Our Secret Consultants from across the pond compare your jocks to the women who work at their local salad bar…seriously! Do you want personalities who engage your listeners and are passionate about their jobs? Or someone who is just going through the motions for a paycheck?
By Mic Live and C.D. Case, The Secret Consultants
Around 12:30 every day we take the fifteen-minute walk to the local salad bar. More often than not we’ll have a tuna salad kidding ourselves that it is the healthy option and ignoring the dressing they drench it in. About now you should be thinking why the hell do I care what Mic and CD have for lunch, are they seriously going to tell me that a tuna salad makes me a better programmer? Well, it might – but that isn’t our point.
We’ve been doing this for over a year now and have subsequently become regular customers and enjoy all the benefits of being so: awkward conversations about the weather, a loyalty card and recently Mic’s been getting less than innocent gazes from the middle-aged manager.
Putting aside the tuna salad and the so called benefits of being a regular customer, we know as we walk through the door we will have one of two experiences, both vastly different. If Heather serves us then we’re in for a treat; the conversations about the weather are less awkward – the salad is made properly and she does something you don’t often see – she smiles! She is happy in her work and, dare we say it, even enjoying herself. Now, the idea of making salads for a living might fill you with horror but Heather clearly enjoys it — it really shows.
Some days we’ll arrive at the salad bar and there’s no sign of Heather, and instead there’s Karen. We know at this point we’re going to have a very different experience. In eighteen months we haven’t once seen Karen smile. She asks the same obligatory questions each time and makes no eye contact. It is clear to us, her colleagues and the other salad bar goers she doesn’t enjoy her job.
Why does this matter? Well, albeit only a brief encounter each day we walk out of the shop feeling different depending on who has served us. Heather lifts us up. Karen brings us down. As we walk back to our office we often discuss why are Heather and Karen so different? The truth is we didn’t know, so last Wednesday we asked her. After looking us in the eye for the first time, albeit with a look of hate, she told us: “I don’t care – I am just doing this because it’s easy – I really don’t care.”
Not being challenged, bad experiences at other radio groups, and subsequent mis-management all leads to poorly motivated personalities. They simply don’t care about their performance and what affect they have on the mood of the station – they don’t care how they impact how your audience feels about the station.
You want Heathers on the air… Heathers will spend quality time prepping their shows – not just reading the prep sheets and looking through the papers, but really prepping. They’ll absorb themselves in popular culture; they’ll be across everything that is of interest to your target audience each day. They will find something interesting or entertaining to say about it, rather than just recite it. They’ll have a point of view.
Heathers will be genuinely interested and passionate about your format’s music. They’ll share their music knowledge with your listeners. They’ll enthuse about the music, and they’ll work hard to ensure your listener has a new experience every time they hear a song.
Heathers will love the market you broadcast to. They’ll spend time experiencing and embracing every aspect of your market. They’ll attend events. They’ll read the local papers. They’ll build their whole life around your market. Heathers will sound knowledgeable about what’s happening around the area and will be able to share the local pride and concerns with conviction. The show a Heather delivers for you wouldn’t work in any other market on that day.
Heathers will approach every piece of concept from the listener’s point-of-view. They’ll craft everything so the benefit to the listener is the hook of their content. They get it’s about the listener not them.
Heathers will constantly find ways to bring station promotions to life in creative ways. They’ll surprise even you with how they bring the station to life.
Heathers understand that their show is not an island. They’ll spend time each shift effectively selling the station’s benefit. They’ll cross promote to other shows, constantly set appointments with the audience and they’ll constantly tease ahead giving listeners a real reason to spend more time with the station.
Heathers understand how it’s not what they say, it’s how they say it. Heathers understand that radio is about emotion, and will work hard to find the primal themes in all content that the audience can relate to. They understand that crying can be more compelling than laughter.
Heathers understand radio is like a political campaign and their performance on air is just part of the job. They’ll be out in the market meeting listeners and leaving positive first impressions at every opportunity. They win listeners one at a time.
And, most importantly, Heathers will do all of this and more every day… because they love the jobs they have.
If your personalities are Heathers, ensure you spend quality time with them, recognize their efforts and reward them accordingly. You don’t want to lose a Heather!
If your personalities are Karens, then you’ve got a problem, a problem your audience is already aware of.
And if you don’t believe us – the next time you go into Wal-Mart; McDonalds or Starbucks do the Heather or Karen test and compare how you feel when you leave the store. It’s the same for your audience when they listen to your personalities.
The Secret Consultants is a full service consultancy company with a difference… We don’t trade off our names and what we’ve done in the past; we trade off our ideas and what we can do for you right now and in the future. By keeping our identity a secret from everyone except our clients we arrive in markets completely under the radar; we conduct our work undetected and no competitor can try and second guess our tactics. Our approach provides clients with a unique opportunity to ‘gain ground’ against their competitors and build both ratings and revenue. We’d love to hear from you! Email us at results@secretconsultants.com or share with us on our blog www.secretconsultants.com
