Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee and just as difficult to sleep after.” –Anne Morrow Lindbergh –

          One way to avoid the boredom of weekly sales meetings and to break down the barriers between programming and sales is to invite your program director to speak at the first meeting of each month.

          Their mission? Simply tell us, ‘What’s new?’ and ‘Why we’re doing what we do on air.’

          This exercise not only brings programming and sales together in a common goal, it also gives your programmer the opportunity to showcase their expertise and build confidence among the sales people in the station’s programming strategy.

          A programming consultant I worked with years ago, told me he could predict how a station was going to do in the next ratings simply by calling all of his program directors on the phone and asking them, ‘What’s new?’

          If the response was ‘same old, same old’, he knew the station was headed for trouble. On the other hand, he said that if he couldn’t get the programmer off the phone because he was so excited about the new programming initiatives he was implementing, the consultant knew he had a winner on his hands.

          Sales people are often the last to know what’s happening on air, and often are never told why we do what we do. Bringing them into the fold with regular communication can really bolster their confidence and make them feel like part of the team…….and visa-versa.

          Each programmer’s guest appearance in your meetings should also include a question and answer session.

P.S. Some programmers are hesitant to tip their hand to the sales people for competitive or alleged confidentiality reasons. In my experience, this paranoia is never justified. If your competitors are going to have a knee-jerk reaction to every rumor they hear about your strategy, they are already doomed.