How To Market Your Company And Lose Sales
By: Brian Dickens Barrabee
Tags: Business, Radio, Public Relations, Marketing, Humor

My business partner thought that our advertisers would like to meet the new owners of the radio station with whom they were doing business. It turned out to be a marketing disaster.

Photo by Merakist on Unsplash

When I first suffered the madness, I suffered alone.

I knew nothing about running a radio station. I just thought it was something not beyond me to do.

Brain surgery, rocket science or being a nuclear physicist, I couldn’t do; to name a few occupations of many.

When I mentioned I was going to buy a country radio station, my financial planning partner, Brooks, wanted to suffer with me. He said he had faith in my instincts. He respected my investment acumen.

He convinced his wife, Harriett, it would be a profitable undertaking. Although a hard charging divorce lawyer in Philadelphia, Harriett was always a soft touch for Brooks’s bullshit.

I consented to cut him in on a 50% share. He put up 1/2 the money on closing and, just like that — we owned a radio station.

The blind leading the blind.

Brooks ,an accountant with creds of being educated at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, went over the station’s income and expense statements for the last 5 years.

He had a pretty good idea where the money was coming from and where it was going.

I had the highest regard for Brooks’s business judgement and thought he was spot on when he suggested that we introduce ourselves to our larger advertisers. As the new owners, we thought it would be impressive to stop in at their places of business and ascertain how we could meet their business’s needs better, if possible.

After all, who is more qualified to committ WSER’S ability to create success for its clients than the guys who own the station?

Brooks and I set up appointments with 3 car agencies and a large pizza restaurant for the next week. Together, they generated 1/5 of our total gross income on a monthly basis.

A little hands on grass roots marketing and public relations

The next week, Brooks and I saw the the principals of the large clients with whom we had made appointments. We discussed the advertising they were doing with WSER and brought them up to date with the station’s latest developments including the change in ownership.

We spoke of our personal commitment to the advertisers who for years had put their trust in our newly acquired station

Brooks and I were starting to feel our message was getting through. It seemed the clients couldn’t help but recognize they were doing business with a station on the ascent. Their ventures would benefit from the new ownership’s dynamism plus all the additional pairs of ears we were sure to add to WSER’S audience.

A business will go as far as its leadership will take it. Why not hitch your advertising wagon to our station, a rising star?

When I arrived at WSER the next day I was greeted with 2 urgent messages. They were sent by 2 of the 4 businesses with whom Brooks and I had appointments the prior day.

The results of our first primitive attempts at marketing for the station are as follows:

The first return call I made was to Champion Ford. As I dialed I was calculating in my mind additional buys that were in store for the WSER sales department.

I was transferred to the legendary Champ, owner of the agency — not the sales department.

Good sign, speak to the real decision maker

Turns out Champ had lost touch that he had been a sponsor on WSER for years. He didn’t listen to the station nor did he check the advertising expenses but must have purchased time a while ago and it just kept running.

His bookkeeper was his son who apparently painted with a wide brushstrokes and never bothered to itemize their advertising budget

He gave a months notice and discontinued any sponsorship with WSER when he found out from us his agency was paying for doing any in the first place.

Champion continued to sell a helluva lot of cars, I heard later. Didn’t miss a beat without WSER.

The next return call I made that day was to Northeast Pizza.

The owner with whom Brooks and I made the appointment said he was disappointed when he heard that his ex high school girlfriend was no longer selling advertising for the station. Apparently Northeast Pizza had given WSER and his high school friend a mercy buy to get his ex a continuing trail of commission.

Got to get the Northeast Pizza name out somehow he figured. Might as well help an old girlfriend while you’re at it .

Truth be known, most of his business came from word of mouth and the natural draw of cheap beer. He needed advertising about as mush as he needed a 20 star Michelin Chef slinging pizza dough in the kitchen.

WSER’s 1st, albeit, fragmented public relations campaign untimately amounted the loss of 2 long time advertisers.

One of those rare cases where someone gets an F for effort!

Harriett came to her senses before Brooks came to his.

She did a bit of arm twisting — my arm.

She convinced me to give Brooks his money back.

I was now the 100% owner of a country radio station: WSER 1550 AM, Elkton, Maryland.