All radio companies grow or shrink one large client at a time.
The radio industry’s total revenue continues to shrink because the money it loses every year from the large clients that spend less money outpaces the money it gains from the large clients that spend more.
To reverse this result, reverse the inputs. You need more large clients to grow and fewer large clients to shrink.
As legendary Harvard Business School professor Theodore Levitt might have put it, everything else is derivative.
What’s A Large Client?
There are two kinds of large clients. There are the large clients with which you ended last year and the large clients you are creating this year. The large clients you ended last year with ended up in the top 25% of the account list at the end of last year. We call them Key Accounts, but you can call them whatever you want.
The large clients you are creating this year are any medium, small and non-spenders that grow enough to end up in the top 25% of the account list at the end of this year. We call those New Key Accounts. Again, what you call them is up to you.
Here’s the unavoidable truth: Key Accounts and New Key Accounts are your only possible sources of growth, and the way to grow them is one account at a time.
For instance, let’s imagine a radio cluster that finds itself behind budget at the end of Q1. The image below shows how the cluster’s Key Accounts might have performed.
A few Key Accounts grew, some stayed the same and a bunch shrank substantially.
Clearly, the shortfall was caused by the sum total of the performance of 100 individual accounts. Therefore, mitigating the loss needs to be achieved in the same way: One account at a time. Let’s look at account number 15. It’s green and growing. What can the seller do to grow it even more this year? Then there is account number 68. It’s already in trouble. What steps can the seller take to, at a minimum, stop the bleeding?
Every account is a living, breathing business with its own unique circumstances and its own quantifiable revenue potential. It is the job of the seller, in collaboration with their manager, to grow each client to its maximum potential.
Here are four tips to help you grow your business one account at a time.
All large clients should have an annual revenue goal.
If there is one truth we have observed over the years, it is that growth comes from the pursuit of a goal. Every conversation about a client should happen in the context of the revenue number that the seller and the manager want the account to spend by December 31. We are not talking about a share of the client’s annual spend or an estimate of what the client might buy. Put a stake in the ground. Decide how much you want the account to spend.
Mind the gap.
Take stock of the gap between what the account has already spent and the goal you have set. Here again, we are trying to make the challenge concrete. Let’s say it’s a Key Account that spent $40,000 last year and you are trying to grow it to $50,000. If they have already booked $30,000 for the year, you have $20,000 to go. As soon as you face up to the gap, it becomes clear that hoping the client spends that additional money is not a viable strategy.
This is when the manager and the seller need to discuss what proactive steps the seller can take to bring the client enough ideas to make up the difference by the end of the year.
Investigate the client’s current and future marketing priorities.
Your company’s biggest opportunities for growth are often hidden within your clients’ marketing challenges and opportunities. For every client you choose to focus on, ask the question, what is this client attempting to do with their marketing without our help?
This is a great time to apply the 95/5 Rule. What exactly are they doing to harvest the 5% of the people who are already in the market for their products and services? Then there’s the 95% of the category buyers who have not yet entered the market. What exactly is the client doing to build fresh memories in their minds?
Zero in on a project.
Now that you have explored what the client is working on without your help, zero in on at least one project you are interested in helping them with and use it as a valid business reason to earn a new meeting with them.
The trick to growing large accounts is to treat them like they are your only client. Invest as much time as it takes to devise a plan of action that is custom to that one business. Only then are you ready to move on to the next large client.
It has been our experience that clients have an endless list of marketing projects they need help with. Getting yourself hired to help them with those projects is a great way to grow your business one large account at a time.
Sally Beamer is Managing Partner and Gerry Tabío is Founder and CEO at the Creative Resources Group, which specializes in helping media companies create sustained year-over-year revenue growth. You can reach them at sallybeamer@creativeresourcesgroup.com and at gerrytabio@creativeresourcesgroup.com.