There is a time to talk and a time to listen – but there’s also a time to talk a little less. In this Billboard Mastery podcast we’re going to review when to hold back on talking and how to get straight to business in order to get deals closed.
Episode 135: The Dangers Of Talking Too Much Transcript
We all know the phrase that you should be a good listener, but you have to talk sometimes, right? But many people in the billboard business talk too much, and that can hold you back. This is Frank Rolfe, the Billboard Mastery Podcast. We're going to talk about why you might be talking too much and how talking a little less may give you an easier path to success. The first thing that people talk too much about is in meeting with someone regarding putting a billboard on their property. You want to be direct. You want to go into that meeting, already have an exhibit showing where the sign would go, already having a photo of what the sign would look like, and go straight down to business. You go into the person's office, and you say, "Yes, let me tell you where we want to put this sign, and here's a picture of what it will look like. What questions do you have?" Go into the money aspect of it: percentage, base. If you have a copy of the lease, jump right into the lease, have them look down the lease, see if they have any questions. Sometimes they want to read it later; sometimes they want to run it by their attorney. But don't start off with a bunch of small talk, because when you open the door to small talk, what's going to happen if you're not a well-established billboard company is they're going to start asking you questions about how many billboards do you own? How many billboards have you built? How many billboards have you built on a property like mine? And the answer to those questions in 99% of all cases is more of a detriment than an asset.
If you go straight into it with that property owner, you don't get those questions. Immediately, they're asking you questions about the location and the sign and the money, but they cut out all that initial small talk. And the same is true if you meet the property owner out on location. Let's say you pull up in your car and they're already standing there. You would get out of your car and say, "Okay, let me show you exactly where the sign goes." And you would walk over right to where the pole would be going. You'll say, "All right, here's what we have going on. We've got a setback from the front of 10 feet. We have a setback from the side of 5 feet. So based on my measurements, the sign would go roughly here." Now, what would they say? They would say, "Well, okay, but is there a way to get the pole closer to the property corner?" And you could say, "Well, I could do an offset. That's one option. Pole comes straight up, it goes over that direction, and the sign sits on it at the extension over that direction." But again, I've gotten the property owner immediately focused, not on me, not what I'm doing, not my background... All about him, all about his needs, his background, because that's where I always want to direct all of the encounters. I don't want to get into a small talk mode. Some people think, "Oh yeah, you got to do the small talk to build the trust and to bond." No, that's not really true. People do the small talk because they're nervous, and often the property owner feels that nervousness and it makes them nervous. When you're direct, they feel that you're busy, you have things going on, you've done this before. But when you want to start off with discussions of the weather and things like that, all it does is open the door to questions about you and your background and what you have going on.
Now, the same is true when you're trying to rent ad space. If you finally got that meeting with the franchisee at McDonald's, you don't want to go in with a whole bunch of small talk. You want to go straight into it. You want to say, "Okay, this sign, it will work great for you, and here's the design I've already come up with." Show them the design that you have. Get their input. "What do you think of it? What would you want to advertise on that sign? What's your most profitable item we could sell on that sign?" And once they've said, "Well, I don't know, I think I would like to advertise breakfast. We do really well with our McDonald's breakfast." "Okay, well, let's go with that. Do you have anything that you're required to have as a franchisee?" "Well, yes, I do. Here's the page out of my franchisee handbook. I need the ad to look like this." "Oh, okay, great. And can we get a vinyl like that from home office?" "I think we can. Here's the number and the name for the home office guy that has those vinyls." "Okay, perfect." And then you pull out your lease and you say, "Here's the ad lease. As you see, I've got the rate just like we talked about, the term like we talked about." And they say, "Oh, that's great. Okay, well, where do I sign?" "Oh, you sign right here." "Okay, thanks a lot. We'll see you later. When will that sign be going up?" "Oh, we'll have the ad up probably within about a week or two weeks of getting in that vinyl." "Okay, perfect." See how easy that was? If you go to the meeting, you start off with small talk, like, "How about those Dallas Cowboys?" or something. It invariably again opens the door for them to ponder, "Wait a minute, this guy doesn't have any business going on. He's got no schedule. There's no other pending obligations. That's why he's trying to kill time with small talk. It's scaring me," because busy people don't engage in small talk. Only people who have nothing better to do engage in small talk.
And any of these people who own these businesses, they know that because they do it that way. They don't engage in small talk with their employees and others. They're always doing something. So you need to fit that same role, or you're only going to screw up your deal and not help it. You're not trying to make a lifelong friend of the property owner or the advertiser. You're trying to get the job done. You're trying to do a good job for them. You're trying to do and meet your obligations with them. But it doesn't really require any type of friendship or bonding to do that. Remember that billboards, the big companies have thousands of them. The employees at those companies move very quickly because they have many, many other accounts to service or to call on. Don't start doing small talk, because when you utilize small talk, it portrays you as someone who is not busy and therefore not as worthy of their respect. This is Frank Rolfe, the Billboard Mastery Podcast. Hope you enjoyed this. Talk to you again soon.