For most human beings ”change” can be the scariest thing that ever happens to them. For others it is the most invigorating.
Regardless of which side your emotional makeup puts you, it is imperative in business and life that you know how to handle it, and make it work for you and your company.
Keith Yamashita may be the most influential consultant you’ve never heard of. For nearly a decade, his firm’s eclectic team of designers, writers, and technologists (plus a poet, a sociologist, an ex-attorney, and not a single MBA) has tackled tough problems for some of the world’s most powerful companies.
Here’s a crash course from Keith on the art and science (mostly art) of creating strategy and unleashing change. (My thoughts are in italics.)
*Outlaw PowerPoint. Write down your vision as a story — with a beginning, middle, and end — to clarify what must change first. For us radio types it might be like writing a long promo.
*Don’t rely on words alone. Bring your thinking to life: Create an exhibit, use diagrams, prototype ideas.
*Make strategy an everyday act. The creation and re-creation of strategy shouldn’t be a process that you undertake only when budgets are due. Keep your strategic plan close at hand and top of mind. If your plan is sound, it will answer most of the questions that come along in your day.
*Argue forcefully against your most dearly held hypotheses. Only then will you know if they stand up to scrutiny. (Don’t be afraid to challenge yourself and your strategy. It’s the only way you and your plan will get better.)
*Make decisions, right or wrong. There’s nothing worse than waffling. (Amen.)
*Take over your station. Airtime is everything. Reinforce your messages in everything that you do. Use every ad, press release, store, package, and event to tell your story.
*Embrace thine enemy. Make a list of the people who could legitimately stop your big idea from taking root. Befriend them. Convince them. Make it their responsibility to improve on your vision.
*Don’t hold meetings longer than two hours. (Otherwise they’re workshops, which require more planning.) Don’t walk out of a meeting without assigning a name to every item that needs follow-up. (And, who is responsible for making it happen.)
*Startle people. Break out of your comfort zone, and do something unexpected. Run an offbeat ad (promo). Institute casual-dress Tuesdays.
*Don’t throw anything out. Don’t kill ideas that won’t work right now. Someday soon, the world might be ready for them.
Bob Glasco
bob@glascomedia.com
480-488-0903
Posted in Uncategorized.
Tagged with change, consultant, Radio, radio consultant.
By admin
– February 8, 2010
- Motivation
“Incentive,” “inspiration,” “drive,” “enthusiasm,” “reason,” “purpose.” All these words can be found when you look for a definition of motivation.
When I Googled “motivation” I got over seven million hits and some great quotes:
”Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” – Albert Einstein
- Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in getting up every time we do. – Confucius
- “Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.” – Immanuel Kant
- “Don’t count the days, make the days count.” – Muhammad Ali.
Great thought provoking words.
So, what motivates you? Are you motivated by the need to provide for your family? Or maybe it’s your ego? What influence do your friends have?
In the end is fear what really motivates you? It is for me.
I’m afraid the world will pass me by if I ever stop running to keep up. Does that make me a workaholic? Maybe, but I don’t think so. Instead I think it makes me a person who is honest with himself and has learned to harness the fear we all have and make it a positive.
There are those of us who are frozen by our inner fears. These folks stopped evolving after their first success, if they were fortunate to have one. They were afraid to change.
Our biggest fear, I believe, is losing control; whether it’s of our body, mind or circumstance. The unpleasant reality is we never really have control over any of these, just varying levels of influence.
Without a clear-cut grasp of what is really motivating your actions and thoughts, you will be like a car with no steering wheel, or a business with no plan.
Think about it: Your true motivation is your life strategy. It’s what makes you live your life the way you do. In life as in business, if you don’t have a strategy or don’t know what your strategy is…
Recognize what really motivates you. Use it for “incentive,” “inspiration,” “drive,” “enthusiasm,” “reason,” “purpose” to keep learning and growing.
Bob Glasco
bob@glascomedia.com
480-488-0903
Posted in Uncategorized.
Tagged with business, consultant, motivation, Radio, radio consultant.
By admin
– February 1, 2010
Influence…..
Is there a single person in this world who isn’t trying to influence someone to do or say something? Our whole life revolves around our power to influence our surroundings to give us a better to life – to enable us to be happy.
