Sunday Reflection

A cup of coffee and a keyboard on a nice Spring morning out West. I get emails, chats and Facebook messages and people ask me all the time, "How are you doing?" I guess that means, are you looking for work in radio, what are your plans? No I am officially out of radio and it took two years to find the marketing position that matched my programming and radio marketing skills. I left my last radio position two years ago this month and wanted to test my skill set in public relations and marketing. I kept getting wrapped around sales positions. 3 positions in sales and finally marketing.

Now accounting executives are calling on me. The tables are turned and this gets real interesting. Most account executives are not plugged into the clients needs. They still expect you to look at a generic program and rate card. Bob Knight wrote about this last year in his Weds Morning Meeting on FTC. Of the several I have talked to, no one has asked what are the practices marketing goals and what do you want to accomplish? They want you to buy their packages. No wonder the local paper just laid off 70 more people, local ad dollars are down for radio and TV is just plain out to lunch. I got a local TV AE in front of our doctor for 10 minutes and I told her "don't pitch" - Listen to what he tells you about the brand and product. She started pitching and brought out ratings. The TV station is 3-1 number 1 in the market, we know all of this. 

There is a mis-match between the AE's objectives and what the client's needs are. Bring these together and sales will increase. BTW - Had they inquired, we want to market and brand the practice with on-line marketing. The Fresno Bee and ABC 30 have the largest media web sites in the market.