Secrets of selling digital: Rohan Johnson Q&A

Rohan Johnson from Adrep

THE online space is splintering minute-to-minute. New products, approaches and technology are constantly changing the landscape, so the process of selling advertising in that space needs to be adaptable too.

Rohan Johnson, who owns newspaper sales training organisation Adrep, told Media Planet’s Trevor Allen what it takes to sell digital.

Trevor Allen: What are the steps involved in selling digital space?

Rohan Johnson: The biggest issue here is an understanding of the nature of ‘sales’. Reps have always struggled to sell multiple products. This is because they see selling as ‘something you do to someone else’. Selling is a process of exploration, with the singular purpose of finding problems that your products can solve. As long as reps falsely see selling as ‘a bag of tricks to help me get the client to do what I want them to do’ they’ll struggle to sell more than one product, and in many cases, struggle to sell anything at all.

So in effect ‘selling’ digital and ‘selling’ print are the same. The execution and advice given on how to make digital work is different to how to make print work. But selling them is the same. You ask questions, gather intel, identify problems and then provide solutions that will benefit the client. It’s the only truly intelligent, long-term approach that ensures everybody wins.

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Rohan Johnson is the owner of sales training firm Adrep. He can be contacted here.

Read more from our special guide, the Secrets of Selling Digital