Sponsor (July-Dec 1955)

TIMEBUYING BASICS salesman was so distraught he told his boss, "You better take me off that agency." I said, don"t do that, we like him, he is a helluva good salesman. Why not try this: Tell your salesman to go in and see the timebuyer, and I will not say anything about this phone call, and make the guy go to lunch, and sit down with him and say, "Look, I don't like you and you don't like me; let's find out what's wrong and try to straighten it out." In other words, put their cards on the table. About a week later the sales manager called Lack and said it worked beautifully. I don't know whether that answers the question, but it seems to me you have got to go right to the source of the problem, the individual you are dealing with. Q. How much should a buyer tell a salesman about a campaign? A. (Prom Bob Reuschle) Tell him how many markets you are going into and name the markets. Certainly tell him the buying pattern; that goes hand in glove with the number of markets. How much budget? I think that is none of his business. I think budget is between the client and the agency. In an individual market perhaps you have it worked out according to slide rule, and as long as you tell the other stations the same thing, sure, tell the salesman. If it is an undisclosed account, whether the product is in the house or in solicitiation, well, I will skip that one and say maybe that is one of the things we could talk a lot longer about. No time salesman likes to work on an account being solicited by an agency. Post mortems after the buyer has completed the deal — should he tell what he bought: I agree with George 1,000%. I think the salesman is entitled to know what you did buy and maybe he can come up with something else and improve the schedule. Why make a big secret of these things? • • • Seminar 7. WHAT BUYERS, SELLERS EACH EXPECT Speakers: Ruth Jones, Procter & Gamble timebuyer, Compton Agency; Lewis Avery, president, Avery -Knodel. Moderator of this seminar was Gordon Gray, vice president and general manager, WOR and WOR-TV, New York. WHAT TIMEBUYERS EXPECT OF SALESMEN RUTH JONES: Every timebuyer appreciates how much a salesman can contribute to his learning in the business, particularly when the buyer is a trainee. When I first started to buy time, much of what I learned I learned from the salesman. The salesman can really be of terrific help to you. You all know that in your personal life you rely on your friends to help you and certainly your salesman is your friend. When I first started buying time, which was 10 years ago. I was a pretty scared person, and there were many times I didn't want to go in and ask my boss questions, because it is pretty elementary that you not let him know where your weaknesses are. It was really amazing to me how many times salemen would come to me and offer to heip me; not only with their own stations and with their own markets, but with stations in which they had absolutely no interest. So first I want to remind you to look upon your salesman as your friend. Now, as to what a timebuyer should expect of a salesman, I marked it down as three things: first, that he know the agency and the client; second, that the salesman help create ideas (at the right time) ; and third, which of PAGE 19 course we all realize, that he provide good service. When you talk about knowing the agency and knowing the client, it would really help the buyers if the salesman would get to know how an agency is set up and who has responsibility for what. There are no two agencies that operate alike, even within the Procter & Gamble agencies, of which there are seven. Even though they are working for the same client, each one has a different way of operating. The salesman should know which timebuyers make the decisions as to what media will be used and which timebuyers make the decisions as to which market will be used. The salesman should know what the client expects, particularly if it is a client that has very definite media strategies such as your soap companies and your food companies. Then, when the salesmen call on the buyers, they are not wasting time talking to them about things that either the buyer has very little control over or about ideas that the clients themselves should be approached on. As for point two, creating ideas, I am talking about times when the buyers run into trouble spending money — when they are trying to outline a campaign and are at a loss as to how they could spend the money properly — that is where the salesman can be of great help. However, a salesman should not try to help in the middle of a heavy buying campaign, because that is when a buyer is terrifically harrassed; he should make suggestions between buying campaigns when a buyer has time to sit back and listen. Maybe at that particular moment the buyer will look at the salesman and say "I am not interested," but he won't forget what has been said, and three months later the conversation will suddenly come from the subconscious to the conscious and he will act. Service, however, is most important. You always hear buyers complain that salesmen don't give them the proper service, and salesmen are always complaining about the agencies. But I repeat, service is the most important thing to a buyer, and I think perhaps the easiest way to explain what I am thinking of is to begin at the start of a buying campaign. Let us say that the markets and the stations have already been selected and the buyer is getting ready to place the business. The first thing that a buyer asks for is availabilities. It would b3 a great help if the salesman would give the buyers exactly what they ask for. I have to assume that we buyers will be explicit. If we call up and say we want daytime announcements only, there is no point in giving us a lot of nighttime announcements. It isn't because we don't like nighttime announcements; it may be that the product is the type of product that should be advertised for women only. The copy department, the account section, and the client have agreed that it is going to be daytime advertising. It is not a whim of the buyers. They want daytime availabilities. If we ask for minutes only, again that is something over which the buyer does not have control in many instances. (And I might add. also, it is a source of a number of arguments between the copy department and the buying department.) So instead of giving us an argument or filling the availability sheets with a lot of breaks in the hopes that we will buy them, just give us the minutes. The next point: Being a buyer on Procter & Gamble you can appreciate that I can use only about one-tenth of the availabilities for my client, either because they are next to other Procter & Gamble shows, or Lever shows or Colgate shows, ad infinitum. Sometimes I get a sheet of paper and out of, maybe 25 or 30 announcements, there are only two that I can use. If the salesman would screen the spots and know that Procter & Gamble cannot buy next to Strike It Rich, or Colgate cannot buy next to Search For Tomorrow, it would make it a heck of a lot easier for us. Then the third point, and this is really a personal gripe: It would be very helpful if the reps could get together and have a standard, legible form for submitting availabilities. If each rep submits them in a different way and a buyer is tired, it really becomes a very serious practical problem, and sometime the salesmen do lose out.