There are a lot of postings online about the sudden and unexpected passing of my friend and co-worker Charly Butcher. I took some time to find some video’s that give a glimpse into the Charly we all know and love, but first a run-down of what happened in the past 24 hours.
Wednesday evening, August 15th, 2018, I was at home when my phone notified me that a work email arrived. It was the announcement that Federated Media Fort Wayne Market Manager Jim Allgeier sent us:
It’s with a heavy heart that I am sending this email out right now. Charly Butcher has passed away this afternoon. No details as of yet that I can share.
Over the next couple of hours my co-workers in the advertising sales team at WOWO and I were in communication with each other. Numb and shocked were the words that we used as this was totally out of the blue. We wondered how our WOWO News and Programming co-workers would handle this, as Charly worked daily with them in the studio.
A couple hours later, WOWO sent a news alert via text that Charly had died and they posted the initial story on WOWO.com and shared on Facebook and Twitter. Soon the news teams at WANE-TV and WPTA-TV had the news on their websites and I stayed up to see all three local network affiliates, CBS, ABC and NBC lead their local newscast with the shocking news about Charly Butcher. You can search online to find their stories.
Charly was on vacation this week so his usual fill-in host Steve Shine is on the radio all week.
Thursday morning it was all hands on deck at the studios. Many of us wore our WOWO staff shirts all day. The entire morning program, Fort Wayne’s Morning News with Charly Butcher along with the entire afternoon show, The Pat Miller Program were live and local tributes to Charly. Phone calls, emails, text messages, in studio appearances, social media posts were all shared from former Indiana Governor and current Vice President Mike Pence to Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry. Current and former co-workers and others in the media took part. And of course there were plenty of reminiscing moments from listeners and friends of WOWO and WMEE where Charly first built his reputation in Fort Wayne in the 1980’s.
When Charly Butcher joined WMEE in 1983, I was also on the air at WMEE, but it was 30 years later that our paths crossed again when I rejoined Federated Media in 2013. Charly has now firmly in the news/talk business instead of the top 40 radio business and for nearly 5 years now, I’ve had the pleasure of working with him as we would brainstorm ideas for my WOWO advertising partners or just reminisce about our old WMEE days.
Sometimes when you work in local media like Charly did, you don’t realize the impact you are having on peoples lives. Over 3,000 people shared the original Facebook posting and the link on the WOWO.com website crashed as so many people were trying to find out what happened.
A hashtag #RememberCharly is being used on Facebook and Twitter if you care to join in or simply read.
I took some time to find a few videos from the past to share:
Quite a different persona than those who listened to him on WOWO radio, but still the same radio dude.
Here’s at promo clip from when WOWO began our TV simulcast:
As WOWO’s FM signal is now at 107.5FM the TV simulcast is now found on MyTV.
Charly emceeing one of the numerous events in our community from 2009:
Charly never lost his sense of humor at WOWO as evident in this clip from 2011:
Penny Pitch 2013:
Charly got the hang of being both on WOWO and TV:
Charly loved portraying himself as “The Grinch”:
Charly played tribute to another Fort Wayne institution a few years ago:
The last post from Charly on his Facebook page the day before he passed away shows one side of his personality:
Let me leave you with this clip from a couple years ago as Charly tells his story to students at Croninger Elementary in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Follow the official post and comment at WOWO.com .
Time to introduce myself, again for some of you that I’ve known for awhile, and perhaps for the first time if you are unfamiliar with this website and podcast.
This is episode 75 of the weekly podcast titled, The Genuine ScLoHo Media & Marketing Podcast.
Launched in early 2017 as a request from a couple of the managers at Federated Media in Fort Wayne, Indiana, they were asked to create a sales and marketing oriented podcast and they asked me if I would consider doing it.
See this ScLoHo thing has been around for quite awhile. On the ScottHoward.me website are over 13 hundred articles I have written, edited and published since 2011 and the Genuine ScLoHo Media & Marketing Podcast is simply an audio version of most of the articles I have created since March, 2017.
The history of ScLoHo however is much longer that that.
