The Charleston Marketing Podcast
Welcome to The Charleston Marketing Podcast, the podcast that dives deep into the world of marketing, with a specific focus on the vibrant city of Charleston. Join us as we explore the strategies, trends, and success stories that shape the marketing landscape in this historic and captivating coastal city.
Each episode of The Charleston Marketing Podcast brings you exclusive interviews with local marketing experts, industry thought leaders and Charleston entrepreneurs who have harnessed the power of effective marketing in the Lowcountry and beyond. From strategic communication, social media, PR, digital strategy and everything in between, we uncover valuable insights and actionable tips for our listeners.
The Charleston Marketing Podcast
Exploring Radio's Influence and Innovations with Paul O'Malley
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Ever wondered how the magic of radio connects communities and crafts unforgettable experiences? Join us as we chat with Paul O'Malley, the dynamic President and General Manager of the Charleston Radio Group, who highlights the extraordinary spirit of Charleston through heartwarming stories and impactful initiatives.
Paul's journey from Rochester to Los Angeles and eventually Charleston reveals the adventurous path of a radio professional who has rubbed shoulders with rising stars like Ryan Seacrest. With a treasure trove of anecdotes, Paul underscores the timeless appeal of radio and the unique bonds it forms with its listeners. Listen as he shares the heartfelt story of a listener who offered the gift of sight to a beloved radio host, showcasing the deeply personal connections that set radio apart from the digital tide.
Navigate through the evolving world of technology with us, from the nuances of geofencing in advertising to the ethical quandaries posed by AI in the music industry. As we explore the impact of social media and the business of songwriting, Paul offers insights into effective communication strategies in marketing. This episode is a rich tapestry of community spirit, industry knowledge, and personal reflections, peppered with humor and uplifting leadership philosophies.
Presenting Sponsor: Charleston Radio Group
Title Sponsor: Charleston American Marketing Association
Cohosts: Stephanie Barrow, Mike Compton, Darius Kelly, Kim Russo
Produced and edited: rūmbo Advertising
Photographer: Kelli Morse
Art Director: Taylor Ion
Outreach: Lauren Ellis
CAMA President: Margaret Stypa
Score by: The Strawberry Entrée; Jerry Feels Good, CURRYSAUCE, DBLCRWN, DJ DollaMenu
Voiceover by: Ellison Karesh
Studio Engineer: Brian Cleary
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Welcome to the Charleston Marketing Podcast, powered by the Charleston American Marketing Association and broadcasting from our home at Charleston Radio Group. Thanks to CRG, we're able to talk with the movers and shakers of Charleston, from economy to art, from hospitality to tech and everything in between. These leaders have made a home here in the Lowcountry. They live here, they work here, they make change here.
Speaker 2:Why let's talk about it. Hi and welcome to the charleston marketing podcast powered by the charleston american marketing association. We're recording here in the charleston radio group studios. Big supporters of cama gotta give a big shout out to charleston's favorite dj. Dg jerry feels good with the beats at the beginning. Thanks to all of our supporters. What's up, guys? Stephanie here. I am the founder of Stephanie Barrow Consulting, a digital marketing strategy agency here in Charleston, and your CAMA past president. Thanks for joining us. I am joined here by my fellow co-hosts who just had a birthday, so everybody say belated happy birthday to Mike Compton.
Speaker 3:That's right, the big 4 just had a birthday, so everybody's belated happy birthday to mike compton. That's right, the big four six. Oh, he's a little tiny bit older than me, so that's good news, feeling good about it, though. Oh, that's sweet of you to say you look great. Uh, hey, mike compton. Uh, president of rumbo advertising, go rumbocom. And your incoming president for charleston american marketing association. Thanks for joining us. Uh, we're here with a very special guest. I know I say that about every guest.
Speaker 2:But he actually is like part of the podcast family in a sense.
Speaker 3:But this is what I mean. You're very special, you are. We have the president and general manager of the Charleston Radio Group. He's also in charge of the Hilton Head Radio Markets, with a total of 10 stations. We're talking about Mr Paul O'Malley.
Speaker 4:Woo-hoo. Well, thank you very much. You do say everyone's special, but I do.
Speaker 3:I do say everyone's special.
Speaker 4:You actually are I like to think I'm more special. It is our building, so at least we have something.
Speaker 2:And you've been a part of this, obviously, podcast since the conception. So, you're extremely dear and near to our hearts, absolutely.
Speaker 3:You gave us the green light and st for a year too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know if you know that stuff, but no it wasn't COVID, it was cancer.
Speaker 3:Remember when Jackson got diagnosed? He had to put the pause on it. So really lots of love for you with your patients on there too.
Speaker 4:No, I think what you do is great and people love it and it's necessary for the community. Thank you.
Speaker 3:Speaking of necessary though too, talk about the telethon you guys do for the MUSC Shawn Jenkins Hospital.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's.
Speaker 3:We're talking about cancer, might as well bring it up.
Speaker 4:It's heartwarming and gut-wrenching Every year we do a two-day telethon and people right here like Brian Cleary do an awful lot of behind-the-scenes work and for two days we have four stations down in the lobby of the Children's Hospital. Sean Jenkins Pretty awesome, that's awesome and ask people if they happen to have a little extra. There's a lot of people who need it.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, what you guys are doing there is amazing.
Speaker 1:If you have any help with any of that, I'd love to volunteer.
Speaker 4:And, by the way, speaking of Jelly Roll, tonight we have one of the kids from Camp Happy Days has one goal. He's had cancer for 22 months. His only goal is to meet Jelly Roll, because the song Save Me really sort of kept him going through some tough times. So Jelly Roll's people agreed to specifically go early and meet him today.
Speaker 3:So we're really excited about that that is life-changing Camp Happy Days is the best.
Speaker 2:It really is.
Speaker 3:I think I probably know the kid too, Because I've been to a bunch of Camp Happy Days. We go every time they have an event. We just were at the Happy Walk.
Speaker 4:Yes, the Happy Walk Trot or whatever it was. James Island, john's Island, john's Island, yeah, actually sorry, james Island County Park.
Speaker 3:James Island County Park and it was great.
Speaker 2:I went last year to their benefit when they had all the singers downtown.
Speaker 3:It was awesome yeah they do a great, great job. Look it up, listeners.
Speaker 2:Camp.
Speaker 3:Happy Days, camp Happy Days, donate to them. Man, this is such a small city though, isn't it?
Speaker 4:Absolutely. I mean everybody's touching everybody. The city has the biggest heart. But for anybody who knows the city, you also know you could go to a great benefit every Friday, Saturday and Sunday in this town, 52 weeks a year. There's great dinners, there's great oyster fests. A lot of people have big hearts and raise money, but you could make a living just going to them 100%.
Speaker 2:I was having that conversation with a nonprofit client yesterday. We're trying to get silent auction items. We're like this is the wonderful giving city. So we're going to contact these people who give every single time.
Speaker 3:So it's wonderful but I want to talk a little looking for what spark is also looking. Are you talking? You're talking about a different one, but spark's looking for um.
