Building and establishing the value proposition of your Best Of will help unite your team internally and provide them with the needed resources and knowledge to close sales. Focus on your mission statement, identifying advertiser benefits, and developing sales training to drive success from your biggest revenue initiative of the year!

Your Mission Statement

A mission statement is necessary for your Best Of as it will define the purpose, value, and goals of your Best Of program. It will inform every decision you make about your program. From the colors, font, and logo to the categories you add to your ballot – every decision you make should reflect your mission statement.

Your mission statement will also unify your internal teams so all will understand the value proposition and can use that to communicate the value to the community and overcome objections.

Advertiser Benefits

Train your sales team on the numerous benefits advertising within your Best Of will bring. Remember that Advertiser Benefits = Value = Revenue.

• Year-Round Celebration

Typically, users will engage with your Best Of for about 2 months out of the year. Lead your value proposition discussion with how you celebrate winners year-round. Tout the further opportunities you provide to advertisers who win:

• Winner Directory
• Winner Showcase Emails
• Year-Round Winner Showcase
• On-Air Features/Segments
• Content
• Listicles
• Promotions to further engage audience

• Community Engagement & Broad Reach/Mass Appeal

The reach of your Best Of is exponentially higher than any other promotion you will run. It will engage the most users and drive the most nominations and votes.

When explaining the benefits, share your stats from the previous years you’ve run your Best Of to communicate the increase of engagement you see year over year, and how your advertiser will be exposed to all of this growth as well.

• Multi-media Campaign

Explain that the advertising opportunities don’t just stop at what’s available within the ballot. Include your core media – digital, print, on-air, email, social, etc. And remember we have our Best Of Sales-One-Sheets you can use as a starting point!

• Free to Compete

Your ballot will be open to all businesses – it is not a requirement to be an advertiser to appear on the ballot to win – but – it will exponentially increase their chances of winning and drive awareness for their business.

• Reminder They are the Best

It’s bragging time! Tell the advertisers to defend their title or prove this year that their business truly is the best. In their advertising, use badges from each year they won to further their supremacy.

• New Customer Acquisition​ & Supports Recruitment Efforts

All in all, advertising within your Best Of ultimately accomplishes any advertiser’s main goal – to grow their business and reach customers outside of their main audience year-round.

Sales Training

As we’ve mentioned, sales rep education and buy-in is extremely important, and their understanding of the value proposition is necessary to efficiently sell to your advertisers. Cover these areas within your sales training to energize and educate your sales team:

• Host a sales launch party

Add some fun to the process! Host a sales launch party with a theme, prizes, refreshments, and anything else that will help build excitement and camaraderie. Invite all sellers, marketing, admin, and leadership to get buy-in from all necessary parties. Schedule it 4-6 weeks prior to the nomination phase to give your team plenty of time to learn and sell.

• Review and Recognize

Recap your mission statement, recognize last years’ sales stars, and go over the outline of the ballot (3 phases, how many nominees advance to the voting round, number of winners/finalists, etc.)

• How It Works

Provide a timeline that includes pertinent dates like when the ballot will launch, when sales will close for each round, or when the special section will be printed. List the groups and categories that will be used this year, and include stats from last year so everyone has a baseline.

• Sales Packages

Go over the packages you’ll be offering and provide helpful talking points that will drive the value proposition. Show and explain sample ads to educate your team with the opportunities within the ballot.

• Goals

Discuss last year’s revenue, this year’s goal, and individual/team goals. Also explain any stretch goals you may have set.

• Commission Plans

Get into the information that will invective your team – commissions. Answer questions like who will qualify, will there be benefits for those who acquire the most accounts, new accounts, will there be any stretch goal bonuses.

• Prospecting

Arm your sales team with the best prospects – categories that drove the most revenue or individual businesses that appear in multiple categories.

• The Pitch

Provide your team with resources like pitch scripts, stats, and objection tactics to help them close the sale.

• Advertiser Testimonials & Resources

Continuously record testimonials from previous years’ advertisers to drive sales in future years. Also craft a kit of graphics and marketing tips to promote to help your advertisers get the word out.

• Internal Reminders

Remind your team of important factors like due dates, your mission statement, your media kit, or contact info for your ballot champion (or the internal project manager tasked with seeing your ballot succeed).

The Pitch

Don’t be basic! In other words, don’t start the pitch with the basic sales package. Your sales team needs to understand your packages and what package fits which advertiser.

Craft scripts for your sales team to help focus on the value proposition and close the sale:

Overcoming Objections

Practice with your sales team on how to handle common objections. Have scripts ready and arm them with stats and the value proposition. Here are a few example objections and ways to overcome them:

• ‘It’s rigged’

Its free to participate in ‘Best Of’. We are presenting this package to you because it’s truly good for your business. Our audience is exponentially bigger and more valuable right now – and always during ‘Best Of’ Season. We promote this program everywhere. We also use a 3rd party and check IP addresses if we suspect fraudulent voting.

• ‘What if I buy a package and don’t win?’

That could happen. But as a sales rep you can help them spread the word with not only the presence on the ballot (as part of their package) but with how they can solicit votes from their current customers. The key is to explain that they aren’t paying for votes. They are paying for an integrated package that reaches your audience when it’s at its peak. For example, we had a 300% increase in votes this year and 20,000 unique users! Share how many nominations you had in last year’s ballot. Share success stories of other advertisers.

• ‘I can’t afford to buy right now.’

I am sure you want to increase business – leads, foot traffic. Of all the promotions we run, our Best Of ballot has the biggest exposure to our region. An investment in advertising in our ballot will lead to an even larger return for your business. (And if you see the sale not moving, go to the next business in that category.)

• ‘I don’t need to buy a package to win. I AM the best.’

That’s correct. It’s free to participate in our Best Of. But your competitors want to claim your title. We are presenting this package to you because it’s truly good for your business. Our audience is exponentially bigger and more valuable right now – and always during ‘Best Of’ Season. If you win every year, would you like to THANK your supporters for making you the best?