"We understand life backwards but live it forwards." Kierkegaard

"Everything seems stupid when it fails." Dostoevsky

"For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them." Aristotle

Today's image: Listen Inside by rimedhitaf. Awesome. Thank you for sharing.

"You're making a mistake" That's the #1 rejoinder of radio sellers when told our little retail shop is taking a pass on their offer. #2 is "You're making a big mistake." The state of radio sales today is symptomatic of a significant systemic problem. Radio sellers, in the main, are not being properly trained, not being coached, not being mentored, not being led. Our very successful retail store has been around close to 3.5 years. We believe in advertising. Our ad spend is committed to broadcast TV, cable (i.e., local insertion), online and print. It gives me no pleasure to report that in all the days we have been in business one and only one radio station has successfully pitched our business. The radio sellers working for Craig Karmazin presented a killer idea. We bought the idea, the concept, we certainly didn't buy the ratings. Ideas close sales.

Kevin Sweeney taught me decades ago "The favorite subject of every retailer is their business. Nobody they know, not their family, not any of their friends, care to hear anything more about this single biggest personal obsession. Retailers without exception love to talk about their business. Ask them to tell you about their business and then shut up. Listen and learn about their business, learn about what's important to them. This is the first step in understanding how to sell to retailers. The second step is understanding that retailers don't sell for a living, they buy for a living. When you attempt to sell a retailer you're at a big and distinct disadvantage, successful retailers make their living making smart buying decisions."

Having a radio seller tell me that we, the potential customer, are making a mistake is exactly the wrong approach. The way to my wallet is not telling me I don't know what I'm doing (and by the way Sparky, I could care less about your station/cluster, enough about you). The more effective and productive approach is engaging the prospect intellectually and emotionally. My suggestion is what's missing here the most (aside from the wrong attitude when losing the sale) is homework, a complete and total failure to do the homework before making the call. The brilliant Mr. Sweeney taught us to do our homework before making the first face call. That homework included "shopping" the store. Radio sales does enjoy one major benefit - incredible upside potential. Please, don't blame the sellers. I certainly don't. This is a leadership problem.

Branding starts with the right pronoun: Marketing ace Tom Asacker offers up some keen insight here. Bravos, Tom!

Buzz: Carrier via PBS

"Brevity is the soul of wit" so said the Bard of Avon. The uber-cool Kevin Kelly says Short is In. Bravos, Kevin! My sense is it was ever thus.

Cara's Basement: Cara interviews comedian Lee Camp (audio).

Congrats & cheers: SlideRocket is on! Mitch Grasso and his crew have ignition and getting ready for lift off. The guys are blogging here. Invited to the private beta and I must say the app is very strong and very cool. Lone Star legend Ron Chapman subs for Paul Harvey. Greg Coleman named prexy and CEO at startup NetSeer.

Bonus: Prof John Hauser, Introduction to Marketing via MIT OpenCourseWare. The Experts vs. the Amateurs: A Tug of War over the Future of Media - Knowledge@Wharton.

"Painting changes space into time; music time into space." Hugo von Hofmannsthal

"Art produces ugly things that frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things that always become ugly with time." Jean Cocteau

"Art is the cult of error." Francis Picabia

Today's image: Gokce by rimedhitaf. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

Interesting stuff learned on the way to other learning. Crossword puzzles were first published in 1913 by the World, a Pulitzer paper in New York city. Crosswords became all the rage in the late teens and widely adopted in the popular culture of the 1920s. Timesmen looked down on the crossword as a "game" not worthy of space in the news hole. The first Times crossword finally debuted in 1942. There's a lesson in adoption here. Further, another exhibit in the case against so-called first mover advantage, the canard "first in wins" (the finest examples remain Hydrox v Oreo and Yahoo v Google). You heard it here last - incumbency is practically irrelevant.

400 year death spiral continues: Who won the National Headliner Awards for Online Videography? The winners were all dead tree guys. Michael Gay has details via LR here.

Being afraid (denial at end-stage): Newsweek embraces the flawed arguments of Andrew Keen and claims experts are "in" while amateurs are "out" (Revenge of the Experts). Howard Owen opines here, Terry Heaton's take here. Kudos to Howard and Terry!

The NPR shakeup: Dennis Haarsager breaks it down here. Bravos, Dennis! Good luck. Related - Trouble for NPR by Jeff Jarvis w/comments here.

Bonus: Brooke Gladstone interviews Clay Shirky via OTM here. Thanks, Brooke! The gap between "thought and action" has become a click.

Congrats & cheers: Branding and marketing ace Michael Fischer has started blogging here. Jeff Jarvis for pointing out the obvious during his conversation with Howie on Reliable yesterday. Jeff said the POTUS race is really all about the "job interview." Amid all of the inside baseball about the campaigns kudos to Jeff on some needed perspective. Ken Stern leaving NPR in better shape than he first found it (stay tuned, his finest hour is yet to come). Bobby Rich, my favorite rich guy and radio legend, gets well deserved recognition via Erica Farber's Publishers Profile here.

Spanish red: Garnacha de Fuego. Old Vines 2006. 100% Garnacha. A very good value at $10.