Tag Archives: Roy H. Williams

May 24, 2020 · 3:00 am

Thank You Jason Jennings

jennings

Photo by Barbara Ries

In 1979, two major life-changing events occurred around the same time. One, I got married and two, I left the programming, operations, and on-air side of the radio business to enter radio sales. Both would change my life forever.

Before I ever set one foot on the street to sell a radio ad, my new company’s owner would send me to sales training. The trainer was Jason Jennings, and when I finished the day with him, I could not wait to get out on the street to begin selling radio advertising.

Jason William Jennings

Jason was born on May 31, 1952 in Ishpeming, Michigan. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Detroit. His politics back then were listed as Republican and his religion Lutheran.

I didn’t realize that when I first met Jason to undergo radio sales training, we were the same age, 27. He was so self-assured, confident and in total command of the room. He told everyone to take off their wrist watches and be prepared to take notes. I remember filling up my note book with what he was telling us.

What most amazed me was he taught for an entire day and everything he shared was stored in his mind. Not a single note did he ever refer too.

Only recently have I learned that while Jason and I started off as Republicans, we both were now progressives in our political views, we are both of the Lutheran faith and both aged 67.

Music was also a part of our lives, Jason played the viola and I the trombone.

AVI Communications, Inc

I met Pat “Spark” Shaughnessy at a radio conference back in the 90s. We were sitting next to one another and he introduced himself. That led to hanging out during the meetings and forming a friendship by the time the conference ended. Pat invited me to review a new radio sales training video program he had just finished with Jason Jennings. He sent me the entire program and I would watch every second of it and read the workbook materials. I then sent Pat a multi-page document with my thoughts.

Years later, when I was working on an advanced radio sales course for my university’s School of Broadcasting and Journalism, I contacted Pat to see if I could purchase two copies of the Quantum Sales Training Broadcast System for my students.

The program by now had been bought for thousands of dollars by over 600 TV stations, 2,000 radio stations and several hundred cable systems. Today, one copy of the series sits in the WKU main library and the other copy in the school of broadcasting.

The basics of the program, written and hosted by Jason, are timeless. I’ve used the DVD on Negotiation in sales training at all of the radio stations I’ve managed and in my introductory sales classes at the university.

LinkedIN & Facebook

I believe it was through LinkedIN that Jason first reached out to me to reconnect. More recently, Jason asked to be friends on Facebook. I’m embarrassed I didn’t ask him first. I believe it was because I so looked up to him as a mentor and felt asking would be a bother. Jason obviously didn’t feel that way.

Over time, I learned we were in concert on so many things, like what’s important in sales, management, politics and life.

A Better Tomorrow

Jason really cared about people. Somehow this man who was named among the twenty-five best speakers in America by the Nationwide Speakers Bureau, a bestselling author and media consultant always found the time to drop me a note and wish me well. I’m sure I was not the only one Jason did this to.

During his keynote addresses, it was normal for Jason to ask the audience “How many of you want your tomorrows to be better than today for you and your family?” He knew how to tap into our universal human desires in a real and genuine way.

“Ensure your heart is in the right place with a genuine desire to help highly principled people reach their full potential,” was how Jason’s podcasting co-host, Dale Dixon, defined Jason Jennings’s purpose in life.

Selling is Like Doctoring

In life, there are some phrases you come in contact with that become a part of you. When seeking to know what an advertising client was expecting from his radio campaign, Roy H. Williams taught me to always ask, “How will you measure success?” From Zig Ziglar I learned, “You can get anything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”

From Jason Jennings I learned, “Prescription without diagnosis is malpractice.” In other words, before you can begin to advise any client what he needs to do to improve his business you first need to learn, where it hurts, what’s going wrong, what’s the breakdown that’s causing business to languish.

For me, Jason’s phrase spoke to my unending curiosity. I loved asking clients lots and lots of questions; about their life, their families, their business, then using what I learned to create unique, one-of-a-kind advertising programs to increase their business.

Are Radio Groups Mis-Training Sellers?

Back in October of 2012, my radio friend Barry Cohen wrote an article for Radio Ink taking the radio industry to task for the lack of radio sales training. Barry wrote, “When I started selling radio advertising, the first thing my sales manager did was hand me one of Jason Jennings’ books, which I promptly ‘devoured.’ As I moved to each station, my managers continued to give me the good stuff, exposing me to the likes of Chris Lytle (who just turned 70 this month), Irwin Pollack, Pam Lontos and, of course, RAB sales training materials.”

For many of us, Jason Jennings was one of a handful of training professionals that radio people held in very high esteem.

Don’t Let Radio End Up Like Yahoo!

In August of 2016, I wrote a blog article based on one of Jason’s “Game Changers” podcasts. I applied the lessons Jason learned from his analysis of why Yahoo! disintegrated to the radio industry. “Don’t Let Radio End Up Like Yahoo!” was the fourth most read article on my blog in 2016.

In reviewing that article’s advice, it strikes me that this is how Jason Jennings lived his own life.

