Hi. I'm Doug Lessells. On behalf of everyone at SalesFuel, we welcome you to this month's featured Sell Smarter Award — where we honor excellence in media sales.

Getting started in the sales game isn’t always easy. New reps often struggle to find their footing when first starting out, as account executive Brandon Brackett from Redding Record Searchlight can attest.

“I am a new rep and I was given a task of selling a new digital product offering for us,” said Brackett. “I was trained, but I was struggling with finding a first buyer. I had no customer base to work off of and, by month five, I still had not closed a deal yet.”

Hoping for a new lead, Brackett turned to AdMall for help finding clients. There, he came across a window and door manufacturer that was having trouble connecting to customers.

“I found a company that was struggling because they didn't have a good opinion of digital advertising,” said Brackett. “I used AdMall to research all types of digital information on [the owner’s] surrounding area and discovered that his current marketing plan was utilizing websites and programs that weren't where his target market was. I showed him the statistics and where buyers were looking at, using AdMall, and was able to turn his opinion around on digital.”

Specifically, Brackett looked at site traffic sources to show how the company’s low online engagement was due to only bringing in clicks from organic web searches. Also, the Digital Audit showed that the target demographic was active on Facebook and YouTube (84% and 60%, respectively), but the company itself was failing to use social media to its fullest potential.

To remedy this, Brackett convinced the owner to invest in an array of online advertising options, including search engine marketing, digital web ads, Facebook and YouTube ads, and search engine optimization, as well as one print ad. When all was said and done, the sale closed for a whopping $113,000.

Congratulations to Brandon, along with the other Sell Smarter Award recipients:

• Cheryl Froman of Anderson Independent-Mail
• and Carla Kilinger of Hometown Stations — WLO, ELIO, WOHL, EOHL.

To read more about these winners, along with submitting your own story for a chance at a Sell Smarter Award, please visit SalesFuel​.com/​SSA.