Radio Sales Café

Hello everyone,

Congatulations on this great community and resource.  I have been in radio for 10+ years and have just been given the opportunity to launch a new Hot AC station from scratch and become the GM in the process. 

The station is currently Spanish-language and grossly underperforming, so ownership is very frustrated and have asked me to launch the new station on a very limited budget. 

I have always worked in programming, so that area is covered (we're using mostly syndicated programming anyway), but I have no sales experience whatsoever, so I need to hire a sales staff and have a few questions:

 

1.  How many account executives are ideal for a station in a small market (225+)? 

 

2.  Recruiting - What's the best way to recruit account executives in a small market?  I posted a trial ad on Craigslist and got mostly people with fast food experience looking for a job.....any job.  Nobody with real sales experience, much less radio experience. 

 

3.  Compensation - Is $1000 per month base pay + 20% commission fair to start with?  We are open to increasing these numbers after the launch of the station (say after 90 days), but we're doing this on a very limited budget and I would like to see the AEs prove themselves first.   

 

4.  Traffic - Is a traffic system absolutely necessary in a small market during the launch phase?  The automation system we have in place to launch the station can print out all sorts of reports (spots aired, etc.), but I wonder if not having a system like Natural Log will be a problem for our AEs with clients who advertise or have advertised on the other stations in town.

 

Any additional advice on pricing ads, packages, promotional pricing during launch phase, etc. is appreciated.   

 

As I mentioned, I have been in radio for 10+ years, but have never really paid attention to the sales and marketing side of the operation.  Now I'm afraid I will look foolish and inexperienced when I start interviewing prospective AEs, or dealing with radio-saavy clients.

 

Any advice is appreciated.

Joe,

I started a station from nothing in 1984.(My first radio job was in 1970)  It's still on the air and successful today.  It is located in a small market in Illinois with approximately 150,000 in the signal radius.  The 2 main communities served had a population of 16,000. We had three sales reps. We were all live until 1992.  Went to automation that year.  I am now working in an AM/FM combo here in Wyoming. We have 4 sales reps here.  The difference here is that we are live assist on the FM until 5pm with the automation taking over at that time.  The AM is also live from 7am to 10am with talk shows after that.  We are kicking butt. From a programming standpoint, if you can do live assist I would recommend it. As for the base and commission, it sounds fair but you need to be aware(I am pretty sure you are) that $12,000 base is ok but you may not be able to attract a quality sales staff right away.

Are you keeping the Sapnish language?

As for looking foolish, as long as the customer is your prime focus, you should be just fine.

Does anyone in your market do live High School sports?  If not, it might be a good idea.  We generated 20% of our annual sales from live sports.

As for prospective employees, find a service like amfmjobs.com and try that.  My sales manager in Illinois had worked at two other stations before mine. Maybe a local newspaper ad would be a good place to start to find dissatisfied reps at other stations in your area.

Please feel free to contace me if I can be of further assitance. 

My suggestion is to get aggressive, target the sales people you want and go get them. They'll bring a book of business with them and this eliminates them proving themselves. Any top-flight sales person is more interested in the commission structure and potential bonuses than a guarantee. The more they focus on the latter the less you want them. As far as how many do you want, that would be a good question to ask the interviewees.

Dave & Jack,

 

Thank you so much for the valuable advice. 

 

Best,

 

Joe

 

Congratulations on this great opportunity!  I can't speak to the sales end but can give you a few tips re. Recruiting.

No. 1 - Try advertising in places radio people or sales people are likely to be looking (as opposed to where everyone is looking).  Advertise the positions on the air on your own station (and sister stations - if any) to start with.  Out state association of broadcasters lists job openings on it's website - check to see if your state or regional one does as well.  Some people still do read the paper, so a SALES section ad under the classifieds might bring you some results.  If you have a local business journal in print or online, that may be a good place to advertise the position as well.  

 

No. 2 - Once you get applicants, do yourself a favor and do not only a criminal background check, but reference checks from their last two employers.  You'll need to get a writen waiver from the applicant to do this but trust me, it will save you a lot of heartburn.  Why?  It's better to find out if there's a problem before the person is hired and avoid it entirely vs. hiring the person, living through the problem that might have caused them to lose their last two jobs, and then it becomes your problem to deal with!

 

Good luck!