Radio Ink Magazine January 10, 2022

It’s a popular pastime, from casual water cooler conversation — make that a Zoom chat today — to more formal appraisals by reporters and analysts. When the subject is business success or failure, the chatter is usually focused on the leader. We dissect their performance and their personalities, rank their achievements, including this magazine’s “Top 40” list every summer, and note their comings and goings in bulletins with either great trepidation or sighs of relief. Seldom if ever do we so closely examine those who follow these leaders or, in the words of the late Paul Harvey, delve into “the rest of the story.” That’s possibly because there are so many more followers than chief executives — but no one person ever won a war or, for that matter, ran a…

My friend Don has a time machine. He takes me with him sometimes. You should come, too! Every person who rides in Don’s time machine is changed by it. The United States Department of Justice has booked passage on Don’s time machine for countless prison inmates. State and local governments and hundreds of rehab centers have booked journeys for people as well. Thirty-five million in all. Each trip through time begins with a series of words. My friend Don is a storyteller. Stories of the past help us to know who we are. Stories of the future help us to see who we can become. Stories are more effective than facts for changing beliefs and behaviors. Facts cause us to put our shields up and become skeptical. But when we are absorbed in a story, we…

All too often radio stations taken their best salesperson and promote him or her to sales manager. But that often doesn’t work out as planned; a good seller doesn’t always translate into a good leader. In order to help you find your next great sales manager, we reached out to five directors of sales across the country for their feedback. A sales manager should always be looking and training for their replacement. Traits that portray a great sales manager in the wings include a natural leader who leads by example, someone who never turns down a challenge, who volunteers to take on a new role, and most importantly, one who mentors other sellers. This person encompasses a “one for all” spirit and enjoys the team’s success as much as their own. They…

Welcome to Wartburg, Tennessee, population about 1,000. Located just 45 miles west of Knoxville, it is the home base of Morgan County Broadcasting: WECO-AM & FM, owned and operated by Ed Knight and his sons, Brad and Andrew Knight. It’s a truly family-owned and -operated business with seven full-time and four part-time employees. Country, Sports, and Gospel Christian formats make up the mix, coming off a stick on a 3,000-foot mountaintop. “We have three traffic lights in Wartburg,” patriarch Ed Knight tells Radio Ink. “We are bombarded by 100,000 watts from the west and east, and we are bombarded by satellite radio beaming straight down on us from outer space. “We learned a long time ago that we were going to have to market our station and get our advertising in an area…

As the expression goes, “Not all business is good business.” Before we describe if or when to walk away, let us consider four forces at work when an order is about to be placed and why it can be hard to reject a sales opportunity. Four Forces Pushing A Yes Equity in the process: Consider the time spent with all the attempts to make first contact for an initial appointment, the discovery phase, the brainstorming to build a solution, and the final presentation to the close. Your equity in the relationship makes walking away a complex decision and not a preferred outcome for a salesperson or sales manager. Commissions on the line: A salesperson’s distinction between good and bad business can be muddled by conflicting compensation structures. Typically, the sales commission amount applied…

With a focus on moving the company more into the digital space since he became CEO in 2018, Bill Wilson has transformed Townsquare Media into a “Digital First” company. But that does not mean radio is not an important part of the Townsquare transformation. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. Wilson knows advertising dollars are moving into the digital space like a speeding bullet, and to capture that money, he wants his company to be the biggest digital player in all of Townsquare’s local markets. Radio is crucial to that transformation. 2021 was an excellent year for Townsquare Media, with digital being a big part of its 2021 success. Here’s our interview with our 2021 Radio Executive of the Year, Townsquare Media CEO Bill Wilson. Radio Ink: What kind of year was it for…