By Bill Scott, founder of StoreReport LLC & Scott Systems Inc.
In 1957, I took a night job as a disc jockey for a local radio station. At the time, it was the first and only FM station in the town of Shreveport, La. where I grew up. My shift began at 6pm, and ended at midnight (10pm on Sundays), and my pay was $0.60/hr.
The first week was fun. I played records, introduced songs, occasionally added a comment of my own, or told a story about the artist I was introducing. I read the news that came off the teletype every hour on the hour… and then I began to get lonely.
Not many people had FM radio sets back in those days, none in cars that I knew of, and as I said, ours was the only station in town that broadcasted on the FM channels. I’ve talked about disruptive technologies quite often, and FM radio was a disruptive technology, because it required people to go out and buy a new radio. Although FM provided higher quality over shorter distances, you didn’t have to get too far outside of the city before the signal died out. What could it hurt if I created an imaginary audience to keep me company?
My first imaginary listener was Bob
Bob liked Dizzy Gillespie’s trumpet solos, and since my genre was more or less jazz, every time I played a track off of one of Gillespie’s albums, I dedicated it to Bob. I even began to imagine Bob as if he were a real person. His age, hair color, height and weight, where he worked and how many kids he had.
After Bob, came Mary. Mary had two kids and loved Dave Brubeck, especially ‘Blue Rondo Ala Turk’ and its strange 9/8 rhythm (1-2, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2-3). John was crazy about Stan Kenton and the cacophony of brass instruments that drove most jazz fans insane, while Bill preferred Miles Davis performance of “What’s New?”, and Laura and Phil couldn’t get enough of everything Oscar Peterson ever played. By the end of the second week, I had dozens of imaginary listeners that existed only in my own mind and nowhere else. Since the station wasn’t selling advertising during my shift, I didn’t think my little game would hurt anyone one way or the other.
At some point into the third week, the owner of the station, who I had met only once, since he always left the office before I arrived each evening, called to congratulate me on what a fine job I was doing, and offered me a $0.10/hr raise. I felt enough guilt not to accept the raise, but enough embarrassment not to tell him the truth. I was brought up by a stern grandmother who taught me deception in any form was a sign of bad character. Who among us truly believed that phrases such as “new and improved” or “all new” were actually the truth? Nevertheless, the thought of being deceptive prompted me to take action, but what kind of action? I knew that telling my boss the truth now would probably get me fired. There had to be another solution.
The nice compliments from my boss, and his insistence that the raise would be in Friday’s check whether I wanted it or not, prompted me to begin asking callers to phone in their requests, and something amazing happened… My phone began ringing with calls from all over the city.
As I wrote down the names and made note of their requests, I asked each caller if this was the first time they had called in, and I discovered that all of them had been listening all along, but never thought to call in a request until I urged them to do so. Some addressed their fears of being heard live over the air (we did not have the capability at the time), and others said the idea to call in requests had never occurred to them.
The word began to spread
My assumption had been that no one was listening to my radio show; when in fact, I had listeners from the onset and I never knew it. And when I demonstrated an interest in what my listeners (customers) truly wanted, they developed an interest to respond with phone calls. My name came up in casual conversations around the city, and my audience grew exponentially.
You must be genuine
In my lifetime, I have discovered that no matter how hard we try to impress our customers with tricks, the greatest marketing tools we possess don’t come at a price, because they are truly “priceless.” If you want to increase YOUR business, you must surprise your customers with something they do not expect. This takes a little innovation on your part, and you must have the willingness to fail. In my case, there was no other choice. But I had to get into a desperate situation to come up with the idea.
Other radio stations in my market had requested their listeners to call in requests for years, so why was mine different? No one but me had ever confessed they NEEDED their listeners to call in requests, because I expressed a sincere desire to get to know each one of them personally. The plea, coming from a lonely disc jockey, locked in a studio on the 4th floor of a bank building in downtown Shreveport, La. compelled my customers to respond. It worked so well, I even got a proposal of marriage.
