I, like Sally, give my advertising reps exactly what I want – reach, frequency, length, cost. Heck, for many of them I draw up the schedule because I often know what works better than they do. The reps that give me what I want get my business. The ones who ignore this and try to over sell me something I didn’t want are not going to have my back when an issue arrises.

I have one annoying rep who constantly bombards me with “one-day sales”, two-week schedules, and special opportunities that would NEVER fit into my marketing plan even though I have told him repeatedly, pointedly, and without quibbling that I do not buy my ads that way. Yet the emails continue…

Recently our area radio stations have gone to putting on these “seminars” where they spend 45 minutes telling you how great radio is (and how bad the other media are – ugghh) then they try to sell you a package of basically unsold inventory with a frequency of less than 0.5/week.

I wonder how many suckers buy that package, don’t get much of a result and then go around telling everyone, “I tried radio and it doesn’t work.” Unwittingly, these stations are their own worst enemy, making it harder to sell radio because they are creating legions of unbelievers.