I’ve been talking to a lot of my friends who are stagehands lately, and as the summer concerts are beginning to be planed, and my mind got caught up in thinking about goals and planning.
When a band sets up a stage for a performance, they have to scout out the venue, determine their basic wants and needs for a show, figure out if the venue can actually allow them to do some cool extra things (more lights, split level stages, pyro, whatever), and then determine what the end result should be. If the band is comfortable with themselves and who they will be performing with, they know how well they move together on stage, and can easily set up a performance and tear down for a quick getaway once they know how much room you have to work with.
Take this to your work team or even personal goal planning. Think about yourself and the teams you work with, and take a closer look at the current level of talent in contrast to the limitations that have placed on you (budgets, time, authority, priority). Your limits make up the size of your venue, and whether it is the equivalent of a small club or outdoor stadium. That sets you up to gage the size of stage you can manage in the space, how much equipment and what type of equipment you can allow on stage, and the size of a crowd you have to pull into the venue to make your performance pay off. Your bosses may see a lot of potential for crowded theater shows, or they might not think your ready to come out of the garage. You’ve got to figure out what venue they’re trying to book you in before you try to negotiate a bigger room and more of the door money.
And you have to be especially honest about the level of talent you are currently working with. You can argue about the Beatles being the greatest band of all time, but they didn’t begin the British Invasion a few months after they formed. They spent years learning themselves and their audiences, and they started with humble beginning of playing in some of the smaller and more seamier dives all over Europe. They had designs on sellout arena crowds early in their career...but they to build themselves up to reaching their superstar status. And they had to build smaller steps and occupy smaller stages along the way until they could demand the biggest and the best. Don’t get fooled by your potential. Let your potential be your booking agent to bigger gigs in a timely manner.
Your first challenge is to see the venue for what it is, and plan the biggest possible stage and grandest show setup you can imagine for it. That becomes your target goal, and their is nothing wrong with taking that goal to an insane extreme. You might not sell out Madison Square Garden, but you’ll never come close if you don’t keep a few open dates in case the opportunity just happens to pop up.
Your second challenge, and what is the real hard part, is to be consistent in building the steps to that bigger stage, and not hope that talent or luck will allow you to leap from a smaller stage without the proper support. Having a team that is willing to do what it takes to sell out the Garden is great. Having a team that has the talent to pull off the show is wonderful. Having the team that has worked its way up, step by step, to grow its talent and fan base to sell out the show is what you really want. That is something special.
I’ve worked with people who have looked at the big stage and shied away from it, despite great talent, and chosen to stay in the smaller venues or even get out of the business altogether because of the time and expectations of people who perform on the grand level. More frustrating are the people I’ve worked with who you have looked at the stage we are working on and the steps we had built so far, take a chainsaw to them, set them on fire, and then drive over the whole thing with a steamroller. Then, they would stand on top on the ashes and complain that were not building an even bigger stage than the one we had previously destroyed. I have worked with far too many of the latter types of people than I care to think about, because it drains my personal energy when I have to think about the time and energy wasted in the build up. But each experience is a learning experience that you have to take something good away from.
A little soul searching in this time of uncertainty.
A status update on Facebook stating that all past American Idol champions should thank their lucky stars that Adam Lambert wasn’t competing in their seasons because “That boy is MADE OF WIN” got me thinking about my situation at the day job, which in turn got me thinking about this grand scheme of a side gig.
I am currently stuck with nowhere to progress at work. I’m not surprised with the direction of the business in this economy, but this is the first time I have ever sat in a job with nowhere to move AND some well applied hand breaks to the other duties as assigned that to keep me sitting still long enough to stew in my own frustration.
In a time where jobs are being slashed at all levels in broadcasting, there are still opportunities for the next big radio star. Just not many. So a combination of my timing of testing the market along with the timing of the actual market is my problem.
Applying that same level of thinking to this business and personal consulting business that I named Fast Forward Business Properties, LLC., is the timing of starting a small business as my spare time is being overtaken by more and more uncompensated work hours the bad idea? Or, is my ability to actually consult not up to par, meaning the excuses don’t matter as much as I have no real growth potential in the first place?
Are you facing a decision to continue down a path that isn’t paying off as expected, but are unsure whether your obstacle is bad timing or insufficient talent? When I read Seth Godin’s book The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) almost a year ago, it seemed like the talent I had would be adequate if I just rode out time until my number came up. Now, I wonder more and more if that time will actually come, and if I will still have the talent (or possibly even care) if that time actually comes.
How are you dealing with timing versus talent dilemmas?
Today is Easter Sunday, a day when Christians celebrate the day that the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead to spread new hope to the world. Today symbolizes a day of change and renewal.
Make today a day new beginning for yourself. Today make a pledge to yourself to shake off all your past setbacks and defeats. Take the steps you need to make you way to a new and better life you have always wanted to live.
And even if you mess it all up between sunrise and sunset today, you always have tomorrow. Just make tomorrow your next new beginning, and strive to go even further than you have gone today.