But where does the power to influence come from?
When we are young just about everything and everyone influences us. We have very little free will. We’re told when to get up, when and what to eat, what to say and when to go to bed. Of course, if you’ve ever been in the armed services you know that carries over to your adult life, too!
As we begin life’s road toward maturity it’s get a bit harder to influence us. Anyone who has ever had children knows that.
By the time we hit maturity we’ve gained just enough knowledge about the world to be somewhat cynical of anything or anyone we are not familiar with.
So, how do we get to know people? Facts and factoids about products and issues of the day?
The Internet, of course.
We can easily and quickly spread our opinions and thoughts to more people than we ever could influence before. That ability to influence is what makes Social Networking the next “Big Thing” for marketers.
Whether we are marketing ourselves to potential listeners/viewers/readers or our advertiser’s products, done the right way we can make our message much more impactful by joining in the conversation in these various spaces.
That doesn’t mean out and out plugs for whatever you’re pushing. It does mean being an active and known participant in the conversation(s).
The secret is to become familiar to your potential audience. What does familiarity bring?
Credibility.
Credibility is Valhalla for marketers, and the Big Step that leads to the ability to influence.
Go here for information on how you might start a group discussion that will allow you to build credibility and influence. It’s OK to click. I don’t make any money from the click and I’m not associated with the company. It’s just one good way in.
Be careful though. As you consider your point of view on your favorite social networking site remember; anything you say can and will be used against you…
Bob Glasco
bob@glascomedia.com
480-488-0903
Posted in Uncategorized.
Tagged with Arbitron, business, consultant, Influence, Internet Revenue, Radio, radio consultant, revenue.
By admin
– January 25, 2010
My good friend, former client and colleague Ray Edwards is renowned in the Internet marketing world as a copywriter and speaker. He recently had some thoughts on connecting to a potential customer. Our listeners and advertisers are our customers. His words will teach (or reminded you of) some keys to a successful relationship with both.
Most copywriters and marketers would agree that if you could read your prospect’s mind, you could be a lot more successful writing copy for – and selling stuff to – those prospects.
Because you’d know their world.
You’d understand their pain.
You’d know their deepest fears, and you’d understand their highest aspirations.
So how do you do that? Here are seven practical tips. They sound simple, but when you actually use them their impact can be profound:
- Learn everything you can about your prospect. If you’re in direct marketing, it’s easy: just look at their data cards. When you have demographics, you can infer a lot about the “average” person who represents the group. If you don’t have that kind of data… guess. It’s a lot more accurate than what most marketers do (which is: they don’t bother with any of this stuff).
- Imagine yourself living your prospect’s typical day. Go through it step by step – from rising out of bed in the morning to getting back into the sack at night. Use all five of your senses: what do you see, hear, feel, taste, touch and smell? Make notes.
- Think about their biggest fear – the one that wakes them up at 3 in the morning in a cold sweat.
- Think about their highest aspiration – what do they dream of? Not the little dreams (the ones we all tell our buddies), but the big dream in their “secret heart” (the dream that they don’t dare tell anyone).
- Go where they live. Find a neighborhood that is like your prospect’s and walk through it (driving doesn’t work – looking at it through a window is just more TV… nice to look at but not REAL). Talk to people.
- Read what they read. Read their magazines, newspapers, blogs and Twitter.
- Watch what they watch. Watch the TV shows your prospects watch. Especially the ones that don’t interest you.
If you do this, you’ll develop the apparent ability to read your prospect’s mind.
And you’ll sell more.
But something funny about this is: you’ll also most likely care more. And that’s far more important than any selling technique.
The world’s a funny place, ain’t it?
Bob Glasco
Glasco Media
480-488-0903
bob@glascomedia.com
Posted in Uncategorized.
Tagged with business, consultant, creative, customer service, Radio, radio consultant, revenue.
By admin
– January 17, 2010
Last week I mentioned increasing your online presence as a way to more revenue. The folks at Audio4cast have published eight ways to increase your presence that will surely lead to more revenue.
