It’s that
time of year again. No, I don’t mean tax
time, or Valentine’s. It’s the time of
year when you (if you’re a local business owner or manager) are going to get a
call from your local TV, radio, or print rep, telling you they’d like to bring
in the "expert.” They may use ”consultant,”
or “guru,” but you’ll know. It’s the expert.
The first
quarter of the year is a planning quarter for many categories of
businesses. A time to unleash the new
initiatives, branding, or spend-more-to-grow-more campaigns. In an attempt to secure the highest
percentage of dollars you’re fishing to spend, the outlets fly in their expert, and push all their sales reps
[hard] to schedule appointments with you, and their expert. And guess
what? It’s FREE to you!
There’s
nothing wrong with the expert. In
fact, good ones can deliver helpful bits of information that are not at all bias
to the outlet they are hired to sell for.
That’s the hook.
Over the
years, outlets I worked inside brought in a variety of experts from hard sellers, to jingle writers. A few were fairly insightful, but many were
an embarrassment to take out at all, causing me to later call and apologize to
valued clients! But that didn’t stop us
from setting up our minimum number of
required appointments (set by sales management). The expert
costs the outlets big money to bring in, and more is at stake if they can sell
you a big package.
Perhaps
you’ve had the meeting with the expert
before. If not, my advice for dealing
with the expert: don’t rush to
decide, fact check, and shop around. They
are not an unbiased 3rd party, as the setup suggests. They may have a long resume of
accomplishments and big positions held in the past, but their job is still to
sell you on that outlet. In fact, in
many cases, the expert stands to gain
a hefty commission from your commitment to the large campaign they are sure to
push on you within 2-4 weeks of the initial consultation meeting (aka, needs
analysis, time-out call, yada, yada).
The outlets may
also change the expert model altogether,
and just invite you in for a “FREE seminar,” where they will pose as the expert,
and simply pitch you their advertising pieces.
The invite to these usually goes something like: “how to grow in your
category,” or “come receive education on
SEO” (or some other buzz-worthy word or topic of the time). This is not sinister by any means. However, your time is valuable, and the “free”
seminar is merely a long-form, often multi-media pitch, where they skim over
the topic you thought you were coming for, and sometimes employ pressure
tactics to close a deal with you. I
would recommend simply requesting (or have your agency request) the material or
packages to go over at your leisure, without all the hype or gimmicks. The expert
is likely a far less wasteful way to spend your time than these seminars.
So, if you
desire, meet the expert. You may get lucky and be presented with some
valuable insight or marketing morsels.
However, you might be wise to get an unbiased party to help you with
decisions for moving forward with their recommendations, or any advertisement /
marketing options.
To your
success,
-David Bauer
