DAN O’DAY TALKS ABOUT RADIO

April, 1996: I conducted a series of private seminars in Europe. This was my schedule:

April 11: Leave Los Angeles
April 12: Arrive Stockholm, Sweden
April 13: Stockholm (Air Talent Seminar)
April 14: Frankfurt, Germany (Station consulting re: radio promotion)
April 15: Helsinki, Finland  (Air Talent Seminar)
April 16: Helsinki  (Air Talent Seminar)
April 17: Vaxjo, Sweden  (Air Talent Seminar)
April 18: Ostersund, Sweden  (Air Talent Seminar)
April 19: Antwerp, Belgium  (Commercial Copywriting Seminar, Air Talent Seminar)
April 20: Brussels  (Air Talent Seminar)
April 21: Coventry, England  (Air Talent Seminar)
April 22: Coventry  (Morning Show Tune-Up)
April 23: Return to Los Angeles
April 24: Resume bragging about what a big world traveler I am

My first stop was Stockholm, where I conducted a full-day Air Personality Plus+ seminar for Sveriges Radio and The Radio Academy.

All of my seminars in Sweden were arranged by Anne Chaabane. Prior to this trip, Anne advised me that the taxi fare from Arlanda (Stockholm) airport to the hotel would be 350 SEK. I remembered that price from previous visits and made sure I brought enough Swedish currency with me.

When the taxi arrived at the Hotel Diplomat, the meter read “800 SEK.”

800 SEK??? How could that be?

Well, it turns out that some taxis charge a flat rate of 350 SEK, while others charge whatever they want.

I love Stockholm, but on this trip (as usual) I wouldn’t have any free time to wander the city. I consoled myself with the fact that the weather would be cold and harsh; it doesn’t usually warm up until June. With my luck, however, the day of the seminar turned out to be gorgeous: sunny & warm.

The seminar began at 9:00AM and ended at 4:30…at which time I returned to the airport for a 6:35PM flight to Frankfurt.

I shared the taxi back to the airport with a woman who had flown in from Norway (Radio P3) to attend the seminar. She commented that when she arrived, she naively took the first cab she saw and ended up paying much more than she should have.

“I think I set a new record by paying 730 SEK!” she admitted. “Can you believe how foolish I was to have that much??”

I expressed sympathy for her naivety.

Although both of us checked to insure that we had gotten one of the “correct” taxicabs, when we reached the airport the driver insisted the fare was 400 SEK, not 350.

Then he left me in front of the wrong terminal building, and I had to walk (dragging along my overloaded luggage cart) for 20 minutes to where he should have dropped me off.

This put me at the departure gate much later than I had planned. When I reached the gate, the plane was scheduled to depart in just a few minutes, and the passengers already had boarded. Panicking, I ran up to the gate agent and said, “Hey!”

No, that wasn’t rude of me. “Hey” means “hello” in Swedish. (You say it with an upward lilt at the end of the word, as though it were a question.)

After years of practice, I have reached the point where I can say “Hey” with impressive fluency. This time I said it so perfectly that the gate agent responded in a torrent of Swedish, none of which I understood.

But I managed to board the Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt just before it left.

In An Upcoming Installment: How I almost got arrested at the airport in Dusseldorf, Germany….

Recently we discussed what is and isn’t legal vis-a-vis using copyrighted music in radio commercials.

So what happens when you tell a client that no, he can’t put “American Pie” underneath the commercial for Uncle Rudy’s Homemade Apple Pies?

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE:  We can’t do that; that’s illegal.

CLIENT:  But one of the other stations in town always does that for us!

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE:  If that’s true, then I’m disappointed to hear that.

I know a few stations are willing to violate federal copyright laws. Some stations engage in “double billing”; that’s illegal, too.

Some stations don’t run all the commercials their clients pay for. Some stations will do anything for money, even if it’s against the law.

But not my station.

If someone at my station did what you’re asking, they’d be fired.

And if my station allowed its account executives to break the law to land a new account, I’d quit.

Do you really want to entrust the financial success of your business to a radio station that will cheat and break the law and rip off the work of others?

If so, that’s your choice to make. But we didn’t achieve the level of success we have for ourselves and for our clients by breaking the law.

Even if you don’t sign up for my teleseminar (although you should), these tips will help you get more of your voice mail messages returned.

Being surprised by voice mail

Why do so many people leave long, rambling voice mail messages?

Because they were trying to get the person on the phone, and they were surprised when the person wasn’t there.

They were surprised when the person wasn’t there?

Why were they surprised??

No one’s ever there!

Before you pick up the phone, assume that in a few moments you will be leaving a voice mail message.

Not having a clearly defined goal before you dial the phone

You need to know exactly what you want your message to accomplish.

“Well, to get the person to return my call.”

Okay, that’s a good start.

But when do you want the person to return your call?

What, specifically, will motivate the person to return your call?

More to the point:

Exactly what do you want the person to think when he or she hears your message?

