In my current gig most of my meetings are held via conference call or via WebEx. Many of my initial conversations go something like this:
ME: Thank you for calling Cisco. This is Brian Taylor. How may we help you?
PERSON I’VE NEVER SPOKEN WITH BEFORE: (brief pause) Hello?
ME: Hi, this is Brian. How are you?
PERSON: Wow! You sounded so professional/you sounded just like a recording/you have a great voice! You should be on the radio/you should do voice work/you should be an announcer!
ME: Well, thank you. Old radio habits die hard.
PERSON: I knew it!
Occasionally I will get asked the following question:
PERSON: So, why aren’t you working in radio?
ME: I love what I am doing now and I always have the option of going back in to radio if the right opportunity comes along.
That ‘right opportunity’ has not come along yet. When (not if) I get back in to radio, it will be on my own terms. Ideally I will buy a block of time on a station, host my own show, and cover my hard costs with sponsors I know personally or that I know will be a great fit for the type of audience I am targeting.
Every once in a great while someone will ask me why I got in to radio in the first place. It seems, s/he says, that I am wasting my talent by not being on the air. It’s a fair question that deserves a fair answer. Let’s see how well I do…
As far back as I can remember people have told me that I have a nice/good/great speaking voice. In elementary school I was often picked to read aloud to the class. In high school I was often picked to do some type of role play that involved speaking to the class.
Two years after graduating from high school I decided to follow my dream of working in the radio industry. I enrolled in a seven-month course at the long-ago-defunct American Technical Center and dove headfirst into the radio business. I was lucky enough to get my first radio gig just before I graduated. I was also confronted head-on with the realities of what I was getting in to. I learned very quickly that if I wanted to make radio my career I was going to have to move A LOT to build my “experience level”. This fact, coupled with the fact that I had moved around A LOT as a kid, caused me to think really hard about what I should do. I wanted a level of stability for my family that I never had. What really did it for me was having my paychecks from the station bounce one too many times. While it was hard to leave it was better than putting my family through the rigors of a gypsy-like lifestyle.
I have worked in radio twice since my first gig in radio. All the details can be found here. My radio experience also gave me the chance to have the best gig I have ever had and has allowed me to continue to speak with audiences of all sizes and backgrounds.
The only thing I miss about being behind the mic is the connection I had with the audience. It takes both talent AND many thousands of hours of try-and-fail effort to learn how to have a conversation with an audience of a gazillion people and have each one of them feel as if you are speaking with just them, one-on-one, no one else on the planet but the two of you. By the way, if you still feel this connection with your favorite radio person(s), please let them know. Radio is changing just like everything else and your favorite radio person(s) may be gone before your know it.
For now, I will love radio from afar. As things change in my life I look forward to the day when I can sit in the hot seat, have my producer queue up the callers, bumpers, and spots, and watch the ON AIR light turn on as I hit the mic button.
