I had lunch with a very good friend of mine just last week. She’s sold radio in a top 50 market for over 20 years. She’s busted her rear drumming up new business, good economy and bad. She drives 30 miles out of her way to pick up checks from her local small direct clients–just so their ads will clear traffic by Monday morning. She sweet-talks the production department so they’ll push her clients’ spots to the top of their to-do lists. She doesn’t have time to fill in her weekly planner (due by Friday COB to the DOS), and even if she did, she’d need a few extra sheets. She rags ad agencies so they pay on time to meet commission deadlines. She’s a Radio Girl at heart, and she’s exactly what every sales manager always wants in a rep.
My friend hates her job. She’s also resigning on Monday.
I guess her DOS and the “smart people upstairs” just made one change too many. They took away just one client too many. They dropped the commission rates (again) just one percentage too many. They made it so incredibly difficult to be successful in media sales, not to mention, they’re absolute monsters in the many, many, many sales meetings they have every week. Who can thrive in an environment like this? Forget about thriving. Who can survive?
I myself am a radio sales veteran. I grew up in the business, literally. My father had me voicing spots at age three, cleaning the toilets at age twelve, running the boards for NASCAR races at age sixteen, and full-time sales at age twenty-two. I’ve seen the best of radio, and I now see the worst. And what I see is another industry in the final throes of a drowning death.
Creativity is gone. Ingenuity is gone. Ambition is gone.
Radio has become a job you have for three months until you get your real job. And the long-term sales reps that may still be hanging on to their jobs? Good luck. I suggest updating your resume.
So I guess my mooning here is for my friend. For my past, and for every other career radio salesperson out there who might read this. It’s not worth it. Your skills are VERY transferable, and what’s more, many employers out there love to hire media sales reps because it’s such a difficult industry. Stop trying to make things bearable, and stop telling yourself it’ll get better when you’re sold to a smaller group.
It’s not going to get better any time soon. Take my friend’s lead and just let it go. Even if you brought in twenty new local direct clients next month, it won’t be enough to resurrect your entire team, and change the course your stations’ owners have chosen.
Get out there and sell the most profitable thing you’ve ever sold: yourself. There are many people waiting to buy YOU. And they’re not in radio.