From stranger to advertiser

Someone can first reach you as a listener, as a lead, or as a name already in Contacts. This page shows each path from there to buying airtime, in the order it happens.

Two rules apply to every path:

• Converting copies; it never moves. A listener who becomes a lead is still a listener, with their history kept. That history is often the reason they called.
• Nothing becomes an advertiser by accident. The log is built from advertisers, so that step is always one you take on purpose.

Listener → lead

When someone writes in about advertising, Studio Inbox labels the message Business. It does this whenever a message mentions advertising, sponsorship or a rate card. It leans toward labeling: a song request marked Business costs nothing, and a missed advertiser costs money.

1. Open the message in Studio Inbox. 2. Choose Make this a lead.

The listener stays where they were. You now also have a lead in Leads, with what they said and where they came from, so your first sales call starts from their own words.

Lead → company, contact and deal

Open the lead in Leads and choose Convert. This one step makes three records:

• a company, at the prospect stage
• a contact, the person, with their first and last name filled in
• an open deal, on the pipeline and stage you choose

If the lead has no company name, the company is named after the person. That way a one-person business is still easy to find.

A lead can only be converted once. If it already was, Cartwright tells you when, instead of making a second company.

Deal → won

Move a deal along the board with the stage control on the deal itself, rather than by editing it. That way Cartwright records how long the deal sat in each stage, which shows you where your pipeline slows down. That time cannot be filled in later.

On-The-Air is the won stage. Whether a stage counts as won or lost is a setting on the stage, not its name, so you can rename a stage without changing your forecast.

Company → advertiser

This is where Sales meets Traffic, and it is the only place they meet.

1. Open Advertisers and create the advertiser. 2. Open the company in Companies and link it to that advertiser.

Linking does not change the advertiser. Companies and advertisers stay separate on purpose, so prospects never end up in the list that builds the log.

Now you can write an order. See Getting a spot on air.

Contact → listener

Sometimes it goes the other way: someone in Contacts turns out to be a listener too.

Use the listener control on the contact. Cartwright first looks for a listener who is already on file, by phone, email or social handle. It never matches by name. If it finds one, it links to that listener instead of making a second record. Two people can share a name, but they do not share a cell number.

Why listeners and contacts are separate

A contact is someone at a business you sell to. A listener is your audience. Keeping them apart keeps ad buyers out of the Studio Inbox and song requests out of your pipeline.

It also keeps the right questions in the right place. "Is this the first time they have been in touch, or the eleventh?" matters for a listener. You would not ask it about a media buyer.