  • Know what you’re all about
  • Have a set of guiding principles
  • Don’t use a business like a personal piggy bank
  • Don’t try to be all things to all people
  • Don’t copy the competition

Jason Jennings was an original who pursued perfection and achieved excellence.

I will always be grateful to Jason Jennings for giving me a solid foundation upon which I was able to build a successful radio and teaching career.

A global community of sales and management professionals are saddened by Jason’s sudden and unexpected death this month from a ruptured aorta aneurysm.

We will always be grateful for all he taught us.

 

 

 

 

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November 3, 2019 · 4:00 am

How is Radio Affected by Being Efficient?

EfficiencyI started my professional radio career in the 10th grade of high school. However, I started dreaming about being a disc jockey for as long as I can remember. I built my own AM/FM radio station in the basement of my parent’s home and broadcast to about a three block radius around my house.

Lots of People

In my early professional days, radio was people, lots of people!

Every aspect of running a radio station required people to make things happen. Sales, bookkeeping, reception, disc jockeys, copywriters, news anchors, reporters, engineers, production and promotions people with layers of management on top of every department, up to the general manager who oversaw the entire operation.

As an example, CKLW a stand-alone AM radio station in the Detroit metro, had 23-people just in their news department. Today that’s about double the total number of people running a cluster of AM/FM radio stations in any metro.

Was radio efficient back then? No.

Was radio effective? YES!

Did radio make money? Tons of it!

The Gatekeepers

What traditional media had back then, were gatekeepers. Newspapers, magazines, radio and television had people charged with making sure there was a good flow of information and entertainment. These people acted as filters, and overtime they developed standards and ethics that all Americans could rely on.

It wasn’t perfect and mistakes were made, but it got us through the 20th Century and unified us as a nation.

The New Gatekeepers

The birth of the internet ushered in a new gatekeeper, the algorithm. Now lines of code would replace people as the filter for what Americans read, see and hear. Unfortunately, these lines of computer code lack transparency in how they filter the flow of information.

Have they been encoded with a sense of civic responsibility? Who knows?

Is the flow of information the same for everyone? No, it has been personalized to our likes and dislikes. It has put each of us in our own information silo.

Bowling Alone

In 1995, Robert D. Putnam wrote an essay entitled “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital”. The essay chronicled the decline in all forms of in-person social interchange. What Putnam saw in his research was that the very foundation Americans had used to establish, educate and enrich the fabric of their social lives was eroding. People were now less likely to participate in their community, social organizations, churches, and even their democracy.

This trend has only been accelerated by social media and the internet. The unintended consequences of the internet are, that it has isolated each of us to a web of one. Algorithms have taken what Putnam saw happening in the last century and put it on steroids in this century. All in the name of driving more efficiency.

Efficiency Bubble

The “efficiency bubble” means that efficiency is valued over effectiveness in today’s world. It’s a term coined by Will Lion of BBH advertising.

Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman of Ogilvy in the UK, recently shared this personal experience that demonstrated the efficiency bubble.

“The absurdity of the efficiency bubble was brought home to me in a recent meeting with an online travel company. The conversation repeatedly included the mantra ‘the need to maximize online conversion.’ Everyone nodded along. Clearly, it is much more efficient for people to book travel through the website than over the telephone, since it reduces transaction costs. But then someone – not me, I’m ashamed to say – said something revelatory: ‘Ah, but here’s the thing. Online visitors to the site convert at about 0.3%. People who telephone convert at 33%. Maybe the website should have a phone number on every page.”

“Perhaps the most efficient way to sell travel is not the most effective way to sell travel. What, in short, is the opportunity cost of being efficient?”

“Nobody ever asks this question. Opportunity costs are invisible; short-term savings earn you a bonus. That’s the efficiency bubble at work again.”

Consolidation is Just Another Word for “Efficiency”

During radio’s massive consolidation, Excel spreadsheets produced by new minted MBAs screamed a multitude of ways to have radio stations become more efficient. Unfortunately, the fast-lane involved the elimination of tens of thousands of radio jobs.

And it’s still going on as I write this article.

I don’t ever remember anyone asking about “opportunity costs” being sacrificed in the process.

In the last radio property I managed before entering higher education as a broadcast professor, I would spend my final year going to corporate meetings about Reductions In Force (RIFs) and coming home with a thumb drive that had dates to open new pages in an Excel spreadsheet, that listed what people and what departments were to be eliminated next.

It’s my belief that efficient radio chases away listeners, effective radio creates them.

Blame It on Competition

Tech Guru Pete Thiel blames the efficiency chase on competition. “More than anything else, competition is an ideology – the ideology – that pervades our society and distorts our thinking,” says Thiel.

When all radio companies chase the same efficiency metrics, they all end up sounding the same, their websites end up looking the same, and in essence, they’ve turned the creative medium of radio into a commodity.

Deregulation of broadcast, as I wrote about in The Birth of Radio in America article, now has virtually all of the radio stations in a radio market owned by one or two companies.

Radio always stole great ideas from other radio stations around the country, but most often those stolen ideas were massaged and improved upon in the process. Everyone was upping the game through their own creativity lens, and each radio station had its own unique sound.

