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Davenport: It’s everything! You have to
have a niche and provide information
that listeners can’t get anywhere else.
It’s what makes us unique and the reason
folks tune in.
Perkins: Live and local is imperative! All
the other streaming options for music
and entertainment do not connect to the
local community. Particularly in smaller
communities, where you know people
at church, kids’ sports, school activities,
festivals, local community interests, local
political office, etc. The ability for us, and
the pride that comes with it, to provide
urgent and potentially life-saving infor-
mation to listeners during hurricanes, ice
storms, river flooding, etc., is incredibly
important and gratifying.
Having said that, it is difficult to pro-
vide live and local for all our stations. It
is simply cost-prohibitive. Our largest sta-
tion is live, or voicetracked by the folks in
the building, Monday-Friday 6 a.m.-7 p.m.
and voicetracked on the weekends. On
our other stations, we are programming
three of our five stations from scratch
and have several outside voicetrackers
that utilize our system to localize all the
info on air, so they sound as if they are
local and engaged in what matters most
to our area.
Patrick: In small towns, our personali-
ties are big deals. People flock to meet
them, to get a T-shirt or free CDs, and
to be involved with our promotions. Live
talk about what is happening in our com-
munities is good for us. We are all-in for
our communities. Business leaders rec-
ognize that and support us because we
only want to build their businesses and
grow our communities. We sponsor many
sports teams and are involved in hope-
fully every community event.
Stone: Extremely. It is the only thing
that keeps us relevant. If we stray from
live and local, if we fail to superserve
the communities we are in, if we don’t
continue to do all the things that have
always made radio great, we take away
every reason for listeners and clients to
support us.
That alone is what differentiates us. We
cannot outperform the companies coming
after us — digital, satellite, etc. — doing
what they do. But when we serve our
communities with perfection, they cannot
beat us on a local level, which is where
90 percent of our revenue will always
come from.Radio Ink: How are you doing at hiring
salespeople, and what works best for
you?
Patrick: We are currently making
changes to our sales compensation plan.
For several reasons, not the least of
which is to become more competitive in
recruitment, we are restructuring from
commission-only to a salary, plus com-
mission, plus bonus.
Our structure will utilize a performance
plan for each rep. The commission will be
paid based on their score or achievement
for the tasks the company deems most
important to achieve the behavior neces-
sary to be successful. We believe this will
lead to much improved revenue for the
company — and for the rep!Davenport: We have been very successful
with hiring salespeople the majority of
the time. Nothing is 100 percent, but we
try to recruit the most experienced sales-
people that we can find and provide them
with good management and training.Stone: This is the hardest task we face.
The days of finding young, aggressive,
Type A personalities that see sales as a
way to create the lifestyle they want —
i.e., make as much money as they want —
are over. Young people are not driven by
money the way my generation was.
They also don’t hang around long. The
average millennial changes jobs every
two to three years. We must find ways to
combat these traits. We must find a way
to create a culture that can keep young
people long-term while at the same time
being able to help them appreciate that
high earnings should not be something to
be ashamed of.
I certainly do not have the answer for
this, but our managers are working hard
to find solutions because sellers my age
are starting to retire, and we cannot con-
tinue to perform at the same level with-
out incredible people representing us.“I believe that
independent operators
have an opportunity
to band together and
form a consortium,
either through existing
organizations or by
starting a new one, that
could help us scale some
of the activities that
larger groups naturally
have an advantage
with, like programmatic
buying, streaming
platforms, website
development, and
podcasting.”— Bruce Goldsen