- Dedicate a full time position to creating online content for your website and stream. This is not the webmaster – not the person who writes the code. I’m hoping most stations already have that person. This is the Director of Digital Content who spends all day every day making your website, stream and various extensions interesting to your audience. The rest of this list has a lot to do with them.
- Put all the local information you provide on your website. I don’t just mean a news feed, I mean all the local stuff you say on-air. And tell your listeners it’s there. Refer your listeners to your website constantly. WCBS AM in New York does a great job with this. They constantly refer to the “Mentioned On Air” section of their website during newscasts, and they have their web guy do a segment every day on-air talking about what’s new and interesting on their site.
- Use Twitter to connect with your audience. Get your audience to follow you on Twitter and then give them information everyday. Local news stories, personal updates from station personalities, information about station promotions, ways to win stuff, even information from your advertisers. Do not use Twitter merely as a way to promote your station – that’s sure to backfire. Instead, use it as a way to deliver relevant information to your audience. Return the follow to everyone that follows you and always include a link to your site.
- Register your listeners online. There’s no reason not to register people who want to listen to your stream. Targeted advertising is the way of the future and it’s coming fast. You should be registering your audience with their age range, email address and gender. Find a platform that makes it easy for them to register and login or stay logged in so it doesn’t make it hard for them to listen to your stream.
- Develop a side channel for your stream. Something that is related to your station’s programming or audience. If you’re a news station, try some Adult Hits. A CHR station could do a kids channel. A rock station could do something edgier, or something that features local artists. There are a bunch of services out there that will develop and brand a side channel for you. You have the audience so why not expand what you’re doing to give them more to listen to and more reasons to love you.
- Stop running broadcast commercials on your stream. Resolve now, once and for all, that you will not run any commercials with phone numbers on your stream; that every commercial will have an interactive call to action. Visit our website, click on the banner now, send a text to xxx and we’ll send you a link. Those are the ways that your streaming audience wants to interact with your advertisers and it’s up to you to make sure advertisers understand how to use your stream effectively.
- Develop a section of your website that supports your advertisers on-air and online campaigns. Let your advertisers list their offers, link to their websites. Then tell your listeners that they can get information on any of the ads they hear on air or online by visiting your website anytime. It will boost sales for your advertisers and boost renewals for your station.
- Get your mobile platform in shape. Consider having an app built that makes it easy for your mobile audience to connect to your stream. Partner with portals that let your listeners connect via their phones – both smartphones and feature phones. Then promote the heck out of it.
For help with strategic planning, tactical ideas, talent coaching or recruitment or any programming or marketing issue call us anytime. You’ll find were not “the same old rodeo” when it comes to consulting. We take ownership of the station and treat it as if it were our own.
Bob Glasco
Glasco Media
480-488-0903
bob@glascomedia.com
Posted in Uncategorized.
Tagged with business, consultant, creating fans, creative, Internet Revenue, planning, Radio, radio consultant.
By admin
– January 11, 2010
What if
Let’s start the New Year off by having a little fun. Let’s play “what if.”
What if Radio station owners could multiply their revenue sources without taking on new properties or new debt?
What if owners could multiply their net income by….?
What if there was a new home for talented people to stretch themselves while creating truly compelling content?
What if advertisers were presented with a whole new way to integrate their message over mass media and the Internet?
What if Radio was “new” again due to the innovations introduced to the marketplace?
What if consumers discovered a whole new entertainment service that not only entertained but brought them information about how to get more enjoyment out of life?
What if Radio station websites became portals to unique entertainment experiences rather than a rehash of what’s been on the Radio?
What if each Radio station was really two stations, each with their own staff and unique content, one over the air and one over the Internet?
What if each Radio station had two separate sales staffs, one trained to sell over the air, and one trained to sell over the Internet but both trained to integrate with the other?
What if Radio started investing in itself again?
What if?
Why Not?
Bob Glasco
bob@glascomedia.com
480-488-0903
Posted in Uncategorized.
Tagged with Arbitron, business, consultant, creative, passion, questions, Radio, radio consultant, revenue, revenue generating ideas.
By admin
– January 3, 2010
Sorry, but this week I will not have a year-end best of or worst of list for you. I won’t have predictions, hopes or desires for Radio in 2010, either.