And before we dig into that history, I want to clear something up about what ScLoHo is.
ScLoHo began as an email address and grew into an online moniker, identity and nickname. I even registered a marketing company with the ScLoHo name. ScLoHo is a made up word that takes the first two letters of my first name, middle and last names and mashes them together. Scott Louis Howard becomes ScLoHo. Look for me on Twitter, Instagram and nearly any other social media site that I am on as ScLoHo. Before launching the ScottHoward.me website, I published over 10,000 articles on ScLoHo branded blogs starting around 2005.
So ScLoHo and Scott Howard, that’s me, are synonymous.
I began working in the media world as a teenager when my high school launched a radio station. After school, I landed my first full time job on the air in Marion, Indiana at WBAT, followed by WIOU in Kokomo, WMEE in Fort Wayne, WKSY in Columbia City, WZWZ in Kokomo, and WXIR in Indianapolis. At all of these stations, I worked on the air as a disc jockey and radio personality.
Life changed when I turned 26. I crossed over to the advertising side of the radio business. I was impressed by the philosophy that the Crawford Broadcasting Company had regarding the relationship between the listeners, the radio station and the advertisers. I moved my young family to work for WMUZ in Detroit, one of a dozen Crawford stations at the time. My job was to write and produce advertising campaigns.
I loved the challenge and learning that occurred during my 8 years at WMUZ. I also did fill-in work in the afternoon and spent about a year hosting WMUZ’s morning show in Detroit. My first venture as an advertising salesperson was also at WMUZ.
The philosophy that I learned related to the trust factor we as people have. WMUZ was and is a commercial Christian radio station that has a special bond with their thousands of weekly listeners. Listeners trust the WMUZ radio personalities. Those personalities often talk about their advertising partners and so that trust factor is passed along to the businesses that advertise. WMUZ listeners trust that the businesses that advertise on their station are trustworthy.
My job was not just to create effective advertising campaigns, but to screen out the bad businesses from the good. I carry this philosophy today as I consider which businesses I want to work with at WOWO radio in Fort Wayne.
In the mid 1990’s, we decided to leave Detroit and return to Indiana. I worked on the radio again in Fort Wayne at WBTU, WFWI, WGL and WAJI. Between 1995 and 2003, along with some part-time radio work and voice over production I was doing, I took a few blue collar jobs too in the printing business, the plastics industry and even automotive.
2003 was the year that I returned to media and marketing full-time in Fort Wayne when I joined a group of radio stations in the advertising sales side of the business. I spent 8 years rising as high as one could advance at that company before I was lured away to work for a website development company and later manage the social media for a $50 million dollar internet sales company.
Kevin, Ric and me. Picture snapped by my friend Ryan Recker.
I also served on the Board of Directors for the American Advertising Federation/Fort Wayne Chapter for 7 years. I taught personal branding seminars, guest lectured at a local university, was featured in some national publications including the Wall Street Journal, won a few awards and have had a lot of fun. I have consulted and coached businesses doing newspaper and magazine ads, billboard advertising, social media and all kinds of internet marketing, along with television and event marketing. More recently I was featured on an international podcast for broadcasters to share what it takes to be successful in broadcasting.
I only share all this with you because I want you to have confidence in the Scott Howard dude a.k.a. ScLoHo, that I’m not just hear to sell you stuff. I am here to help. I’m here to teach, to consult, to advise, to coach and even guide you through the process of marketing you and your business.
Human Relationship Principles are the heart of most successful marketing and advertising efforts and I can help you employ them with your business, organization, or event.
I have learned a lot from a lot of people and continue to learn more and more every week. If you have any marketing or advertising questions or answers, I’d love to talk with you.
This week, we are going to talk about a subject that goes beyond media and marketing, it’s about being Authentic and Appropriate.
The backstory on this subject is that being Authentic and Appropriate is how I strive to live my life. However I was recently talking to a new friend who works in the radio and podcasting industry and he mentioned those words and I felt a new podcast and blog post article was in order.