Speaker 2:Silent auction items okay, shout out to to your point, paul.
Speaker 3:So many different events, so many different non-profits that do great things. How do you keep track of it all? How do you say? How do you know when to say no and, like you said yes to us, surprisingly enough.
Speaker 4:You know what um every year we get, with brian cleary sitting right here who does all of our marketing and promotions, and unfortunately we have to sort of say, hey, this is who we're going to get behind this year. Yeah, because otherwise you could say, yes, five days a week, 24 hours a day. There's a lot of great people with big hearts, a lot of people who move from other places, as we all know, that were involved in something and wanted to start something here, and it's all incredible stuff. But I always tell people we act like a top five market, but we only have the amount of people for market number 75, which is what we are.
Speaker 2:So how many radio stations do you have under this umbrella here at this station?
Speaker 4:We have six here on Clements Ferry and we have four in the Hilton Head, bluffton, savannah Market.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my client shout out to Red Plumbing, heating and Air works with Kush and Kush is awesome. He does a great job of doing the commercials and making it very geared towards the people.
Speaker 4:I love working with you guys, we call Kush a very talented management challenge. I'll just leave it at that.
Speaker 2:He's got a big personality. I think we've all worked with that.
Speaker 3:I think we've all in the biz somehow worked with that, Paul where are you from?
Speaker 4:I grew up in Rochester, new York. In my town it was the headquarters for Xerox and Kodak, and your dad either worked for Xerox and Kodak or was a vendor. And my dad was a vendor to Xerox and Kodak. What kind of vendor? He worked for a company for those old enough called Uniroyal no, it was that attire division and the computers back in the day used to run on timing belts. Okay, so all of the Xerox and kodak computers ran on timing belts. So kodak did pictures for everybody around the world and xerox did computers for everybody around the world interesting so you grew up in new york, so what brought you to charleston?
Speaker 4:through the course of radio. I was running a radio station through my career in los angeles in a company where? Oh boy, this is circa, though, that's okay we lived in Brentwood and my wife will tell you if we never left the west side. We moved to a town called Calabasas, which nobody knew what it was until the Kardashians started.
Speaker 2:You can have wild animals there, just of course for your horse lovers.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:That's the only place in that LA county where you can have wild animals.
Speaker 3:How long were you in la for stuff?
Speaker 4:10 years, 10 years, I didn't know, that's a long time, that's why I always get very excited when it's brought up, just perked up we went from the cool hip area in brentwood but our house was smaller than the studio to a bigger house in the suburbs and my wife never wanted to go to the suburbs. She's not a suburban mom, right and she's to this day. He'll tell you we never would have lost left los angeles if we had stayed in in Brentwood.
Speaker 3:So what station were you out there?
Speaker 4:Star 98.7 KYSR.
Speaker 3:Okay, it was fun and that was the beginning of your radio career.
Speaker 4:Nope, I worked my way up to get there, yeah. And then when a company called, which ultimately became iHeart Evergreen Communications, they bought these stations and they had me put together big personalities. A lot of people here aren't old enough, but the morning show was a guy named Danny Bonaduce from the Partridge family, and the afternoon show was a young kid that nobody knew named Ryan Seacrest.
Speaker 2:Ryan has just killed it with his career.
Speaker 3:How though, paul?
Speaker 2:has the kind of origin story here. I think he was one of the walk-ups for the American Idol, wasn't?
Speaker 4:he? No, no, Sandy Gershaw, the head of Fox. He was one of the people that they asked to audition.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 4:And he came into my office one day and said hey boss, I need to voice track.
Speaker 3:What was he doing? He taped the show. He did Afternoon Drive, he was okay.
Speaker 4:Very popular.
Speaker 2:I love Afternoon Drive in LA.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, yeah, still goes on A lot of radio listening because there's nothing else to do, no, Except sit in traffic 101. And then he came back six months later and said hey, I've got a second audition Now. Understand, in Los Angeles everybody from your aunt to your cousin's brother's college roommate has an audition Correct, and nothing ever happens with them.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 4:He came back and said I got this show. It's from London, it's not a karaoke, but it's a pretty cool show. Yeah, I'm going to get all the details and then fast forward. He went from being just an afternoon show for us to-.
Speaker 2:Our new Casey Kasem, basically.
Speaker 4:One day, leno Lettermanman, katie couric we had all these people calling the station asking if they could talk to him, because american idol became the biggest tv show in the world for I was obsessed for a long time.
Speaker 2:I used to go to all the, the finales. You know I get invited because I was in publicity, publicity out there, and I'd go and it was fun. He's, he's a natural, that guy is talented.
Speaker 4:His skill level is so high, but he was all. He had one great character. He's got a lot of great characteristics, but he knew what he was he was a great host. That's all they ever wanted to do, okay, and he honed his craft better than anybody has ever done. His mentors were Merv Griffin and Dick Clark, and he never got into singing songs, or he never got into trying to be a huge actor yeah just stayed with what he did well he's very smart.
Speaker 4:You know people don't realize, and I'm sure it's confidential. But he's bought into a lot of things too that people don't know he owns.
Speaker 2:So he's the executive producer of the kardashians and a lot of other things no kidding. Yeah, he's behind the scenes in a lot of major productions.
Speaker 3:That is so interesting. So how long did you work for him or with him?
Speaker 4:Shoot, it was probably six years out there and it was really. I would say one of the neatest things I've ever seen is watching somebody go from somebody who's in your office to a global superstar where you can't leave the house. Or you used to just go to a breakfast with somebody and you just can't do that anymore. And I used to tell them we knew the day everything changed Because the first year of the show people knew him and recognized him if we were traveling together and they're like I know who, mm.
Speaker 2:Can't place that face.
Speaker 3:Man, I get that all the time.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you get that all the time, and then by that. But then one day we had a chance to do an event at the Sundance Film Festival, and the short version is he and I had tickets to go to something called Project Greenlight, which again I love.
Speaker 3:I know what Project Greenlight is too. Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Ben.
Speaker 4:Affleck, matt Damon, yeah. And he said Paul, you want to go with me? Because I was just the GM at the time. I said sure, and the line had to be 600 people to into a time. If you ever been to Sundance, it's just little bars, yeah, where they do movies and there's no way we could get in. We were 500 yards from the door and we said forget it, let's go somewhere else. And then some lady in a headset over the loudspeaker yelled his name and said Matt wants you in here, like okay. And I looked at him. I said Ryan you are no longer just afternoon drive.
Speaker 4:You are at a different level.
Speaker 3:Oh, wow, yeah. When Matt Damon's saying hey, somebody had a loudspeaker, go get that guy.
Speaker 4:They said Matt and Ben want you inside Ryan Seacrest. So yeah, it was just fun to see that go.
Speaker 3:Actually, he's yelling, for Paul is what they wanted.
Speaker 4:And he never left radio.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he said no kidding. That's what he's good at.
Speaker 4:He loves it and there's nothing better than being inside, you know, 250 cities in their home or in their cars every day for his brand.