I do, however, have some wishes for you, my comrades in Radio:
If you’re an owner or group head, I wish you well with your lender(s) and/or board.
If you’ve been in business for more than a minute you know they’re the folks who really run the company. You just get the nice office and the pleasure of having to deal with people who most likely don’t understand or care about the problems you face in heading a company that is best run with long term thinking but must deal with the “I want it now” attitude they possess.
It’s easy for those lower on the food chain or a vendor like me to get upset with “corporate” and wonder how we’re to achieve the desired goals the way Radio is operated today. You’re getting it from all sides. And you wanted the big chair?
If you’re a mid-level manager such as a GM, DOS, OM or PD, I wish you well in converting the resources you’re given to the goal that his been set by “corporate.”
I also wish you well in keeping the fires burning inside those in your charge. Your creativity in this area is your best friend. Remember, money isn’t the only elixir.
If you’re an on-air talent or salesperson, I wish you well in your interaction with the listener and the advertiser.
You have a common enemy and a common ally all wrapped into one: The Internet. I could write a book – or at least a short story – on how to best take advantage of the Internet and turn it into an ally. Suffice to say, as with the mid-level manager, your creative resources are your best friend.
If you’re one of the many that has been displaced by the perfect storm Radio has encountered over the past two years (the economy and over leveraged Radio companies with debt coming due), I wish I could tell you to just hang in there and it will get better. It won’t. You’ve already heard that Radio will never be the same again; believe it.
There will be some re-hiring but not back to the levels we once enjoyed. For you, I suggest you take a realistic inventory of your assets if you haven’t already. What can you offer an employer or what can you offer as an entrepreneur?
The worst thing any of us can do is put our future (and that of our family) in someone else’s hands. You must take control and move in a direction your skill sets take you.
With that, I will close by saying Happy Holidays, Happy New Year and may God bless us all.
Bob Glasco
bob@glascomedia.com
480-488-0903
Posted in Uncategorized.
Tagged with Arbitron, business, consultant, creative, passion, Radio, radio consultant, revenue, strategy.
By admin
– December 20, 2009
Our country is in the midst of a volitile debate over healthcare. With the introduction of the meter, Radio’s actual TSL health has been exposed and it is not good.
Top of mind awareness did not disappear from Radio’s lexicon with Arbitron’s introduction of the meter. In fact, due to the smaller sample size it’s more important than ever.
During last week’s consultant fly-in at Arbitron, DMR’s Tripp Eldridge talked about “the moment of decision” – the time when a person decides what Radio station they’re going to listen to. Top of mind awareness of your Radio station in a positive way obviously effects that decision. And, according to Tripp, they make it on average 31 times a week.
Most of the same strategies and tactics we used and still use in the diary world work in the meter world. The difference is we now have a better idea which ones are most effective, and we can better hone our programming and marketing skills to affect additional listening.
But it goes a lot further than marketing tactics and programming tricks. You still must create a compelling product for your audience and, above all, you must have a thorough understanding of your core listener, your P-1s. This goes way past demographic, geographic and gender.
Starbucks executive Bill Black was also at the fly-in. He talked about the ongoing research they do to know their customer. Four percent of their customer base gives them 20% of their revenue. Another 17% give them 37% of their revenue. They have developed profiles of these groups and use those profiles in their marketing efforts as well as for product development.
Those percentages should sound familiar. For a long time we’ve known that a small number of our weekly cume, our P-1s, provided a large percentage of our TSL thus making them responsible for the majority of our share.
We now know cume in the meter world is not nearly as important as TSL, or as it is expressed in the new world order, average time exposed or ATE. The “drive by cume” isn’t meaningful to a station any more than being on in the background with no one listening is to an advertiser.
Getting to know as much as you can about your P-1s is the key. They still give you the bulk of your share. Even if the actual TSL isn’t what the reported TSL was.
Producing a compelling product is still the answer to long term, consistent success, and the care and maintenance of your P-1s. While we may be better able to track our marketing’s effect, it’s still nothing more than a drug. When it wears off, the patient has to make it on his own.
While I’m not a doctor, I can help you cure your Radio station, or put it on a program to get even healthier. Call or e-mail anytime.
