Every once in a while I like to remind myself, our industry, and of course my team how important it is to maintain strong relationships between media buyers and reps.
Don’t get me wrong, reps know my team drives a hard bargain. They understand that we, like all other agencies, represent the client and their interests. Yet they also know that my team appreciates the hard work they put into formulating programs that will work for our clients.
When it comes down to it, reps will fight harder for deals for the buyers they like and respect. You need to acknowledge the work that a lot of people do to make your agency more successful. So this column is about things you can do to show gratitude to your reps for all the hard work they do for you. These tips are based on things I’ve heard reps talk about, things we try to do, and things we’ve discussed doing. Remember, you can attract more flies with honey. (If you are a rep and feel we aren’t doing at least the basic things here for you, my apologies. Please let me know.)
•Be polite. Return calls and e-mail, even if you aren’t in buy mode. It only takes a couple moments. It will help reps do their job to connect with media buyers, acknowledge their effort to reach out to you, and give you both the opportunity to get into each other’s contact list.
•Acknowledge their value as educators. Sales reps are the continuing education professors for media buyers. They keep us in the know about all the new placements and technologies in the pipeline. Admit it, media buyers: How did we learn about all this stuff that we recommend to our clients? How did we amass much of the information that makes us experts in online media? We got it by letting the media reps give us their dog-and-pony shows. We got the information from the source, which is exactly where we should get it from.