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If you ask most radio people to define “client,” they will reply, “customer.”
But there’s a difference between the two.
A customer is someone who gives you money in exchange for goods or services.
Marketing legend Jay Abraham points out that if you check the dictionary, however, you’ll discover that a client is someone who is “under your care and protection.”
If you view your advertisers as clients instead of customers, your entire attitude changes.
If it’s just a customer, you take their money and — assuming it’s within your station’s guidelines — do whatever they want.
But if it’s a client — someone who is under your care and protection — you’d never let them air a commercial that you know isn’t likely to produce profitable results.
“But,” you say, “the customer is always right.”
Perhaps the customer is, but the client isn’t.
Let’s say you go see your doctor.
“What’s the problem?” the doctor asks.
“Well, Doc, I’ve got this nagging cough. And I’ve made a list of five medications I want you to prescribe for me.”
“Okay,” the doctor replies.
Is that doctor acting professionally?
Or does the word “quack” leap to mind?
A professional does not automatically do whatever the client wants. Instead, a professional is committed to doing what is best for the client.
Often that means educating the client, just as the physician might have to educate the patient.
Today I got a telephone call from a high level executive at one of the world’s major airlines. (No, “high level” is not a pun.)
As one of their frequent flyers, I had a problem that was caused by the airline, and I’d been told by their “Customer Service” department that, with luck, they’d be able to straighten it out within 2 or 3 months.
But until they got around to straightening it out, I wouldn’t have my 2 Million Miler status nor any of the perks (preferred seating, early boarding, etc.) that come with it.
I was not satisfied with that response. So yesterday I sent a personal email to the airline’s CEO.
No, I don’t know the CEO, and I think it’s a safe bet the CEO never heard of me.
But I wrote the email in a manner intended to prevent its being kicked downstairs to some bored young Customer Service rep who would reply with an off-the-mark form letter offering me some lame flight discount voucher for my inconvenience.
And I crafted the Subject line in a manner intended to make sure the CEO personally read the email.
Yes, I should teach a class in How To Get Big Shots To Read And Respond To Your Emails.
The CEO did read my email, and he turned it over not to a lowly Customer Service rep but instead to the high level executive you met in the first sentence of this posting. Let’s call him Stan (not his name).
Stan explained that the CEO had asked him to fix the problem for me, and he was certain he could do that much more quickly than I had been told to expect.
And then he said, “By the way, are you the radio consultant?”
“Umm….Yeah, I guess I am. Why do you ask?”
“Before I called you, I googled your name to see who you are, and the first Dan O’Day I found lives in Los Angeles and according to your frequent flyer account you live in Los Angeles, so….”
“Well, yeah, I guess that’s me. I’m not the photographer or the dance studio guy.”
“Talking to you makes me feel a little self-conscious,” Stan said.
“Why?”
“Well, I don’t have a very good voice. It’s kind of tinny and nasal, and I know I talk pretty fast.”
“Stan, that’s silly. Look, I make my living coaching radio personalities. Here’s what’s required to have a ‘good radio voice’:
“You need to have something worth communicating to another person. And it must be important to you that the person you’re talking to you hear and understand your message.
“That’s it. It’s not about the voice. It’s about the message and your desire to communicate it to another person. When you called me, you knew exactly what you wanted to tell me, and you expressed yourself quite clearly and immediately got my attention.
“You’ve got a good voice. End of story.”
