I just had a friend send me this list, and I think any current and future radio personality would certainly benefit from this profile.

EGO DRIVE: The best believe in themselves. Some wear it on their sleeve; others hide it with an outward humility. But all believe they are talented and ought to be on the air. They think they’re funnier, smarter, more entertaining, more insightful, and if they didn’t, they couldn’t open the mic every day. This self-confidence can be shaken by bouts of self-doubt and fears of inadequacy, but they have the ego strength to regain their self-confidence.

MISSION: The best have a sense of purpose beyond themselves, beyond fame and fortune. It can be as simple as making people laugh every day or as profound as helping parents raise strong children.   It’s difficult to spend time every day with someone who is concerned only with themselves. This sense of mission helps make the air personality real and durable over the long-term.

WORK INTENSITY: The best work hard. Their work dominates their life, and they think about it a lot. Their show is the default setting in their brain; if nothing compelling is happening at the moment, their mind drifts back to work. They naturally connect all of their experiences to their show and ask themselves, ?might this be content I can use on the air? Most are also diligent about preparing for their show, according it the hours needed for a superior performance.

POSITIVITY: The best have a fundamentally positive outlook on life. They laugh and smile more, grouse and whine less, and are more flexible about dealing with change. They are likeable and truly care that others like them, which is essential to creating a durable relationship with listeners.

SENSE OF HUMOR: The best have the ability to find what is amusing or funny about almost everything, including themselves. They find humor even in the most serious subjects and issues. They don’t take themselves too seriously and often enjoy self-effacing or self-deprecating humor. Most have a mischievous streak in them, enjoying good- natured teasing, harmless pranks, and playful tricks.

AWARENESS: The best are keenly aware of their surroundings, and highly receptive to sensory input everything they see, hear, taste, touch, or smell. They notice what’s going on around them and pick up on other peoples attitudes and behaviors. They are good listeners, hearing not only the words but the thoughts and feelings behind them, making them especially effective with guests and listeners.

CURIOSITY: The best are curious. They ask questions about almost everything, acquiring more knowledge and information than do most others. They think fast on their feet and change direction quickly. Curious people are almost always very intelligent people (especially if their questions are good!), but note that the reverse is not necessarily so that intelligent people are curious.

IMAGINATION: The best naturally recognize how thoughts and feelings, experiences and ideas, connect or can be combined to form new and greater images and ideas. Simply, they connect the dots in ways that few others do?and then they go off on tangents to invent new and interesting radio content. Without imagination, content tends to be very ordinary; competitive battles today require more.

EXPERIENCE: The best have been there and done that.  They may have lived in many different places, traveled extensively, or held a variety of types of jobs. Often, they have faced adversity, dealt with pain, and experienced success and happiness. They know a lot, whether through formal education, reading, or the school of hard knocks. All this experience helps them deal with a broad range of subjects and connect with a diverse audience.

QUIRKINESS: The best are wired a little different. What might produce conventional thoughts in others prompts distinctive, interesting, even peculiar, lines of thinking in these people. Their strong opinions are more likely to grab attention, remain in the listeners memory, and cause listeners to talk about the air personality to their friends.

COMMUNICATION: The best say more, using fewer words. They have extraordinary clarity of expression. They paint powerful word-pictures. They have a special ability to take complicated subjects and turn them into simple, concise concepts easily understandable to a radio audience. They have a natural flair for dramatic presentation, and frequently produce theatre of the mind.

PASSION: The best are emotional, demonstrative, and passionate. They are this way on-the-air, around the office, and during a job interview. They can’t turn it off. They have strong feelings about almost everything in life, and they express their emotions readily. This trait might make them challenging to manage, but on the air, it gives them a range of expression that’s essential to a durable relationship with listeners?they can be serious or flippant, sensitive or carefree, laughing or crying.

COURAGE: The best don’t live with a wide range of fears, and they don’t naturally second-guess themselves before acting. They have the courage to express their real thoughts and feelings, try new things, venture into uncharted territory, take chances. They believe it’s easier to beg forgiveness than to seek permission.  This can make them more difficult to manage at times, but coaching an air personality without courage is an even more difficult management assignment (It’s easier to tame a wild stallion than to kick some life into a dead horse.)

JUDGMENT: The best temper their courage with judgment. They sense the limits, whether in show prep or when on the air. They monitor their performance, even while they’re performing. They’re in the middle of it, literally and figuratively, but at the same time they’re listening to it and making it acceptable and appealing. This doesn’t mean they exercise perfect judgment 100% of the time.

Remotes and personal appearances can be an effective profit center and an excellent promotional tool for your radio station and your air personalities, or they can become the single biggest tune out that a radio station can ever experience. Unfortunately, most stations in the remote business make all the classic mistakes and end up in the category of running off listeners.