Unfortunately, along with corporation radio came the concept of “Best Practices”. This would be yet another contributor to the end of personal creativity at radio stations, all in the name of more efficiency.

Emotions

Roy H. Williams, the Wizard of Ads, says we buy things emotionally and justify those buying decisions rationally. The pursuit of efficiency is a rational answer to an emotional problem.

The radio business was never built on Excel spreadsheets and doing what was most efficient, it was built by creative people who touched others emotionally. Be it station imaging, air personalities, promotions, contests, community events, advertising or marketing, radio always went for people’s hearts.

The successful radio stations today still foster those emotions in their listeners and advertisers.

They’re just becoming harder and harder to find.

 

 

 

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July 28, 2019 · 3:00 am

Results, Returns, Referrals

Roy-and-Pennie_Williams

When Roy & Pennie Williams were asked how they measured the success of The Wizard Academy, they responded that it came down to three things.

 

 

FIRST

How often they heard of academy students who took what they learned, and then put that into action back home, making a major difference.

SECOND

How often academy students returned for additional classes.

THIRD

How many new students came to the academy based on the enthusiastic recommendation of a person who had been to The Wizard Academy.

In essence, it came down to getting results, having return students and earning referrals.

Sales Success

When I read Roy & Pennie’s metric for measuring success of The Wizard Academy, it reminded me of the same principles I used when I began my radio sales career 40-years ago.

For every new client I called on, I wanted to leave with one of two scenarios: a) make a sale or b) make a friend.

I learned very quickly in my sales career that people buy from people they like and know. They buy from their friends – a trusted source.

Once a client made a purchase of an advertising schedule, I needed to create advertising copy that told the client’s story that was uniquely their own. I needed to make a difference in their cash register rings. I needed to work at building a sustaining relationship with this new business.

Till Forbid

I was taught that buying advertising was like getting married. It wasn’t a one-time thing, but an on-going relationship, that should be nurtured and grown.

No one says, “I’ll try marriage for a week and see how it works.”

They make a commitment.

Advertising, to be effective, takes that same kind of commitment.

So, all the advertising contracts I sold had no-end-date on them. They would air until the client said they wanted to cancel.

Referrals

When your hard work for a client makes a real, positive difference, then you are in the position to ask for referrals. Satisfied customers are more than happy to refer you to other business people they are friends with, and who they would like to see enjoy the same positive advertising benefits they have experienced.

When you move from cold calling (calling on business people you don’t know and who don’t know you) to working from referrals, the sales process becomes more fun and much more productive.

Success Breeds More Success

People love to be with a winner.

If you build your sales career in this manner, each success story will bring you more referrals from people who believe in you.

Sales is, after all, the transference of confidence.

No one can better tell your success story, than the people who’ve experienced their own success, because of you.

 

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July 21, 2019 · 3:00 am

Radio Knows What to Do

Munster RadioRon Robinson is a Canadian radio curmudgeon that writes a weekly column in Radio Ink. A recent column asked the question, “Will More Data and Tech Help Radio?” I thought I’d take a go at answering this question in this week’s blog.

Spoiler Alert: The Answer is NO

Radio seems to be awash in data and tech, more is not what’s needed. Radio knows what to do but isn’t doing it.

Education that is not put into action, is simply entertainment.

Likewise, having too much information can be as useful as not having any information. Moderation is the key to everything.

People Listen to Radio

I have no doubts that people are listening to radio. Unfortunately, the proliferation of radio stations has fractionalized any one radio station’s listening audience. Gone are the days of big double digit shares of listening to any radio show or radio station.

Nobody cares if your radio station is #1. (They never did.)

Are Your Listeners Responding?

For the advertiser, it’s always been about cash register rings. That’s the ONLY audience measurement they ever cared about.

To accomplish driving this metric, means an investment in the copywriting process. It means advertising representatives who know how to find each advertiser’s unique characteristic that will become their story. It means having relatable communicators who can tell the story in a way that engages the listener and inspires them to action.

I personally have been studying why people do the things they do for over three decades. And have been a disciple of Roy H. Williams aka The Wizard of Ads for almost as long.

Any radio person serious about getting their advertiser results should be investing in their people’s education at the Wizard Academy.

Social Media

I’ve been writing this blog for almost five years now and post it to different social media platforms. Looking at the metrics about where readers come, from #1 would be from Facebook. Facebook not only comes in first, but what comes in after it, is far behind in impact.

I’m thinking that your local advertisers may be experiencing something similar if they’ve used Facebook to promote their business.

Technology

I began streaming music when living in the greater New York City area and WQCD – CD101.9 FM dropped its smooth jazz format. In my radio career, I launched two different new smooth jazz formatted radio stations and fell in love with the music and the artists.

To take a break from monitoring my own radio stations, I’d turn on CD101.9.

When they left the air, I was forced to go online and find a streaming smooth jazz station. So, in essence, the radio industry by removing this relaxing format at station after station, forced folks like me to go elsewhere for their music fix.

