EndorsementRadio.com

Are you a jackass?

There’s a guy who works in my industry. Let’s call him Larry. Larry’s always got concert tickets in the breast pocket of his suit. He loves small talk and has a cliché for any situation. If you pay close attention to during your conversations with Larry, you’ll notice that he laughs at facts. If you’re going through a rough time, Larry will always tell you that everything is going to be fine. Larry is a Jackass. The biggest reason that Larry is a Jackass is because he tells his clients as that soon as they start their radio schedule, all their problems are going to disappear. Their phones will start singing, their profit margins will triple, and they can retire next year. Then when the results fall short of these promises, Larry loses the account and has to find another desperate soul to believe his empty promises.

That’s Larry’s problem, not mine. Right? Wrong, because when I get in front of Larry’s leftovers, they think I’m his cousin.

I remember something a friend of mine told me in high school after she found her boyfriend was cheating on her. “Trust is like a piece of glass. Once you break it, it’s shattered forever, and it will never be the same.” I think that is largely true in business as well as relationships. My job is a lot harder because many prospects think I’m going to Larry them. My new approach is to tell them the worst case scenario before I take their money. If I think a campaign will work, I want the client to believe that their success is likely to be a close call. Is that reverse manipulation? I don’t know. But I also don’t ever know with absolute certainty that a campaign will work. So I prepare for the worst and do everything I can to make it the best, and sometimes, I get to over deliver.

Since you’ve read this far, I’ll tell you a secret. I’ve been Larry to clients, too. Even today, I experience mild relapses from time to time. It wasn’t that I thought I was lying. I just didn’t know any better, so I did the tap dance and hoped for the best. I thought that getting the client excited was my job. I don’t believe that anymore. My job is to give a conservative estimate of how I truly believe I can help their ad dollars perform.

Maybe you’ve been Larry. Maybe you’re Larry still. Take heart; you are not condemned to be Larry forever. You don’t ever have to be Larry again. I’ll tell you one more secret: Since using my new method, I make more money than Larry. Maybe that will give you some hope.