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Vision vs PanicVision versus Panic “You always have two choices; your commitment versus your fear.”
-Sammy Davis, Jr.-
Experiments on hypothermia at the University of Winnipeg have proven that the choices we make out of fear are often fatal.
In controlled experiments at the university, two groups of students were immersed in freezing cold tanks of water to study what choices they would make to save their lives.
Most people believe it only takes two to three minutes for hypothermia to set in. The first group of students was thrown into the freezing water with that belief.
In reality, it takes 35 to 40 minutes for hypothermia to take its toll. The second group of students was thrown into the freezing water with that knowledge.
Invariably, the first group made choices out of fear and panic….choices which, under real life scenarios would have cost them their lives.
The students who understood they had time to think ahead, consistently made better choices than their panicked counterparts.
The absence of vision, commitment and long-term goals for your stations can also result in panic choices which can be fatal.
Are you committed to a long-term plan for your business survival? Or are you making panic decisions under pressure?
Your advertisers are reading newsletters and blogs which suggest they should “take advantage of this downturn and put the heat on media suppliers”.
That “heat”has caused some broadcasters to sell at rates below break-even. We’ve all heard the joke about the widget manufacturer who was losing five dollars per widget but planned to “make it up on volume”. Even in good times, far too many sales managers let the bottom right hand corner of a broadcast order influence them to sell at a loss. You cannotsell at a loss and “make it up on volume”! Selling at a loss not only hurts your stations, but in the long run,hurts advertisers. Cutting your rates will inevitably cause cuts in service to your advertisers and to your audiences. As those cuts impact audiences negatively, advertisers will find it increasingly difficult to find a media that has enough reach and influence to achieve their goals. Our biggest selling job has always been internal, not external. We need to sell ourselves and our staffs on the value of advertising before they can have the confidence to sell our services to advertisers at a profitable rate. |
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