Speaker 2:I thought he was really good on the Kelly and Ryan show too, when he did that for that short stint.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, but I also learned things like he is a genuinely amazingly nice person and then he would come in. He came in one day I'll never forget, with 300 letters from either old friends or people who didn't know, asking can you just swing by a birthday party, can you just do this? Can you just do that? That's so tough and now I see how some celebrities, some people or their friends might think oh, he's not who he used to be, we don't know him anymore. We physically can't get back to those people.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 4:And I remember he was like I don't even know what to do with this and I said I guess this is why people hire people.
Speaker 2:It is, it's hard, it's hard, I mean. I got about 12 happy birthday replies the other day and I haven't yet to say thank you to every one of them. So you know, thank you. I think I wish you a happy birthday on social media, Not happy birthday.
Speaker 4:I know what he goes through, because when I walk into Viva on Daniel Island it's hard for me because everybody I'm telling you Do you live on DI?
Speaker 2:Yes, I love Daniel.
Speaker 4:Island and the six people who actually me to get back to them.
Speaker 2:so I can see that but it was just.
Speaker 4:I'll never forget the experience of just being on the sidelines of watching somebody who went from one of us to I have a, I have a friend like that too.
Speaker 2:I won't drop her name, but it was interesting to see her go from like singing on a school at hotel cafe. But you know, the cover is 10 bucks to get in to. She's like literally worldwide famous as famous as taylor swift.
Speaker 4:Now and my, who are in their 20s, are so frustrated because they don't remember the first couple months of Idol. He would ask me to get the family and people in the radio station to sit up close because they wanted it to look full. So we would just go to the lot and hug the first eight rows and somehow they're able to make it look like it's sold out. That's crazy, but nobody needed to show, so there was nobody there. And now my daughter's like Dad I wish we lived there at this age in their 20s, instead of when they don't remember anything.
Speaker 4:So were you an agent of his? No, I was just the general manager at the time you were just the general manager of the radio station that he worked at.
Speaker 2:I bet you had some cool guests though during those days.
Speaker 4:Yes, the format was very cool. It was the first modern AC true modern AC in America which was Smash Mouth. It was back with all the what I used to call the Angry Ladies Sarah McLachlan, alanis Morissette, the Wreckers.
Speaker 2:Michelle.
Speaker 4:Branch.
Speaker 2:Yes, All those kinds of oh, what a cool time to be in the business Sure. Hey, I could get some sugar-rated, by the way, dido for people that remember Dido. Oh yeah, sugar-rate Cheryl Pro. Oh, what a fun time.
Speaker 4:Yep, my daughters don't remember ever meeting or hanging out with Rob Thomas Do you have pictures, I hope. Probably not.
Speaker 2:Back in the day there were so many photos.
Speaker 3:You didn't have your phone on.
Speaker 4:I'm old enough when they came into our camera came into my office and showed me this thing called that you could get a phone and an email called a blackberry. Yes, oh yeah, and that was the coolest thing anyone ever saw yep so not a lot of pictures back then I remember my blackberry.
Speaker 2:It was year 2000 yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3:Technology speaking of that, radio and technology have come a long way since then, haven't they?
Speaker 4:absolutely. You've seen it all. We've seen everything from you, know I I don't make me sound too old, but the reality is it's too late. They've developed. We've all been able to adapt over time, right? Yeah, so you can get radio anywhere now, from our apps to alexa and sir, anywhere you need it. And now you can get us, you know, digitally anywhere and you can. You know we have the podcast of our big morning shows and afternoon shows and midday shows that you can listen to later if you miss something. You know it's all about access getting our content and making it accessible to people.
Speaker 2:What I love about radio is that you know it's timeless, unlike, unfortunately, newspapers and things like that were kind of being phased out for digital media, like it's just. You're just kind of growing with the times.
Speaker 4:Well, I get asked all the time. You know, did serious xm, spotify has all that really hurt you as far as listening and you know the reality is. You know people forget that serious and xm came out together and it was supposed to be the demise of radio. Well, what they didn't take into account is people like their local personalities. So before they both went bankrupt, they merged. People don't know Sirius, xm was two companies at one point, but between them and Spotify, if you go back in time, what they really did is they replaced those that knew. Knew the mp3 or the walkman right?
Speaker 4:yeah that's what people used it for. That's a good so radio was about 93 of listening. It's about 91 now weekly like. It's certainly affected to a small level, but at the end of the day it's only replaced other things people used and that's why when you walk through a building and you see 16 live bodies and personalities on the air, it's what separates us from spotify and everybody else that's it.
Speaker 3:It's the local personalities and the local. That's why charleston radio group's local right that's why we are we.
Speaker 4:Our corporate office is in.
Speaker 3:You know detroit, but you'd never know it because we're the charleston radio group and when you walk through this building we don't have a lot of syndication like all the big groups do you see 16, 17 now live personalities on six radio stations I mean, I'm even going back to all of a sudden video killed the radio that comes into my head when you started talking just now. I'm like wait what?
Speaker 4:even back then they thought radio was dead and even today when people say but is it really that, paul? And I'll say here's what I will tell you. I'll leave it confidential. We have had a personality that was having losing his, having trouble with an eye where it literally was going to have to have massive surgery. And imagine one day a lady called in and said and this was only in the past six months my husband just passed away in a car accident. I've listened to you every day. I told the officials to please save his eyes, because I know somebody who might need an eye.
Speaker 2:Oh, my gosh.
Speaker 4:And he replaced his eye, and to this day, none of us I guess it's confidentiality, I don't know enough about it, but we don't know if it's that eye or not. Oh my gosh, I mean imagine that. No, I don't know enough about it, but we don't know if it's that eye or not. Oh my gosh, I mean imagine that. No, that's the kind of sort of connection.
Speaker 2:That is an incredible story.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:I'm speechless Because when you look at AI and things like, there is a feeling we're just getting farther away from each other.
Speaker 2:I know I agree with that.
Speaker 4:We just get farther and farther away from eye contact and eye contact and you know people still are human beings and want to know somebody and feel when someone makes them feel good or entertains them, they make a connection.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, you're doing that here because everybody I see in the building is in a good mood for the most part that's just because I signed their paychecks.
Speaker 4:Just no, everyone here is awesome culture is great.
Speaker 2:No, and coming from someone who works with charleston radio for my clients, you guys are awesome. You're so responsive, you're quick on the ball. You're always putting these really cool packages where you get all the things. You could come to an event or you could have a banner at an event. It's been really really fun.
Speaker 4:Well, I appreciate that.
Speaker 2:The creativity is off the charts at Charleston.
Speaker 4:Radio Group. I tend to use humor as a defense mechanism sometimes, but at the end of the day we push people pretty hard, but we make sure that they know that there's nobody else we'd rather have in the building than them Every day.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 3:So when did you?
Speaker 4:I'm not going to lie to you. We have some kooky people.
Speaker 3:Oh no, we know, we've met them. Well, we had Nicky on the podcast.
Speaker 2:We are not a bank.
