The coronavirus continues to wreak havoc all across the country, especially in my home state of New York. The big apple has been hit the hardest, and although I’m fortunate to live an hour away where less are affected, cases in my county have spiked from 3 on March 13th to 1247 on March 29th. It’s forced my fiance to take a leave of absence from work, and denied my son an opportunity to enjoy his senior year of high school. At this point, we’re just hoping he has a graduation day.
In my 46 years on this earth, I’ve not seen anything like this. We’ve had wars, deadly illnesses, mass shootings, and terrorist attacks, many which have resulted in a larger number of deaths, but I don’t recall people being stuck in their homes, and concerned about returning to everyday life. It’s made many of us question the importance of certain things, and created a massive amount of difficulty for corporations and small businesses.
When unprecedented situations happen in life, the way we respond has everything to do with our ability to recover. Equally as important is the speed in which we adjust. Credit and blame become part of the daily noise, but none of that matters. What does is your short-term and long-term plan for protecting yourself or your business.
If you’re working right now for a sports media brand, ratings and content should be the least of your worries. This is about business survival. If you’re not spending most of your day thinking about what you can do to help your company retain listeners and clients, your head’s in the wrong place. I’m not telling you to go out and deliver a poor show, but few are going to care about your topics, bits, and guests if 50% of your business evaporates.
I’ve been helping my clients with stories, ideas, information, and examples, and I want to share something with you that I saw take place not too far from where I live. Just a few weeks ago, the President and Governors across the country issued mandates for essential and non-essential businesses. We knew hospitals, supermarkets, restaurants, and police departments would be open, but what if you owned a local printing company, sporting goods store or car wash? Are you supposed to just standby and watch as your life’s work goes up in smoke?
In Montgomery, NY there’s a business called Secret Garden Florist. When NY state mandated everyone stay home, it put pressure on local florists that depend on events and foot traffic. Some might say ‘just shut your doors and deal with it’, but when people lose loved ones or have important days in their lives to celebrate, flowers have a way of making things better. But if people can’t stop in to buy them, and weddings, prom’s, anniversary’s, and other events get cancelled, how do you stay afloat?
What Secret Garden has done to try and survive has been awesome to follow. Rather than throw in the towel, the owner, Bonnie McDermott, adjusted her hours of operation, ran a few sales, and offered drop off and curbside pickup to her customers. But those things are what you’d expect a business owner to do when unexpected circumstances arise. What she did next is what really got my attention.
Bonnie started reaching out to other local businesses to forge partnerships. She worked with The Table, a local restaurant to launch ‘Burgers and Bouquet’s. She partnered with Hudson Valley Chocolates on ‘Cookies & Carnations‘. She teamed with Duffy’s to feature ‘Burgers & Blooms‘. She joined forces with local Verizon Wireless Stores offering a free bouquet of flowers to anyone who showed a receipt from one of their stores. She connected with The Wildfire Grill and introduced a Pandemic Night For 2, and formed an alliance with Cascarino’s Pizza to create ‘Pizza, Garlic Bread, 2 Liter & Pom Pom’s‘.
Then to drive additional awareness, Bonnie got interactive on social media. She posted daily selfie videos inside of her shop. She created the hashtag #spreadflowersnotfear to remind people of the positives that come from giving someone flowers, and supported the message by promoting it in image and video form. She showed feedback examples sent in by customers who thanked her for brightening their day with her great work, and she gave away free flowers to thank people for their continued support.
Rather than waving the white flag, Bonnie did the opposite. She showcased her creativity and love for the community by teaming with other local businesses who were also hurting, and used social media to remind people that there’s a face behind the brand. When the havoc caused by this coronavirus is over, her customers will feel a greater connection to her. That should help with the rebuilding process.
If you’re working in the media industry, you’re dealing with similar issues. Sports fans are less excited to watch or listen due to the sports world going dark. Advertisers are slashing budgets to offset lost revenues. Businesses are cutting employees to avoid shutting their doors. People are making short-term decisions out of fear that they’ll never recover.
As hard as it may be, this is a great time to rethink and retool your business. Connoisseur Media CEO Jeff Warshaw told Inside Radio last week that as difficult as this situation is, it also presents an opportunity for radio stations to clean up their clocks, lower spot loads, and demonstrate rate integrity for their products. I couldn’t agree more. There’s no escaping the short term damage, but what we do moving forward will determine how quickly we recover, and how successful we’ll be when this situation expires.
Maybe this becomes the time where your radio station launches a web solutions division, subscription business, or a video, podcasting, events or merchandising strategy. Maybe it opens the door to new partnerships (ex: Hubbard and Bonneville in Seattle). For sports stations, it’s a great time to lay the groundwork for developing broadcast training centers. I talked about that at last year’s Summit in L.A.. These are all revenue opportunities independent of on-air inventory.
As a small business owner myself, I’m facing the same challenges and fears. I don’t ever lose sight of the fact that I’m on the last page of the budget. I love what I do, and am thankful to work with partners who don’t panic at the first sign of a problem. That said, if this crisis lasts for months, it could hurt BSM. That’s made things tougher for Demetri Ravanos and I, but as I told him on our last call, if this whole thing ended tomorrow, we’d go down knowing we made a difference. I can live with that.
In the meantime, we’re going to use the situation to examine what we’re doing and how we can make it better. What areas of the industry are we not focused on that we could be? What stories are we not telling that could benefit our partners? When do we launch a member directory to help industry professionals and aspiring broadcasters? Is adding an online store a smart idea? Do our podcasts have value or would we better off focusing on other projects? Would it make sense to host more events for different areas of the media industry? Who on our team is hungry to contribute? Who isn’t on our staff who should be?
Whether it’s BSM, the Secret Garden Florist or the media company you’re working for, we’re all searching for solutions to unfamiliar problems. Our best ideas and execution may help, but they still might not be enough to help us survive. One thing though is for certain, if you don’t take time to analyze your business, and explore new ways to improve your performance and extend your existence, it’ll be just a matter of time until you’re wearing that non-essential label.
Jason Barrett is the President and Founder of Barrett Media since the company was created in September 2015. Prior to its arrival, JB served as a sports radio programmer, launching brands such as 95.7 The Game in San Francisco, and 101 ESPN in St. Louis. He also spent time programming SportsTalk 950 in Philadelphia, 590 The Fan KFNS in St. Louis, and ESPN 1340/1390 in Poughkeepsie, NY. Jason also worked on-air and behind the scenes in local radio at 101.5 WPDH, WTBQ 1110AM, and WPYX 106.5. He also spent two years on the national stage, producing radio shows for ESPN Radio in Bristol, CT. Among them included the Dan Patrick Show, and GameNight.
You can find JB on Twitter @SportsRadioPD. He’s also reachable by email at Jason@BarrettMedia.com.
