clients voicing their own spots....

[VODood]

Here, Sales is required to schedule all appointments thru me and I add them to the cluster calendar, via Google, that everyone in the company can see should they actually look. I also have a calendar on the wall that shows scheduled appointments. Only I can do it. I won't even take calls from clients to schedule sessions. All filtered through the Reps. Afterall, they're getting commission, right? I also don't allow (exceptions to every rule) Friday sessions as we all know how busy Friday's can be. Additionally, all sessions must take place 10am-4pm, 4 being the last slot. If a client has to do a session before 10am they can but with a different producer as my day doesn't start til 10am. Reps adhere to the Friday rule. Usually it's the Sales Mgr who breaks it, but not often.

If you had an 11am with ABC and the rep wanted XXX at 1030, just say no. Tell them you have an 11am that was scheduled previously. If the rep balks go to your supervisor who should have your back.....should.

 

[bturner]

You're correct. The supervisor should have your back but I've seen it go both ways. I've been in sales and I've been an operations manager. I remember a guy I had been working about 6 months to pull him away from my competitor. He was spending about 8% of our total revenue. If we didn't work a 'miracle' for him, we would not have passed his test making us worthy of earning his business. On the other hand I know what its like when that 5:30pm Friday order for a remote comes in for 10am to 2pm Saturday and you're frantic trying to reschedule your weekend promotions and get your talent lined up for the remote. In virtually every case no exceptions should be made, but on those rare instances where its all or nothing, we have to do what we have lots of experience in doing: working miracles. Seems when everything is said and done we scratch our heads wondering how we pulled it off and swearing it shall never happen again. As much as we want some level of sensibility in our workloads and stress levels, the very nature of radio means we will be tested here and there. Only those who have been through hell, as the posters here have, can have such an attitude about this problem we all face. I know I pulled a few strings when I had to in order to bag the money from clients, but at least I knew what I was doing to the poor guys. I always offered to hit the production studio for them and rack it out if they wanted me to.

 

[leethalweapon]

As a producer, I've dealt with clients reading their own ads in a few places I have worked, and while at first I was thinking "Oh, no. Why do I bother", in most cases, I find that if you explain the "vision" of what the ad should sound like, the client will work with you.

I've worked in all size of markets, and I have found that as you grow as a producer, so does your ability to get the best out of your talent, be it client or jock. When I get a client in, I know I'm not going to get the same standard as one of our session V/O talents, so I direct them to sell their message to me, and smile.

By the way, I work in the #2 market in Australia, and we have two advertisers on our books that are both client reads, and the biggest radio air time buyers in our city and in one case, the country. One of our biggest spenders is a client who has been reading his own ads for nearly 20 years. The other is an Australian clothing label that use staff from their factory floor to voice their spots. Stangely enough, the second clients sales have increased nationally on the back of their "very unprofessional" sounding ads.