Speaker 4:No disrespect to the banks, but you'll hear stuff in this facility that you shouldn't hear anywhere else. It's just because we have some left-brain, creative crazy people.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, we love Nicky. Nicky was on the podcast. She was one of our first guests. She's a sharp girl.
Speaker 3:She's got the third most downloads.
Speaker 2:There, you go. There Alex a lot, so shout out to Alex because she's awesome. She does all of my work with bread, plumbing, heating and air and some other clients. I worked with her when I was at Trio Solutions and we have a great relationship and she's awesome.
Speaker 4:We're really fortunate. We have great people. They love what they do.
Speaker 2:That's amazing.
Speaker 3:When did you move to Charleston?
Speaker 4:I moved back, we came from Los Angeles because I wanted to get back to the East Coast. So I was here 03 to 08, before I was promoted to be the regional president of a company called Citadel Broadcasting. So I was handling.
Speaker 1:As in the Citadel no. That was the humorous part, that's what I got confused Called Citadel, but it has nothing to do with the Citadel.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay.
Speaker 4:But we bought another company. If you know Bob Iger, he sold us their radio station so he could buy a company called Pixar. Yeah, I'm very familiar with Bob Iger.
Speaker 2:In my head. I was thinking of someone different, so I apologize. No no no, we'll backtrack it. No, no, it's fine.
Speaker 4:I only got to know him because he's also an Ithaca College graduate.
Speaker 3:Oh jeez.
Speaker 4:So, anyway, from 2003 to 2008, I was here transferred to run the Atlanta and Dallas markets and then came back in 2018, january 1st, when this really great radio company bought the last of the big private companies. A guy named Dean Pierce owned all these radio stations, okay. And they said, hey, would you ever go back to Charleston? And I said, let me think yes, no disrespect to Atlanta, it's just gotten very crowded, I'm sure.
Speaker 1:I'm sure, I'm sure, how long have you been here?
Speaker 4:January 1st 2017. Okay, the first day here, instead of coming to the station, I had to sit in the Market Street Pavilion Hotel for three days because it was a record ice storm.
Speaker 2:I was getting ready to say I remember that storm.
Speaker 4:It was right around three Could not come in to meet people for?
Speaker 2:three days.
Speaker 3:Welcome to Charleston.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're like I just left the snow in Atlanta.
Speaker 4:And we are. See. We like to claim we're not as much of a Because everyone gets mad at all the new people because of all the traffic. This is our second stint, so I'm hoping we qualify now as not somebody new after seven years here. And our second stint here.
Speaker 3:How long were you here before then? 03 to 08.
Speaker 2:So 03 to 08 and then Right at the recession, I think right around 10 years you can almost say that you know you've planted yours, you know you had children here. Whatever I'm staying.
Speaker 4:See, we look at it differently. When everyone gets frustrated at the traffic on the Don Holter with all due respect I look around and I say look at all those people listening to radio.
Speaker 3:Yep, oh yeah, cha-ching, cha-ching, 100%. Keep it up.
Speaker 4:And some will say well, I listen to Spotify. I'm sure you listen to other things, but there's a lot of people listening to radio.
Speaker 2:And what I love once again about working with you guys is Like you can say okay, during this time, take it back to your Google Analytics. You can see people are sitting in traffic and this is when your commercial aired. It's a direct correlation, which is wonderful for ROI.
Speaker 4:If you're a small business and you're looking to get your branding out there, I love that you have the science, the technology to back up the commercials From a business standpoint, one of the biggest changes is radio did have to come up with and developed through the years an attribution system, because back in the day everybody bought radio, tv and outdoors and the joke was I know that half of my marketing is working, I just don't know which half Exactly. So over time, as the digital and we all had to become very savvy at, you know digital targeting and you know the customer journey yeah yeah, we had to find ways to say, hey, I know my ad's working because I'm getting more people, but how well is it?
Speaker 4:and now we can show attribution for them, because at the end of the day, everybody kind of does the same thing. Now, no matter what media you're looking at, when you hear something that inspires you, you're going to go search for something. You go to someone's website.
Speaker 2:What other ways did you have to adapt your strategies to meet the digital times of now?
Speaker 3:Great question, Steph.
Speaker 4:We had to adapt to the point where, for years, our business was based on this one-to-many inspiring ads that got people to do something right. Sure, Well now what they're doing. Everyone is searching.
Speaker 2:Yes, you know.
Speaker 4:So the question we ask every one of our sales team, we'll ask somebody is very simply to any prospective client what kind of people do you want to do? What kind of action? Because that's all anyone does Like. Do you want to do what kind of action? Because that's all anyone does Like. Do you want more people in to buy shoes or do you want to sell your shirts? So this massive on-air campaigns people do, we know goes right to search. So they're going to search. If we write an ad for Mike, they'd go to GoRumba, and when they go to GoRumba we better be able to make sure he's on the first page of Google, because no one goes to the second page.
Speaker 1:You might, if you have a lot of time, but nobody does.
Speaker 2:No one does.
Speaker 4:And then if they don't buy something from Mike right away and they go to his website and leave, we need to retarget them and circle them up and invite them back. So radio has had to adapt to do the whole customer journey now instead of just when people hear an ad sending them to someone's website.
Speaker 3:GoRoombocom.
Speaker 1:If you want to go to GoRoombocom, I mean, that works too.
Speaker 3:And buy something.
Speaker 2:I know you guys partner with a lot of local venues and stuff like that. What's your take on geofencing around when people show up to these events that you guys are a part of? Do you do any bit of that?
Speaker 4:Absolutely to these events that you guys are a part of. Do you do any bit of that? Absolutely, it's a very valuable tool. It's funny. When I was first trying to explain that to somebody years ago, I said it's very simple. I won't tell you which ones because they're all friends, but I went into a dealership looking at a car on a Saturday with my wife and then when we left the dealership, all she said is find the Georgia score, because she's a diehard bulldog. Don't bring it up. It gets very tricky in our house. But as soon as I went on to ESPN, I had an ad from their direct competitor across the street and I said in case you want to know what geofencing is, go online and look up a mortgage. Say, what kind of mortgage could I get? Every mortgage company within 20 miles?
Speaker 2:of the city, almost like subliminal messages. I'll leave lows. I'll be like thinking about why did I buy those flowers? And then I'm like now I'm served an ad.
Speaker 4:It's. You know. All those tactics are important and I think people are.
Speaker 3:Finally, it used to seem intrinsic and too intruding Like oh my God, when it was new, how did they know? I went in to see.
Speaker 4:Burger King. How did McDonald's knew to send me an ad for fries?
Speaker 3:right.
Speaker 4:But now it's almost to a point where I think people are okay with it, right.
Speaker 1:And we all know how scary it is.
Speaker 4:Cyber security is one of the biggest issues I have every day with our people. We have a lot of training.
Speaker 2:Unless you're shopping for Santa presents, like I do, way in advance, and all of a sudden your children are being fed the ads and they're like oh look, mom. Really, we just talked about this.
Speaker 4:I, mom, really. We just talked about this. I think the one thing that surprises me is that when people don't understand how much Apple and those companies listen.