You Can’t Go Back

In my many travels, I’ve had the opportunity to hear a couple of OTA smooth jazz radio stations that brought this format back. I found them hard to listen to. Here’s why, they are cluttered, and the streaming smooth jazz channels I enjoy are not.

Much in the way that Netflix, Amazon Prime and YouTube have made television clutter free viewing, streaming audio via my Amazon Echoes has done the same thing for my music listening.

Anyone who’s had a car with an automatic transmission, won’t want to return to the days of shifting, or has had a car equipped with air conditioning won’t buy a car without it.

It’s Innovation Time

Radio needs to do what others are not.

The successful radio stations of the future will be ones where their people are 100% focused on its content, and nothing else. They will be niched to satisfy a defined audience so perfectly, that those listeners will find little need to go anywhere else.

They will be people communicating with other people, live in real time and with relevant content.

Fred Rogers put it this way, “L’essential est invisible pour les yeux.” (What is essential is invisible to the eye.)

More data and tech won’t take radio to the next chapter.

People will.

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March 17, 2019 · 3:00 am

Are We the Solution or the Problem?

albert-einsteinAlbert Einstein said “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

I have noticed that when I publish a new article about radio, people seem to fall into a couple of different camps. There are those who say radio’s days are numbered, or over. There are those who think going back to the way it was will solve everything. And there are those who believe “radio” is a concept and not a specific transmission platform, such as the AM or FM bands.

WABC Becomes Talk Radio

In May of 1982 Music Radio 77 – WABC in New York City became a talk radio station. Music sounded better on FM and in stereo than on static filled, mono AM radio. This happened 37-years ago and yet many of us tune in to Rewound Radio every Memorial Day Weekend to listen to WABC, the way it was when we were growing up in the 60s & 70s.

WPLJ is Sold

WABC-FM became WPLJ on February 14, 1971 and by September of that same year it would become one of America’s first AOR (Album Oriented Rock) radio stations.

“Watching All the President’s Men on TCM…thought it might be timely. Loved the reference when Bernstein asked Woodward “if you’re listening to the radio and you don’t hear any commercials for 10 minutes, is it AM or FM?” Kinda sums up the demise of music radio on AM back in the 70s and strongly underlines what’s happening to FM now compared to satellite radio, Pandora, Spotify, etc.” 
–John Sebastian

Now WPLJ has been sold and like a divorce, WABC and WPLJ will no longer be together. Frank D’Elia writes a wonderful personal history of WPLJ on his blog which you can read HERE.

Sadly, he ends his blog article with the following: “I loved the radio business, and it was my home for over 44 years, but today, radio sucks!”

The World Wide Web Turned 30 This Past Week

While it was 37 years ago that the music died on WABC, it was 30 years ago this past Wednesday, that Sir Tim Berners-Lee proposed a global linked information management system that included hypertext. Even more interesting is the fact that Sir Berners-Lee feels a little bit like Frank D’Elia and the current state of his creation. In an article published on the World Economic Forum website titled “The web is 30 years old. What better time to fight for its future?” Sir Tim shares his frustrations and recommendations for fixing things. He writes: “To tackle any problem, we must clearly outline and understand it. I broadly see three sources of dysfunction affecting today’s web:

  1. Deliberate, malicious intent, such as state-sponsored hacking and attacks, criminal behaviour, and online harassment.

  2. System design that creates perverse incentives where user value is sacrificed, such as ad-based revenue models that commercially reward clickbait and the viral spread of misinformation.

  3. Unintended negative consequences of benevolent design, such as the outraged and polarised tone and quality of online discourse.”

Lots of Change

When I think back to those days when AM radio rocked my world, to today where Alexa serves up whatever my mood desires, things have changed a lot.

Berners-Lee also notes how much the web has changed in the past 30 years and that it would be “defeatist and unimaginative to assume that the web, as we know it, can’t be changed for the better in the next 30.”

Roy H. Williams, aka The Wizard of Ads, wrote recently that “The key to failure is to hang on to the belief that things have to be ‘the way they ought to be.’ The key to success is to be able to deal with things as they really are.”

Which brings me back to the title of this week’s blog article, are we the solution or the problem when it comes to the future of radio?

What are Radio’s Big 3 Areas of Dysfunction?

I’m sure you have your own thoughts on this, but the sense I have from reading articles about today’s radio industry from all over the world, along with reader comments, are that these three things are very important to the future of radio:

  1. Commercials. Radio’s commercial spot loads are too big. The 60 and 30-second ad lengths are over. Radio needs to re-think the way it monetizes itself OTA (over the air) and the creation of radio ads needs to be a specialty in every radio station. Jerry Lee understands this better than anyone in our industry.

  2. Companionship. Alexa is convenient and we even chat with one another, but I don’t consider “her” a companion. Radio needs to fulfill that social need for the listener. I believe NPR has done a spectacular job of fulfilling this companionship role through its variety of informational programs. Companionship is built by live personalities that broadcast from the area being served or focused on like-interests of the target audience.

