“How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be”

The Kevin Fulton Story

KCBQ, San Diego

May, 2005

            I’ve had a pretty exciting career so far, I’ve been able to do projects with three United States Presidents, worked with hundreds of celebrities, and even hand-fed a Rhinoceros.

            This is where my story begins….

            On December 1, 2003, I joined Salem Communications as the Promotions Director of the San Diego Cluster of radio stations.  I soon discovered that my ideas and approach were at the time a little too big for the current staff in terms of expectation and output.  I learned that I was not as good of a leader as I could be. This is the story of how Glen Aubrey from CTRG (www.ctrg.com) taught me how to be a more effective leader, and how to get the results I really wanted.

            As the Promotions Director, my main responsibility was to increase Ratings and Revenue.  I would either create events or partner with events and other organizations to bring more exposure to the radio station.  To make more money for myself the management also let me do sales as long as the Promotions duties were fully covered.  I began doing events and delegating responsibilities to staff members to allow me more time to focus on sales.  I found assignments that I thought staff could handle, but when these were not accomplished, or not accomplished to my expectations, I realized that it really came down to motive: if they wanted to do the jobs or not, and how well.  The Promotions department had never operated on the level that matched up to my expectations and apparently I was asking people to do things over their head.  Clearly I was not leading them as well as they needed to be led. 

            For example, In 2004 I was selected to lead the National media team for the home porting ceremonies of the U.S.S. RONALD REAGAN aircraft carrier. This is the most advanced weapon in the military, the legacy of a great president, and it became the first appearance of Nancy Reagan after the President’s funeral. 

            With President Reagan’s death everything had moved to worldwide attention, so this was an important endeavor.  The radio station allowed me to take on the project; and it brought the most attention to our News talk station, KCBQ, that it had ever received.  This was a huge and time-consuming project, and what I discovered was, as with most of things, I would delegate to staff members and the tasks were not accomplished up to the level of my expectations.  There was a lot of frustration.

            So I made the unfortunate decision that I had to do most of the work myself, that I couldn’t trust someone else to help me on the project because I couldn’t afford “B” league work on a project of this magnitude.  I ended up repeatedly working night and day.  And while the project came off magnificently and I was proud to have been part of the Presidents legacy, as far as the radio station and my relationship with the organization were concerned, I was tired, burned out, disappointed in the staff, and making little or no money because I had no time for sales and didn’t trust the level of work from the staff.  This was programmatic success in function and product, and but void of value concerning the things that really count.

            Here’s how Glen help me turn things around…..

            He taught me that I need to be more specific with my task on assignments,  explaining to staff exactly how and when I wanted something accomplished and then, to “close the loop” to assure calendared and time-sensitive fulfillment.  To be a better leader I needed to clone myself, not do it all myself.  I was to teach the staff not only how to specifically do the job, but how to work with me.  Glen also taught me to focus on only what is really important.  I had discovered that since I was on overload, I wasn’t really working as effectively as I needed to in all areas.  I could close the deal, but I had not left myself enough time for preparation before a meeting and proper follow up after a meeting, so frustration was higher than it needed to be and communication with customers suffered.  There was little or no time to properly service an account.  I would bring in the sale but didn’t have time to properly execute the plan.   

            I didn’t want to over-promise and under-deliver, so I made some changes.  With management agreement, I altered my schedule, providing preparation days, creative days, and follow up days.  I set a regular Promotions meeting with key staff at the radio station where each project is reviewed, responsibilities are assigned, and decisions are made on what needs to be done before the next meeting, setting a timeline of accountability and accomplishment.  The results: the staff has made dramatic improvements in the quality of their work, and with the new system we can take on a project that before may have been over our heads, because now we have a system that can handle it, and stronger relationships through it.  Planning this way also has allowed us to put out fires before they ever start because now we are proactive instead of reactive.  And as far as sales go, in the second month of the implementation of this new system I was able to add $140,000 in revenue to the station and $28,000 more to my income.

            Glen taught me how to work with the staff, and the system he helped put in place absolutely assisted me get from where I was…. to where I wanted to be.  Thanks Glen, you are truly amazing, a wonderful asset and a great coach. Now if you can just help me get the smell of Rhinoceros slobber off of my shoes I’ll really be impressed.  [Glen’s comment:  Thanks!  As to the Rhinoceros residue, that slobber is tough stuff, especially when it dries.  You’re on your own on that one, ok?]