Speaker 2:We have a what's it called Siri in every room. The kids have their own one and they'll be watching this YouTuber, mariah Elizabeth. And the next thing I know, mariah Elizabeth's ads are hitting me Sure. I had and my kid's like Mom, did you see this ad? And I'm like oh, kill me.
Speaker 4:And people think you have to be logged on to something. The other day my daughters used to watch a show called Pretty Little Liars.
Speaker 2:Oh, I know Pretty Little Liars.
Speaker 4:I'm not in that demo. There's no way they'd ever target me or my URL. I am a way deep into the 50s, plus male. There's nothing I have in common. I'd never get served something the next day. We were joking about how they used to watch the show. Nobody was on Alexa, nobody had their phones on Siri, it was just the phone. And the next day I was served an ad for where to find Pretty Little Liars on direct TV.
Speaker 4:It's wild they knew I had direct TV and they knew I was talking about Pretty Little Liars. I joke with my girls. I say do you know why China doesn't allow their kids to be on Facebook and Instagram? Because they know it's a bad idea.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 4:And it's amazing how many people in our country don't know you can't get it in China.
Speaker 3:I didn't know that. No, I did. Our country don't know you can't get it in china?
Speaker 4:you know there's. No, I didn't know that. No, I did not know that. No, because, listen, I don't get political. But somebody over there said I don't think it's a good idea for young kids to have this much access to all these other things that can create things in their head that aren't true. So right, I don't think any american actually um, social media is allowed in china, but I know facebook and instagram are not so interesting.
Speaker 3:I like that. My kids are not having that until they're teenagers, that's for sure and you heard all the rules that are coming out now, though, um zuckerberg and his team. Are, you know, having like a parental kind of control over, you know, your kid, and you have to have your parents go through it now.
Speaker 2:I like that the ccsd school system took phones away. That's just my take, Probably for emergencies or whatever you'd want to get in touch with your kid, but I think it's helpful.
Speaker 4:There's a Netflix show that should be mandatory for every parent. I believe it's called Social Dilemma.
Speaker 2:Yes, I've seen it.
Speaker 4:Matthew and I watched it together, all you have to know about, that is, the people who invented some of those apps have never let their children have one.
Speaker 2:They left the folks from.
Speaker 4:Facebook, instagram and one other that were on the development team have never allowed their own kids to be on it, because a lot of people got into that for a much more pure reason than what a lot of it has become now. Yes, right, and when they saw where it was going and saw how they were keeping people's data and doing things they shouldn't, they said no and their kids aren't even allowed anyway. I think it's a good education for people. We're not going to stop. There's some wonderful things about, you know, today's social media. When I was growing up, I would you know, I never had the ability to talk to my mom or dad instantly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, unless you had a quarter.
Speaker 4:It's nice to be able to like A pay phone. They probably don't like it, but to be able to communicate with daughters or if they're going through something in a minute, they can get us right. We had to walk down to a pay phone or do a cell phone. That was the size of that lunchbox over there. So, there are some things that help, but it's a challenge. All our personalities have social media and it's a way of connecting, Not to be political, it's hard to control.
Speaker 2:All of your radio stations have their own Instagram and Facebook pages that kind of thing Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Who handles all that? Do you have a team or do you leave?
Speaker 2:it up to your….
Speaker 4:That is a team effort. It's the same people you see here, but, like any place, we have a lot of people that do double duty.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 4:But we have some people that just really enjoy it and have a knack for it, like this afternoon Hunter and Kush. Our afternoon show is going to be broadcasting from Topgolf giving away a final pair of tickets if you want to go to see Jelly Roll.
Speaker 3:Uh-oh, there's your chance.
Speaker 4:So you know that'll be. All has all been socialed out for the last two days.
Speaker 2:Hey, clush, remember me. Yeah, the one I'm trying to get to is Post Malone, but I missed that. I missed the bucket on that one.
Speaker 4:Well, brian's got four in his pocket.
Speaker 2:Brian give him the small tickets Hang on to your tickets.
Speaker 4:But that is another thing. That's a great way that we connect with audiences is through these concerts. Sure, Thank goodness that Charleston between Bob Moran and Ben Navarro and Chris Meaney and great folks at Credit One.
Speaker 2:Credit One has stepped up the music game for Charleston over the last five years.
Speaker 4:And the great folks Chris Bird and his team and new bosses over there at Coliseum. They've got big shows from Jelly Roll and Blake Shelton next year. This city has really been able to pony up. I mean, the shows we get are as big as the top ten markets get.
Speaker 3:And this is new for the market, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's probably within the last five years, right, because I've been here for ten years.
Speaker 4:Yeah, since Credit One did their huge renovation, they've been here for 10 years. Yeah, since Credit One did their huge renovation, they've been very aggressive, getting more artists than any venue.
Speaker 2:I don't think high-level artists of any other venue that I've seen. Yeah, I think someone I want to see next March is going on sale today, so I had myself a reminder.
Speaker 4:I think Blake Shelton is going on sale. Oh, blake Shelton, that would be a great show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's awesome. Live. You need to get like a Pink or someone. I want someone like a rock and roll chick. All right, well, shout it out there, Brian Colpin. Let the universe hear it. Well.
Speaker 3:Pink's probably listening to the podcast, I know.
Speaker 2:She absolutely is.
Speaker 3:Pink, if you're listening.
Speaker 4:Start a rumor that Bob Moran's getting Pink at Credit One and see what happens. Oh, besides the fact. Oh, did you see that?
Speaker 2:on social media. They said Stevie Nicks or someone was coming here and they put up all these fake posts and fake Facebook groups and she was not coming here.
Speaker 3:Well, so what part of? And you might not have the answer to this, but AI has been obviously a buzzword.
Speaker 4:How are you guys using it so? We use it the most important way we've used it is specifically in copywriting. We are not. I like our live bodies.
Speaker 1:I like looking at Brian Cleary Nobody no AI is better than him on the air.
Speaker 4:We are the bigger companies that are more debt laid and are going to have to use AI for on-air shifts and things. We are not doing that. But I will tell you what we do do it for. Is you know if you came to me with Mike's Brewing, a new IPA brewing company, when there's a lot of competitors and said, hey, I need some thoughts on a commercial? We have pretty good copywriters but there are some great AI sort of chat. Gpt on steroids.
Speaker 4:There are some great AI programs that give us tremendous copy, tremendous creativity, you know all because it's.
Speaker 4:I mean, think about it. It can aggregate the entire universe on the internet in milliseconds and spit out to you basically the best practice of anybody in your business and what they've used, so really copywriting is what we're using it for. We're looking at some in production and things like that. But the biggest thing some radio, your business and what they've used, so really copywriting, is what we're using it for. We're looking at some in production and things like that. But the biggest thing some radio companies are using it for is to replace on-air talent and we're not going that now. Then you lose your human touch.
Speaker 3:Um, when you were talking right now, I just remembered back in the day when we had to do research and write different things with the periodical table oh right, you know, and then you have to go in and the big wall. Actual read stuff with pens and papers and notes and and literally you just said it like chat.
