The Greatest Advice to Salesmen EVER!

Jeffrey Gitomer, Little Black Book of Connections. Page 77 alone is worth its weight in gold. Everything else I've done to create business in the last 20 years pales in comparison... Contact me if you want a copy of the book, I'll spring for the first 20 requests.
www.brucehorlick.com and www.radiostorybooks.com

Why Does DayTime Radio Spend Huge Amounts of Time Recapping TV?

This morning I was hearing local and national radio hosts just rehashing TV content, and I got to thinking... Wonder if there are some test stations-anywhere-who pretend that TV doesn't exist? Perhaps those stations air only their very own unique content AND even actually prohibit the content from going on-line? Would these stations gain more respect, matter more and drive more listeners to hear real time radio? I truly don't know the answers, but would love some stations to test the concepts. And even more importantly, would the return on ad expenditures improve?

VO Demos for campaigns are always at www.brucehorlick.com.
www.brucehorlick.com and www.radiostorybooks.com

Agencies: Weed Out the Bottom Feeders...

I am fortunate to have some loyal clients for whom I place and purchase broadcast media. Those clients give me complete continuity of care, otherwise we don't work together in a media buying relationship. Any media buyer knows how important continuity of care is for both the agency and its clients.

Talk to any ad agency people, and they'll tell you the frustration of prospective clients creating a climate whereby the agency is lead to believe that his/her team will handle the media buy. Then, the agency discovers that the prospect was merely using the agency to gather the objective, third party data, all so that advertiser could try to negotiate a better rate directly with the network/station. Of course, the broadcast sales people will always oblige to the direct advertiser. Why? In most cases, sales people don't even want to deal with savvy ad agency people for two reasons. One, the salesperson's' commissions usually are far higher with no ad agency involved, and two, the direct advertiser will raise far fewer objections to a media package than a savvy media buyer would raise. In other words, a rationale' buying decision sometimes can be tossed out the window when a charming salesperson meets an advertiser directly, one on one...

So how can agency people overcome such wild goose chases? For almost a decade, I have been charging prospects a fee to meet me to discuss broadcast. The fee weeds out "users." After all, the advertisers who are serious have no problem paying a fee for superior advice, especially since the fee is prorated into any advertising the prospect chooses to have me implement (for up to six months).

Frankly, I have never understood why advertisers are so concerned with an agency or media buyer making a commission. After all, the agency and/or buyer, in the vast majority of the cases, is not paying a higher rate than an advertiser would pay on her/his own. If an advertiser can buy an ad for $10 net and the agency can buy the ad for $10 gross, who cares what the agency commission is? If the agency handles the buy, the advertiser probably actually got more value/assets for each ad dollar; got a truly objective media buy/plan, and even spent less time in the minutia that media plans entail.

To prospective advertisers: Do your homework, and have a great broadcast media buyer-strategist handle your ad placement. You won't pay more, and you may even pay a little less-yes, a little less even after the agency takes its commission. Furthermore, I tell my clients that if I suspect that a network's or station's rates are too high, I will gladly run the ad money through another agency, an ad agency which may wield more clout with management than I do, especially when advertisers' best interests are at stake.

www.brucehorlick.com, www.radiostorybooks.com

V.O. and Media Buying are Arts that Converge to Ensure More Potent Campaigns...

So am I voice-over guy who happens to buy media time? Or, am I a media buyer who happens to cut V.O and narration? I honestly don't know, but I can tell you that I live comfortably everyday in both worlds. I fell into the media buying by accident 25years ago. Like studio engineers, media buying puts me where "the action" is.

The media industry accepts that a crackerjack producer/engineer can voice commercials. But most industry professionals seem to scratch their heads when I tell them that I allocate and negotiate broadcast media buys, millions of dollars yearly. Frankly, the deeper knowledge of the advertiser's product/service makes my
voice-overs more potent... The behind the scenes information(the dollars at stake) uniquely colors my reads.

I don't think I will ever love the broadcast buying and negotiating the way I love the V.O./narration but in an industry saturated with V.O. talent, my broadcast media savvy is a unique and pragmatic service I offer clients.
www.brucehorlick.com

Ad Reads: a Professional Voice or Owner of Company?

When should the President, CEO or Founder of the company be used in an ad-campaign? Often, if he/she is ad-libbing and talking from the heart. Throw out his/her script in 99 percent of the cases, I beg...

I have been at the forefront and behind the senses of countless ad campaigns. The formula that seems to work best is where the professional voice gives the advertiser the dignified and classical image AND the ad campaign is peppered with ad-libbed bites from the President, CEO or Founder of the business. I have noticed that when the President, CEO or Founder ad-lib, with no constraints of time or prepared texts, that his/her passion for the business is infectious; the opposite is true when he/she delivers lines from prepared texts. In fact, some of the executives, I have worked with quite a few, come off sounding better and more sincere than any actor.

