We’ve all seen this sales award photo before. Maybe not this exact one, but some version of it.
A sales rep. A manager. A plaque. A lobby wall with station logos. Everybody smiling like they just hit 110% of billing in a down month.
Below is Michele Merkle, April Sales Superstar at Connoisseur Dayton, with Brett Beshore. And this photo is exactly why I wrote this.
And if you’ve worked in radio sales long enough, you’ve probably been in one of these photos too.
Here’s what I know after years in this business. That moment matters more than we sometimes let on.
I’ll be honest — I spent most of my career on the programming side. But I did a year or so in sales, and that year gave me a perspective I didn’t have before. It’s a different world over there. You’re not just selling airtime. You’re selling belief. Belief in your stations, your audience, your market, and yourself — every single day, whether you feel like it or not. That kind of sustained confidence is a skill most people never develop because they never have to.
I also crossed paths with Brett Beshore for a short time — and I do mean short — but long enough to recognize something real. He’s the kind of manager who actually means it when he stops to recognize someone. And not checking a box. He understands that the moment after the win matters just as much as the push toward it. That’s not nothing. In this business, that’s actually pretty rare.
And to every sales person I gave a hard time to when I was a programmer — I get it now. I’m sorry. You were carrying a lot, and I didn’t always appreciate what that looked like from your side of the building. I thought I did. I didn’t.
The Grind is Real
Because sales is a grind. A real one. Everyone in a radio building works hard, but sales carries a particular kind of pressure. Pacing reports. CRM updates. Another conversation about pending business. The clock never really stops, and neither does the expectation.
So when somebody pauses long enough to say, “Hey, you did good work,” that carries real weight.
Especially in local media.
The rep in that picture may have spent six months building that relationship. They fought through cancellations, budget freezes, bad ratings books, no-show calls, digital confusion, and a client who changed creative seventeen times. That little plaque represents survival as much as success.
And for managers, these moments are an opportunity. The best ones understand something our business occasionally forgets — culture is built through recognition.
Not participation trophies. Not hollow gestures. Real acknowledgment of real work.
The ones people remembered most were usually peer-driven. Because recognition means something different when it comes from the people who watched you do the work. They saw the no-show calls. They heard the tough conversations through the cubicle wall. When they stand up and clap, it lands differently.
Celebrating wins publicly creates momentum privately. That’s not a soft idea — that’s how you build teams that last. It’s also how you keep the good ones from quietly updating their LinkedIn on a Tuesday afternoon.
People want to feel seen. They always have.
20 Year Later
Especially now, when this business has spent 20 years asking people to do more with less. More platforms, meetings, revenue streams and Fewer humans.
So maybe the plaque itself isn’t the point. Maybe the point is that somebody stopped, looked another person in the eye, and said, “You mattered here.”
And to my programming friends — remember that the next time you golf clap at a sales award.
That’s not just leadership — that’s how you keep people.
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David Hill serves as a Music Radio Editor, Columnist and Features writer for Barrett Media. A radio lifer with more than 30 years behind the mic, in the control room, and in the program director’s chair, David’s career spans influential stops at brands such as WIYY 98 Rock, WBAL-AM, and 99X. He has worked across multiple formats and ownership groups, including iHeartMedia and Cumulus Media, developing talent, breaking music, and navigating every major industry shift from diary to PPM and terrestrial dominance to streaming disruption. When he’s not writing or analyzing the industry, Dave runs The Tune Farm, a marketing firm built to help artists and brands grow audience the same way great radio always has—by creating connection, not just impressions. He can be reached at David@BarrettMedia.com.
