I saw this quote and loved it! To me it sings, “Take a risk, make mistakes and grow.” We seldom learn much from our successes and have you noticed many of your successes are either based on luck (which is not dependable!), or based on past experiences where you didn’t succeed?

One of my greatest learning experiences was one of my biggest and most embarrassing goofs. It was the first voicemail call I received when I started my business.  I made the “bad judgment” mistake of calling this person back without visiting her website first. Yes, I really did that! You could politely call that “bad judgment” if you were kind. And you can also bet I didn’t get her business and I have not done that again!

What about when we hire? We ask the candidate for their experience. It is nicely listed on the resume – the TV Station they worked for, years in the Broadcast business, etc. – but that is really not their experience. That’s a list of titles and organizations. How about asking them about their experiences – examples of bad judgments they learned from? And did their Sales Managers nurture them during that learning process? How? Or why not? What could they have done differently to expand growth?

Take risks, learn from them and apply what you learn as you take more risks. Sales Managers, support the AEs and don’t forget to produce your own new experiences by trying something new!

Experience (the result of bad judgment) will make you truly remark-able.

Nowhere in the definition is the word “courage.”  I got to thinking and, to me that means “taking action despite fear.”

Let’s face it. We are all fearful – fearful of rejection, of appearing ignorant, of making a bad mistake, of being embarrassed, of being discovered we really don’t have a clue what we are doing most of the time, etc.

But finding an “encourager” or someone you can be yourself with without worry, someone you can take risks around without fear of retribution or humiliation, someone who will help you find your courage (no one can actually give that to you) is a real gift. Being called a great “encourager” may be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. Ever! Now I have to live up to it.

Hope you find a great “encourager” or, better yet, hope you become one to many. That will make you remark-able!

The good news is those once considered traditional agencies are seeing the value and need for expansion into other ways to reach consumers on the consumers’ terms. Remember, consumers now have more control than ever as to how they will consume information. The awake agencies are not depending upon what they know best and embracing all the tools available to them to get their clients’ messages out. Here is a really good article featuring several agencies and how they view their world today. Many of them say the message delivery systems may be growing but good ideas and creative will always be timeless. Here’s another good interview featuring David Sable, CEO of Y&R. His take is a bit different!

Other good news is digital agencies are beginning to see the value awake traditional agencies bring to the table and are allowing themselves to participate in that arena. I predict many more mergers in the near future.

The bad news is I just read an article where internet ads will be measured by “effective GRPs.” Yes, the same GRP we have used and hated in TV forever! The internet experience is so different from TV but the advertising community is so trained and comfortable with the GRP and wanting to compare TV to internet it is falling back on this archaic measurement even knowing how inaccurate it is.

Digital buyers will be as detached from customer results as their traditional media buying counterparts. And sellers will, again, become commodity brokers rather than solution providers. When will we learn to measure based on our client’s results?

Need your remark-able thoughts on this before I explode! And a special shout out to Park Howell at Park & Co for inspiring today’s remark.

Here are some suggestions (thanks to Lee Odden) to boost quality leads:

1. Every AE should be a publisher of meaningful content. Create a YouTube site, a Facebook fan page, a blog – any place where good (meaningful) content can be published for prospects. Whatever the AE decides to use this should serve as their hub and should be updated frequently.
2. New, original content isn’t always necessary! Read and repurpose other’s content. I am doing it now!! Very efficient. Subscribe to newsletters and industry bloggers, use Google Alerts. Finding content to repurpose is easy if you are on the lookout but ALWAYS give credit to the original writer. And always make sure it is beneficial to potential advertisers. In other words, focus on their success.
3. Monitor social media constantly for leads. Participate in appropriate LinkedIn groups, set up a search for selected topics on twitter, identify conversations and participate.
4. Comment on websites frequently and make sure you link back to your hub. Actively and generously share good information. You know much more than you think you know and your knowledge is valuable to business owners. Remember, their knowledge and first concern is all about their business and not ours! Yes, this is time consuming but will pay off faster than driving around town and cold calling.
5. Keep learning, keep sharing, and keep networking – in person and in social media. Make this a high priority and do it every day. That includes updating your hub.