So why do ad-agencies and the advertisers themselves often insist on reading from prepared texts? They believe that controlled, well thought out content trumps a wonderful passionate statement that may miss a key element. But the key elements are best handled by a professional voice. The President, CEO or Founder comes off far better and far cooler by providing "the color," and allowing the professional voice to deliver the controlled content, that is those key elements such as the who, what, where, when, why and key sell point. It's actually the same formula of newscasts. Bites (again, "the color," "the adjectives") are extracted from the expert and the professional voice wraps the ad. Thus, the viewer or listener gets a highly professional package, yet the ad contains the human, personal touch, as well as the executive's "name on the door" credibility. In fact, I always recommend, when asked, that the President, CEO and Founder have his/her presence in ad campaigns.

Frankly, I have had nothing to do with The Ultimate Electronics campaign, but those ads are a great example of my point. I am not privy to the results of sales driven in from the broadcast campaign, but I will bet that campaign is working well. The ads sure sound persuasive, human and professional.
www.brucehorlick.com and www.radiostorybooks.com

Clear Channel Should Take "Island Spots" to New Level...

Love STL Clear Channel's five second "island spots," right in-between songs. I bought an "island" package several years ago for an advertiser, an advertiser who continues with the package today. Sure wish I would hear Clear Channel try dropping in a :30 commercial between songs with no call letters before or after... I know programming purists would hate the idea, but in an age where ROE(return on expenditure) becomes more difficult in broadcast it's time to break the rules. Catching listeners off-guard with an ad hook is the way to go.
www.brucehorlick.com and www.radiostorybooks.com

Amateurs Rule Radio, Especially Weekends

Why have so many radio stations opted to place amateurs on the radio, especially on the weekends? I am amazed at how many stations carry Ask the Expert type programming, and let the Expert host solo. Why not team every Expert with a solid broadcaster who should be viewed as a "book cover" to the Expert's content? In other words, a true radio professional with a superior voice should smoothly carry the program, effortlessly peppering the program with live announcements and call letters. Frankly, most often the Experts don't have a sense of when and where to pepper the plugs, and besides, the Experts often stumble and fumble over the material.

Do consultants advise radio station program directors to make their stations sound as pedestrian as possible? Or can't stations afford to place a professional broadcaster next to the Expert? Yes, Ask the Expert type programming is wonderful, but for broadcast the programming should sound better than a homemade podcast. A warm sounding broadcaster can give the programming a professional edge.

The greatest announcer/facilitator that I have ever heard was Mike Trout who was teamed with the Expert, Dr. James Dobson on Focus on the Family. Trout was always cool and in control and had a pleasant, inviting voice, and he made Dr. Dobson sound even better. By the way, I don't say Focus on the Family was the paragon of great sounding radio because of its perspective either...

I guess you can tell I have been driving around today, hearing amateurs rule the radio waves.
www.brucehorlick.com and www.radiostorybooks.com

Plugging Commercial Stop Sets Hurts Our Incomes

Every program director in the country ought to outlaw talent from plugging that the station is going to a commercial break. What possible purpose does it serve when a talent says, "Now when we come back after commercials..."??? What listener is going to stick around for the commercials? If the talent's plug is convincing, the listener may check back in a few minutes, but by that time the listener has dodged the commercials.

In this day and age when it's tougher than ever for radio stations to secure
on-going business, stations should never tip their hands that they're going to commercials. Hopefully the first commercial will be potent enough to hook the listener to hear the sell; or ideally the commercial will even start with the sell or the unique selling position.

What may be a better way to go into the stop set is "we're taking calls NOW at
1 888 XXX XXXX." Then, simply play the first ad. Yes, please play the ad without warning! At least the advertiser who leads the stop set won't have half his potential listenership tuning out just as the ad comes on.

The "we'll back" cliche' is even worse in this day and age where true radio pros are a dying breed. I realize that not everyone on the radio will ever be a Rush Limbaugh or a Glenn Beck (the heck with their opinions many of which I disagree, they're fantastic radio performers), but at least radio programmers easily can train some of their hosts on basic techniques. Programmers espcially should train many of the weekend Ask the Expert hosts, many of whom buy their own time, or simply should provide the Experts with a radio professional-announcer to serve as the "book cover" for their program content. Too often weekend broadcasts sound more like podcasts, though frankly I've heard a lot of podcasts now that smoke broadcasts. www.mostlytrivial.com has some podcasts that sound more like innovative network broadcasts...
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Throw Away Commercial Structure, Keep Advertisers Longer

Would radio and TV stations could keep their advertisers longer IF programmers allowed non-fixed stop sets? The idea may well be worth experimentation with FM stations that have 8 to 10 minute stop sets.

Simply allow the local talents to weave in commercials at varous points in an hour, maybe even one ad between songs with no call letters even mentioned. Yes, this means that stations have to break "the rules." And above all, programmers should ban air talent from promoting stop sets in all formats. Why would any talent, especially in a major market ever say or be allowed to say, "when we come back..."??? In other words, listeners would not have a predictable pattern for when ads would play.

I would love to see a few FM stations try my experiemnt for at least a quarter, and I would love for PPM to show that these stations' ratings didn't dip as a result. My experiment should not be a justification for stations to raise ad rates, which merely means a higher cost per client, patient, customer or case to that advertier in most cases; my experiment should be used to hopefully lower an advertiser's cost per client, patient, customer or case.
www.brucehorlick.com and www.radiostorybooks.com