Not knowing exactly what you’ll say before you dial the phone

“Oh, I’m good with words. I’ll figure out what to say as I’m leaving my message.”

Is that approach….

Foolish?

Lazy?

Typical?

Yes.

Most of the time, it’s also:

Ineffective.

Not structuring your message so that it grabs the recipient’s attention from your very first words

The average business executive listens to his voice mail messages with his finger poised over the “delete” button.

And as soon as he decides this phone call is not one that he needs to return or one that he will benefit from returning, he hits “delete”…

…and never looks back.

You need to command the interest of your prospect from your very first words.

Giving your sales pitch in your message

The purpose of your voice mail message is not to sell your product or service.

It’s not to give a commercial for your business.

It’s to get the prospect to return your call.

Your message should not include even a single word that isn’t calculated to make the recipient call you back promptly.

Sounding eager

Eager salespeople do not attract customers or clients.

Confident salespeople do.

Yes, next week’s teleseminar gives you the information, the mindset, and the very words you should use to infuse your message with an unmistakable confidence.

Creating a personal distance

At least 90% of voice mail messages left by salespeople (or other business people trying to establish contact with strangers) create a huge chasm — a great physical space — between themselves and their prospects.

And they do so with their very first words.

They use common phrases that immediately signals the prospect, “This is a stranger who wants something from me. Time to hit the ‘delete’ button.”

Not determining where on the hierarchy of calls you want to be perceived by the recipient

Your prospect returns to her office and finds 20 voice mail messages waiting for her.

Does she simply return all 20 calls in the order they came in?

Of course not.

First she decides which calls to return.

Then she decides which of those calls to return first.

You need to leave a message that commands a premiere position on the hierarchy of calls that will be returned.

Not making the recipient want to call you back

How do you get someone to return your call?

By making that person want to return your call.

Think about the messages you’re currently leaving: Do they really make the prospect want to return your call?

Measuring the wrong numbers

Selling via telephone — which includes cold calling new prospects as well as calling “old” prospects, existing clients, and for former clients — is “a numbers game.”

But contrary to what most salespeople are taught, there are two numbers that determine your amount of returned voice mail messages.

One is the number of calls you make. Everything else being equal, the more voice mail messages you leave, the more will be returned.

Most salespeople (and sales managers) focus on that number because it can be objectively determined quite easily: Keep an accurate tally of the messages you leave, and you’ve got a very accurate measurement.

The other number also can be measured, but few people even consider it.

That number is the “impact rating” of your voice mail message.

A “zero” impact rating = No one ever returns your voice mail messages.

A “100” impact rating = Everyone always returns your voice mail messages.

Your own impact rating falls somewhere been 0 and 100.

It’s all up to you.

Do you want to double your sales by making twice as many calls?

Or would you rather double your sales by making the same amount of calls — but with twice the success rate?

It’s all up to you.

How To Get Your Voice Mail Messages Returned (teleseminar)

At the closed door Repeat Offenders session of this year’s PD Grad School, we found ourselves discussing both smart and dumb things some people do when applying for on-air radio jobs.

Mike McVay got the ball rolling, and the PDs in the room added their own thoughts.

Here’s a quick rundown on some of their key likes and dislikes.

DO….

Have your aircheck run 3 to 5 minutes.

Demonstrate a number of different things you do: a contest call; interplay with a teammate; interesting song intro; sharing a part of yourself.

Submit a real show, not one that’s been “cherry picked.”

Follow directions. If the ad specifies a size limit to mp3 submissions, respect that limit. If it says you should include a resume in “Word or as a PDF,” include your resume in Word or as a PDF…not as a JPEG or in, say, WordPerfect. (One PD swears he received a resume in WordPerfect.) If it asks for references, include references.

As one PD said of job applicants, “Look closely at this individual, because this is the best they’ll ever look.” If you can’t follow basic instructions when trying to land a job, what would you be like as an employee?

Name your audio file so the PD can tell who it’s from! “3_2_10_edit_final.mp3” doesn’t do much to identify you. You might even go so far as to add meta data — your name, email address, phone number — for a prospective employer who dumps everything onto an mp3 player.

DON’T….

Preface your aircheck with a cute introduction. Or any introduction at all: (“Hi, Jim-Bob! This is Ed Jock, and I sure would like to work with you!”)

Have every break on your aircheck sounds like every other break. The PD gets to hear you do only one thing, repeatedly.

Edit your aircheck so tightly that the PD hears more of your station’s imaging guy than of you.

Apply for a job using your employer’s email address. (I was surprised at how unanimously they agreed. All felt it demonstrates either that you use station resources to apply for a job and/or — worse — that you’re sending off that email in the middle of your air shift.)

Send “bad audio” — an aircheck that is out of phase or with levels all over the place. Again, the PD assumes this is you at your best. If the audio you send is sloppily produced, that doesn’t speak well of your professionalism.