Citadel Broadcasting, ABC Radio Networks, and one of my Citadel-Little Rock Stations, KARN Newsradio, has a Paul Harvey problem.
Paul Harvey died last weekend at either 90 or 91 years old, based on whatever website you happened to get your story confirmation. Left now is a radio legacy that all of us in the business owe a great deal of gratitude for, and an immediate programming hole for millions of listeners.
But the Paul Harvey-programming hole problem is not what broadcaster will now fill his shoes. Veteran broadcasters and constant fill-ins Gil Gross and Doug Limerick will split the duty, and in an industry where movement is key for development, possibly allow just enough space to shuffle up more talent that has be waiting in the wings (a similar effect happened when David Gregory was announced as the permanent replacement for Tim Russert as host of NBC’s Meet The Press).
And the Paul Harvey-programming hole problem on the local level isn’t the loss of a familiar audio time hack, because other than the voice changes and possible title changes, you’re still going to get ‘News & Notes’ and ‘The Rest Of The Story’ at the same times on my station KARN Newsradio.
The Paul Harvey-programming hole problem that has to be dealt with is the knowledge that we may never have another personality created in Harvey’s likeness again.
Our key weapon in traditional over-the-air radio against the advancing forces of the paid satellite model or the sometimes paid-sometimes free streaming internet model or the 99-cents-a-song iTunes model was simple: you get the music/news/sports/entertainment free, and we’ll throw in great personalities, and local ones if want them. Since you could always just buy the music or buy the newspaper, the value added was received from hearing the voice of someone who is just like you: a neighbor with kids in the school system who you might have even had a class or two with in middle school. And while we have added to our arsenal of more podcasting/on-demand options in the face of an every growing time shifted world, its still a level playing field between choosing to download ‘the random nationwide syndicated guy’ and ‘your local guy and gal that wake you up every morning.’
The Paul Harvey-programming hole is special, since Paul Harvey obviously isn’t really sitting in a radio booth in your hometown, and all of his news can be accessed on the internet with little effort. But when Harvey started his shtick double my lifetime ago, you really couldn’t get all the information and stories in the way he did, and have the bonus of having it sound like your goofy brother-in-law or favorite great-uncle was telling it to you directly.
We have plenty of faux news programs now. On television, radio, and all over the internet. Some are produced as pure satire with their sole intention to mock and make fun of the actual news of the day. Some are pure comedy. Some do their best to spread news to people who wouldn’t get it otherwise. I even created one, called “8 Things To Talk About,” and tried to have an Arkansas-focused and a national-focused early morning audio new cast you could take along with you. But with a flood of options, you can only hope for a small piece of the total attention span pie.
Paul Harvey had a disproportionally enormous chunk of that pie for being a 90-year-old reader of goofy news stories trying to sell Bose Wave Radios. But you could easily take his script and style and find just about any descent broadcaster to can deliver it. They just wouldn’t be able to pull it off with the voice, the tone, the pitch, and the sometimes annoying artificial pauses and stutters like Paul Harvey did.
For me, losing radio legend Paul Harvey is personally comparable to when my younger sister died about 5 years back. Surrogate people magically appeared to fill the roles she played in my live, but none of them could fill them all perfectly, and none of them would ever BE my sister in the way she was both the most loving and painfully annoying person that she was. Paul Harvey isn’t just a familiar voice on the radio. He’s family. And sure, plenty of people with various amount of talent can replace him in many of his roles, but not the way he did it.
He was a man that kept a near obsolete programming model fresh and viable. He was inspiring to many, annoying to some, but admired by most who knew him, even if he was only known as the voice on the radio you heard that reminded you how late you were for work. He was a member of my radio family for the past 7 years and a personal friend who talked to me every day on the radio since I was 7.
The Paul Harvey-programming hole is a problem with no real solution. I’m sure Harvey himself would want us to get over it, and get ready for the next big thing.
Rush Limbaugh makes a lot of money to talk to people everyday. But he talks to A LOT of people. And they listen intently—whether they really want to or not.
Say what you want about his politics, opinions, and sometimes flat out non-truths. If Rush were still just a radio DJ, and could take his following with him to any local metro, someone would figure out how to pay him even more money.
As the apparent voice of ‘The True Conservative,’ Rush had the chance to speak at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC 2009), and based mostly on people’s idea of the talk show host coming in, he gave either an amazing or pathetic speech.
But as far as I can tell, he was the only speaker covered live by Fox News Channel and CNN last night, with plenty of other Republican superstars set to step up to the podium. And he was definitely the most analyzed (I think over analyzed) speaker of the weekend.
It has taken him twenty years on the radio in the talk format to truly develop his powerbase, a dozen years before that to get him into talk radio, and although his detractors will quickly point out the missteps and failures he’s made up to this point, they will quickly use his message as the best way to shore up their opposing message. That is power, and truly ironic, as Rush is using President Barack Obama’s messages and policy decision to produce the opposing view so popular to his listeners, whether he is truly right 99% of the time or not.