Speaker 2:Gpt is like the digital cliff notes for me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, it's a conversation. It starts the brainstorming session for us too, you know and and somewhat fact checking you have to, you have to fact check everything like so, uh, through buzzsprout, which is what we use, um, we, we use their ai and and all that's.
Speaker 2:Most of it's written by, except they, they tend to get the name spelled, they get. You know you have to go in again, you have to edit it, you have to, otherwise they do a really good job of translating what the conversation was about, which is wonderful chapters it outters it out, Yep that's nice.
Speaker 4:And I'll tell you what's on as far as our industry goes. Where it's getting a little tricky is, for example, the FCC and the government are knee-deep in coming up with an official policy. I haven't read that one's come out, but it might have. You know the political commercials.
Speaker 4:You can use your opponent's voice, sure that's right probably create a spot, as if to say you know, do you notice that stephanie is against men being able to wear t-shirts indoors? And they can take your voice and say I don't think men should wear t-shirts indoors. You never said that, but you said the word I t-shirt indoors at some point in your life. That they can aggregate and make it sound like you said something that you didn't.
Speaker 2:Right. Didn't Trump do something like that with Taylor Swift?
Speaker 3:Well, he posted something about yeah, he made an AI version of her, her likelihood or her image. You know how about did her likelihood or her image? You know? Um, how about did you guys hear the story about the guy who just made a ton of money using ai to replicate songs, but the ai would do it its own way and make it a different song, and then he, he streamed it like he just had his own when it gets a little tricky to me.
Speaker 2:I'm just a big supporter of like musicians and artists and stuff. I'm like, come on, definitely using it for evil, right that's what that is, but he ended up making a bunch of money for a few years.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and finally you're going to get busted.
Speaker 3:Anytime you do something bad, you're going to get busted.
Speaker 4:Nope, to your point. All the BMI, csac, all the big companies to protect the writers and songwriters are all, I'm sure, in big think tanks making sure these writers and all that it's their voice, that they get paid things like that, because people can pirate. I mean, artificial intelligence is exactly what it says.
Speaker 2:Artificial Now under the Charleston Radio Group umbrella. Do you guys do songwriting like jingles and that kind of thing?
Speaker 4:Not necessarily. We do commercial jingles.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 4:And have the ability to do so. We have a third party that does great ones. That's nice, cause it has to be original music and things.
Speaker 2:Yep Right.
Speaker 4:You know people always will have clients ask hey, can you use the theme to cheers for my son?
Speaker 2:No, those are copyrighted.
Speaker 4:And every time. You know people don't realize that every time a song plays, somebody gets paid Right Around the world. Yes, so if it's on a radio station, in essence an inaudible tone clicks off a satellite and whoever wrote it and sang it and anybody else in the team a little penny chips off.
Speaker 2:That's why I was thinking it's so interesting when someone like say, justin Bieber recently sold his catalog of songs to someone for like two billion dollars. Yep, but I'm like these songs have already been made. He's been making money off of them, but I guess for the, for now and forever, correct the new person will make money off of it.
Speaker 4:That's exactly that's cool yeah, I mean, how does that? There's a documentary on right now actually on taylor, swift and scooter bra.
Speaker 2:Oh, Scooter Braun and I are not friends.
Speaker 4:Who's Scooter Braun I?
Speaker 2:am T-Swift all day long.
Speaker 3:Who's this gentleman, I'm assuming?
Speaker 2:You don't know who Scooter Braun is. Oh, I'm just going to look that up on the ground, so he used to manage. Taylor Swift, scott Borchetta, scott Borchetta of Big Machine, which is the label out of Nashville, and then Skirbron was like a manager type guy.
Speaker 3:Oh, I see.
Speaker 2:And he supposedly bought the rights to all of Taylor's songs without her permission.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of theories on that. Is that why there's Taylor's version?
Speaker 2:Yes that is exactly why there's Taylor's version.
Speaker 4:The Netflix special and I will not judge because I happen to know both people. They actually give you both sides.
Speaker 2:I haven't watched it yet.
Speaker 4:I'll say it's pretty interesting, but at the end of the day it's one of those rare things. Taylor is so big and so transformative, and so in today's world no one knew what it was like to grow up with the Beatles. But I guess this is probably this is their yeah as close as we would know.
Speaker 3:We're literally, you know did you say you met her?
Speaker 4:yeah, she was. When I was over the country stations in Atlanta and Dallas. She did a lot for us. Couldn't have been any nicer. Mom was always amazing. Dad was amazing. I mean she was. She was mentored and raised. I always used to tell people I think that Taylor Swift never will get the credit for being so wildly successful as a teenager and not coming off the rails Like I grew up where all the rock stars used to have. There was that show MTV behind the scenes, where every rock star came off the rails in their life personally. Too much money, too much.
Speaker 2:She's made good choices, except bad boyfriends. That's the worst thing you can say about her.
Speaker 4:She did two amazing things. She never came off the rails, right, I mean, I don't know. She probably had $100 million at 19. If I had $40 at 19, I was a train wreck, right, okay. And then the other thing I don't think that's so true. The other thing that she did that no one has ever done is people forget she brought fathers and daughters together. When you are a dad and you could be divorced, you could have done something wrong. If you get tickets for your daughter to Taylor Swift all through the years, the look a daughter would give you and the love, at least for one night, was, I mean, she brought fathers and daughters together. No kidding.
Speaker 2:I didn't get to go to the Heiress Tour, unfortunately, but I did go to the Hei tour movie and with me and my two daughters and my husband and you're looking across that room and all the parents were on theme and dancing and crying and holding on to their kids like it's. It's like been a massive transformation from like little children to like tween era and then continuing on like people in their 60s and 70s.
Speaker 3:Love taylor, swift it's wild yeah, she's so impressive so you took in your daughters to to swift show before sure, absolutely.
Speaker 4:Taylor was so good and so smart that my daughters to this day still have handwritten thank you notes from her when she was starting out that whenever she would meet a gm now, if you asked her who paul o'malley is today, doubt she's gonna know. Oh sure. But when I wasalley is today, doubt she's going to know. But when I was over the big stations the artists would get to know you because they, you know we were playing their records. And years ago I introduced her to my two daughters and two weeks later, with her own private seal, was a handwritten note and a couple months ago I said, girls, you better find those because they may be worth money someday.
Speaker 4:if things ever get really bad in radio, I would pull those out. Yeah, but that's how she always. Somebody was always with her reminding her who she met at the meet and greets or backstage, and they'd always get a handwritten note.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I knew her during the Red album and when she was before she went to New York and changed her sound and she's awesome.
Speaker 4:And the other thing, the reason country is always indebted to her, even though there's some old-line folks that say she's too pop now and all that. What they owe her is a big thank you, because what she did do is when she came out it's the first time young girls ever flipped on a country radio station. They went looking for her and what happened was a lot of other people should thank her. They went looking for her and what happened was a lot of other people should thank her. They might not like me saying this, but when they were looking for Taylor on the whatever the station dial position was, all of a sudden they heard this other song by Luke Bryan or Jason Aldean or the Zac Brown band and it was like I like that song too. I like that song.
