Forsyth Barr Stadium, November 18, 2015

[michelej1]

From the Lip: Words of Wisdom, Farming Show

From the Lip Monday, 30 November 2015, 11:45AM

http://www.farmingshow.com/opinion/f...rds-of-wisdom/

If you ever needed proof that some things are indeed timeless, you’d need look no further than Fleetwood Mac’s recent concert tour of New Zealand.

More than 100,000 Baby Boomers and several thousand considerably younger, flocked to Dunedin and Auckland to relive their glory days and savour the soundtrack of their youth.

I’ll come back to Fleetwood Mac but I want to tie music into a farming theme. Farmers, without necessarily knowing it, are great connoisseurs and consumers of music. I think back to my farming days in the distant past and I’m endlessly thankful for the grounding it gave me in music. I spent countless hours in the woolshed, the farm ute or on a tractor listening to music.

Unlike today’s plethora of music radio stations, back then we only had three in Southland to choose from. It goes without saying there were no digital options. Radios in the non-air conditioned cabs of tractors were somewhat rudimentary and of the push-button, station-select variety. I reckon long hours on the tractor taught me to recognise thousands of songs within two or three notes. I became adept at pushing the select button within seconds if the musical fare was not of my liking. I can honestly claim to have learned all the words to Bohemian Rhapsody and Hotel California on the tractor. It stood me in good stead for pub quiz nights and what unwittingly lay ahead.

When I started in the radio game 21 years ago I got three pieces of business advice I’ve never forgotten. I’d like to share them.

The first came from the old farmer who owned the building which housed the radio station we were about to buy. While he openly told us he thought we were mad, he tempered that by saying, “you never regret the things you do, you regret the things you don’t do”. That has been a great adage by which to live your life. No matter what your walk of life, you don’t want to die wondering “what if?” How many farmers look back and wonder what might have been had they bought that neighbouring block 20 years ago?

The second pearl of wisdom came from a private radio broadcasting veteran who was blessed with a million dollar voice but far from a million dollar bank balance. He told me “it’s not how you sound, it’s how you sell”. By that he meant you can have the best product in the world but if you’re no good at marketing yourself and selling the benefits of your product, you will not flourish or profit. How many times have we seen that in the farming industry? Look no further than the sheep stud stock industry.

The third gem came from another radio veteran and this guy was really on to it. His advice was to identify a niche in the market, own that space and make sure you’re the first cab off the rank. You don’t necessarily have to be the best but it really helps to be first. A fine farming example of that is the North Island dairy farmers who came south in the early 1990s and were rewarded handsomely.

His other advice was that when you programme a music station you need to once again target your niche audience and understand its demographics. From there you can identify your stereotypical listener. In our case back in 1994 we decided it was a 35 year old Southland sheep farmer who loved his rugby and a few beers after a hard day at the office. You then proceed to identify the music he was listening to when he was 18 and that is where you pitch your programming. So for our 35 year old listener in 1994 we needed to subtract 17 years to get him back to 18. From there we landed fairly and squarely in 1977.

And what was the biggest album of 1977 worldwide? None other, of course, than Rumours from Fleetwood Mac. They were a messed-up bunch who made an epic album off the back of screwed up (quite literally) personal lives. Plus it did them no harm at all that Stevie Nicks was really hot at the time!

Incidentally our 35 year old listener from 1994 is now 56 years old which makes him the age of your average sheep farmer in 2015. And I’d bet his best ram from the back paddock that he made the journey up the road from Southland to Forsyth Barr Stadium a couple of weeks ago to relive his glory days and once again savour the soundtrack of his youth.

[elle]

Originally Posted by michelej1

And what was the biggest album of 1977 worldwide? None other, of course, than Rumours from Fleetwood Mac. They were a messed-up bunch who made an epic album off the back of screwed up (quite literally) personal lives. Plus it did them no harm at all that Stevie Nicks was really hot at the time!

no harm.