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How To Turn The Impossible Into Possible
February 7, 2017
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One of the keys to living an extraordinary life lies in the ability to turn seemingly impossible scenarios into reality. This was the challenge I enjoyed most during my programming career.
In 1999, there were many people who urged me to not leave my $19,000 a year programming job in Augusta, Maine to move up over 200 market sizes and lead an upstart top 40 station in Cleveland.
Why?
At the time, WAKS (96.5 Kiss FM) had just launched on a 3000 watt, Class A signal licensed to the western suburbs of Cleveland. The signal was so weak, you couldn't hear the station in the parking garage at our office. Most people told me to wait for a job with a stronger signal and a better chance of success.
Always the contrarian, I moved to Cleveland anyway and within 18 months, our "little signal that could" defied expectations, hit a 3.5 share, beat the full market competitor, and eventually moved onto a 50,000 watt signal at 96.5.
But perhaps no career decision raised more eyebrows than when I joined Entercom in 2007 to take a job literally nobody else in America wanted. I became the Program Director at KDND right after the infamous "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" morning stunt.
On the surface, the situation seemed unwinnable. In fact, nobody within Entercom could guarantee me the FCC would not take away the station license and I wouldn't be out of work in 6 months. However, after a 2-month interim position, I felt the station could not only survive, but could even grow and dominate the market.
Within two years of the wee tragedy, we hit #1 and stayed there for something like 23 out of 24 consecutive ratings books. Much of the success had to do with programming mechanics, but none of it would have been possible if the team in Sacramento didn't buy into three simple strategies you can use to achieve anything in your life.
See things as they are... But not worse than they are. We want to be honest about our circumstances, but we can't be overdramatic. If we make things out to be bad enough, we will convince ourselves to not even try in the first place.
In the case of KDND, here was the truth. An unspeakable tragedy had taken place where a listener lost her life. News cameras swarmed the building and there was a ton of negative coverage. People were calling the request lines to say horrible things about the station and its employees.
But what was interesting is that those people weren't listeners. They were trolls. The fans of the station saw the situation for what it was, a terrible, unintended mistake. The listeners still supported the station and wanted to listen. With this knowledge, the team could find the courage to keep moving forward to the second step of this process.
See things better than they are. The people directly involved with the contest had been let go. The team who remained wanted nothing more than to serve the Sacramento community. We knew we couldn't control the lawyers, the FCC, or the court system. However, we could control the product that came out of the speakers each day.
I knew with so much new cume checking out the station to see what had happened, we could give them a better listening experience than they had before. I told the team if we just focused on what we could control, we could take the radio station to ratings levels it had never achieved. Some people thought this thinking was delusional, but with a real belief we could improve the station, we could move to step 3.
- Make it so. We changed the clocks. We adjusted the music strategy and the research screeners. We changed the imaging. We made the community a focus. We also hired an up and coming morning show we felt could anchor the "new" version of The End. With a new team in place, we tirelessly worked to execute the game plan. Within 18 months, we went to #1 in the market and never looked back.
These three leadership strategies will work for your radio station today, regardless of your present circumstances. Even more remarkably, they will work for your life. Whether you are struggling with your career, relationships, health, or finances, these strategies are essential to turning things around and going to the next level.
Need a mentor to help you shift your mindset? In the last couple of months, my clients have achieved success that once seemed impossible. Like the client who left his office job, moved to LA to pursue acting, and just landed his first national TV commercial. Or the stay-at-home mom with no TV experience who is going to her second callback for a hosting job on a major cable network. What is your big dream for 2017? Go to www.creativesoulcoaching.net and schedule a FREE, 25-minute breakthrough coaching call so we can make it a reality!
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