Speaker 4:It brought people into the format that maybe never you're right been in that format before you're right now, when you go to a concert, go to a concert, go see what it looks like tonight at.
Speaker 3:Jelly Roll. I just went to Dierks Bentley, you'll see as much as many 25 and under females. That never happened in the 80s oh my gosh, that's all there was at Dierks Bentley. It was a sea of 25-year-old people.
Speaker 2:Well, a lot of them are on the edge of being either poppy or a Sam Hunt, or being more like a rock and roll, like an Eric Church, and so it's cool that all these different genres are kind of meshing together. Now for radio. I love it.
Speaker 3:Like a Post Malone and country now.
Speaker 2:Oh Post.
Speaker 3:Malone, it's great. So you took your daughter to the Swift concert. You said you want to be an author.
Speaker 4:Paul, you have a book idea. I've just made notes through the years and one day I thought, you know, I grew up in a household where I was Catholic, right, we had four kids five years apart, and somewhere there were probably three miscarriages in there. Well, I grew up in an era when the priest used to tell the mom and dad like you, have to have four, you have to.
Speaker 3:You have four daughters. Four was the number no no.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry. You grew up in the house, I grew up.
Speaker 4:I have two older brothers, older sister, but when I was growing up my mom used to say the priest would sort of scowl at you until the fourth child came because I'm not got to have four, obviously.
Speaker 2:Take it over the world.
Speaker 4:But when you're with, you know we all played sports, my sister did and then I fall in love and I'm dealt two beautiful daughters that don't play football. They've gotten into sports and things. But over time I just made notes about things that I never thought I'd be involved in or never have to say.
Speaker 3:Like what Give us one.
Speaker 4:Well, the working title of my book is going to be the Day I Learned More About Sephora Than Football.
Speaker 2:There you go.
Speaker 4:Because I used to tell people I can tell you what aisle has foundation with sunblock in it, but I forget who won the Super Bowl last year. That's funny. And then one day when my daughter said, dad, I think you need to go out with the guys today, when they were like 14, I realized you're right. One of my girls was running off to lacrosse in Atlanta and I said, hey, do you have the foundation with sunblock in it or just the normal one, because it's sunny out? And my other daughter said Dad, first of all, that's creepy and second of all, you Other daughters said Dad, first of all, that's creepy and second of all, you need to go out with the guys today no, dad says things like that.
Speaker 2:At least they were looking out. Yep, that just shows you're a really involved dad, though that's sweet.
Speaker 4:I'll give my wife credit One day. She said this is when they were like eight or nine. She said this is the point where you're either going to be involved or the dad on the outside.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so when they want to go to the mall and Notre Dame is playing and they invite you.
Speaker 4:You can either make the right choice, notre Dame and I said well, of course we're watching Notre Dame, she goes. Well, you'll be, they'll love you, but you'll be on the outside that's good and they liked you all the years no, they never do they're wonderful sweet. I also think girls are. One of my chapters will be. You know, they're not, they've changed. Like there's a point where they just look at you with eyes that you can't do any wrong, and then you come home on a Wednesday and everyone's mad and it's like whoa.
Speaker 3:You don't know why whoa, nope what happened today, and you just got to leave them alone give them space, I won't be ready for that ever no, I've got a soft spot in my heart for girl dads because I've got two boys and I had to ask you what Sephora was.
Speaker 2:Your boys are super sweet.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, but I don't have to deal with Sephora yet.
Speaker 2:They will buy stuff for their teenage girlfriends.
Speaker 3:And it will be.
Speaker 2:Sephora and Bed Bath.
Speaker 3:Beyond candles. My nieces, though my nieces do that.
Speaker 4:I made a bet I told him I shopped for two things this week that if he told me exactly what both of them were, he's a true girl, dad okay this is great and the two things were one. No lie, I shopped for taffeta because my daughter wanted it in her University of Kentucky window. Whatever Taffeta, yeah, and the other one a peplum.
Speaker 3:What's a peplum?
Speaker 4:It's a top that's like this and he knew that it's like a shirt.
Speaker 2:dress Like for the listeners. I'm mimicking it out.
Speaker 4:And he said he knew what taffeta was and his wife's like our daughters, have peplums. He's like our daughters have peplums. He's like I don't know what a peplum is Taffeta and a peplum that's how you know you've reached a new low.
Speaker 3:Or high, whatever, yeah, or new high.
Speaker 4:Or you're way too close.
Speaker 2:Last night, my husband and I were sitting around with our daughter playing Roblox, which is a thing for 9-year-olds and on your phones is it for nine-year-olds though?
Speaker 3:yeah, is it? Okay, I'm.
Speaker 2:It's like he's on minecraft, the cheesiest thing ever so okay we were playing dress for dress to impress last night, where we had mannequins and we had to go put on pretty gowns and look like royalty. And so matthew and I, you get like two seconds and you like go and you get dressed, and then, yeah it's that's cute it's cute you got to do whatever it takes just to stay relevant with your kids. Because, one day you're not going to matter. So I'm down to play Dressed to Impress.
Speaker 3:In Roblox, like what happened to Roblox.
Speaker 2:So Roblox is like a platform where it has hundreds of games, maybe more than that Thousands of games.
Speaker 3:Oh, so it was like a dress, a girl game.
Speaker 2:So my point was that, like my husband's playing dress and dress game.
Speaker 3:Sure, but yeah, they had boy games too.
Speaker 2:They had dragon games and all the things, yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the thing about young girls is they're smart and it's annoying, you know. I was on this window of time where I told the girls, especially during the recession okay, times are a little changing. We have needs and wants in our homes. From this day forward, what we need we get, what we want we're going to talk about, and I swear they have a great ability to make a need and a want be the same. It's like you don't need the kylie jenner eyelash brush. You want the kylie jenner eyelash brush.
Speaker 4:You need an eyelash brush for a dollar 80 at cvs yeah, sure you don't need the $26 same brush, but it's got her name on it, right, like that stuff would make me nuts, because at the end I thought maybe they're right, maybe I'm wrong.
Speaker 3:I mean they can get you thinking weird things but Uh-huh, you know the ladies in general for me, but you're talking about social media and things we don't do sure my daughters do, but we do, like wordle.
Speaker 4:Oh, I like things like that and yeah, even though it sounds silly, you can share like it keeps us connected all the time. I like once a day we're connected because we're also maniacally competitive. We do wordle. I send my, what I send out to the girls. They'll send theirs back. And who won today?
Speaker 4:but I would say this social media has been detrimental in many, many ways, but it also, on the good side, finds a way to connect people like parents and kids, where you'd never be connected before, without having to call them up and say how's your day right, because you already know, because they're posting, yeah, and don't ever ask a daughter how her day is. Just come up with another way to say it, because that's just the answer you'll get.
Speaker 2:You're not going to like now it's the charleston radio group using like tiktoks and reels and all the short form videos, that kind of thing yeah, we have some that are more savvy than others, but absolutely just different ways to connect with the audience.
