DAN O’DAY TALKS ABOUT RADIO

In a hurry? Here’s where to download it for free.

Or you can read this pretty doggone interesting piece and then click on the “free download” link at the very end.

Joseph Sugarman is a marketing legend.

He introduced the concept of using toll-free numbers to take credit cards over the phone. In fact, for the first year he did it in violation of the credit card companies’ rules, which required that all orders must have the customer’s signature.

If any customers were to claim they’d never placed the order, Joe wouldn’t have been paid by the credit card companies.

Fortunately — due to great products and great service — not a single customer contested a charge during the first year. That’s when the credit card companies had an “ah hah” moment and began to encourage other merchants to accept phone orders.

His mail order catalog introduced Americans to the world’s first pocket calculator.

He’s sold 20 million BluBlockers sunglasses — via absolutely brilliant marketing.

He’s written several best-selling books about marketing and advertising. The most influential of them is called TRIGGERS: 30 Sales Tools You Can Use to Control the Mind of Your Prospect to Motivate, Influence and Persuade.

Several years ago I spent an entire day in a recording studio with Joe Sugarman, quizzing him about each of his 30 sales “triggers.” (Our audio engineer was none other than Pro-Tools wizard Steve Cunningham.)

The result was a 5-CD audio package that’s been selling to marketing enthusiasts around the world for $249. Here’s the cover.

I’ve lost track of the number of Famous Marketing Big Shots I’ve met who immediately treated me with much more respect when they learned I was the guy who produced that product. (As you know, being “that radio guy” generally doesn’t get you a better table at a fancy restaurant.)

Page One of the second JS&A Catalog was prophetic: “This catalog will someday become a collector’s item. It represents the start of a new revolution in micro-electronic technology.”

In the late ’70s I bought this computer from Joe’s catalog:

A pioneer of long-form sales copy, here’s Sugarman’s introduction to the home computer:

Back to that $249 audio version of TRIGGERS…

A mutual friend is giving away the entire package as a downloadable mp3 recording. The same studio quality, same content…everything.

Giving it away.

To be sure, he’s giving it away to promote something else that he’ll be offering later. That “something else” is exciting enough (to marketing professionals, at least) to save for another article.

Yeah, he’s got Joe’s permission to give it away. And my (grudging) permission. But only for a very short time.

I’m very proud of this product. If I didn’t have it, I’d buy it.

But if you want to download the complete 4.8-hour audio package for free, do it here.

Avoid The “Moat Effect.”

Stimulating a small area of the brain’s cortex will increase neural activity in that area. It also will decrease neural activity in that area’s surrounding regions.

John Lilly, the neuroscientist who invented the isolation tank and was famed for his work with dolphins, called this phenomenon the “Moat Effect.”

In his book, THE DYADIC CYCLONE, he remarked:

“People tend to do exactly this kind of operation in regard to their knowledge about any given subject. They raise the importance of their own knowledge and demean areas of knowledge not within their own area of competence — they surround it with a moat in regard to other knowledge or other people’s knowledge.”

You’ve already seen the Moat Effect in your own company:

The Salesperson who believes, “Without me, this station would disappear. Nothing happens until somebody sells something.”

To which the Programming Person responds, “Excuse me. Without the Product, you’d have nothing to sell. I am the radio station.”

At which point the Engineer declares, “Really? Let’s try a little experiment. I’ll shut down the transmitter for a few weeks and we’ll see what kinds of ratings Programming gets and how much business Sales writes.”

As a PD, you will be stronger in some areas than in others.

Perhaps you’ll be a wizard with music scheduling software and weak in Promotions.

Brilliant at brainstorming new ideas but poor at managing your time.

Instead of declaring the areas outside your primary focus to be irrelevant or unimportant, make a continuous effort to strengthen those areas — either by enlarging your own skill set or by surrounding yourself with people who excel in those aspects of your profession.

And make sure everyone knows how much you value those people.

Harlan Hogan’s annual STARTING YOUR VOICEOVER BUSINESS teleseminar class is open for registration.

Before you read anything else on this page, please listen to this audio. Hit the “play” button and then look away from your monitor.

Done?

Great.

Now….What valuable information did you take away from hearing that commercial, which was broadcast on a big Los Angeles radio station?

Can you even tell me what it was about (other than, perhaps, “about” MotorVillageLA.com”)?

On behalf of that advertising client, let’s say it all together now:

“I tried radio…and it didn’t work.”

Wonder why.