Mike Stern returns to Programming To Win this week, via his new position at Jacobs Media. Stern takes a look back at the past few years of his career and passes on some life lessons he’s learned as an “accidental entrepreneur.
Mike Stern
By Mike Stern, Consultant – Jacobs Media
I never really intended on working for myself. Being an entrepreneur wasn’t a lifelong dream of mine. I never really chafed at having to work for the man. In my case it just sort of happened. That’s why I like to think of myself as an Accidental Entrepreneur.
You see, for those of you haven’t been breathlessly following my every career development, I’ve been on a pretty non-traditional path in the time between my last programming gig as Operations Manager for Emmis’ WKQX and WLUP/Chicago and joining the team at Jacobs Media as a consultant.
I was the News/Talk/Sports Editor for Radio & Records where I learned all about a format I had no previous experience with. I also learned how to write for a living which came in handy when the magazine folded and I started freelancing for a number of publications including Billboard where I wrote and edited the weekly Top 40 Update.
At the same time I launched Talent Mechanic, my own talent coaching business because one of the things I missed most was working with creative, unique air personalities. I also became a consultant for Arbitron’s Programming Services Team, an internal group focused on helping program directors better understand and utilize their ratings data. While I’m back to a more stable, traditional job now, I really value the experiences I had over the last few years. And of course, along the way I learned a number of lessons that are very applicable to programming, a few of which I’d like to share with you.
Use Passion to Drive Success
I can’t tell you how many different ways over the last few years I encountered evidence that passion plays a big role in the success of any venture. Beyond just giving good advice, I believe a lot of my success as a talent coach came from my absolute love for creating interesting content. I think part of what won over new clients and helped me get referrals for new business was my passion. It came through in what I did and said and was infectious.
I saw this more directly in radio when I was covering the news/talk format. Love or hate their political views you can’t ignore the pure passion hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck have for their content. It comes through the speakers and bonds them to the audience. There’s no reason that should be limited to just talk radio. Information comes at people so fast today they don’t rely on the radio to provide news. Instead, what they need from the personalities on their favorite radio station is help knowing what to care about. Find content you are passionate about and talk about it on the air. No matter if it makes you happy or sad, angry or skeptical, it’s the content that causes you to have a strong emotional reaction, a passionate reaction, you should be talking about.
Embrace Brevity and Repetition
It’s redundant to tell you that the world is moving faster than ever and people’s attention spans are shorter than ever. But one of the lessons I’ve learned from working with Arbitron is just how that change is impacting radio listening. The minute-by-minute reality of Portable People Meter data is that, looking across the entire universe of radio listeners, the average amount of time a person spends tuned in to a radio station is approximately 10 minutes. Yes, that’s an average and some occasions of listening last longer, but it dispels the myth that the majority of listeners lock in to one station for hours at a time.
The result is that many conventional radio philosphies should be turned on their ear. I’ve come around to not being as afraid of tight rotations as I may once have been. Playing the hits and playing them often seems to be the key to success, something I saw firsthand writing about Top 40 for Billboard. The format is one of, if not the hottest in the country today, and shows no signs of slowing down. Part of that may be attributable to a strong music cycle but it’s hard to ignore how the format’s rotations and hit-driven mentality match well with a consumer’s shortening attention span.
Now I’m not suggesting every station start playing their powers every 50 minutes but there are practical applications that shouldn’t be missed, including scheduling hit songs more often, promoting important station messages more frequently – one top of the hour promo is not enough to get a message out – and encouraging hosts to recycle their best content. If the average tune-in is 10 minutes, it’s probably smart to use a good bit twice in the course of a four hour show.
Maintain Perspective and Balance
Working as a freelance writer I can’t tell you the number of times I submitted an article only to have it drastically rearranged by an editor. What I always found fascinating though was that, while they liked to change the wording, they rarely ever changed the message.
It would have been easy to get upset and push back on the edits because, after all, my writing is brilliant. But I rarely did. There was no reason to pick an unnecessary fight. As long as the concept remained intact and the client was happy enough to send a check I was fine.
The more you can do to adopt the same attitude, the better off you, and your station, will be. Focus on the important things — are you reaching your target listeners, are the right messages getting on the airwaves – not the minutiae that, in the long-run doesn’t matter.
One thing that can help you stay focused on the big picture is maintaining your personal balance. Yes, I mean having a life outside of radio. I remember when radio consumed my nearly every waking moment. I understand now that just isn’t healthy.
Take a vacation, find a hobby, read a book. I promise it’ll make you a better programmer. Or, if you need a more intensive course in maintaining perspective, try volunteering at a local food bank. Early on, when my workload was lighter, I helped hand out food to people in need. I guarantee the experience will help reorient your view of what really matters. You’ll be far less likely to get into an absolute snit about any number of little things and be better at focusing on the big picture.
Mike Stern is a veteran radio programmer with more than 10 years of experience in markets such as Chicago, Detroit, Denver and Las Vegas. He recently opened Talent Mechanic, a coaching service for talent who want to improve their on-air performance and build their personality platform. For more information visit his Website www.talentmechanic.com or the Talent Mechanic blog; Free Estimates at http://talentmechanic.wordpress.com/
