Steve Wexler, a coach specializing in leadership, content, and culture, looks back on his teenage years when he imagined speaking to a large audience on WEXL Radio from his bedroom.
Although the call letters were made up and a pun on his last name, it sparked his interest in radio. At the age of 17, he rode his bike to WTMJ and requested to be on the air. Persistence paid off, as he achieved the broadcasting dream of every Wisconsinite, rising from on-air talent to TV and radio manager to overseeing a broadcast division.
Wexler is an eternal optimist and wants you to know that he believes in the future of the broadcasting industry. He values on-air talent and believes that companies can promote a culture of excellence while still being profitable.
As he reflects on his WEXL Coaching and Development brand, he recognizes that the word “Excel” is incorporated into it. This word inspires him to strive for excellence, and he strongly believes that a company’s culture directly affects its results.
As a consultant for only a year, Wexler has become increasingly concerned about how national trade publications portray the broadcast industry. Despite the many challenges facing the industry, Wexler firmly believes that assessing the power of content is essential. By taking a moment to pause and reflect, the industry can create a revolutionary experience that will profoundly change how media professionals conduct their business.
Wexler has observed that audiences are drawn to quality content regardless of where it is found. He also noted that companies like Apple are investing heavily in talent and coaching to build their brand’s channels. If Apple is betting on talent, coaching, and engagement, then shouldn’t broadcast companies do the same?
Ryan Hedrick: Can you provide more information about the WEXL brand and the type of work you do?
Steve Wexler: I’m trying to help others excel in content, sales, leadership, and coaching. I’m using all my years in content management, running a division for Journal [Media Group] and E.W. Scripps, managing TV and radio stations, and trying to contribute and help our industry thrive and succeed.
RH: Can you tell us about your transition from a 40-year broadcast career to establishing WEXL Coaching & Development? What inspired you to make this change?
SW: I had been running the radio division at E.W. Scripps, which had been the Journal Group, which was an amazing time working with incredibly talented people across the country.
When we sold the radio division at the end of 2018, we were so fortunate in Milwaukee to have sold our radio division to Good Karma Brands. Realizing that Good Karma had this incredible commitment and vision for local spoken word content, I was trying to figure out whether I wanted to stick around.
Meeting Craig Karmazin (Founder of Good Karma Brands) and Evan Cohen and all those guys, I got interested in running stations I had started at when I was a kid. It was an excellent time to manage again. I realized after the pandemic that it was time for me to see if I couldn’t contribute in different ways in our industry, and so I was fortunate at the end of 2022 to continue my work with Good Karma Brands as their coach.
You can call them my inaugural client in my WEXL coaching because I am doing a lot of the coaching for Good Karma talent, salespeople, and some of their managers. I can provide valuable insight and coaching. I’m able to do it across the country. I’m speaking to different broadcast associations and even working with some different companies outside of broadcast on their leadership and culture development.
RH: What specific services does WEXL Coaching & Development provide to broadcasters and other professionals seeking excellence?
SW: There are three things that I can contribute to the conversation, and I have received feedback that it is helpful. Content coaching is the cornerstone of what I have been doing, and I provide a workshop for talent, program directors, news directors, and anybody in content. One of the workshops is discovering why so much of our content tends to sound the same. I help talent and producers explore, present, and find unique and compelling content.
I also do a workshop on the 14 traits inherent in breakthrough talent. This is material that I have a license agreement with Bill McMahon at The Authentic Personality, who developed this some years ago.
I provide that to management in TV, radio, and digital. Those are 14 specific traits that you can predict who will break through and who might not. It’s been very popular; there are a lot of groups that are interested in seeing and hearing that.
The leadership and culture part of my consultancy has been gratifying because, as you can imagine, going from a kid pretending he was on the radio to a little bit of on-air work, program manager, to general manager, to regional TV and radio manager, to the head of a division, I’ve made a lot of mistakes.
I’ve had some nice successes along the way. That leadership and culture piece is so important. The culture is always directly related to the results at the end of the day. I enjoy speaking on that topic and working closely with some companies on their leadership and coaching.
RH: What sets apart a good radio station from an exceptional one?
SW: In my experience, the stations that break through share an emotional connection with the fans. There are a lot of brands out there that are fine. I try not to compare what’s great versus what’s bad because I think we can all identify what’s bad pretty quickly. There are a lot of good brands that are fine. They are technically correct, they follow the rules, and audiences enjoy them.
If you think about the ones that really break through and, over time, really connect and are successful through rating measurement, brand loyalty, or digital downloads, I think those brands go beyond being technically correct and have found a way to create a human, emotional connection and that’s much harder to do, but it’s much more gratifying when you get it right.
RH: How do you approach coaching and developing on-air talent? Can you give us some insights into your methodology?
