The Call Of The Wild

Share on

If you haven't been to the Yukon, you haven't been anywhere.
It's still the wild wild west. There's still gold in the Klondike! This gold comes in the form of business owners reaping a bumper crop of results from an advertising seminar held in Whitehorse, Yukon mid-April. The Yukon is also where best-selling San Francisco/Oakland, CA, author Jack London ran Miles Canyon when he was 21 years old and his time in the Yukon  helped inspire one of the first books I read as a boy: "The Call Of The Wild."
I had given a seminar called "The Shift -- Maximizing Your Advertising Dollar" to many of the Yukon's best businesses in mid-April. It was time to go back to the beautiful Yukon and check up on the seeds that had been planted during the seminar. I wanted to see how those seeds had grown and see if they had been fertilized, watered, and weeds picked. Boy, did they grow.
What a great job by the CKRW sales staff, namely Eva, Jean, and Ingrid for nurturing those clients. The business growth for many of the businesses that attended ranged from 7 percent to 30 percent from May through August. Nothing short of remarkable. Many of the clients took the research and advice given, added to and beefed up their "Air Force" to complement their "Ground Force" and "Special Forces" in their advertising mix.
On my travels there last week, there were a few things that had "risen above the clutter." One of them is my friend Jason Adams who owns Yukon Yamaha. Jason can take a modified snowmobile 170 mph on the ALCAN Highway and live to tell about it. He can also sell motorcycles, ATVs, and other fun mobiles. After the seminar in April, Jason took some notes from the seminar and reorganized his print advertising and his rep Jean Cameron put together some testimonial ads that helped launch a great summer of sales for him. Anytime you can get your customers to talk about you in your media, you have a winning campaign. He increased his frequency and off he went. Watch those concussions Jason! I want to see you race in the Yukon!
During the seminar, I had a volunteer named Cal Murdoch from Integra Tires who helped me demonstrate the definition of "Top of Mind Awareness." Cal increased his consistency with his "Air Force" with help from General Manager Eva Bidrman and he has had double-digit growth and that was coming off a tough March and April.
In the seminar, we discussed BAC, "The Buyers Awareness Cycle," and how people don't just wake up one morning and decide to throw four new tires on their car or truck. They think about it. When you dominate the "Air," it makes it much easier for your print and Internet to work for you.
Vanessa at Burnt Toast Cafe had her best summer ever. She voiced her own advertisements with her unique voice that rose above the clutter in the market!
Troy at Murdoch's in downtown Whitehorse started to advertise every week with great frequency introducing two new products he had acquired and had great success. Remember, businesses should be on your media day in and day out because:
1)      People move. Twenty percent of people move around each year: A new audience every year for your business.
2)      People forget. 250 to 5,000 ad impressions daily and 99.9 percent and is forgotten and washed.
3)      People take a long time to make up their minds. Buyers Awareness Cycle.
Those are just some of the great seeds that had grown in a very short time. There's something else that caught my attention on my trip last week. Not only was I there to follow up on clients, I was also there to work with Eva and her sales staff in training. My job.
Eva had just hired a 21-year-old named Danielle Swift. She had been on the job for two weeks. She had driven up from Calgary in January into minus 39C weather. Not to say Calgary isn't cold. Danielle initially got a job at a dog musher company where she had a three-hour commute back and forth every day before she landed her first job selling media at CKRW Rush 96.1.
She was in sales training Wednesday and Thursday before we hit the road prospecting on Friday. She listened to every word and instruction in training. In our prospecting calls, when she came back to the car, she took out her CMP folders and wrote down the pertinent information from our physical in-store survey so she wouldn't forget anything when she dialed them up on the phone to set up an appointment.
On one prospecting call, she had the owners coming into the station for an appointment to get them out of their comfort zone. Danielle being taught the right way coming out of the gate doesn't know any different and that's a plus. She set the appointment for 10:20 a.m. Remember, always set the appointment on the 10, 20, 40, and 50 because you are very busy and you're asking for 20 minutes and the prospect will remember you for your unusual appointment time. Well done Danielle! Maybe you will become the next Jack London of media sales!
Sean Luce is the Head National Instructor for the Luce Performance Group International and can be reached at sean@luceperformancegroup.com or www.luceperformancegroup.com.
As seen on Radio Ink Headlines September 4th, 2013
http://radioink.com/Article.asp?id=2695187&spid=24698