I’m in my 50’s and I recall half a lifetime ago (in my mid 20’s) working in Detroit. I went from being a t-shirt and jeans wearing radio disc jockey to wearing a sports coat and tie everyday because I was switching over to the advertising side of radio and would be meeting with business owners every week.
Two versions of the early Scott Howard aka ScLoHo
With help from my family, I spiffed up my wardrobe and became an equal to the business people I would meet with. At least that was the impression I was trying to convey. I probably carried it off pretty well, or is it pretty good? See, I really don’t care which is grammatically appropriate, that’s my authentic self talking.
But back to the subject of being Authentic and Appropriate. We want to trust people and trust the businesses run by people. Being Authentic is key. However, you need to temper your authenticity with being appropriate. In my personal example, if I decided I never wanted to wear a tie and sports coat when I took the job in Detroit, because I wanted to be the authentic Scott Howard radio guy who only wore jeans, I wouldn’t have lasted. Instead, I decided to grow my wardrobe and who I was. I didn’t toss all my jeans and t-shirts, I just wore them in my casual settings.
Now let’s see how this can apply to your business. What are some characteristics of you and your business that are important and needed to inspire trust and confidence?
Two examples come to mind of people I’ve met with recently. There’s the pharmacist that wears a white lab coat with his name on it. In his off hours, he can be seen in shorts, and barefoot wearing a t-shirt. If he dressed like that during business hours, he would lose the trust and confidence of his customers in many cases.
The other example is my favorite heating and cooling company. All of their techs wear clothing with brand logos and their trucks are also branded so when they pull up in your driveway, you know who it is. Imagine someone pulling up in a rusted out van wearing tattered jeans and an old sweatshirt coming over to check out the furnace. My wife wouldn’t open the door to someone like that. Not that she is a snob, she wants to feel secure that the person is trustworthy and appearances count.
You can apply this authentic and appropriate principle to all you do and to all your employees too. Be yourself, let others get to know you, but don’t share questionable stuff unless you are prepared to face the consequences.
And that brings me back to the media and marketing of your business. In all of your ads, skip the hype and keep the fine print to a minimum. Yes, you may need to have some disclaimers for legal purposes, but please don’t be a shyster. We as consumers want to spend money with businesses that we believe are honest and trustworthy.
I started out telling you that what prompted me to write this piece was a conversation with a new friend. His name is Matt Cundill and for a couple of years he has been hosting a radio insider podcast from his home in Canada. Matt is an extremely talented voice talent and his podcast is targeted to people in the programming side of radio which is his background. Here’s a link to the podcast that I was on, or just search for the Sound Off Podcast, Matt posted his interview with me on May 1st, 2018.
Matt summed up our conversation with these words,
The more I spoke to Scott about what makes a successful sales person, the more I realized that it has more in common with being on the air. Be authentic, tell the truth, work with the long term in mind…
I bought a car this month and thought I’d share some lessons for you and your business in this essay I’m calling Selling a Salesperson.
While I am keenly aware of the process because of my profession, the general public is more aware of the tactics too than ever before. Here’s the list of 9 observations I wrote right after buying my car:
Customers may be smarter or better informed than you.
Over reliance on certain sales phrases can actually work against you.
Ask the right questions and pay attention to the answers.
Using your customers name is nice, except when you get it wrong.
Upselling works with some people but you have to be straight with your customer.
Customers can walk away if they don’t like the deal you are offering.
Tracking your advertising is usually a guessing game at best.
Honesty wins and builds trust.
Follow through helps with referrals and additional sales.
As I share my story, see how it applies to you and your business and what lessons you can apply to make things better for all.
My wife, Kathy, was driving home from a friends house and noticed the temperature gauge on her 1999 Chevy Lumina was sneaking into the danger zone so she pulled over and let it cool down before heading all the way back to our place. She took it to our mechanic who popped open the hood, opened a few things and pronounced the verdict: blown head-gasket.
(Kathy found this car a few years ago as a steal. Only 30,000 miles and in decent shape. Since then she has racked up another 20,000 miles and we’ve had to replace a couple tires, but she loves this classic beast.)
