A Passion or a Sickness?

What in the world is wrong with us?

I mean, seriously.  Do you realize how many other jobs there are out there that require so much less of you?  Do you know there are some people out there who go to work in the morning around 9 and go home in the late afternoon around 5 and don’t necessarily feel like they just fought a 12-round heavyweight match?

Like, really.  What is wrong with us?

For years I have called it “my passion!”  My wife, on the other hand, has always said it’s “a sickness!”  Whatever it is, it isn’t easy, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’ve often said that doing what we do should be fun and should be lucrative, so if it were easy, everybody would want to do it.  Well, as we all know, not everybody wants to do it.  Not everybody is capable of doing it.  And, let’s be honest, not everyone is crazy enough to do it and keep doing it.  

We’ve all seen the veteran seller who announces they’re finally getting out of the business.   They have had enough and they’re taking a job within a totally different industry and good riddance to radio.  Six months goes by and they start showing up at events, start asking about what’s going on at the old company, and within a few more weeks they’re texting you something like, “Do you think they’d take me back?”

It always reminds me of the great line from The Godfather: Part III when Michael Corleone says, “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!”  Once this business really gets in your blood, it’s hard to walk away.  

It’s because that passion truly is there.  The love of the industry that you’ve worked so hard to learn and seen change so much through the years.  The thrill of the chase of the clients and the adrenaline rush when you get that “YES!”  It isn’t as easy to come by “on the outside.”

I compare it often to the game of golf.  Most of us struggle mightily through our rounds, but it’s that one perfect tee shot right down the middle, or that approach you hit from 160 yards away that landed within a few feet of the hole, or maybe even that 30-footer you read perfectly that broke several feet right in to the middle of the cup.  Those shots are what make you come back even though they were just a couple of the hundred or so hacks you took at the ball.

We’re no different in radio sales.  The daily grind.  The suck of picking up the phone one more time to hear someone blow you off and tell you that they aren’t interested.  The sales meetings.  The one on ones.  The new corporate training.  But, just like with those few precious golf swings, you hit a big sale or two.  Maybe it was one you’d been working on and were starting to feel a little nervous about, but it came through!  Or perhaps it was someone you had written off months ago who came back and spent even more than you expected.  And those are what keep you coming back the next week.

So, yes, we’re obviously all a bit “cray cray.”  Nobody purposely takes this much punishment and keeps getting back up and getting back up for more, do they?  

So, what’s wrong with us, you ask?  Nothing, we just love what we do.