  3. Quality vs. Quantity. The radio industry is focused on putting more signals on the air, and controlling more existing radio signals by fewer entities, than it is on the content that should be sent over those signals. The original benchmarks or staples of radio are often much more efficiently handled by other platforms. Radio needs to re-think what it can do that others can’t, and then do it. Radio needs to compliment today’s other communications media, as it no longer is the sole source of information for things like weather, traffic, school closings etc.

I would love to hear your thoughts, but even more important, I would love to hear the thoughts of people who don’t listen to radio and what would entice them to return.

The future of radio will be based on attracting the next generations.

We won’t know what they want if we don’t ask them.

“Companies must do more to ensure their pursuit of short-term profit

is not at the expense of human rights, democracy, scientific fact or public safety.”

-Tim Berners-Lee

 

 

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March 3, 2019 · 3:00 am

You Can’t Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd

you-cant-roller-skate-in-a-buffalo-herdRoger Miller was a very creative guy. His 1966 hit song, “You Can’t Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd” was a crazy list of things you could not do to be happy, but did offer a remedy on how you could be happy, if you had a mind to.

It got me to thinking about other things you can’t do, especially when it comes to radio.

You Can’t Combine WINS & WCBS

New York City has two all-news radio stations, 1010 WINS and News Radio 88 WCBS. They’ve competed against each other since Westinghouse owned WINS, and CBS owned WCBS.

Even when both radio stations found themselves under the same ownership several years ago, they were run and staffed independently, and continued to compete for audience and ad dollars.

Now Entercom owns both, and would like to implement plans for “cross-utilization” of personnel. The New York Daily News provides all the details in their recent story and you can read it HERE.

You Can’t Be Serious

Recently James Cridland tweeted this news story: “Black day for UK radio. 43 local breakfast shows to go by the end of the year. 24 drivetime shows. 10 studio buildings gone.” In the UK, consolidation fever was spreading among the commercial radio operators after securing deregulation. Owners say it’s a huge step for the commercial radio sector and you can read all about the changes HERE.

“When we change the way we communicate, we change society.”

-Clay Shirky

You Can’t Shrink Your Way to Success

One of my mentors is Roy H. Williams, aka The Wizard of Ads, who writes a weekly Monday Morning Memo that I’ve been reading since the 80s.

Recently, Roy’s subject was “Shrink Your Way to Success?” The article said that “when a business is struggling financially, cost-cutting looks like a brilliant move.” Unfortunately, you can’t cut your way to success. This is something that has been born out over the decades, and in all kinds of industries. So, what’s the alternative? Increasing revenues. “Cost-cutting comes at a very high cost,” says Roy. The Wizard’s prescription is worth your time to read and you can find it HERE.

You Can’t Become Intimate Without Repeated Contact

Then Fred Jacob’s JACOBLOG published an incredible two-part blog piece on “Can Radio Achieve Brand Intimacy?” Part one looked at the twelve brands that consumers say they can’t live without. #1 on the list was Apple. Then Fred shared the top ten list of the brands people say they are most intimate with, Disney was #1 and Apple was #2.

Part two of Fred’s daily blog then went on to share twelve things RADIO could be doing to achieve brand intimacy. You can read Part 1 HERE and Part 2 HERE.

After reading the two-part blog, I commented back to Fred with the following observation:

“Intimacy takes time, but just like in personal relationships, it’s worth it.” Unfortunately, radio’s consolidation years under valued the intimacy that its personalities and brands had built up over time, and quickly discarded both.

The real success stories in radio today are those properties that have carefully maintained and continued to nurture their place in their listener’s lives.

Radio Can’t be “Just OK”

I recently have been amused by a new television advertising campaign by AT&T that says being “Just OK, Is Not OK.” You can view one of their ads HERE. In a field that has very limited competition for its services, the ads clearly portray that you deserve the best and AT&T is here to deliver it.

Radio used to be in the business of competing with other radio stations in its city of license, and stealing as much advertising as it could from the local print media. Print media always grabbed the lion’s share of the local advertising budgets. Today, all traditional media competes with the internet delivery system, which means it now competes with the world.

If there was ever a time when radio could not afford to be “just OK,” it’s now.

“As great and pressing as change and betterment may be,

we can’t toss away the very bedrock

upon which the radio industry was built.”

-DickTaylor

 

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September 16, 2018 · 3:00 am

Radio’s Wizards

Wizard NotebookI remember how a weekly fax changed my radio life. It was called the “Monday Morning Memo,” and it was written by a guy in Texas by the name of Roy H. Williams.

Every Monday, I couldn’t wait to get into the radio station and check the fax machine for his latest missive. It never failed to ignite my soul.

Things That Won’t Change

I’ve written in this space about Jeff Bezos of Amazon and what he considers to be the most important question most people don’t ask about their business and that is “What won’t change in ten years?”

Roy’s Monday Morning Memos are an excellent example of focusing on those universal things that won’t change about branding, marketing and selling. They are those universal concepts that will don’t change with the latest technology.

Secret Formulas

In my broadcast sales class at the university, I would spend the end of the semester with each class reviewing principles of Roy’s book “Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads.” All of Roy’s books are a must read for anyone in radio sales.