When I heard about the situation, I knew we were not going to spend a thousand bucks or more on this no matter how much attachment my wife had to her baby. I followed the advice of a friend to try a special sealant and when that failed, I started shopping.
I started the process online, doing research and asking the auto experts in my family that I trust for recommendations. On Friday night, while I’m at a hockey game, they are sending me links to cars they found online in my price range that were recommended. Saturday I narrowed it down from 10 to 2 cars and then Sunday, when the car dealers were closed, I visited and checked the two contenders out in person.
By this time, we decided that I was going to get a new (used) car and my wife was going to reluctantly inherit mine. Not that she didn’t want my car, but she LOVED hers and it was hard to consider saying goodbye to her baby.
Sunday night, I decided which car I was going to buy. It was because of who I was buying from more than anything else. A Toyota Prius from a used car dealer or a Honda Fit from the Honda Dealer, and I decided the Honda Fit would likely be my next ScLoHoMobile. After doing my online research, it was my gut that told me to check out the Fit and I sent the dealer a note that I was interested using the online form on their website.
Monday morning, I got a phone call from Ross, one of the sales guys at Don Ayres Honda to set up a test drive for 12:30. Remember point 1: Customers may be smarter or better informed than you.
When I arrived at the dealership, I knew who I was looking for because I looked on the Don Ayres website and saw a picture of Ross. I surprised him when I arrived and simply said, “Hi Ross, I’m Scott Howard.” It caught him off guard because we had never met in person before, but I did my research.
Your potential customers are also doing their research and may know more than you realize
In my case, I was better informed than Ross on this vehicle. I spent a few hours researching not just this model but also this particular car using the free Carfax that was in the online listing. When we got in for the test drive, Ross told me he didn’t know how to drive a manual transmission which was not problem for me, I did.
When I walked in and told started my conversation with Ross, before the test drive, I told him I was planning on buying the Honda Fit if the test drive checked out and the deal was good. I knew what options I had with payments so I was 95% sold before Ross saw me.
Before the test drive, Ross asked me numerous routine questions that would be used to start the finance process and I started noticing point #2: Over reliance on certain sales phrases can actually work against you. No matter what I said, he responded with, “Great!”, “Fantastic!”, or some other positive affirmation. Some of my answers were certainly not worthy of a “Fantastic!” like when I told him I’ve lived in my current house for nearly 4 years. I almost tossed in a comment like, “my Dad died”, just to see if I’d get a “Great!” but I controlled my tongue.
Which brings me to point #3: Ask the right questions and pay attention to the answers. Ross was not paying attention to the answers I was giving him. At one point in our conversation he asked me if I wanted to look at any other cars, I told him, “no, I’m hear to buy the Honda Fit.” A few minutes later he offered to show me some other cars and again I reminded him, “I’m here to buy the Honda Fit.”
Point #4: Using your customers name is nice, except when you get it wrong. My name is Scott, yet I counted at least 3 times that he called me Steve in our interaction. When I looked over the paperwork, I double checked that it said Scott Howard and not Steve Howard. I’ve been guilty of this every once in awhile myself but I am much better because I decided to overcome this kind of mistake.
Finally it was time for me to talk with Taylor in Finance. I had a few minutes between the time I was first introduced to her and when we went to her office to work out the final details so I Googled her from my smartphone and found her LinkedIn profile. From that I learned that this was her first job in automotive and she had been there less than a year. I knew where she went to college and that she had worked in a coffee shop awhile ago. In my conversation with her, as she was trying to get me to buy stuff I didn’t want to buy, I sprinkled some of the information I learned into our talk, not in a creepy way, but just enough to throw off her pacing of her sales pitch.
This part of the car buying process is not my favorite but I’ve made it a game. Taylor was there to seal the deal and get as much money from me as possible. Those Finance people are also sales people, sometimes better than the salesperson on the floor. Which brings me to our next point: Upselling works with some people but you have to be straight with your customer.
