“It’s not about you, it’s about the client,” was Pat Bryson’s key message to the Radiodays Europe Sales Summit.

“People buy for their reasons, not yours,” said Bryson. People will only do what they perceive to be in their best interests, you must locate their need (the why) before you present a solution.

She explained the different need states between transactional and relational selling techniques. Relational selling fits your offering to the client’s situation.

The diagram above helps guide salespeople on which method to use. Larger and more complex offerings are sold at levels 3, 4 & 5. Sixty percent of offerings are sold at the relational level.

Some of the key questions to ask your customers so that you can work out more about their business and present a proposal that will suit their needs include:

• What are the biggest challenges your business faces at the moment?
• What do you want the advertising to accomplish?
• Who are your target customers?
• What budget do you need to allocate to us?

There are two key types of radio campaign: A sale or event, or branding and bonding. Determining what the client wants to achieve will determine which approach to take.

Pat Bryson is a regular columnist for radioinfo and spoke, you can read some of her previous articles here.