LAS VEGAS — For today’s radio sales professional, there are myriad challenges. From the aggressive crosstown cluster to the big TV station to encroaching local digital media entities, one may feel exasperated in how to maintain their current client lists while looking for growth.
This was the crux of a vibrant conversation on the 2018 NAB Show panel “Radio: from the Streets and the C-Suite,” conducted Tuesday morning by RAB President/CEO Erica Farber.
As moderator, Farber immediately recalled the Monday “Leading Through Disruption” NAB Show session, in which many radio sales leaders debated how significantly their business was being impacted by swift, and severe, changes in client activity.
For Cox Media Group EVP Bill Hendrich, disruption occurs every day – and this can take you away from your focus on what your true responsibilities are.
Thus, disciplined reaction to disruption is paramount. “I absolutely love change, and disruption doesn’t faze me. It gives me an opportunity to be a step ahead and not be frozen by it.”
For Hendrich, one should slow themselves down and make sure they communicate their needs and views across the entire organization.
Hendrich remarked at how his goals and priorities have been charted out since 1991, and that 2018 marks the first year he has had to rank them. Today, disruption in the local organization takes up the top three slots on his priority list.
For Townsquare Media EVP/Radio Erik Hellum, change is something that will come no matter what. We simply shouldn’t fear it.
He says, “We can’t do anything about it. It is happening every single day. But, if we embrace it then we can see opportunities.”
What’s of concern to sellers working the streets?
While Hellum and Hendrich believe that the C-Suite should share the focus and vision for the organization and determine how to make sure it is consistently communicated within the organization, Univision Radio/San Diego AE Meaghan Clark is making sure she gets use to uncertainty.
Quoting her GM and PD, Clark advises, “Get comfortable being uncomfortable.” For Clark, a focus on business development and innovation and “overcoming stereotypes that come with the Hispanic community” are keys to growth as an account executive.
Brian Black, a Sr. AE for Beasley Media Group’s Las Vegas cluster, notes that he’s in a “test market” when it comes to innovation. A 10-year cluster veteran, he says, “We’ve been asked to pick up every shiny penny that has been picked up since that time, and that has been a frustrating experience from time to time.”
What can the C-Suite do to help the younger AEs on the street?
For Clark, six weeks of training allowed her to learn Media Monitors and Marketron inside and out. The latter is no longer used in her station group, but she notes it greatly helped with prospecting.
This led Farber to note that Univision Radio is providing the tools needed to foster growth among its AEs.
What determines growth for Black? He doesn’t have a large account list, and is comfortable nurturing what he presently has. “I bring in enough money so that it is justified,” he notes. “My responsibility in my job is to be ready at any given time to ask the question, ‘Why should I keep this account?’”
Clark agrees, saying that the “accountability” of the relationship with the client and communication with client are the most important things for a sales executive on the street.
“If not,” she concludes, “it is the radio station’s client and not yours.”