Because I was buying a used car that was out of warranty, they offered me three additional warranty options. Each time I declined. Why? I did the math and I knew my own risk tolerance. The first option would add $100 to my monthly payment for the life of my loan. That would mean paying about $5,000 extra. I knew that if I needed a repair for my Honda Fit that cost anywhere up to $5000, I had the means to pay for it myself. The other options she offered were not anything I wanted either.
Under most circumstances, customers have an alternative to spending money with you.
Remember I was 95% sold on buying the Honda Fit from Don Ayres Honda, before I talked to Ross or Taylor. It was their deal to lose. Because, point #6: Customers can walk away if they don’t like the deal you are offering.
In the end, I bought the car and Taylor asked me to tell her how I decided to shop at Don Ayres that day by using a tracking sheet, On a sheet of paper where various advertising and marketing options and I was asked to circle the one that fit. I circled the Cars.com logo and no further questions were asked. Point #7: Tracking your advertising is usually a guessing game at best.
Cars.com is not why I bought the car from Don Ayres. It just happened to be the website that first introduced me to the car along with several others. And it really wasn’t the website, it was my son-in-law who sent me a link to the car and also recommended both the car and dealership to me. Cars.com didn’t deserve credit for that sale. But when I was given the choices on the sheet of paper, my son-in law was not listed as one of the choices.
If you want to track the effectiveness of your advertising and marketing, you need to ask the right questions otherwise you are bound to get inaccurate answers.
Point #8: Honesty wins and builds trust. I may be coming off a little harsh as you read this, but overall I really like Don Ayres Honda and here’s a couple reasons why. Ross told me at the beginning of our conversation that he is not a car guy. Not that he doesn’t like cars, but he is more like me, someone who doesn’t know all the ins and outs of what’s under the hood and I really don’t care, except for my car. My expectations are that everything works and that leads me to what happened after the sale was complete…
I noticed when Ross and I were talking that there was only one key, so I asked for them to provide me with a second key as part of the deal. No problem. That night however I noticed two additional items that were not discovered during the test drive. The interior dome light was not working and the heater blower only worked on high speed. I wrote an email to Ross and mentioned that I was sure that these couple of items were probably overlooked by the service department when they prepped the car for sale, and I asked them if they would fix the light and heater.
Ross introduced me to one of Don Ayres Service Advisors, Pete, and got permission from Carlo, the Used Car Manager to get those items taken care of at no charge. Pete gave me his business card that included his cell number and told me that he would let me know when the parts would be in and we booked an appointment to get everything taken care of.
Which brings me to our final point: Follow through helps with referrals and additional sales.
The day I came in to get the repairs made on my new Honda Fit, Pete told me that Ross is no longer working for Don Ayres, but if there was anything I needed, to please contact him (Pete). There was a slight hiccup in the repair paperwork that Pete took care of and I have written positive reviews online and shared with friends and family my experience and recommendation for Don Ayres Honda. As you can tell, everything was not perfect and smooth sailing but that was okay.
What matters most is how you take care of those customers and potential customers along the way.
I learned somethings about the way I conduct myself in business, what lessons can you apply to you and your business?
This year, 2018 there are going to be multiple anniversaries of events that happened half a century ago.
1968.
It was a year had many life changing events including civil rights battles, political assassinations, and even some good stuff too.
I was there, but I wasn’t too.
I was just an eight year old kid.
Getting ready to get hosed down after a muddy day at Franke Park Day Camp
My youth was the 60’s and 70’s, yet I really didn’t pay much attention to the events of the world. As kids, we didn’t care.
News came to us in the daily newspaper, but I wanted to read the comics.
Instead of 24 hour cable news channels, you had to sit down for the half hour national news from CBS, ABC, or NBC at the scheduled time when it was delivered live in the early evening.
Radio stations were mostly music with brief newscasts. WOWO radio was the dominate station in Fort Wayne, (and still is).
I was reading this pictorial history from the Atlantic today and noticed that it was 50 years ago that the Beatles released their White Album, but I wasn’t into music yet. I was just 8 years old and it wasn’t until I turned 11 that I bought my first record.
Many of you who read this weren’t born yet, or like me you were just a kid and enjoying kid stuff.
