I spoke to an old friend yesterday on her birthday.  As always, it brought back many memories, including radio wars and beach vacations, as we shared some stories from the past.  We worked together for many years in the radio business back in Fort Wayne, and then for at least a week every year she was part of our family.  Our relationship started on an adversarial note,  pitting her as the Office Manager with strict collection procedures against me as the salesperson trying to get payments from my clients.

Many of my accounts were bars where I would have to wait until closing time to get my money, often  leaving in the middle of the night with thousands of dollars stuffed in a Crown Royal bag.  We had both a “Country” format and a “Top 40” station, and our DJs were paid to entertain by playing music in these area bars.  As a result, I would carry different outfits in the car, including cowboy boots, to fit in with each bar’s respective patrons.  I also had another advertiser who sold discount electronics out of hotel locations on weekends.  He would also pay me in cash, so between the bars and these shows, I would be stuck with a clothes dryer full of cash all weekend, worried about theft or having fantasies about running off with the loot.   She held me accountable for all this business and threatened to cancel some of these events if I didn’t get some of this cash in advance.  I was paid commissions on all these sales, so any delay or cancelation threatened my livelihood.

In addition to cash commissions, I also had access to “trade” opportunities, exchanging advertising for goods and services.  This was a complicated accounting procedure and difficult to manage.  During the early 1980s there were national companies that could provide radio stations with merchandise, trips, cars, etc. for on-air giveaways in exchange for advertising time.  As time went on, many of these companies were shutdown by the IRS for tax evasion.  It was the job of the Office Manager to maintain detailed records for these transactions, while a salesperson like me was compensated with merchandise rather than cash.  For example, if I went out and traded for a snow blower, the supplier would receive an advertising credit for the value of that item and I would receive about 15% of that product’s retail value in merchandise for myself.  I could then purchase groceries, clothing, jewelry, vacations, etc. with these trade credits.  The only catch was that this merchandise that I received personally had to be part of a similar trade with another advertiser or one of these national trade companies.  The problem with these larger companies was that they sometimes demanded two to three times the retail value for highly sought-after items.  As a result, there were constant squabbles between the Office Manager and the salespeople who were conducting these transactions.

The philosophy of the company at that time was “if you can’t trade it, we don’t need it, and if you can trade it – get two!”  It helped with the station’s cash flow, and gave us lots of leverage with listeners and clients who would ultimately receive this merchandise.  In a sense, we were legally bribing people to listen to our stations by offering incentives like cars, boats, snowmobiles, vacations, and jewelry.  Very rarely did we give away cash, because that was a direct expense to the station.  Commercials in exchange for traded items simply filled unused advertising inventory, and therefore wasn’t considered an expense.  In the operation of today’s radio stations, trade is frowned on, but when I was in the business it was definitely encouraged.  I was to be like Monty Hall – “Let’s Make A Deal!”

At one time in my life, nearly everything that I owned was part of a trade.  The apartment that we lived in, the car that we drove, the clothing that I wore, and the groceries we bought were part of trade deals.  I made more “income” through trade compensation than I made through my paycheck.  To give you an idea of how complex this got, I was once part of a trade with a local Physician, who did not want to advertise on our stations, but rather wanted clothing as compensation for his surgical services.  The clothing store also did not want to trade, but needed a snow blower.  As a result, we went to the snow blower distributor and traded them for advertising on our stations.  We then took the snow blower to the clothing store retailer and traded him for clothing.  Finally, the clothing went to the doctor in exchange for a Vasectomy that was performed on one of my fellow salespeople.  The only cash that was ever exchanged on this three-way transaction was from the snow blower dealer to the station for their advertising schedule.  You can begin to see why my former Office Manager, who turned out to be a great friend, was in the uncompromising position of controlling all these transactions, and why we were involved in a few disagreements.

We talked on the phone about the current whereabouts of many of our co-workers, and about family vacations on Siesta Key.  I haven’t seen her in several years, and both of us are now retired, although she has a few current projects that involves our former acquaintances.  It was just another instance of re-connecting with my past, as I’ve done many times this first year of retirement.  By the way, I wouldn’t “trade” it for anything.