Speaker 4:They hear somebody on air and now there's other ways to connect with them and connect with our clients right.
Speaker 2:So, mentioning your clients, a lot of people don't know how to like actually work with radio stations. So how do small businesses or nonprofits or whatever even start working with the Trust and Radio that's?
Speaker 4:another great question, that's two right there the beautiful part is that's why we have so much staff, because nobody goes to a generic website and tries to buy commercials. Other companies have that and that's what they. Because they don't have people, we make it very easy and just talk to people about what do you want to message and what do you want people to do, like, start there.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 4:And then they have plenty of options on which stations target which audience, whether they want to be in morning drive or afternoon drive. That stuff all is easy. But it's really about what do you want people to do? You know, in today's world people call, click, visit or search. So an HVAC company probably wants somebody to call them or click on their website because they don't have their brick-and-mortar store.
Speaker 4:People don't walk into. An auto dealer wants people to visit, you know, click on their website. But also they want to physically. They want people on the lot. So, um, the easiest way to do it is just call anybody, or call the front desk, and somebody will talk to you about what do you want to message and to who, and there's very simple ways to do it. People in media tend to make it very complex. They talk about their products too much. We got this, we have that, we have this, we have that. I have a little button on my phone.
Speaker 4:If I'm ever with a seller and they use the word I, I count them and when they come back, I'll say if you ever say I more than you say you to a client, you're doing something wrong. What do you mean? Talk about it. It should be about you. What do you want to do? What do your people want to do? What does your consumer want to do?
Speaker 4:Okay, when people say, well, I can do this or we can do that, or we've got great this, we have great that, we're number one in this, we're number one in that, that's not going to help anybody. That all is just a byproduct of what do you want to do? Help anybody. That all is just a byproduct of what do you want to do. What do you want the customer to do? And it's got to be about what you're doing. It's not what we're. We know what we do. We know we have big stations. We know we have wacky personalities. We know we have big audiences. We know we throw on big parties and great concerts. We need to talk about them and too many people talk about themselves and it doesn't work.
Speaker 2:Well, you're such a good manager, you attract cool people though.
Speaker 4:That's rare, I'm just older.
Speaker 1:I'm just older.
Speaker 3:Well, we're lucky to have a Paul in the market.
Speaker 1:We are.
Speaker 4:I think anybody you know my daughters are going to cringe, but I was one of the weird people that my mom used to say. The weird thing about my youngest son is he was born happy, right Like. I never slept a lot, not because I have anxiety, I just always wanted to see the world and I used to tell my kids there's only two kinds of days good days and better days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's only two kinds of days Right, any more of you in the world.
Speaker 3:I'll write that down.
Speaker 4:Well, my of days, right, my mom used to say. Well, my mom used to say you want to have a bad day? Come with me, I'll take you down the children's hospital. We'll show you a parent that's been sitting there for three days when they can't figure out why their child can't speak, and 10, 20 surgeries, like that's a bad day don't take me down that there's only two kinds of days good days and better days.
Speaker 4:In fact, my daughter from my birthday a few years ago got me collar stays that said good days and better days. Oh, that's really cool, that's cool. That's a mantra, it's just I, for some reason. You know, being positive is a choice, and when people come in, and you know, when a manager came in and they were really upset about something and they were frustrated that they had to make a decision, and I said I said what'd you think you were to come in today and not have to do anything?
Speaker 4:You know, you know, when people get really frustrated, I remind them what my father used to say how much would they pay matadors if bulls had no horns? Not much, not much. That's an easy job, like you can get one of those. It doesn't pay a lot.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 4:That's so random. Yeah, they get horns. They can get stuck by a horn. That's why you got to pay them.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 4:So when people come in, especially managers, the reason we pay, you is these matadors have horns around here, these bulls have horns.
Speaker 4:So true, it's just like in today's world. Even in our country I've told people we have way too many managers and not enough leaders. Everybody likes to manage. Telling somebody you have to be here at this time, that time you did it the wrong way. You did it this way. If you ever watched Ted Lasso, I think he and I would have been friends. I was going to say In one of the shows when they said, ted, that's impossible. And he said you know what I heard? I heard I'm possible.
Speaker 1:And I thought it was a great line. It is Now. That's how you're supposed to think.
Speaker 4:It is yeah, and sometimes it gets hard, but you know we do that behind closed doors and we go home and you know, kick over the chair or something. But when you're trying to lead people, they have to feel like it's a good, safe place. These people want me here and I know that they have my back.
Speaker 3:Okay, well, it shows Paul. I mean we're excited to be here every Thursday with y'all and the acceptance part of it's been amazing, except Brian, of course he's terrible.
Speaker 2:I absolutely adore Brian.
Speaker 4:Brian's over there sitting there thinking you should see when Paul gets upset at somebody.
Speaker 2:I can't imagine you upset at anyone you radiate? Goodness, I can't imagine you upset at anyone well, we gotta get you out of here.
Speaker 3:You got a radio station to run um stuff. Do you have any last minute?
Speaker 2:I just want to thank you so much for being such a big supporter of our podcast for the last two years like we could not be here without you. We love you guys. It's. I love coming in here every other week and everyone is so sweet and warm and um just. Thank you so much sincerely like the opportunities. Well, I have a huge, huge opportunity for us I will tell you what we're really grateful for.
Speaker 4:What y'all are doing is you know I don't have to tell you what we're really grateful for. What y'all are doing is you know, I don't have to tell you. Everybody you know and every cousin you know has a podcast or is trying to do in technology and it's growing fast and there's amazing people here. But your podcast is always high content. Someone said content is king 30 years ago and they're right about it. So we appreciate you just advancing everything forward in this town.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, thanks. Thank you so much. Well, there's so many great people to meet too in this town there is. Charleston is so awesome.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you want to meet Jelly Roll. You can go with us tonight. You have another commitment apparently.
Speaker 2:Oh my, I was like, wow, I am going to the Best of Mount Pleasant party.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's right, but I can leave that early yeah.
Speaker 2:Anyways.
Speaker 3:All right, Thank you. We Definitely Steph. You want to close this out?
Speaker 2:Before we leave, we of course need to thank our sponsors. The Charleston Radio Group.
Speaker 4:Am I supposed to say this for my own company? Yes, the thoughts and views of Paul O'Malley are not necessarily the thoughts and views of Saga Communication or any of its affiliates.
Speaker 3:What a president right there, just in case. Just in case.
Speaker 2:Someone disagrees with me. There you go, Jerry Feels Good. And, of course, the American Marketing Association. Thank you for being our sponsors. If you want to be a sponsor or a guest on our show, please reach out to us at podcastatcharlestonamaorg and we will get back to you. And don't forget to sign up to come to the Spark Awards in November. Spark.
Speaker 3:Awards. Yeah, paul, you'll be there, absolutely. We'll let you know. We'll get you a couple tickets. Great event.
Speaker 2:I'm excited, all right, thank you for joining us. Thanks everybody.
Speaker 3:Yep, thanks, paul.
Speaker 2:Thank you, bye, charleston We'll see you next time, Charleston.
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