Sometimes Your Employee Is More ImportantThan Your Biggest Client
By: Brian Dickens Barrabee
Tags: Employee Engagement, Radio, Advertising, Business, Humor

In order to be a succussful business owner, know the business to a greater extent than the people who work for you do. Until you do, watch what THEY DO carefully.

Photo by Clayton Cardinalli on Unsplash

A mistake that many of us humans make is thinking that success in one endeavor automatically makes us a shoo-in for success in another.

Uh-uh!

The successful entertainer doesn’t necessarily make the best president. The guy who is a wealthy developer goes bankrupt running an airline. The woman who’s a respected academician fails miserably as president of a college.

The guy who is successful in real estate, isn’t guaranteed to be triumphant in running a radio station, especially if he knows nothing about doing it.

That describes my mistake when I made my only foray into purchasing a small slice of the media.

It took about a month for the euphoria of owning WSER to wear off and getting down to the business of running a radio station became imperative.

Enter Axle Bell; a 59 year old, 5'3'’ dynamo, acting manager, head salesman, energency DJ, incredibally likable most valable employee of WSER.

No, Axle was more than an employee of the station.

He WAS the station!

Axle worked for one employer all his life. He grew up in Elkton, Maryland, went to work for the local radio station, WSER, after graduating from high school. He had held every job that the place had to offer, including cutting the grass on the front lawn.

When I bought WSER, Axle was the acting station manager. He also had a broadcast shift. But where his value to the station really lay was in sales. WSER had a few part time salesmen but Axle’s clients were responsile for 85% of the station’s business.

After owning the station for about 3months, I got a call from the owner of one of the WSER’s biggest client, Calvert Cheverlote. I was pleased to hear the caller was the owner of the huge agency. He was probably reaching out to get to meet me via phone conference.

Hello?

I’ve been dealing with your little Axle for years.

Yes, we think an awful lot of him here at the station!

He tried to jawbone me into buying additional blocks of advertising and when I told him I had more than enough advertising with WSER, he called me an ASSHOLE!

This, of course, was unacceptable but also unbelievable.

I told him that I was very sorry that he and Axle may have had words and I’d talk to Axle about it when he came in.

I’ll fucking pulling ALL my advertising if you don’t fire that pint-sized punk.

This caused me pause. Calvet Cheverlote did a good $4000 per month worth of business with us.

But Axle was the acting manager, head salesman, on air utility man — I was dependent upon him. He was the only person here who knew what he was doing!

Axle burst through the door of the station about an hour later sporting his customary enthusiasm.

Hey Axle!

Pleased to see him and anxious to clear this all up.

Were you over at Calvert Cheverlote today?

YEAH, BUT I DIDN’T CALL ANYBODY AN ASSHOLE!

The inner Sherlock Holmes came out in me. How did he know…

Axle was not fired.

Of course, we lost Calvert Cheverlet as a client.

One could say we maintained the Axle but lost the car.

My leason learned:

It’s acceptable to have all your eggs in one basket in a business but watch that basket carefully.

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