OMG…Every Business Needs More Cheerleaders!

Every successful station I’ve run had a great group of cheerleaders.

They were engaging. Likable. Proud to carry the flag. Being associated with our brand wasn’t just a job to them—it was personal.

And because it mattered to them, they showed our audience and our clients why it should matter to them, too.

Unfortunately, what I’ve seen at far too many stations—and businesses in general—is that we’ve killed the cheerleaders.

Most of us who have spent our careers in radio, love radio.

We love the creativity. The people. The listeners. The competition. And yes, let’s admit it, we enjoy the occasional ego stroke that comes with success.

When people used to ask me about my job, I’d tell them, “Hey, it beats working for a living.”

And I meant it.

As long as I was making a decent living, my family was happy, I had decent benefits, and I was treated like a valuable member of the team, I was good. I don’t think I was ever the highest-paid person in the building. I was never particularly motivated by money. The folks on Shark Tank would probably think I’m nuts.

In fact, I regularly negotiated contracts for talent who made more money than I did.  I was perfectly fine with that. Great talent could do things I couldn’t do. They were essential to my success, just as I was part of theirs. 

For me, radio was never just a job.  It was a lifestyle.

And I think you’ll find that same passion in many of the most successful people in any business.

When an “Expense” Walks Out the Door

What fascinates me is how many talented, passionate people have been downsized from our industry.

I understand why it happens. Someone, somewhere, is looking at a balance sheet. There’s a number that needs to be hit this quarter, and payroll is an easy line to see.

What’s much harder to see on that spreadsheet is the value of the relationships walking out the door. The talent. The programmer. The salesperson. The promotions person. The marketing person. The person who has spent years building relationships with listeners, advertisers, artists, managers, labels, community leaders, and local businesses.  Those relationships have value.  Sometimes, a lot of value.

I’ll leave names out to protect both the innocent and the guilty, but I’ve watched RIFs in multiple markets cost stations enormous amounts of local revenue.  They won the quarterly battle and lost the war.

Then the explanation becomes: “The local market is declining.”  But is it?  Local advertising dollars haven’t simply disappeared. The bigger question is where those dollars are going—and why advertisers are choosing to spend them somewhere else. 

Here’s the part we sometimes don’t want to admit:  Clients don’t only buy stations. They buy people.  They buy trust. They buy relationships.  They buy the confidence that the person sitting across from them understands their business and can help them get results.  It’s like kicking out your roommate who owns the couch and then complaining that you have nowhere to sit.

The Real Brand May Not Be Your Logo

We talk endlessly about our “brand.”  But sometimes the real brand isn’t the logo, the frequency, the slogan, or the call letters.  Sometimes the brand is the person your client trusts. Relationships matter.

I watched one RIF where, within days of someone leaving the building, several clients left too.

One client alone represented roughly four times what that employee was making. More than a year later, that client still refused to advertise with the company. Think about that.

The company saved a salary—and lost multiples of that amount in business.  The product technically still existed.  But in that buyer’s mind, the product they loved and had been buying was gone.

And Now There’s Another Problem

Today, talented people who are downsized have options they didn’t have 15 or 20 years ago.  They can keep creating.  They can build podcasts. They can produce video. They can create social content. They can consult. They can build their own brands and audiences.

And guess what?  Advertisers can follow them.

That means radio isn’t always “losing” advertising dollars to digital. Most of the time, they are driving those dollars away themselves. 

Someone who gets downsized isn’t going to sit home forever waiting for the phone to ring. They’re going to figure out how to make a living.  And if they already have trust, relationships, an audience, and the ability to produce results, advertisers have plenty of ways to spend money directly with them.

Ratings and reach still matter.  But so do trust, loyalty, relationships, and perceived results.

Would I Go Back?

Someone recently asked me if I would go back to working in radio.  YES.

But only somewhere that understands that success creates revenue—not that revenue magically creates success.

I love this business.  I love working with young talent and watching them grow.  I love competing. Okay, honestly, I love fighting with competitors. Most of all, I love watching an audience get excited about their station. 

What concerns me is how few companies seem willing to invest in the years of expertise and relationships that experienced people bring with them.  Look around.  There are some incredibly talented programmers, personalities, managers, and broadcasters sitting on the beach right now.  People who could help develop the next generation of talent.  People who could mentor young programmers.  People who know how to build brands, create excitement, connect with communities, and generate revenue.

Instead of going to that well of knowledge, sometimes it feels like we’d rather keep moving the shells around and hope we get lucky enough to find the quarter underneath.

You Can’t Cut Your Way to Passion

Here’s the bottom line: You cannot keep cutting valuable assets and then expect clients to pay full price for a damaged product.

Years ago, Warren Buffett reportedly shared a thought with a friend of mine here in Las Vegas. I’ll paraphrase it because I wasn’t in the room:

You don’t save your way into prosperity.

That idea has stuck with me. Winning requires more than efficiencies. It requires belief in the organization. People who care whether it wins.  People who carry the flag when nobody is asking them to.  People whose enthusiasm becomes contagious to coworkers, listeners, clients, and the community.

Every great station I’ve ever been around had those people. They were the cheerleaders.

So if you want to build a successful brand instead of simply managing its decline…

EVERY BUSINESS NEEDS MORE CHEERLEADERS.

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