If you were asked to define your personality brand in 3-4 words, could you do it?

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."
   
The key word in this definition is distinct. Today everyone has an opportunity with social media to strengthen and distinguish their personality brand.

If I have learned one thing it’s that there are lessons everywhere.

Take a kindergarten Christmas concert for example. Have you been to one lately? The kids memorize their songs; they make their placards displaying greetings in other languages (Aloha! Konnichi wa!); they practice their line-up and stage entrance. The big night comes: the room is filled with parents wielding video cameras. The class hits the stage and, well, things aren’t perfect. A girl on one end dances to her own beat. A boy in the front holds his “Ciao!” sign upside down. The boy on the left refused to wear a white button-down like the others and instead has chosen a striped green rugby shirt.

Some things you can’t control no matter how much you practice.

Imagine next week you find out that Rick Dees, Scott Shannon, or (enter your own Radio Deity here) was going to be in town sitting in a hotel room listening to just your station, and your show.

What would you do differently to prepare? How much better would your show’s production value be? How hard would you work on your recycler promo? How awesome would your horizontal and vertical teases be? What would you spend more time on?

Rob Basile read my article in Radio Ink and had some valuable thoughts of his own to add. Here is the article I wrote, with Rob's additions below:

1. Set goals and celebrate victories: There are ways to measure growth other than ratings, so establish clear expectations -- digital, ratings, sales, etc. As a manager, it's up to you to communicate the goals to the point where every employee can repeat them back to you.

As news/talk stations shift to include more lifestyle and celebrity news to the menu of topics, producers, program directors and talent are all asking: “When is an entertainment story considered news?”

The short answer: If everyone is talking about it, then it's news, and you should be talking about it too. 

Has this ever happened to you? You are on the phone with someone like a co-worker, friend or business associate and after you say goodbye you say "I love you" (the way you end conversations with a loved one). Talk about embarrassing!

Take calls on embarrassing stories where listeners said “I love you” to the wrong person or someone said it to them.  Take the segment one step further and record and edit these ideas:

If you struggle with finding your voice and your humor in your writing, you’re not alone. Radio people, hired to talk on the radio, are now required to write too. Blogs! Status updates! Tweets! And you thought you were off the hook.

Write to Done,  a writing blog, posted tips on getting more humor in your writing. Many of the tips are parallel to what makes funny radio, and yet we read social media posts and blogs all the time that lack these basic elements.
Here are the tips, with my thoughts on them.

The McRib. Pumpkin Spice Lattes. The Little Mermaid. These products whip us into a collective frenzy because of their limited availability. You snooze, you lose. Use that same concept around podcasting your hottest features to win in PPM.

I've been fired, unexpectedly, what's the first thing I should do? 

Take a deep breath, relax and figure out a way to turn this huge negative into one of the biggest positives of your life. How easy that is to do is proportionate to the number of dependents you have. If you don't have any dependents, congratulations because this is seriously a huge opportunity to make your life better. You need to have some faith and not turn a bump in the road into a recurring nightmare.

Take care of yourself first. Take the time to process what has just happened. Embrace your feelings whether they be shock, hurt and disappointment. Then as best you can release those feelings and let them go. The next stage is likely to be anger. Embrace anger and then let that go as well. Connect with family, friends and business people who support you.  Take a deep breath (ok, several) and remember: this is not the end of your world. If you've worked in radio long enough - you've been here before. You got it through it then.  You'll get through it again."

I was just on the phone with another amazingly-talented, super-attractive and meticulously dressed Randy Lane client. "Dave," you may be asking, "How do you know they were meticulously dressed if you were on the phone with them?"

Stop asking questions, it confuses me.

There has been so much bad parody material over the past few years that many consultants and programmers pulled all parody content due to poor focus group showings. If, however, you have the talent to execute great parody, then don’t follow that advice. It doesn’t apply to you!

Parody works when it is authentic and is used to develop the characters on the show. See Jimmy Kimmel’s now infamous feud with his then girlfriend Sarah Silverman over Matt Damon and Ben Affleck here, for an example.

Kurt Cobain once said, “I would rather be hated for something I am, than loved for something I am not.”

