Advertising Sales

Hi Everyone!

Well, it’s that time of the year again. I truly can’t believe that there is less than a month left of the Advertising Account Management program. I have to admit that out of all my years of schooling, this is the year that has gone by the fastest. I hate to say the “time flies when you’re having fun” phrase, but it’s kind of true. This program has been extremely rewarding and has only confirmed and increased my interest in advertising.

One area of advertising that a lot of you may or may not be considering, is sales. This isn’t just retail sales, but advertising sales in particular. As you may have seen me mention in my previous posts, Professional Advertising Sales Practice is a course that we have all taken during second semester. The majority of the course has been based on learning about different client personalities and how to effectively present and sell yourselves. Additionally, we learned about what it means to create and maintain effective and meaningful relationships with potential clients. What I loved most about this course was that we were able to put this theory into real practice. In partnership with the Oakville Beaver, we had the opportunity to sell advertising to various businesses that will be contained in a Sheridan College insert at the end of this coming year.

We were all broken into groups, and assigned sales representatives that would provide us with different lists of clients that we were required to call for potential sales. With that we had to develop potential prospects (other businesses that could advertise in the insert) of our own. Not only was it pretty frightening, but realistic because we were being exposed to how sales people interact with clients, whether it is in a positive or negative way. With most of the groups including my own, some clients were indeed interested in the sale, however many were not, and this was somewhat discouraging. With that being said, you tend to learn not to take things personally. Sometimes you can even learn from those negative experiences with clients by thinking about what you can do better. Or simply accepting the experience as what it is – the business wasn’t interested for reasons that were beyond your control. Moral of the story is, continue trying your best, be friendly and always ensure that you are offering a potential client the best, and let them know what you can do for them. Eventually, and with more practice, you will experience that first sale, and I must say it feels pretty great. Incentives are also a plus, and the top 3 groups in our class with the most sales were given great prizes, such as Leaf/Raptor tickets as well as gift cards.

While sales may not be my area of choice for my career, I know that I have gained practical life skills that will help me in the future. Building relationships in the workplace is extremely important and is a skill that is useful in every day life. I encourage you all to go into an assignment like this with an open mind, be confident, and to ultimately never give up.

I hope this post was helpful :)

Sincerely, 

Ashleigh