Here’s an example of some of the things that won’t change for great radio advertising:

  • Surprising Broca – most radio ads are predictable and use clichés that listeners have become adept at tuning out. Great radio ads seduce the listener and then persuade.
  • Words are Keys – you know the product, just by the ad keys used by the brand. Let me give you a couple of examples: “We’ll leave the light on for you” or “Just Do It.”* Do I need to tell you the brand name or what they sell? Do these two companies surprise you with their ads?
  • Engage the Imagination – people only go to places they’ve already been in their mind. The skillful ad writer will engage the listener’s imagination and take the listener where they want the listener to go.
  • Sleep is the mind’s eraser – when we go to bed, sleep is the process where the mind clears itself for the next day. Like an eraser on a chalkboard, sleep wipes away all of the advertising messages a listener is exposed to that day. Knowing this is why, building a radio schedule that delivers the minimum frequency to be effective, is so important.
  • Power Verbs – present tense and present progressive tense verbs conjure up powerful images in the mind. How often to most radio ads use them? Sadly, not very often.
  • The Secret Path to Miraculous Ads – Roy says “journalistic writing is an objective presentation of the facts in an attempt to inform, not persuade. Creative writing is the telling of a story with wit and charm in an attempt to entertain, not to persuade. And Poetry is writing to communicate a new perspective in a brief, tight economy of words. An attempt to persuade.” Will your ad persuade a listener when they hear it? Emotion is KEY. They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel. How do you feel after viewing this ad for State Farm called “Never”?

Fearless Flyers

Fearless-Flyers_Chet-Young-at-the-Beach_780This past Tuesday, September 11, 2018, America remembered the 17th anniversary of the 9/11 attack on America in New York City, Washington, DC and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. My class at the Wizard Academy was supposed to have 29 students. Only four of us showed up: Dr. Kevin Ryan, a famous writing coach from Utah; Chet Young, a big salesman with a booming voice from Burlington, Iowa; Akintunde Omitowoju, a senior programmer of Nintendo games from Kyoto, Japan and me, a radio station general manager from Atlantic City, New Jersey.

It took place in a small, converted gym in the offices of Williams Marketing in Buda, Texas just one week after 9/11 in 2001.

Roy has the students come up with a special name for their class and ours became the “Fearless Flyers.” Each of us flew on a commercial airliner whose crew outnumbered the passengers.

This past week I learned of the passing of Chet Young. His niece dropped by the Wizard Academy to see if this magical place her Uncle Chet always talked about really existed. It does.

Roy shared a memory of our class in this week’s Monday Morning Memo’s “Rabbit Hole.” You can read more about it HERE.

Positive Things YOU Can Do

Roy H WilliamsWant to make your radio station more effective for your advertisers and more engaging for your listeners? Then do those things that will not change for effective radio in ten years.

Subscribe to Roy H. Williams’ “Monday Morning Memo,” read the Wizard of Ads book trilogy and make plans to spend a week at the Wizard Academy to learn directly from the Wizard of Ads, Roy H. Williams.

Thank You and God Bless You Roy.

Wizard of Ads Coin

*Motel 6 & Nike

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December 3, 2017 · 3:00 am

How Will You Measure Success?

Carpet Baggers (Music Man)That seems like a simple question.

But in reality, it’s really complex.

Worse, most people have never asked themselves this question, let alone answered it.

Advertising Strategy

Let me state for the record that I’m a BIG Wizard of Ads disciple. Roy H. Williams is the person known as “The Wizard of Ads.” I have the Wizard’s bestselling book trilogy, taught the Wizard’s methods in my sales class at the university and am a member of the Wizard Class known as the “Fearless Flyers.” (Ask me why, if you want to know why my class was named that.)

A key question to ask any advertiser at the outset of doing business is, “How will YOU measure success.”

Simply saying, to make a lot of money is not the answer.

If money is the goal, then how much money and in what period of time, needs to be asked. It is important that both the advertiser and the seller of advertising are on the same page. Both parties must agree before you can move forward.

12 Core Questions

I recently shared a graphic from fellow Wizard Craig Arthur that listed 12 core questions an advertiser needed to answer when developing an advertising strategy. Let me explore those questions in a little more detail here:

