There’s a familiar phrase in professional sports: “in the zone.” Professional basketball  players on a hot streak shooting from beyond the three-point line are in the zone. Baseball players enjoying a hitting streak might say the ball seems impossible not to hit when they are in the zone. When a golfer’s swing seems effortless, when she sinks her putts on the green with ease, she’s in the zone.

What contributes to being in the zone? Being completely focused on the moment. Everything else seems to fade into the background, including the noise of the crowd.

When performing an activity, and being immersed in the moment, there’s an energized focus. Being in the zone is when you’re completely involved and concentrating on your actions.

In sales, you experience being in the zone, mainly when three conditions are in play:

I was contacted recently by an underwriting salesperson with a question about renewing one of his account's annual underwriting agreement. He told me that the year-long agreement was ending in a month and he hadn’t talked to the underwriter since the agreement was signed the previous year.

I told him he was about ten months late in starting the renewal process.

The way I see it, the renewal process for underwriting should begin when you first sign up a new underwriter.

I don’t mean that you should have a renewal agreement ready to give to your first-time underwriter. However, when a businessperson signs their first underwriting agreement, that’s when it’s time to ramp up your relationship with the account and start to plan for the future. Instead of thinking of the process as a renewal, look at it as a continuation of your business relationship. 

When I worked in the sales department at a commercial radio station, the sales manager went to the extreme to motivate the sales staff just prior to the fourth quarter in preparation for the holidays and leading into the new year. 

There was a huge kickoff meeting, with sales contests and incentives such as trips, double the sales-commission rate, and cash bonuses. But all the “rah-rah” and pom-pom shaking can’t fix a motivation problem.

Sales reps continually face outside circumstances that affect their motivation. Prospects and customers tell them "no" over and over again; the timing may be wrong to sell a particular sales promotion; or there may be some personal situation going on affecting a person’s ability to sell. 

As a sales manager I know that the motivation of sales people can affect their productivity. With an eye toward improving the success of your sales staff, here are some ideas to boost their motivation. 

You’ve worked hard to sign up your new underwriter. You started with an initial meeting to learn about her challenges and objectives. Then you followed up with information how your media can provide a solution targeting her desired outcome. She liked your presentation and proposal; your answers to her questions, and she decided to become an underwriter.

What do you do now?

Believe it or not, the sale is not complete. The commitment is there but you’ve not yet started to deliver what she purchased. So, next up… 

Write up the underwriting agreement and have it signed and returned to you.

Draft the underwriting copy so it conveys her marketing message and complies with the FCC’s and your station’s copy guidelines. Once the copy is approved, send her a recording of the spot. Let her know she can share it with her employees and post it on her company’s website. 

Send her a schedule of times that her underwriting spots will air during the first week so she’ll know when to listen in to hear her spot.

After the contract is signed, the copy is produced and ready for airing, and you’ve sent her the list of when her spots will air during the first week you’re all done. Right?

There’s still more work to be done.

Your station likely has a board of directors or trustees that can greatly help your efforts to bring in underwriting revenue. Who wouldn’t want that kind of help? But, you'll first need to bring them up to speed about underwriting and its importance to your station.

Every week I receive a number of questions about underwriting copy.  Some are asking about certain words or phrases and some questions are about specific topics.

I’ll share a couple of credits with you that were featured in a recent credit copy webinar I presented. 

Copy example #1:

Smith Subaru, with hundreds of new Subarus in stock. Now offering customers their Smith Care Coverage Program. Learn more at Smith Subaru dot com.

The question that accompanied this copy was whether or not the phrase “learn more” is acceptable. But there are additional issues with the copy. “Smith Care Coverage Program” sounds like it could be a warranty or service program. You need to remember that guarantees, warranties, and performance claims are considered inducements and are prohibited. Another issue with the copy is the wording “hundreds of new Subarus in stock,” which is definitely a qualitative statement. It’s possible that they may have hundreds of new vehicles available, but just because something is a verifiable fact doesn’t necessarily make the copy acceptable. 

It has happened to all of us at one time or another. You had an underwriting prospect who had agreed to work with you. She even said, “Let’s get started!” Then she disappeared - with no warning - and you never heard from her again.

So what do you do next?

You begin chasing the prospect. But what you may not be aware of is that you’re trying to catch someone who doesn’t have any intention of letting you catch her.

Some salespeople are doing more chasing than catching.

What do professional athletes, actors, and musicians have in common? They practice. Again and again. Their performances and their livelihood depend on it.

How often do you practice your sales presentations? If you’ve come away from having given a sales presentation to a prospective underwriter and she had questions you couldn‘t answer, you probably realized you weren’t fully prepared. It’s not just practicing to get it right but to also knowing how to respond to any question or scenario. You need to prepare to expect the unexpected.  

Start by writing down all of the sales objections you’ve encountered in the past and how you replied. Now, ask your co-workers in your underwriting sales department for the sales objections they’ve encountered and what they’ve said in response.

Every underwriting spot contains three primary pieces of information, the same three pieces of information you’ll find in commercial advertising messages:

• The name of the underwriter
• The underwriter’s business, products and/or services
• Where or how you can reach the underwriter or get more information (location, phone and/or web address)

As an example, one of the most to-the-point commercial advertisements I’ve seen was on a billboard on the Interstate.

Have you ever tried to set up a meeting with a senior-level executive to discuss underwriting opportunities? It can be tough to connect with these very busy people. It seems as though they’re never in their office, they rarely answer the phone, and seldom reply to your voicemail or email. What makes it a bigger challenge is that their assistants are very effective at being gatekeepers, protecting them from interruptions.

If you want to connect with executives, it likely won't happen easily. To set up a meeting, you first have to get their attention.

• Keep it simple and get to the point. Don't distract or overwhelm with detail.
• Be invaluable. Realize that you are the primary differentiator today.
• Zoom in and align. Focus your message on their key business objectives.
• Raise priorities. Keep your eye on changes that can affect and increase momentum.

You must convey all of this in a 30-second introduction, voicemail, or brief email message.