An article showcasing That Guy Kramer morning show (Play 98.7/Tampa) co-host, Miguel Fuller, brings Cobain’s point to light for those of us in morning radio. Fuller, who is gay and black, is open about his life on the air.  He feels that people should get to know him for who he is and not just as that gay person. “Not only am I gay, I’m also black and struggle with weight issues,” he said.

Successful films, sports teams, TV shows and radio shows are built around personalities and performers. The same is true of politicians! The Gallop Poll has been polling presidential elections since 1960 when John Kennedy ran against Richard Nixon. Gallop asks voters their opinions of the candidates based on how they stand on the issues, their voting records, level of experience and their personality.

Newsweek published Steve Jobs’ playbook for managing the creative process at Apple in the form of ten commandments.

We’re always inspired by Steve Jobs’ thinking and innovation, and found these commandments relevant for radio (most of them, anyway).

Radio is in the business of audio. So why are many morning show podcasts neglected or difficult to navigate? Because we don’t take time to view our content from a listener’s perspective. Podcasts should serve both P1s and the casual listener (who you hope will become a P1 after listening to your awesome podcast). To create a podcasts page on your website that is listener-friendly, consider the needs of your listeners.

September 14, 2011
I had a GM once who reminded me every time we hired someone new that I needed to encourage them to come in with new ideas. And more importantly, I had to try to implement at least one of their ideas within the first month. He would ask: “Is it going to hurt us to do it?”  And if it wasn’t going to hurt us, then I was to do whatever I could to make it happen.

Channeling Ben Stein: “How many radio stations or morning shows are using any type of project management software to connect their teams for brainstorming, planning, collaborating, organizing and executing Ideas? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone heard of Basecamp? Anyone?” If you haven’t heard of BasecampHQ yet, you will.

August 31, 2011
Imagine your show like a family on a road trip. The lead host is the driver, the “dad” in the traditional family model, steering the car and making the moment to moment decisions to guide the family. The co-host, “Mom,” rides in the passenger seat, making conversation yet not distracting or derailing. The co-host doesn’t reach over and grab the wheel, but takes over for a while (this may be your news break or entertainment report, for example).
 
The back seat can be full of a variety of characters – the snarky teenager, the five-year-old blurter, the bookish tween.

What else? It’s a simple question that can generate many creative ideas. I’ve read the motivational books, done the seminars, been inspired by “The Wheel” of this, “The Ladder” of that, 7 ways to generate creative ideas, 10 ways to successful brainstorming, etc.

In my experience, time and time again, the simple phrase “what else” has endured as a catalyst igniting creativity.

August 17, 2011

How can Tosh.0 beat Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert with mocking humor that’s often racist, homophobic and misogynistic?  Daniel Tosh's explanation of his non-politically correct humor is “I’m not a misogynistic, homophobic or racist person... But I do find those jokes funny, so I say them.”

August 10, 2011

PPM has changed our awareness of listening patterns.  Where the diary has/had a natural bias to the top of the hour, PPM doesn't. PPM data clearly shows that listeners tune in and out every second of every hour of the day. To communicate better with listeners that may be tuning in during the middle of a story, learn to talk on the radio with fewer pronouns using proper nouns instead.

In a time of tight or nonexistent budgets, creativity wins.  How many stations stick great prizes in the V.I.P Club.  REALLY?  Are we so desensitized to great prizes that we tend to dumb them down or take them for granted?  The bigger we make it, the bigger the listeners believe it is.  Creating “must listen" moments is the key to winning in the PPM and diary worlds... frankly, it’s a lot of fun!

Snoring.  An Alarm Clock.  Nails on a Chalkboard.  Whining.  A Baby Crying. The Vuvuzela.

Some scientists have determined that these are among the most annoying sounds ever.  I’d throw in the sound of the sales manager’s voice as he pokes his head in your office and says, “You got a second?”

What does it mean to be a successful morning host? After over 25 years as a morning talent in two countries I’ve learned that in order to be great you must bring out the greatness in others.  That the relationship you create with your team off the air is just as important as the relationship you have on the air.  Elevate everyone’s performance to win.