going to tell you a little story.
A story about Collective Wisdom.
Collective Wisdom is the name of the first blog I created in 2004, but Collective Wisdom has a deeper meaning:
The best way to learn something is by learning from others.
If you’re smart, you already knew that.
Thirty years ago, I moved my family from Indiana to Detroit to embark on a new career in a city I had never been to before.
It was my transition from working on the air as a radio personality and program director to the advertising side. I was 26 years old and had to wear a sports coat and tie everyday.
I learned from the owner of our company, Don Crawford of the Crawford Broadcasting Company; and Frank Franciosi, the General Manager of WMUZ 103.5 FM. I also learned from Doug Burns, a co-worker who I teamed up with to create some very creative and successful radio advertising campaigns before Doug advanced in the company and transferred to Dallas.
But beyond these people and our in-house training resources, I also sought out wisdom from others.
I became a student of marketing, advertising and sales. Every week I learned from the business owners and managers I worked with as we created advertising and marketing plans. Most were successful but we learned from those that weren’t successful too.
I also took responsibility for furthering my education by reading certain books and articles and today I’ll share some of those with you.
Harvey Mackay caught my attention with his book Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive and his 2nd book Beware the Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt. These two books laid the foundation for me in how to conduct myself in the business world and you should visit his website, subscribe to his weekly column and read all of his books. You’ll be a better person if you read some of Harvey’s wisdom.
Another book, Positioning, The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout began to open up my thinking about marketing and advertising beyond the idea of how to write a commercial. Al and Jack have since gone their separate ways, but I urge you to pick up any or all of the books they have authored. Jack’s website has links to his books and there’s more at Al’s website.
Fast forward a few years (about 15+) and I was introduced to the writings of Roy H. Willams. Roy is the self proclaimed Wizard of Ads and is extremely knowledgeable about not just the advertising world but also the way to use what I call Human Relationship Principles in your marketing. I have my own copies of his first 3 books which I need to read again. Roy also offers them free as downloadable PDF Files. I also subscribe to his weekly newsletter which is also free.
Another author that you may have heard about is Seth Godin. I’ve read most of his books and although I don’t always agree, I appreciate reading his material and comparing his thoughts with my own. Seth also has a blog that he posts on daily that you can subscribe to.
In a world where it seems like everyone is trying to sell us on the new bright and shiny marketing tool, platform, or gimmick, I urge you to do what I have been doing for the past 3 decades and learn the basics that can apply to your life and business dealings.
Learn how to learn.
Learn how to think.
Learn how to discover your own thoughts, and formulas on how to do stuff.
Take the knowledge and wisdom from others and see how you might apply it to your life.
That’s what I call Collective Wisdom.
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