I was heading over to my girlfriend's house yesterday when I was listening to Kim Komando's show. She was taking a call from some listener who was asking about business software. What started as a response involving Quickbooks turned into Kim telling us all how she runs her business as a radio show host:
KIM: I had a new sales person start the other day, and she was kinda wondering why she didn't have a work desk equipped with a lot of things she needed--you know, things that require electrical wires and cords and such. And I'm sorry, but those things cost money. And when I hire you, you're going to have to produce first--get a few sales--then we'll talk about providing you with a few of those things.
She wanted--and get this--she wanted business cards! Can you imagine? No, no, no...you produce first, then we'll see about business cards.
All I can say is, Kim, you're lucky your business is radio, because the bar is already so low there that no clients notice yet another radio outfit sending in their newest sales rep. How long did the last one make it? 2 months, was it? More like 2 weeks for the ones before that.
I worked for a Cumulus cluster of six stations once. They had gone through 76 sales people in the year previous to my hire. That is for a sales staff that kept maybe 12 full time sales people at any time, and also factor in the 2 or 3 sales people who had good lists, and NEVER got fired. Radio is a hard sell business, and the management/ownership treat their sales staff MUCH worse than than the client will ever know. That annoying radio rep who keeps knocking on your business' door is well aware of how pesky she's being. The bosses she comes back to every day tell her that making a sell is the only result that's acceptable, here. "Make yourself a nuisance to him! If he buys something from you just to get you out of his door, that's still a sale!"
If you've worked for any other kind of sales, you know just what a bottom-feeder that radio is. Radio the medium has been flogged to death by the bean-counters of this world, turning what was an investment that brought us theatre of the mind and round-the-clock news into, what my friend Chris calls, "A snowcone in August that we're running around to any client who'll listen saying, "Hurry up, hurry up, before it all melts!""
Yet there's no hurry for the local businessman, with profit margins getting smaller, to spend enough money to satisfy the radio hemmorage happening right before our eyes.
CLUE TO KIM: Following the Clear Channel, Cumulus, etc. business model will get you the same place they are: dying from a sucking chest wound. They don't make money because they don't spend money. Haven't you ever heard that old business axim, 'To make money you have to spend money'? If you have been spending money on your business, it would be selling itself.
I guess when you're the "Goddess" you can treat those new employees you hire with an attitude which says, "Your value here is yet to be determined. I don't trust you, so you're going to have to perform at high levels without any tools or support from me."
With tactics like that, you're never going to get a sales staff of mature, seasoned people who can tell a client why to advertise on the Kim Komando Show. Those kind of professionals aren't ready to submit to being treated that way. Only kids right out of college, or drunks looking for their next paychecks will be your sales force.
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