Joe and I went back a few years as salesmen (the term salesperson wasn’t in common use in 1983) at WWVA- Radio in Wheeling, WV.
“It’s an out of state area code, so I thought you might want to call back right away.” Joe watched my face for any sign of recognition, eager to see if I had any information to share. He returned to his desk disappointed.
It’s true I didn’t recognize the number, but I knew the area code meant Pittsburgh, and any number that ended in three zeros must be important, so I made an excuse to leave the bullpen, and head for the payphone in the back of the lingerie department of Stone and Thomas.
“Good Morning, KDKA Radio, how may I connect your call?”
If country music giant WWVA-AM was the 50,000 Watt voice of the Ohio Valley, the coal miners, and the steelworkers, KDKA-AM was the 50,000 Watt news and talk king of the neighboring tri-state region. It was also the voice of the Steelers, the Pirates, and the Penguins. KDKA was big-time radio.
The number I dialed was picked up on the third ring, which I felt lent a very professional air to the call, and made me think of Loretta, our receptionist at WWVA, who answered the phone whenever she got around to it. Loretta was hired to work the front desk even though her husband was the sales manager for a competing station, because she had a great first name, like Loretta Lynn, and she was a greater fan of WWVA than her husband’s radio station. But she still wasn’t fast on the phone.
“May I speak to Gene Burrows please? I'm a sales rep from WWVA Radio in Wheeling returning his call." I was on hold for just a few seconds.
“Well hello! This is Gene Burrows, sales manager here at KDKA. We’ve been hearing some interesting things about you up here. I wonder if you’d like to interview for a position with us?”
I was excited to hear that Gene sounded black. I figured if a black man could be a sales manager up there in Pittsburgh, maybe a woman could be too. In preparation for the interview, I went to Sears and bought a grey suit, with an aqua pinstripe and a fake hanky in the breast pocket. It took me almost a week to find a blouse to match the pinstripe exactly.
My appointment was scheduled for the third-floor conference room of the KDKA TV/Radio offices in Three Gateway Center. This was the age of one of Pittsburgh’s first Renascence. There have been several since, but the one in the early 80’s really took. There were new parking garages and downtown malls and lots of new ways to get turned around.
On the day of the interview I was greeted as I came out of the elevator. Gene nearly shouted. “How ya doin’? Find your way all the way up here to Pittsburgh okay?” He was handsome and well dressed and seemed extremely at home in this big building. “And I see you bought a new suit for the occasion. Nice stuff!”
Gene walked me to a glass-walled conference room with a long shiny table that could seat at least 16 people.
“Is anyone else joining us?” I asked while looking at all the chairs and deciding where to sit.
“No, just us for now. Roxanne, our station manager, may join us after we talk a bit.”
I took the chair at the head of the table and twirled around a bit. “Nice chairs!” I took a 360-degree twirl. “Do they all go around like that?”
Gene laughed. “They sure do.”
“Neat.” I took a minute to look out over the central area of the KDKA sales offices. There were a lot of young, good looking people walking around. They all looked like they had someplace important to go and were in a hurry to get there. A few stopped to glance in at Gene and me. “Who are all those people?” I asked.
“They’re secretaries, traffic coordinators, copywriters, producers...” He jumped up from his seat and tapped on the glass. “Hi Brad!” He pointed and waved at a handsome man in his late 20’s dressed in a blue pinstripe shirt with a white-collar. “That’s one of our salesmen over there. He’s doing a great job for us.”
I wanted to say, well, I do a great job too. I’m the number one sales rep at WWVA. But since that wasn’t appropriate at the time, I waited for Gene to continue.
“We think you can do a great job for us too,” he said as he sat down.
Now we were back on track. “I know I can,” I said. “My specialty is opening new business.”
Gene nodded. “So I’ve heard. I know you took a few sales from us where our coverage overlaps in Washington PA. The Taco Bell franchise was one. We’re hoping you can do that sort of thing for us.”
I nodded proudly and looked out again over the offices. This place was nothing like the bullpen back at WWVA. Everyone looked smart and sure of themselves. Everyone seemed to be on a mission. In Wheeling, the highlight of the day was lunch, when we decided whether to go to Rax or the diner near Ron Small’s Mobile Homes. Here, excitement seemed to self-generate. I felt the energy and I liked it.
At that moment I decided to say whatever I had to say to get this job. The long commute from Wheeling? No problem. No base of accounts to work on? No problem. The job was paid mostly on commission? No problem.
After about an hour and a half of saying what I thought Gene wanted to hear, he called in Roxanne, who also complimented me on my suit, and offered me the job.
My only regret about leaving WWVA was that I knew I’d miss one of the other salesmen, Doug. I’d developed a serious crush on him that I felt guilty about since we were both married. I never acknowledged my crush, but I think he knew. And I always hoped he felt the same. Still, neither of us ever crossed any lines. Doug never betrayed his wife Helen in the slightest, and that endeared him to me even more.
The guys back at the bullpen were shocked when they heard of my leaving since no one left WWVA under their own power. That shock quickly morphed into a dogfight for my accounts, with Doug getting Ron Small’s Mobile Homes. This was only fair considering he was the one who got Ron to finally pay his bill for the remote broadcast I sold him. After that experience, I started getting cash in advance 90% of the time and became a hero to station management.
I realized right away the atmosphere at KDKA was far different than anything I’d experienced. The salespeople went out for cocktails, not beers, and the women dressed in complete coordinated outfits from big-name department stores like Joseph Horne’s and Kaufman’s. Many of them were from other cities, like New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. Hardly anyone was homegrown.
My job was to “develop and expand” the base of accounts at KDKA. Normally that would mean convincing newspaper advertisers to spend their money with us instead of on print media. But in this case, it meant grabbing some of the advertising revenue generated by competing FM stations, because in the early ’80s, FM stations were beginning to generate a lot of it.
FM stations were growing in number and in attractiveness to advertisers. Listeners were younger and the number of commercials sold was limited to eight minutes an hour. In contrast, the FCC allowed AM stations to run 18 minutes of ads an hour, and KDKA always ran the maximum. So besides spending time over the next few weeks practicing my phone pitch and learning about the station’s ratings, I spent hours learning how to combat this growing threat.
I was taught to tell clients that if they advertised on an FM station because the frequency was “line of sight”, their commercials would crash to the ground as soon as the signal hit a building. Then I was to assure them that if they bought ads on our AM station, their commercials would bounce mountain to mountain and could end up in Canada on a clear night. This would have been great if any of the businesses I called on had branches in Ottawa, but since none did, I didn't have a lot of faith in this strategy.
And if I needed a clincher, I was to tell customers that in times of natural disaster, listeners always turned to AM stations like ours for news and information. But since I didn't think I could count on hurricanes and tornados to make my quota, this angle didn't look too promising either. In short, this was going to be one tough gig and as always in sales, the clock was ticking.
To be Continued in Chapter 2 "Big Bang Fireworks"