  1. WHAT are you trying to make happen? What’s the destination you are trying to reach with your advertising?
  2. HOW will you measure progress? What will be the method employed to keep track of how things are going? How will things be tweaked to insure progress is being made?
  3. HOW big is the pie? In other words, how big is the market for what you’re trying to accomplish? It’s no use winning if the market potential is so small you still starve.
  4. HOW good are your competitors? In the musical, The Music Man, the carpet baggers (picture above) would constantly say “But you gotta know the territory.” You need to know who the people, businesses, systems, etc. are, that you will be up against.
  5. HOW good are you? This is a tough one. You need to be able to look yourself in the mirror and honestly address your own skills and abilities. Can you provide an outstanding customer experience?
  6. WHO to talk to? Who are the customers you’re attempting to attract? You need to be specific and target.
  7. WHAT to say? Roy says there are no wrong media to use to tell your story, only bad stories. In other words, is your story relevant? If it is, it will reach your target by word of mouth a.k.a. sharing on social media.
  8. HOW to say it? Most radio stations no longer employ dedicated copywriters and production people. Everyone is multitasking. Crafting the message is most critical. Just like in the movies or on TV, the script makes the difference between a hit and a miss.
  9. WHAT will it sound/look like? Having a well written message will sink like the Titanic if it’s produced poorly. Dick Orkin’s Radio Ranch not only produces great copy but employs professional voice actors to deliver the goods.
  10. HOW much to spend? When crafting an ad budget you should keep in mind that you want to hit the target every week. When the data isn’t available, say in an unrated radio market for example, the rule of thumb is 21 ads per week (3/day), 52 weeks a year.  If the ad budget is small, then spend it on only one station and possibly on only one daypart until the business grows to support more.
  11. HOW to schedule it? In all advertising, repetition is key to gaining top of mind awareness in your customer. Radio is best because of its affordability to allow virtually any advertiser to purchase a three frequency with the listener on a weekly basis. To achieve this minimum level of frequency is usually unaffordable in other mediums.
  12. WHERE to say it? Again, Roy believes there are really no wrong radio stations, only wrong messages. Obviously, there are some businesses/products that are an obvious non-fit with a particular radio station format, but in general, any radio station with a cume of 30,000 people or more has the audience size to get an advertiser good R.O.I. (Return On Investment).

As Craig Arthur points out, most advertisers skip questions 1 to 11 and only focus on question 12.

That’s why most advertising fails.

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November 26, 2017 · 4:00 am

Why do people buy what they buy?

120If you’re in sales, this is probably the question that haunts you most: Why do people do the things they do?

Daniel Pink recently wrote a book “To Sell is Human” and in the book, he tells us, we are all in sales today. In fact, we may not even be aware that we are selling all the time. Daniel told the Harvard Business Review:

“I’m obviously selling books because that’s a part of my business. But if you go beyond that, I (also spent my) time trying to convince an editor to abandon a stupid idea for a story. I tried to get an airline gate agent to switch his seat. I’ve got kids. So, I’m trying to persuade my kids to do things. I have various people I do business with. And I’m trying to get them to see it my way, rather than their way, to go my direction, rather than their direction.”

“And when you actually tease it all out, I’m spending an enormous amount of time selling.”

We’re All in Sales

Looking at this from a broadcaster point of view, we too are all in sales, NOT just the people in the sales department.

Programmers are selling their ideas to management and if management gives them enough rope, they then have to sell those ideas to their air staff who then has to sell the concept to the listeners.

Events Change Our World in a Heartbeat

Sometimes events change the dynamics of what people want, need and do. The recent hurricanes have certainly had that effect on broadcasting.

In Houston, KTRH was ranked #11. 122Then Houston was hit by Hurricane Harvey and KTRH zoomed to #3, but soon after the impact of the storm began to fade and life in Houston began its long road back to “normal,” KTRH sank back to #15.

I ran a news-talk-information AM radio station back in the 90s in Atlantic City and in spite of our big commitment to local news and information, research showed that people would rather spend their day with one of the many FM music stations. However, they knew in times of coastal storms or other emergencies, our AM radio station was the one to turn to.

Radio cannot live waiting for the next emergency.

iPhones vs Androids

We all know that iPhones have not activated the FM chip to receive OTA FM radio broadcasts in their older iPhones. Plus Apple’s newest iPhones (7, 8 & X) don’t even have an FM chip in them to activate. So, if having an FM chip in their smartphone was important to Apple’s customers, why do people keeping buying iPhones? Maybe it is because they use them for other things.

In the USA Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS mobile operating systems are sharing the market about evenly says John Koetsier writing in Forbes. However what we’ve seen over the last couple of years is that what they don’t share equally is commerce. iOS is used to make more online purchases than Android. If you’re selling stuff, that’s an important distinction and its why Apps are usually first developed for the Apple Store and then later for Android devices.

Digital Cameras

I recently read an article that said if digital cameras were to stay relevant, they should connect to the internet. Guess what, they now can. Here are seven of the best WiFi cameras on the market according to Lifewire.

Should they also be able to make & receive calls, texts? Contain an FM chip?

As everything becomes connected to the internet should they also be able to receive OTA broadcast?

Electric Cars

BMW was the first car company I was aware of, that when it introduced its all electric car said it would not contain an AM radio. BMW said they couldn’t isolate the noise interference it would cause to the AM signals.

Funny, but I remember when cars used to have only an AM radio and that isolating an alternator was often necessary to not get horrific noise through the speakers. Is this really that much of a problem or has BMW carefully defined its customer’s wants, needs and desires?

Tesla in introducing their new Model 3 also said AM radio would not be part of the center stack options.

Do you think this will give people pause in buying an electric vehicle?

Go with the Flow

None of these things really represent a change in why people do the things they do. Roy H. Williams, the Wizard of Ads, has been writing about these things for decades.

