Quit Your Job

Tom Barnes
3/17/00

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Seriously. I mean it. Quit. What would happen? What would you do? Who would you call?

Your job, whether you know it or not, is not you thought it would be when you took it. It's changed has in it? Are you still having fun? Are you still excited to come to work each day?

If you answered, "yes" to that last question --good. When I say 'Quit Your Job" I'm not being quite as literal as you think. If you answered "no", don't worry, this will help you too.

I'm not necessarily asking you leave your employer, I'm asking you to quit thinking and doing your job the way you have been. I'm asking you quit being a program director, an air personality, or production director.

In the old days - pre 1996 - if you were smart, you used to think you were in the entertainment business. Here's the new reality: consolidation changed that business definition forever. You're now the customer service business.

Now before you start imagining yourself in a Mickey D's uniform, asking " want fries with that? ", consider the realities of convergent media

"Converging media" means overtime, it will matter less and less, where people get their content (Web, radio, TV, telephone, Palm device, cable, satellite, ect.). To be viable in the future, you will need to be able to facilitate convergence. That will require a focus on ushering people to the content they want-- not forcing them to like the content you have. You need to learn to make users happy and satisfied, not merely entertained.

Your audience is in the process of acquiring an infinite number of entertaining options. You already understand this if you've adapted a brand management approach in your day to day operations.

Now you need to do more.

Rather than laundry listing everything your job now entails, it's much easier to imagine yourself as a customer service expert. If you consider yourself responsible for the experience listeners have, when they turn on the radio, you already get it. In this sense your customer service role is to be sure the people that listen to your station have a reliable experience with your station. Now, as ownership begins to put revenue demands on your job, you need to think about the way you manage and take care of your audience as a community.

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