If you have questions or suggestions please share. I can promise you this – boost your quality lead generation and you will be remark-able.

1. When leaving a voice mail or writing an email try not to use the word “I” – see how hard that is?!
2. Offer your advertisers information and research they won’t acquire on their own. Don’t assume they see announcements in the media. So many examples of providing information to them, too many to list.
3. Offer workshops – how to research on google, social media, why advertising on a website is not the same as TV. Again, there are so many topics, too many to list
4. Offer complete consulting service to them – even if it means recommending a competitive media or another station’s programming. That’s what consultants do – they focus on the customer’s success and not their own.
5. Be sure our advertisers are presenting their messages as valuable information. If delivered to the interested customer the way that customer consumes information it will be considered valuable content and not advertising. It is our job as consultants to insure our advertisers understand that deep into their DNA

To focus on customer success has always been the mantra of successful salespeople. Is it yours? If it is consistently, you are remark-able.

We’ve all been in meetings where a Manager sites a big sale and everyone applauds, another AE makes some sarcastic remark about the sale and then the meeting continues. That’s not what I’m talking about.

What about the AE who finally got the meeting with that retailer he has been working on for a year or the Assistant who was able to save 15 minutes a day by developing a spreadsheet report or a Manager who found a way to eliminate a meeting saving hours of time for everyone? Or what about the AE who hates paperwork (and there are a lot of them!) and took the time to get organized? We know how good that feels but to be recognized as making some progress feels even better.

List these small wins every day. You can do this individually on a piece of paper. You can recognize other’s progress to a colleague or appropriate staff members, in sales meetings, wherever and whenever you can. Public-style communication of progress allows people to feel good about their accomplishments and helps all of us be a part of the big picture one step at a time.

Progress includes deeper engagement with our work and deeper engagement leads to performance improvement. The “Progress Culture” must include the feeling of steady progress, not just repeating daily tasks in hopes of a major accomplishment one day in the future.

The wins, big or small, must be meaningful and not manufactured – they contributed to the customer, the organization or to the team goals.

Establishing the “Progress Culture” with understandable and realistic goals, resources and time plus the removal or reduction of obstacles will make you and your TV Station remark-able.

And loss is the cousin of change. You can’t have one without the other. We’ve all suffered loss and change but it is how we deal with them that matters.

You are probably wondering what this has to do with working in the broadcast industry or at a TV station. We experience losses and change (albeit, not necessarily as devastating as a loss of a loved one) every day. Clients cancel schedules, managers move accounts, fellow salesperson or your manager leave to work elsewhere, an account leaves your station for another, you don’t get the promotion you were expecting, you get laid off unexpectedly, your commission plan changes; the list goes on and on. These are all losses and require change.

As a wise man once said to me, “Never evaluate someone’s character while things are going well for them. Evaluate their character when they are faced with loss and change.”

How you respond to loss and change is what will make you remark-able.

1. Thank you
2. You’re great
3. Good job
4. Good idea
5. I missed you
6. You’re right
7. You are a great resource
8. You make me want to be better
9. Thanks for really sharing
10. I admire you for …

How often do we say these phrases to our broadcast advertisers, co-workers, friends, and family? Notice, they are all about the other person and focusing on their feeling good. I can assure you, when people feel good around us they want to be around us. And when people want to be around us we grow personally and professionally. We become remark-able.

I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions but my goal is to become as “outrospective” as I can. How about you? What phrases would you add?

How about instead of looking inside we look outside? Outro-spection. We look at those around us and ask what we can do to make their life better. We look outside of ourselves and ask what we can learn from each other. We look outside of ourselves to determine how together we can turn conflict into growth. We look outside of ourselves to appreciate the beauty and awe of touching someone’s heart.

Let’s try this in our business life as well as our personal life. Ideally, there is no differentiation. Business is all about relationships today. Look outside of yourself and your TV station and focus on customer success. Make your customer’s life better, learn from your customers, turn conflict into growth and touch their heart.

When you do you will be remark-able.