In his book “Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads” in Chapter 70 “Better Jewelry, Better Jeweler,” Roy poses this question: “If you had to choose between selling what you wanted to sell, or what the majority of people wanted to buy, which would you choose?” Your future success is determined largely by your answer to that very question says Roy.

Bringing this back to broadcasting, AM, FM, digital, TV, cable, streaming is really nothing more than a display case in a jewelry store. It’s what you put into that display case that matters.

Your success comes down to serving your viewer or listener in the very way they want to be served.

If you’re in sync with the people of your broadcast property’s service area, then you will enjoy their business and they will demand you be easily accessible on the latest device.

The curve ball today is connecting your programming to the internet. The internet is a global community. You can’t be all things to all people. If you try, you will fail.

Define your market, know what they want, then serve it up to them. It’s OK to put it on the internet as long as you stay true to the people’s wants and needs that you aim to serve.

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September 10, 2017 · 3:00 am

Analog vs Digital

113Roy H. Williams writes a weekly article called the Monday Morning Memo. I’ve been reading it since the days when Roy used to fax it. Today it arrives every Monday morning via email.

Does it arrive via analog or digital?  Probably digital.

The fax days were when it arrived analog I’d guess.

The Other Kind of Advertising

Recently, Roy’s MMM was about “The Other Kind of Advertising.” What got my attention was that Roy made the comparison of analog world versus a digital world as the difference between Newtonian physics and Quantum Mechanics.

I was a physics major as an undergraduate in college.

In teaching at the university, I have often used elements from my physics education to give a better foundation to my students about universal principles that form the foundation for effective communication.

The Power of the Human Voice

When I speak to you, am I talking in analog or digital? You don’t care, do you? You never really even gave it a thought until I brought it up. What does get your interest is what I’m speaking to you about.

Radio gives the human voice amplification.

Word of Mouth is the Best Form of Advertising

Anyone who’s been in advertising sales has certainly been told over and over and over, that the best form of advertising is “word of mouth.”

My response to that has always been, “I agree with you!”

That’s why you should be on the radio because we are word of mouth, only we have the biggest mouth in town.

There are No Wrong People

Roy has preached for years, there are no wrong people to be reached by advertising, only wrong messages. Great advertising not only engages the mind, builds curiosity but causes people to share with other people what they’ve heard. That’s the magic of persuasive storytelling aka radio advertising.

But the Data Says

Google Analytics got everyone thinking that targeting was the most important thing in advertising. The new digital world of advertising was all about “reaching the right people.” But is that really effective?

The data for my radio stations back in northern New Jersey said that we reached the most people who were employed. So why would anyone run “Help Wanted” ads on my radio stations? Wouldn’t they, by definition, be the “wrong people?”

Turns out, that would be wrong.

People who are employed are the very ones that know people who aren’t. And then there are people looking for a better job or a job that’s closer to where they live.

Often people who ARE employed are not happy in their current job and radio help wanted ads may entice them to make a change.

Belief Systems

If you have a deterministic belief system then you are like a Newtonian physicist. If you have a probabilistic belief system then you are like a physicist who works in the world of Quantum Mechanics.

In advertising, the first group would be marketers who use predictive data and the second group would be marketers who base their decisions on outcomes.

And just like with Newtonian physics and Quantum Mechanics, both are true.

Newtonian physics was used to put Americans on the moon and return them safely to earth. But it won’t explain how your computer or smartphone work. For that you need to use Quantum Mechanics.

String Theory

One of the goals of physics is to find a single theory that unites all of the four forces of nature. These are; electromagnetism, gravity, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. In other words what ties both Newtonian physics and Quantum Mechanics together. String theory maybe that unified path.

I believe that when it comes to effective advertising, we have already found our unified theory that ties analog and digital communication together.

The message is that string, that single element that makes both analog and digital equally effective.

The person who creates that message is critical.

Who is that person(s) in your organization? Do you even have someone dedicated to this creative, innovative, demanding, hypercritical position?

Sadly, many – dare I say most – radio stations don’t today.

Lightning In A Bottle

If creating persuasive radio commercials is part of your job description, let me give you a little help. Let me turn you onto some “Lightning In A Bottle.”

Blaine Parker is a Mercury Award Winning radio creative genius. He’s just published his latest book that reveals the 3 easy rules for writing more profitable radio commercials.

WARNING: This book is short & expensive!

Full disclosure, Blaine asked me to write the forward to his book, so I can truthfully reveal to you I’ve read it and believe in everything Blaine has written to be seductively effective.

I have no financial interest in the sale of this book. My financial interest is in you, your radio station and your advertisers to effectively tell their story and get results.

You can buy “Lightning In A Bottle” on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Analog or Digital, Who Cares?

I wrote today’s post on a digital computer. You received it via email or are a subscriber to my weekly blog articles (subscriptions are FREE) via the internet.

But whether I shared all of this in a face-to-face conversation or via AM/FM radio or via HDRadio or via an internet stream, the message conveyed would be the unifying element that either caused you to read all the way to the end or bail out early.

And powerfully, persuasive messages do not cause you to remember every word, but they will forever change how you feel about a product, service, business or person.

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