ABSTRACT
Most greenhouse operators know where certain plants will flourish and where others will languish. They understand about proportion and balance so that a person's hard-earned lawn can be the envy of all who survey it. Unfortunately, many radio salespeople have really been like the clerks at the nursery. They have understood the ins-and-outs of their product but they have not looked outside their "radio box" to study how their product fits into the landscape of the retailer's total picture. To respond to fragmenting markets, radio programmers have developed more-targeted and more-niched formats. In doing that, however, it's been tougher for sales reps to use the numbers-selling methods employed in the past. In the early days of commercial radio, sales reps could survive and earn a decent income by being, basically, order takers. Many markets had only one radio station and even large markets had only a few stations. When television came along, radio reps had more competition for advertising dollars.