If you like him, Rush Limbaugh is an effective communicator and great for rallying his troops. If you don’t like him, Rush Limbaugh is an outstanding communicator with the ability to spin webs of words that draw in masses of people to follow in lock step with his paranoid ideology.
Ether way, you can not deny Rush’s ability to get a message across effectively.
As a person whose business is about getting the message across effectively, its easy to see the tools and techniques used by Rush Limbaugh and to attempt to emulate and teach the ones that are most effective to the others...even is the end user is far from a fan and thinks that Limbaugh’s tactics are over the top and used unfairly. They are not. They are used in the medium in which they are most effective, and they work, even when they don’t get the expected response.
What seems like an army of blowtorches and bazookas in Limbaugh’s arsenal hide the ultra effective sniper riffle. The ability to shotgun blast the mainstream message while simultaneously pinpoint target the right people to perform the desired action, sometimes in his favor, sometimes against him, is where Rush has truly mastered the medium. No other media figure gets so much coverage on other media outlets than Limbaugh, a man who effectively only has a three hour syndicated talks show, a newsletter, and a website.
Rush Limbaugh is a classic case of the messenger with guns pointed at him by his opponents and his supposed allies because of the message he has chosen to deliver. But the message gets delivered every time. It’s what the masses do with the message that gets a little weird.
When Rush talks, people hear him speaking. They may then cheer or complain, they may misinterpret unintentionally or intentionally, or the may just hear him talking and do their best to drown out the noise and not listen, but a message gets sent.
Think about what lengths you go through to ensure your message gets sent, and what the receivers do with the message from that point on. If your method isn’t working, you might consider using a few tools from the Limbaugh tool box. It’s not about liking his message, it’s about knowing that his methods work.
A lesson you learn pretty quickly in the military is that when the people who are supposed to take care of you take care of you, you focus on the results achieved and not the method used, because sometime you really don’t want to know.
I picked that up as a young Air Force officer, and was blessed to have dedicated staff of enlisted airmen and civilians that knew how to get things done and how to keep me out of trouble. I just had to give them the outcome preferred, a list of resources I knew I had available, and a timeline I wanted to pursue. Then, I could just sit back and let the experts at their jobs do their jobs the best way they knew how. I was really blessed early on to have teams that rarely failed, noting that that they actually overachieved about 85 of the time.
When I took me first position that allowed me to really take point on projects, I got a reinforcement of the basic tenants of ‘I got it done, but don’t ask me how.’ I now had a general presenting me his plans that he wanted executed, along and the desired outcome. His staff, knowing the general, stressed the importance of following his plans. Twice I follow the general’s plans for a project given to me, and presented the results that were well below the expected level of results. The first time the plan was blown off, but the second time, the general asked me why I would follow such a stupid plan in the first place. As tactfully as possible, I let the general know that I was given the rough parameters that I had to follow, although I really wanted to say he had given me the stupid idea that I knew wasn’t going to work, but was told has to be followed anyway.
From that point on, I stopped listening to ‘orders’ and starting listening for ‘outcome.’ Whenever that general offered up a plan, I ignored the plan completely, but I made sure that what the general said he wanted and what the troops in the field were expecting were one in the same, and deliverd that. I would put a plan into play that was solid, and ensured that I had over performed on the task when it was time to present. And I always gave the general credit for ‘his director in the formation of our plan of attack.’
I was able to impress myself with the ability make things happen when left to my own devices, and learned quickly to respect the output you can receive from subordinates when you give them a mission and then just let them achieve it with constantly meddling.
Since leaving the military, I have worked for several different managers, some good and bad. I am constantly amazed by managers who push a personal agenda that from the outside looks like a losing campaign. Their insistence on having high achievers do it ‘their way’ quickly becomes a problem, and the projects and tasks almost always come up as failures. And if the manager is spiteful, they’ll usually destroy the moral of the high achiever for failing to live up to some loftfull standard, even thought that standard is wholly unachievable, and should be blatantly obvious to most. If the manager is just foolish, the high achiever will usually ignore that person until they are replaced, or just leave the company to suffer their own fate without him.
If you’re a manager, do yourself a favor. Give your veterans and high achievers their assignments and then back away and let them do amazing work for you. Give your rookies a little guidance and instruction on a way to get their work done that works, but assure them if they find a better process, give it a try.
Welcome to my new blog. This is where I will chronicle the next phase of mis-adventures of my life. Thank you for staying on the ride, and for you newcomers to the inside of my mental mania, I will do my best to make sure the trip is both entertaining and educational.
Life In Fast Forward: The Blog is still a bit of a work in progress. Keep checking in for new posts and site updates.
About Blog
This blog supports some of the thoughts and interjections from the folks at Fast Forward Business Properties. Our ideas, things we test, and a few random thoughts will show up here.
Name: J. Cleveland Payne
Home: Little Rock, Arkansas, United States
About Me: News is my profession, so it only fits that I am a news junkie. I'm a radio show/segment producer for a news/talk radio station in Little Rock, Arkansas.
