Week of April 6, 2009

Revenue is down, expense cuts are as common as colds in January and you've had to terminate some people who were contributing great things to your business -- but if you were to make your corporate expense cut targets, you had nowhere else to go. Your morale and your staff's morale are in the dumper. What are those geniuses at corporate thinking? It may provide some comfort to you and your staff if you try the "walk a mile in my shoes" theory. Spend a moment thinking about the morale of those geniuses at corporate. Do you think they enjoy where things are, and the hard decisions they are making? I've never been a corporate genius, but I still hold out hope there might be some humanity there worthy of our compassion.

Here's an exercise you should do weekly: Assume you are the new Manager and have been on the job for two weeks. Write a report as if you are going to send it to corporate or your new owner about your observations -- what's good, what's not so good. Send it to your e-mail. Wait a day and open it. You'll have recommendations from the person most qualified to help you.

For years the theory was, "The more AEs you have, the more business you'll write because more people are on the street selling the station." Many GSMs and virtually all AEs believe this is a bad idea. They contend it penalizes good AEs and limits their income by running second-rate people through the Sales Department who are unable to close business the experienced people could handle. I heard a theory that a station should have as many AEs as there are units per hour. In other words, 12 units an hour = 12 AEs; Eight units an hour = 8 AEs. Another theory is that by limiting the number of AEs and making them rich, the station is able to retain the best AEs. Let's face it: Everyone involved has his or her own agenda. It would be nice if there was a scientific formula to apply. Don't try to find one; it doesn't exist because each situation is different. Your job as a GM is to take information from all sides and make a decision based on your experience and what you think will work best, and then hope you are right. One of the things that makes this such a great business is that there is almost always more than one right answer.

When was the last time you took your most important talent out for a working lunch or dinner without the PD? Do it frequently and you will be amazed at the information you get. Here's another one: Take out the least important talent. You'll find out a completely different set of aluable information. Do the same thing with a couple of AEs. And finally, take out one of the clerical people -- again only you and that person. Make him/her comfortable and get them talking. This is where you will find the best information.

Time management for a General Manager or Market Manager has become critical. Corporate is expecting you to do an increasing number of reports and analyses. At the same time you need to make sure you are taking care of the critical decisions necessary to keep your stations moving forward. It is essential that you keep your head and understand that without the success of the stations, there will be no reports. Take the heat from corporate when you have no time to do their reports Once again, without successful stations, the reports won't be necessary.