Uncover the business challenge behind the marketing request

A question before your next sales call: Are you preparing to recommend a marketing solution, or are you preparing to understand how your client’s business creates value — and what might be standing in the way?”

Shannon Kinney, founder and client success officer, Dream Local Digital

For years, I’ve encouraged sales professionals to become trusted advisers. It’s a more common phrase in media sales, and for good reason. Every publisher, market leader and chief revenue officer wants a sales organization that is viewed as a strategic partner rather than a vendor.

But somewhere along the way, I think we’ve confused the outcome with the process. We tell people to become trusted advisers, yet we continue to train them primarily as advertising experts. We teach them our digital products, our audience solutions, our research, our proposals and our marketing strategies. Those are all important, but they don’t necessarily prepare someone for the conversation taking place on the other side of the desk.

Business owners don’t spend their days thinking about marketing and advertising. They spend their days thinking about growth, profitability, staffing, competition, expansion, succession and uncertainty. Marketing is simply one of the many tools they use to address those challenges. The distinction may sound subtle, but it fundamentally changes the sales conversation.

I was reminded of this recently while reviewing a discovery call with a salesperson who believed he had uncovered an outstanding opportunity. He walked me through everything he had learned about the prospect. They needed better SEO. Their social media presence was inconsistent. They weren’t using streaming television, and they had never explored branded content. It was a thorough assessment of the company’s marketing.

I asked him a simple question: Why does any of that matter?

His first response was predictable: “Because their marketing isn’t very good, and we can make it better.”

I asked again: Why does that matter to the business?

After a long pause, he admitted he didn’t know. He had diagnosed the marketing, but he had never uncovered the business problem. That conversation resonates with me, because it represents one of the greatest opportunities for our industry.

From marketing consultant to business consultant

For years, media companies have invested heavily in helping sales organizations become marketing consultants. I’ve done a ton of this training myself, including in these columns. We encourage them to understand digital strategy, audience targeting, attribution, social media, search, streaming, email marketing, branded content and every new platform that emerges. That’s valuable knowledge, and it’s become a competitive necessity. I’ve also taught a lot about what probing questions to ask to uncover needs. And many of you do solid needs assessments or CNAs. That gives a real edge, being able to match a client's goal to your marketing solutions.

The best sales professionals share another characteristic. Before they think about marketing, they think about business. They want to understand how the company generates revenue, where margins are under pressure, what obstacles are preventing growth, and what success looks like over the next three to five years. They understand that marketing is rarely the objective. It’s the vehicle.

A manufacturer investing in recruitment advertising isn’t really buying advertising. They’re trying to solve a labor shortage that is limiting production. A regional healthcare provider isn’t focused on media impressions. They’re trying to build trust in a competitive market. A family-owned retailer asking for more traffic may actually be trying to improve inventory turns or increase average transaction value. When you understand the business objective, your recommendations become more strategic and more relevant.

The strongest sales professionals rarely stop at the first answer. If a prospect says they need more leads, they don’t immediately start discussing lead-generation products. They ask why more leads matter right now.

Perhaps the company is opening a second location. Perhaps a major competitor has entered the market. Perhaps they’re trying to fill a hole in their schedule. Perhaps they’re preparing the business for a future sale or planning for the next generation of ownership. The answer changes the conversation entirely.

Behind almost every marketing request is a business objective, and behind every business objective is a personal motivation. Owners may be thinking about retirement, legacy, expansion, family or financial security. Those motivations rarely appear in an RFP, but they influence almost every significant decision.

Artificial intelligence has become an extraordinary tool for preparing for sales calls. It can analyze websites, identify competitors, summarize customer reviews, evaluate search visibility and even recommend marketing strategies in minutes. Those capabilities save time, but they don’t replace curiosity.

In fact, I believe AI becomes even more valuable when we stop asking it marketing questions and start asking business questions. Instead of just asking AI to analyze a prospect’s website, ask it to identify the biggest challenges facing independent automotive dealers, regional healthcare systems, or locally owned home service companies. Ask what economic pressures are affecting their industry, what hiring issues they face, what trends are influencing consumer behavior, and where opportunities for growth are emerging.

Suddenly, you’re no longer preparing to discuss advertising. You’re preparing to discuss business. That is a very different meeting.

The media industry has spent years evolving its products. We’ve expanded far beyond newspapers and broadcast into digital marketing, streaming television, branded content, events, data, social media, search and countless other solutions. Perhaps it’s time to evolve our sales conversations with the same level of intention. The organizations that achieve the greatest long-term revenue growth won’t necessarily be those with the largest product portfolios. They’ll be the ones whose salespeople consistently demonstrate the greatest business acumen. Products will continue to change. Technology certainly will. Artificial intelligence will accelerate both. Understanding business, however, is timeless.

The next generation of trusted advisers won’t be distinguished by how well they explain advertising. They’ll be distinguished by how well they understand the companies they serve. And in an industry built on helping local businesses succeed, that may be the most important competitive advantage we can develop.

A question before your next sales call: Are you preparing to recommend a marketing solution, or are you preparing to understand how your client’s business creates value — and what might be standing in the way?

Curiosity builds trust. Trust builds partnerships. And partnerships build sustainable revenue.

Dream Local Digital Founder and Client Success Officer Shannon Kinney brings more than 30 years of experience in leadership roles, developing scalable digital marketing strategies and supporting and training media companies with scalable digital revenue growth. She played a vital role in the development of prominent internet giants, including Cars.com, CareerBuilder.com, Knight Ridder Digital, LinkedIn, Google, eBay and Microsoft. She worked with media companies worldwide until pivoting to found Dream Local Digital. Since Dream Local Digital's creation in 2009, Shannon has served on the Local Media Association board, been awarded the LMA Digital Innovation Award, appeared on hundreds of stages as a keynote speaker, and helped media companies transform their business model. She currently also serves as a project lead on the Local Media Association Branded Content Project Cohorts, helping media companies transform through new revenue streams. Shannon can be reached at shannon@dreamlocal.com.