Building Relationships on Fundamentals - Advice to a New General Manager

The newly appointed radio station General Manager posted a request for advice at Radio Sales Café. She said, "My biggest problem is finding quality sales staff and keeping them."

Everyone has his own take on the responsibilities, priorities and pitfalls of middle management, and the perennial problem of how to find and retain good people. My response was limited to just a few points, but I consider each of them fundamental to the long-term success of both the salesperson and the manager:

1. CARE about your new hires. Treat them as you would want to be treated, even better. (Read Proverbs 3:27-28 and you'll see what I mean.)

2. PROVIDE the training and support they need in order to help their advertisers and the station grow their businesses.

You'll find a wealth of good information, resources, and people here at RSC; plenty of gold for a determined miner.

Be sure they get training in ADVERTISING as well as SALES. Invest in a library of time-tested marketing and advertising works by the masters: David Ogilvy, Claude Hopkins, John Caples, Al Ries and Jack Trout, Jay Conrad Levinson, etc. Chris Lytle's "The Accidental Salesperson" will be most helpful to you as well as your salespeople. Pick up Roy Williams' "Wizard of Ads" trilogy - on CD, preferably; hearing his stuff beats reading it. Michael Corbett's "33 Ruthless Rules of Advertising" will help your sales staff see the world through the eyes of their prospective clients.

3. BE TOLERANT of their mistakes. We all make them. The trick is to learn from them and grow, not to perpetuate them.

4. ENCOURAGE RISK-TAKING. Nothing significant in life is accomplished without calculated risk.

5. BE TRANSPARENT. Make sure they know what you expect of them and how you, in turn, will provide support for them.

6. BE CONSISTENT. They're out there in the field busting their butts for you. Don't confuse or undermine their efforts by, for instance, having double-standards with regard to rates (lower rates for people you like) or access to resources.

7. SEE #1 ABOVE. It's really that important.

Reviewing the list later, it occurred to me that with a little tweaking these same principles also apply to the relationship of a seller to his clients.

Caring, concern, communication, confidence, consistency...all contribute to the quality of our relationships with employers, employees, customers, and suppliers.

* * * * * * *

Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due,
When it is in the power of your hand to do so.
Do not say to your neighbor,
"Go, and come back,
And tomorrow I will give it,"
When you have it with you.
-Proverbs 3:27-28

Politically Correct Advertising

Five candidates were vying for an open seat on the Washington State Legislature in the recent primary election, held August 18th. Washington being a vote-by-mail state, ballots were sent out at the end of July, giving voters several weeks to make their choice. One of the quirky and somewhat controversial aspects of our primary is that the top two vote-getters, regardless of party affiliation, advance to the general election. This particular race was among four Republicans and one Democrat. I am pleased to report that the candidate whose radio advertising I was asked to handle, ended up cinching the top spot by a comfortable margin over the second-place finisher, another Republican, whose late husband had occupied this particular seat in the legislature until his battle with terminal cancer forced him to vacate the position. The individual appointed to fill the remainder of his term, a former state legislator himself, chose not to run again.

My recommendation to my client was to start early and advertise consistently. Given the size of our sprawling district - larger than the state of Connecticut - we had several radio markets to cover. The plan was to introduce the candidate, her background and qualifications, and then build the campaign around the endorsements of people throughout the district who know and support her candidacy.

I did not want to use prepared scripts and risk having the individuals sound stilted and artificial, which is often the case when asking people to read from a printed page words that are not their own. Rather, I chose to interview - in person or over the phone - the people whose endorsements might be meaningful to voters. Most of these interviews lasted from ten or fifteen minutes; some took considerably longer. I had prepared a list of questions designed both to keep the conversation focused and to elicit meaningful answers. But we kept the conversation open enough so that each individual might have ample opportunity to share his or her insights.

As all experienced writers and producers well know, the greatest challenge (and the real work) is in the editing. I'm not referring simply to removing pauses, stumbles, "uhs" and all the little mouth noises - the saliva clicks, plosive pops, excessive sibilance and clipping - though this is certainly a part of the process, and can require scores of individual edits. Rather, I'm talking about the choice of which ideas, words and phrases to keep, which ones to leave out, and how best to combine them to convey the intended message clearly and effectively. It is painstaking and time-consuming; one might devote several hours of concentrated effort to the creation of a single one-minute spot. But this investment of time and effort often makes all the difference when it comes to the end result.

I created seven commercials for my candidate's primary election effort. Most of them went through several revisions and refinements, based on input from the client and her campaign staff. We ran them sequentially, each airing exclusively for a few days before being replaced by the next.

One of the ironies of the outcome of this primary race (to me, anyway) was that the candidate who theoretically should have conducted the most effective broadcast campaign, given his background in television journalism, his current position in marketing and communications, and his campaign promise to be, in his words, "your communications warrior" came in a distant fifth of the five candidates. He did his own radio spots, in which he sounded quite confident (some thought perhaps a bit cocky) that he was the man for the job. But his strategy, as embodied by his radio schedule, proved anemic. He ran ads (fairly heavily) for just two days during the entire campaign: the day the ballots were received in the mail, and again several weeks later, on the Monday before the election. By contrast, the top two contenders' radio campaigns were much more consistent.

Ultimately, my candidate's greater reliance on radio proved the best overall plan. Even her main competitor acknowledged this, specifically citing her radio campaign: According to a newspaper report:

Pat Hailey, republican candidate for the 9th District House position, said Fagan is likely in the lead because she spent more money and had an extensive radio advertising campaign.

Music to my ears.
Here are the seven spots from that campaign: