For the last Programming To Win column of 2011, Fred Jacobs reminds us that essentially everyone in the radio industry is in some way working in “sales.” While programmers and jocks aren’t out visiting advertisers in a suit and tie, everyone is selling and promoting some aspect of their station at all times nowadays. Jacobs expands on multiple ways that everyone in radio can creatively “sell.”
Fred Jacobs
By Fred Jacobs
For most of the programmers and DJs reading this article, it has hopefully become apparent that while you’re strictly speaking – “content people” – the fact is that like it or not, you’re in sales.
Or you’d better be if you want to succeed in the radio and/or the media and entertainment business in 2012 and beyond. If for some reason you haven’t gotten that message, you need to rapidly acquire the “sales gene.”
Now this doesn’t mean that you have to start adjusting to life in a cubicle. Nor does it mean that your wardrobe now has to be purchased at Jos. A. Bank. We’re not talking about rate cards here, but the ability to sell your ideas, market your station in new ways, and even work on your most important brand – you.
The success formula in our business has undergone radical change in recent years. To truly win in media, personalities and programmers need to sell and market their content, their vision, and even their own brands not just to the audience but to their staffs, their management teams, their corporate execs, their advertisers, and other media partners.
If you think I’m off-base here, consider this…
How many wonderful promotions go unsold at your station every year? Now there may be a myriad of plausible explanations for these failures. But chances are, if you – the content creator or voice of these promotions – got behind them and positioned them to your sales staff, you’d probably have a better chance of getting those sponsorship dollars.
Better yet, if you had the opportunity to personally interface with clients – the decision-maker, the owner, the account manager, or even the buyer – the likelihood of your project getting monetized would increase considerably. And the “sell job” goes beyond external sales and media buyers. Most programmers do a mediocre job of selling their content internally. In short, you should be “selling up” and “selling down” within your organization in order to win buy-in from the folks you manage as well those who manage you.
Think about how most radio station staffs are configured these days. There are fewer people roaming the halls, but these smaller groups of harried, hassled people are busier than they’ve ever been, handling multiple jobs and tasks. In short, they are pressurized and their most important commodity is time – or the lack of it.
So how can you expect them to know about all of the wonderful programming, promotions, and events you’ve concocted? Whether they’re in sales, management, or even traffic, chances are they don’t have as many opportunities to listen to the station, much less keep track of all the creative things you’re programming. And they’re often so busy just trying to get it all done that they don’t have the bandwidth necessary to figure out all the good stuff the programming department is doing.
So you have to work it and do some selling, while being respectful of everyone’s time.
How about a weekly or monthly email newsletter, perhaps along the lines of the email blasts you send to your audience? In this way, you can position what you’ve done, what you’re about to do, and what’s in the pipeline over the next several months. (Be careful here not to “over-reveal” your long-term game plan because not all your co-workers may be your co-workers six months from now.)
Your staff wants to believe in you. And they want to believe in the brand. Radio stations are like team locker rooms. They are organic, emotional entities, despite all the metrics and analytics. Rumors run rampant, emotions are high-pitched, and there’s a very palpable vibe in the building depending on the most recent ratings to next month’s sales to what the GM’s spouse heard on the station that morning.
So, take charge of the internal attitude and sell your story. Package it up and share your vision and successes, whether it’s about your amazing holiday concert, that first quarter contest, your Facebook “like” page stats, how many pounds of food you gathered for the local homeless shelter, buzz-worthy morning show guests (live or syndicated), DJ speaking engagements and appearances, streaming stats and mobile app downloads, and of course, ratings victories.
In short, put some of your best stuff in a convenient easy-to-access place that will inform and motivate. Make sure it goes to the entire staff, from your sales management team to the receptionist – because you have to sell your vision and your accomplishments to everyone at the station.
And it also helps to sell “up,” too. If you’ve noticed, those corporate staffers haven’t been sleeping all that well lately either. It’s not easy keeping track of 50, 60, or 400 stations in an environment where the only certainty is uncertainty.
Determine their content preferences – that is, how would they like to be informed about what your station is doing? Once you have that knowledge, you have a conduit to “upstairs.” And in almost every case, the more they know about your great brand (your accomplishments, your staff, and you), the better informed they’ll be able to make those tough calls. A lack of on-the-ground information at the corporate level is one of the biggest barriers facing many executives. Mistakes are being made weekly about who is strong, who is mailing it in, who’s contributing, and who’s dead weight – largely because CEOs and VPs lack the on-the-ground information to make informed decisions. That’s where your information and local intelligence becomes a difference maker.
If you think that it’s difficult for corporate to have a total grasp on what you’re doing at the station or cluster level, you’re right. So often, their current perception is based on the last time they listened, their most recent visit to the market, the last conversation with your GM, or their own internal musings. Oftentimes an old impression is lasting, so it may be essential to do some strategic selling. You have the ability to impact the way your station is perceived by corporate, a valuable bit of selling that can work wonders for you and your staff.
All of this speaks to your own branding – yes, another form of sales. If we’ve learned anything from the past few years of a brutal recession-wracked economy, it’s that everyone is a brand.
Sure, your station is a brand, but so are you. And these tough times demand a certain level of “brand management” on your part. As the global economy roller-coasters along, more and more entrepreneurs have taken their careers into their own hands and started their own companies. It seems like everyone has become an expert on brands.
Whether you work for a big broadcaster or a family owned radio station, the onus is on you to sell and market the most important brand – you.
The New York Times calls Millennial entrepreneurs “Generation Sell.’ And you can see how the culture of controlling one’s personal brand has spread throughout the workforce.
In our world, bands have taken control of their brands – marketing their music without record labels, using websites and social media for distribution, fan communication, and advertising, and supporting themselves with a blend of e-commerce as they sell everything from CDs to merch to concert tickets.
Individuals are brands, too, with all the opportunities in front of them, thanks to today’s digital tool kit. Managing your personal brand isn’t selling out. It’s about sharpening your skills, packaging your successes, telling your story, and proving your value – to the station, to the company, and to the industry. Creating content for industry trade publications (like this one), writing your own blog, using the power of resources like LinkedIn and Twitter, finding a way to get to a convention or two, and establishing relationships with advertisers and leaders in your community are all part of the brand-building program that PDs and jocks need to put into action in order to survive and thrive in this changing world.
If it makes you feel better, you can always substitute “branding” for “selling.” And “marketing” for “sales.” But no matter how you cut it, if you’re successful in our business, chances are you’ve mastered the art of selling.
Welcome to the Sales Department.
Fred Jacobs is President of Jacobs Media. The Southfield, Michigan based firm consults many of America’s most successful Classic Rock, Mainstream Rock, and Alternative stations. Fred can be reached at (248) 353-9030 or fredjacobs@jacobsmedia.com