Bob Glasco
bob@glascomedia.com
glascomedia.com
480-488-0903
Posted in Uncategorized.
Tagged with Arbitron, business, consultant, creative, healthcare, passion, planning, Radio, radio consultant, revenue, strategy, tactics.
By admin
– December 14, 2009
During December, it’s easy – even common – to take your eye off the business ball and put off everything until “after the holidays.” However, you can use this time to your benefit and advantage.
In this fallow period, do something that most people inside a radio station have very little time to do these days: Think, assess, organize and plan, and develop new tactics to be executed in the future.
Too often in most any business we’re caught up in the activity of the moment and our minds go into an automatic mode that prohibits the kind of creative planning and execution all businesses must have to sustain themselves and grow.
Just as you are, hopefully, putting money into a savings account or investment fund, you must also stockpile ideas for those times when you aren’t able to stop and think.
I worked with a station several years ago that took this advice and really ran with it. They took all the decision makers and play makers out of the station for a combination fun and work weekend.
During the weekend, they reviewed the coming year month by month. They had an activity calendar put together by the promotion department that highlighted every event scheduled in the metro in the coming year.
With the combined creative brainpower in the room they were able to plan (what a concept!) to insure that the station’s programming, marketing and sales efforts were coordinated and able to take full advantage of each event where appropriate. Accommodation for unexpected opportunities was also included.
When it came time to execute, all of the key people knew what to do. They also had the passion born in being a part of the plan’s creation to insure success.
It seems simple: Careful and thoughtful creative planning + passionate execution = success.
It isn’t hard, but it does take dedication and organization.
Right now you might be thinking, “Sure, I’d like to do this, but I don’t know from one day to the next what I can budget for.”
With all due respect, that sounds more like an excuse not to plan. Well thought out plans with revenue attached are usually not too hard to get budget for.
Pardon the sales pitch, but this is an area where Glasco Media can help. We have years of experience helping stations to not only attain higher ratings, but also to monetize ideas and successfully integrate them into the product.
Call or e-mail anytime.
Bob Glasco
bob@glascomedia.com
glascomedia.com
480-488-0903
Posted in Uncategorized.
Tagged with business, consultant, creative, passion, planning, Radio, radio consultant, revenue, revenue generating ideas, strategy, team building, workplace.
By admin
– December 7, 2009
What is “talent?” If you look it up you’ll find words like “aptitude,” “flair,” “gift,” “bent,” “ability,” “genius” and more.
We can all give examples of talent. People like Garth Brooks, all four Beatles, both Manning brothers and their father are great examples of human beings who have worked hard to turn the talent they were born with into greatness.
Think about what I just said. “They worked hard to turn the talent they were born with…” We’re all born with talents. It’s what we do with them that can turn us from ordinary to great in one of life’s lanes or another.
I was on the air in markets like Seattle, Kansas City, Dallas and Phoenix. Based on that you might think I had talent as an on-air person. Not so much. In a recent interview, NASCAR’s Richard “The King” Petty talked about open wheel drivers from the Indy Racing League coming over to NASCAR. He said there are a lot of good drivers in both racing forms, but only a handful of “racers.”
There are a lot of good on air people. There are a lot of good sales people. Same goes for general managers, program directors and so on. But there are only a few real “talents” in any of those positions. They are the Play Makers in our business. They are the people who make the difference between consistent performance and occasional brilliance that takes a business to its goal and beyond.
Who are the Play Makers in your company? Hopefully budget necessities have not forced them out. Hopefully the negative atmosphere these days in our business has not taken the fire out of their spirit.
That’s right, even Play Makers need inspiration.
They look to you as a leader in our business to inspire and support their efforts. If you do your job right the payback is more than you would ever ask for. If not, well, you might want to get the resume ready.
I can’t help you with the resume but I can help you identify and inspire the Play Makers at your station and those that, with the proper nurturing, can be your Play Makers of the future.
Bob Glasco
bob@glascomedia.com
glascomedia.com
480-488-0903
Posted in Uncategorized.
Tagged with Arbitron, business, consultant, creating fans, creative, database revenue, morning show, passion, Radio, radio consultant, strategy, talent, team building.
By admin
– November 30, 2009