What’s in it for the advertiser? Understanding that reason that you are at the client location is the key to a successful remote or an unsuccessful remote. Some advertisers are such short-term thinkers, that they expect a remote to draw a huge crowd, and that they should see a profit during the actual short period of time the remote is airing. Residual value is of no importance at all to this type of advertiser. Conducting a remote at this type of clients business is  dangerous and risky business at best. Due to any number of factors that can go wrong (most of which are totally our of your control) your station will be setting itself up as the fall guy for the remotes failure.

What’s in it for the station? As in any station promotion, our goal is to create a positive public image and impression for the station. The remote should cast the station in a good public light, should reinforce the stations image, and should have a reasonable chance of success.

What’s in it for the listener? The most important element of a successful remote and the area that gets the least attention is the listener. Are the listeners who do come out for the remote treated correctly, given reason to be there, and go away with a good feeling about the station? These questions are critical in planning any remote or personal appearance. Do the cut-ins create on-site excitement? Listeners enjoy hearing what’s going on and an on- going game or contest. We should avoid putting your talent in a sales role! They are entertainers, not account executives. If the client is interested in merely doing commercials and hard sell pitches for the event, then encourage them to purchase a regular on- air schedule and not a remote.

You should also make liberal use of giveaways! Any time you can put a promotional item into your listeners hand you make a friend and build loyalty. Key chains, tee shirts, bumper stickers, can coolers, and ball caps are all great items and not very expensive. Build these items into the price of the remote, so that they are always a part of every remote and appearance.

Remotes, if done properly, can be exciting and profitable ventures. There is no reason for the account executive not to be at the remote! Over the years, I have found the single most reason why Account Executives do not attend remotes is fear of failure. So, instead, they hang the air personality out to dry!

The main problem facing us every time we go out on location is lack of a clear understanding as to the remotes objectives, lack of organization, and a lack of on-site management and execution of remote details. If remotes are part of your stations promotional effort, then it is imperative that we work hard to ensure that every one succeeds. Every time you have a bad remote experience, you put your station in a negative light to advertisers and listeners as well. Done correctly, they can build listener loyalty and make money for your clients and the station as well.

Justin Kaiser

Too many program directors have lost sight of what makes a radio station successful. The most successful stations are not necessarily the ones with the best talent, most industry recognition, or even the highest ratings. The most successful radio stations are the ones who, when all is said and done, are the most PROFITABLE. That is my mission with any company I am with. To create the best radio station possible, and still maintain the highest level of profitability. Obviously, you must have the best programming, promotions, and people to do that, but all too often, the incorrect assumption is made that in order to achieve that, you must spend the most money. In some markets this is true, but in others, it is not. I have always believed that one must utilize the tools given to make the best sounding product available, which will in turn give our clients the results they expect, and that will yield the station the revenue it needs to be profitable.

I believe that in building a successful radio station, one must always have an open mind. It is a fatal mistake to go into a situation with a predetermined agenda as too what the radio station should sound like. It is the audience that must determine that. And with the feedback of that audience, you can tailor the programming to be the best available.

No matter the format, it is imperative that any radio station win on the streets to be successful. Radio is no longer a simple audio medium. To be successful, radio must become a product that listeners can touch, feel, and relate to. That is done by proper marketing, and promotion of the station. A station must become endeared to the community. A rule to live by is that no one would think of doing anything in the community without having WXXX as a partner.

People are also important. You must tailor your air-staff to the format and presentation you need to win. But a common factor that must be in your staff, regardless of format, must be a belief in the station, and a commitment to win. A staff of clock punchers will never be the foundation of a winning station.

These are the fundamentals by which I continue to build my career. These are just the basics, but should hopefully give you a picture of what I am about.

A Few Other Helpful Notes I’ve Made Along The Way

In order to succeed in this business I’ve found that I have to…

1. Have and maintain a positive mental attitude
2. Act as if self-employed
3. Believe in yourself
4. Love what you do
5. Set daily goals
6. Be courageous
7. Think and grow rich
8. Persist until you succeed
9. Become a slave to good habits
10. Engage in a lifelong self-development program

As we’re close to New Years, I’ve decided to list early my Resolutions for 2003:

I will not assume a listener who visits me at a remote lives in a trailer park just because they have teeth so bad, Marie Osmond would have a coronary! I will not assume that car remotes are really boring to listeners. On the contrary, I will see the positive aspects of hearing your favorite radio personality coming to you live from a Honda showroom. I will search for the lifestyle relate. I will not assume that my morning show feels like I’m patronizing them, even when I say things like, “That last bit was REALLY funny! Could you cut it in half next time?”  I will not assume that the company I work for is going to sell the station I’m employed at just because they’ve cut the promotion budget, made really bad music decisions, can’t stick to a direction and have backstabbing throughout management.

Justin Kaiser