And living through those times in the 60’s and 70’s were not personally life changing for the most part. What mattered more was what was going on in the lives of the people around me, my parents and friends.
A couple of closing thoughts:
Despite the ability to know anything, anytime, on demand, don’t get sucked in to the day to day news that will be hardly a memory years from now. It will wear you out, unnecessarily.
Let your kids be kids.
You might think that I’d be emotionally scared from living through a year that had so much turmoil, but no, it was just a blip because I got to pay attention to kid stuff and not adult stuff.
As I mentioned at the beginning, Hindsight is fascinating.
20 years from now or even 50, I wonder what events in this year will be remembered?
It’s time for Penny Pitch and time to share with you what I know about The Heart of the WOWO Radio Listener.
First let me share with you what Penny Pitch is all about. Penny Pitch began in 1948, as a way for WOWO radio listeners to give to help those in need. It continues today with our two day radiothon Thursday and Friday, which I’ll tell you more about in a moment.
I’m also including some of the audio in the podcast version. Bob Chase tells the story of how WOWO’s Jay Gould got a letter from a mom of a handicapped son. There was a special typewriter that was very expensive at the time, about $1900 and that typewriter would be a real blessing to this young man. Jay read the letter on the air and told listeners that if they had a couple of pennies they could contribute to mail them in to WOWO. Pretty soon, they raised over $7000 and most of it was in pennies.
Over the years WOWO’s Penny Pitch Charity has raised a tremendous amount of money for wonderful families and fantastic local charities.
Penny Pitch is still going strong and has a separate board of volunteers that select each years local charity based on the applications we receive.
When I joined WOWO in December 2013, my first week was the week of WOWO’s gas station promotion for Penny Pitch. Pat Miller broadcasts his afternoon talk show from the Phil’s One Stop Marathon gas station in Georgetown Square and listeners drop off their pennies and folding money into the orange buckets. In 2013 Turnstone was the charity that would be getting all of the Penny Pitch donations and my eyes were opened to what made WOWO listeners different from the listeners of other stations I had worked for previously.
That difference was the heart of the listeners.
That December day in 2013 was miserable weather-wise. It was not only snowy but cold and windy. But in the last hour, I met a young man who made an extra special effort to join us that afternoon.
He and his wife were from Indianapolis and moved to Fort Wayne earlier that year when they discovered their young daughter needed special care. Friends told them about the services of Turnstone and they were blessed to get the help they needed. This young man, in his early 30’s was also a WOWO radio listener and when it was announced that Turnstone was going to be receiving the Penny Pitch donations in 2013, he started collecting funds on his own at his office.
When I met him that afternoon 4 years ago, he came with a huge jar stuffed with money that his friends, co-workers and acquaintances had donated. He drove across town in that lousy weather to personally thank Nancy, the executive director of Turnstone at the time and WOWO for selecting Turnstone for Penny Pitch. By the time he finished telling me and Nancy his story and handed over the jar filled with donations of love and money, everyone of us had tears streaming down our faces.
Here’s what stuck with me that day about the heart of the WOWO Radio Listener compared to what I saw at many of the radio stations I worked for previously. At the other stations, listeners tuned in to see what they could get by winning. WOWO listeners tuned in to see what they could give to help others.
I’m going to wrap this up with an opportunity to join us for this years Penny Pitch Radiothon.
December 14th and December 15th… Thursday and Friday, Fort Wayne’s Morning News with Charly Butcher and the Pat Miller Program in the afternoon will be devoted to raising funds for Shepherd’s House in Fort Wayne. Listen all day and tell your friends and family. We know the WOWO Radio Listener Family will give generously like you have for decades. Thank you for your support and involvement.
Life changed when I turned 26. I crossed over to the advertising side of the radio business. I was impressed by the philosophy that the Crawford Broadcasting Company had regarding the relationship between the listeners, the radio station and the advertisers. I moved my young family to work for WMUZ in Detroit, one of a dozen Crawford stations at the time. My job was to write and produce advertising campaigns.
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