Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Jeff & Rich are the featured guests on MSNBC`s Your Business show this Sunday morning.

The show airs at 7:30am ET.

StartupNation`s Chief Startupologists were on the show in January and rocked the house. You can bet they`ll do it again and make all of us here in the StartupNation community proud.

Tune in to find out!!

4:30 am? I think I`ll let the DVD recorder handle that one ... 

`  4:30 am? I think I`ll let the DVD recorder handle that one ..`

Well, it beats Startup Radio, which airs in stellar markets like CLOVIS, New Mexico @ 12am Mondays, or Utica, NY @ 2am Mondays.

Maybe they can snag Imus`s spot.

I don`t know, that might be too much of a morality increase for people to handle it in the same slot as he was.

I agree.

But the media buy really needs to improve. I can`t hear it in my market (Charlotte), my second office (Boston) <ok, a tiny am station in Hamilton, if that counts>, or even where most of my clients are (Chapel Hill/RTP).

I know, I know - listen on the internet, but the three markets I just mentioned are all major entrepreneurial hubs. Same with Silicon Valley, Austin, Minneapolis - all of the major startup capitals of our country. I think they all could use what SuN has to offer, and sure, it`s expensive - that`s what sponsorships and advertising spots are for. Sure, San Francisco @ 4pm Saturday isn`t bad, but nothing in the valley. How come?

Looking at the list, I`m pretty unimpressed. The air times, in most cases, are horrible. It just makes us look bad.

6:30 am, I`ll get up, I wouldn`t want to miss it!  Call me and wake me.

I want to clarify an earlier statement I made. I don`t think the show is bad, I think it`s great. It`s the media buy and scheduling in small markets that limit it`s exposure to lots of people like ourselves who could benefit from it.

I would look at a top 10 or top 20 market broadcast strategy and invest there, versus `500 stations`, many of which are in the middle of nowhere or air the show in the middle of the night. My guess is that the syndication is either free to the stations that air it - thus the run-of-schedule air times - or not enough local spots (or any?) that they can sell, thus giving their programming directors little incentive to give it better air times. Either way, the media buy needs some work.

The MSNBC gig is a great opportunity, and I plan to get up to watch it as well. I am not a single-digit-hour person, but I`ll make an exception in this case. Good luck guys!

I saw it! I posted in a different thread because I didn`t know this was here. I just happened to be flipping through the channels and I caught the show!

ah yes, the difficulties of getting "cleared" on radio stations across the country. fyi, we don`t "buy" the time. we`re syndicated. unfortunately, the majority of the stations our syndicator has in its network are smaller ones. the big stations in the list at our radio show page are ones that we went after directly, outside of our syndicator. we don`t pay to be on those stations either. the arrangement is what`s called a "barter", where some of the commercials are available to us to sell, and some are available to the station on national syndicator to sell.

we would LOVE to be on the best stations in all markets, but for now, that only is the case in about 4 of our markets.

stay tunes, though, for we shall not relent - we`ll keep trying to get clearance on the A+ stations wherever we can.

until then, see you at low wattage or online!

rich


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Rich Sloan , Co-Founder, Chief Startupologist, StartupNation

Rich,

Thank you for the explanation. This helps  my understanding of this subject a lot.

You know, maybe Radio America isn`t the way to go. I`m sure it`s easier to use a syndication service, but like you said, the larger markets are the ones you went after directly with both national and local spots available to sell. No one can sell you like you, and that shows in the lineup of top-market stations like San Francisco.

The entrepreneurial thing to do, in my opinion, would be to not renew the RA deal, but put together your own target market list and go after them yourself. Tons of work, to be sure, but it would result in a list you can be proud of, sell to new markets better, and gain momentum on. As it stands, I`m not sure, as an advertiser, I would be all that impressed with the current list not knowing the explanation you just provided above.

Ok, so it would be more work, require a full-time sales rep/collateral/trade show attendance and all the rest, but the reach would really be rewarding. Just a thought.

Let`s face it - you guys are a hell of a lot more interesting than Cigar Dave, and look at his footprint...