OOH …Here’s One Thing
by Jim Johnsen,
Managing Director, Johnsen, Fretty & Company
Quick shout out to the guys at Heritage Outdoor Media and BH3 Management for their investment into Las Vegas. They are partnering with a terrific operator with some of the best inventory in the market. More on that exciting news to follow.
If you wanna go and take a ride wit me
We three-wheelin’ in the fo’ with the gold D’s
Oh why do I live this way?
(Hey) Must be the money! – Honeyboy Edwards, off the “I’ve Been Around” Album
Ever ride a potential client at night? My guess is not too many outdoor sales people can say yes to that…but what a shame! since outdoor looks even better at night. But before I get to that, let me get to this.
When’s the last time you thought about the banjo? For me it was the opening scene from Deliverance in 1972:
If you have never seen this scene, please please please give it a listen. I promise you will not be disappointed. And yes there is a lot more I could say about the movie, but I will leave it alone, except for the $4.99 for a tankful of gas in this scene and its Georgia, darn it, not West Virginia.
But yes, I digress and I truly am showing my lack of culture here. I didn’t even know that there was a Banjo Toss Competition (as well as the Brooklyn Folk Festival) in Brooklyn NY each fall, before penning this little OOH Today entry.
Brooklyn Folk Festival: Banjo Toss Competition – Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club
How about that! Given that February is Black History Month, it might be worth mentioning that the predecessor to the Banjo originated in Africa and was most likely brought to U.S. by slaves who relatively quickly weaved it deeply into American culture:
“Historically, the banjo occupied a central place in Black American traditional music and rural folk culture before entering the mainstream via the minstrel shows of the 19th century. Along with the fiddle, the banjo is a mainstay of American styles of music, such as bluegrass and old-time music. It is also very frequently used in Dixieland jazz, as well as in Caribbean genres like beguine, calypso, mento and troubadour.” (Wiki)
Interested in a deeper history of the banjo? If you have already made quota for the week and are looking to learning something completely irrelevant to your business life, click through here (some good history in here though, I will admit…if you only have a minute jump to minute 11):
Johnsen, you are farther out in left field than usual. Which is a lot. What gives?
Selling outdoor is not for the faint of heart. It’s hard and complicated. Learning to sell it is not too easy. All too often I see young unseasoned sales people getting all their training by solely shadowing more seasoned professionals, or worse yet getting thrown to the wolves to figure it out by themselves. So a hypothetical question to all you guys and gals out there that experience time to time frustration (or maybe everyday frustration) around finding and retaining great sales people. You wouldn’t just hand them a banjo and say, “hey riff me off some rolls, would you?”
You would in fact want them and expect them to get formal instruction (aka – https://youtu.be/Tm4ZJWTQXng?si=CU_hOPLy-rbQkrWa) and give them enough time to practice after this instruction. So (he says tongue and cheek)…doesn’t it make sense to teach someone to sell just the way you would teach them how to play the banjo (i.e. taking something really friggin complicated and breaking it down into hard laborious parts and still leaving room for nuance)?
Just some fertilizer for thought. Outtake: If this little riff doesn’t get you going, you need a new brand of coffee.
Securities transacted through StillPoint Capital Member firm FINRA/SiPC
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