Garland was probably about 65-70 years of age in 1969 and like most kids growing up the the Decade of Love, we didn’t care too much for it, we just wanted to be like the big kids, smoke cigarettes, weed and look at girls. Garland would let us in the school to sit around and smoke Winston’s and drink those 10oz Coke’s from the teachers lounge (.15cents,, seriously it was 1969). Garland smoked Pall Malls non-filtered and would laugh as we tried them and coughed and hacked from their harshness. He would tell us stories of growing up and rolling his own from the scraps he swept off the floor from the tobacco factories in North Carolina.

He moved to Virginia Beach when he was 20 to take a job as horn player in a small combo that played the beach house parties every summer, always going home to Carolina in the fall and winter for harvest and then back to Virginia during the summer to play and eek out a living. He was a very kind soul, he showed us how to run the floor wax machine without banging the walls, how to mop a floor without leaving a streak, and how to eat an orange without getting the juice all over your hands (try it sometime). In the next couple of summers, we started seeing less and less of Garland, we were growing up and our attention was drawn to the War in Vietnam, the music of Mott The Hoople, Deep Purple, Led Zepplin and the looks of girls in halter tops and hot pants. By 1974, I’d all but forgot Garland when I happened to be walking near the school on a warm summer afternoon and he stopped, smiled and waved, some how recognizing me from a few years back, now a little taller, a lot skinnier and mostly awkward teenager. We chatted, smoked and had a cold coke. That was the last summer I saw him, I moved north to Maryland with my family that fall and to this day will always remember the massive but gentle man that helped me become part of the person I am today. In a turbulent late 60′s and early 70′s the racial tensions were always high but you would have never known this to be around this gentle man. He told us hooligans once, “it doesn’t pay to hate”.. words to live by even today.

Listen, here’s what YOU as a provider of service, product, or commodity should know BEFORE you spend your money on advertising. Find the right voice to sell the product or idea. Don’t record your own voiced commercial, that’s why professionals like myself have been doing it for decades we’re pros, we know HOW to sell your idea, product or widget. I know, I know you’ve be told “you’ve got a great voice for radio, you should record your commercial” WRONG, I guarantee that the sales rep that told you that, only said that so they would get the buy, anything to get you to sign the contract.

Secondly, let the professionals create the concept idea to successfully promote your product, idea etc. That’s what they are for, they CREATE GREAT advertising campaigns. I know this is probably something you’ve heard before, but I’m just trying to help guide you down the right path.
We (voice over actors, producers, writers, engineers) have been doing this a long time, we KNOW what we’re talking about. Take our advice, listen to our spec spots with an open mind and then make an informed decision. It’s your money, spend it with confidence.

Yeah, I know what I said earlier in my tweets, fb posts and other posts about not joining the social #netdroidian society but I didn’t want to let a potential idea to create an atmosphere to interact, engage, enlighten, entertain and benefit from the bazillions already there by now and perhaps network new ideas and opportunities that may or may not come my way. That being said, I humbly ask forgiveness from the Interwebs patrol squad and invite you to my +

Larson

Asking a question to start the mind working towards selling you the clients product is first and for-most. If you don’t get me in the first two sentences to continue listening to the pitch, I’m gone or mentally tuning your message out or punching the pre-set to another station.

Creative copy writing is key to providing not only commercials that are ear catching but also WORK!. How many times have your potential advertisers said “Radio Doesn’t work for Me”.. too many times I’m sure.  If you’re not writing creative copy that moves the call to action FIRST (not last) then you’re missing the proverbial boat

If you have not mastered the art of creative copy writing, take a class at your local community college, use the intertubes for research, but please, please please stay away from cliche’s like “conveniently located at”  and phone numbers that your listeners will never ever remember unless it’s matched with a phrase Call 1 555 BIGBUCK now!. Write commercials the way you speak and you’ll get a better response, a client that will continue to advertise becase RADIO WORKS!  Gotcha

I find it as refreshing as I did in 1988 when I fell in love with this business we call radio, as a programming ( I really really want to be someday soon) student, I have hopes that someday American radio will take notice of great stations like the aforementioned and take note. It’s all about the passion, the drive and the ambition of our young personalities that will make radio as fun as it was in the past, only now we’ll add social networking, some diggs, tweets, faceplants and a host of other marketing tools to develop our specific brands into fun radio again. Don’t you agree?