SW: I don’t want to say that I’m controversial in my viewpoint, but I know that sometimes my bias either excites people in radio and TV stations or worries them a little bit. I’m a real believer that we have to understand the relationship between the talent and the audience. What’s happened, unfortunately, too often in our business, we’ve allowed formulas and sort-of generic content to win the day.
I don’t start with, what the audience wants from us. I start with, who is the talent? Who have we hired? Who have we recruited? How are they wired? What are they interested in? What do they care about? How do they communicate with their audience?
What I’ve found over the years is that if we start with who we are and what’s interesting to us, we tend to have a better chance of entertaining the audience as opposed to trying to predict what everybody is interested in. I’ve found that that’s an imprecise, subjective approach.
Obviously, I’m a student of the market and of the audience, and you want to understand how your brand connects with the market. Still, I really start with the individual talent and make sure we’re coaching the coaches to make sure that we get the best out of the people who are presenting our content on TV, radio, and digital.
RH: In your experience, what are some common challenges that broadcasters face, and how do you help them overcome those challenges?
SW: If you buy the theory that we need to spend more time with the talent as opposed to spending so much time trying to understand the audience, our chances are much better breaking through. I try to help broadcasters (in this case) spend more time and energy on recruitment.
We can find people that can open a microphone, look into a camera, or write some digital content, but do we really know what we’re searching for, and how do we know when we’ve found it?
For the most part, I don’t know that we, as an industry, have done a good job at coaching the coaches. I know that when I started out as a program director, I didn’t know what I was really supposed to do.
Suddenly, I was responsible for morning shows, midday shows, and talk shows. I had no idea what I was supposed to do, so I started trying to act like the boss and tell them what I thought they should do and what I thought a good show sounded like. I realized over time that I had it backward.
What I really needed to do was understand the talent better so that I could help them be great every day or recognize that maybe they weren’t breakthrough talent. I try and turn the paradigm upside down a little bit and make sure that we’re coaching the coaches and understand what we’re doing in recruitment, and that way, we’re aligned about what is the difference between great content and poor content.
RH: What shape is the news/talk format in two years after Rush Limbaugh’s death?
SW: Personality radio is alive and well in whatever format you want to call it. It’s where the broadcast industry is going to thrive and succeed or, unfortunately, fade because there are lots of content providers out there now who have recognized that some of the most interesting, amazing talent over the years have left traditional broadcast radio because traditional broadcast radio sort of left them.
If we don’t get more comfortable with failure and trying new things, then we kind of only have ourselves to blame when Ford isn’t sure that they want radios in their cars. If we’re willing to take risks, innovate, and not freak out at the first sign of trouble, we’ll find more amazing talent, more breakthrough talent; we’ll try different combinations that work. I’m excited about where we are as long as we have a few people that are willing to take prudent risks and not be afraid of failure at the very first turn.
RH: As a leadership consultant in the broadcasting industry, what are the main principles or strategies you promote for effective leadership?
SW: Jim Collins wrote a couple of books, including one called Good to Great and another one called Built to Last. I read them at a time when I was figuring out what kind of a leader I wanted to be and what kind of businesses I was trying to run. Collins wrote about several things that he realized about culture and leadership. One of them that stuck with me is the power of the word “and.”
What Jim realized is that the really good companies didn’t operate in an “or” world. For instance, companies said, ‘Are we going to have a nice culture OR are we going to demand and expect outstanding financial results? He found that the great companies insisted on both (and & or). That they were connected and that great cultures and great results go hand-in-hand over time. I realized that he was right and that I had experienced that in my career.
Part of what I do with my leadership and culture coaching is I try to bring those ideas to life and give real-life examples of what I call the “up with people culture” where we are just thrilled to be with each other every day, but we don’t really demand and expect the hard results. In contrast, the “show me the money culture” where all it is is just a matter of budgets, money, and metrics, and we don’t spend that much time on the people and the culture.
What I find is that high-achieving and successful people want to be in an “and’ culture. They want a high degree of focus on whatever that people’s culture looks and feels like, and they expect to win. They expect to be profitable; they expect to make money. Talking to groups about leadership and coaching is liberating because I think that connection is harder, but it’s fulfilling when you get it right.
RH: Looking ahead, what are your goals and aspirations for WEXL Coaching & Development in the coming years? Do you have any new initiatives or projects in the pipeline?
SW: I’m enjoying spreading these lessons learned. Traveling and speaking at a lot of the different state associations has been amazing because hearing some of the challenges that people have across the country has been fun. Plus, I really feel like after this 40-year career, if I can be even a spark of inspiration for ideas, then I feel fulfilled.
This is the first full year of my WEXL coaching, so I don’t know what my grand scheme is; I’m trying to follow my own advice by being authentic and not trying to be something that I am not. For companies that are interested in tapping into some of what I’ve done, I’m interested in doing it. I’ll keep doing it as long as I feel that I’m contributing to our business and our success.
