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Al Roney is a huge hit with you for the afternoon show, Dennis Prager & Roger Hedgecock have gained your favor as well.  Don’t forget when you can’t get to sleep at night – Red Eye Radio is on to keep you company.  We know you have a choice for entertainment and information – we appreciate your ears day and night.

I Facebooked Your Momma

The era of ‘glass houses’ and the ‘transparent generation’ have a lot of people nuts. If you grew up in my era this is how it went. If your sister drank it was a family secret and you did your best to keep it away from your friends or even your cousins. Life was all about secrets. Today the same scenario if done properly could land you a television script, a movie part or a spot on Oprah. The least would be a video uploaded to YouTube, an interview with your drunken sister, a book deal or at least a blog and a minute of fame somewhere. It’s no wonder the over 50 crowd can’t get a handle this and are wondering why?

According to a recent survey of execs from 100 companies of varying size, 78% of respondents said their companies were using social media — but just 41% said they had a strategic plan. Four out of ten active Facebook users say the site is a good way to get information about companies and products. It seems like every business is on Facebook except your business. Does this help you know what they’re doing out there?

It’s alarming but not terribly surprising that half the companies using social media are basically flying without a parachute.  This is not where you want to be in the new land of ‘transparency.’

We’ve seen it all or at least most of it. Someone can Google your name, take an aerial photo of your home or find out your social medial standings by downloading Xobni. Xobni is an Outlook plug in that helps you search, organize your inbox and categorize your emails. It’s pretty amazing and pretty intrusive. Customers have access to complaints.com, ripoffreport.com and pissedoffconsumer.com to name a couple; all these sites are set up to let consumers vent.

As a person you can be as private as you like, as a business it’s more challenging. Prior to the internet, consumers had no place to go other then the Better Business Bureau who was kind enough to call you and let you know you had a complaint.  If you’re really a celebrity or have annoyed enough people the complaint will be Twittered away and you may be the last to know. Let’s face it, the consumers are in charge and the best thing you can do is manage your online presence. Remember the story about your sister?

1. Rule number one, shut up and listen. Don’t make any excuses even if you’re right. Customers aren’t always right but if you want to keep them, you will have to make them right. Sometimes if the comment is online a happy customers will come to your defense. Don’t wait too long; you will have to take it on.
2. Become a supersluth and investigate your business. Know what consumers are saying about your business and where they’re saying it.  Make a point to regularly monitor comments about your business. This includes Facebook and other social media haunts. This is one of the reasons you need a Facebook page. According to Trendwatching.com, Facebook is nearing 500 million users. The average user has 130 friends, spends 55 minutes a day on the site and receives three ‘event invitations’ to real-life gatherings every month. Foursquare allows users to explore their neighborhoods and get rewarded for doing so. This also means an unhappy customer can immediately trash your business.
3. Handle the problem immediately. By failing to respond immediately to a serious problem you lose all control of the story. You have got to fill the vacuum of ‘what happened’ before the press or your customers do. Remember the Tiger Woods nonsense.
4. Get your happy customers to sing your praises on line. Before it hits the fan, and maybe it never will, collect testimonials, videos of ecstatic customers or audio interviews of delighted customers. Upload these to your blog, Facebook or have them plug you on Twitter.
5. Have good content on your blog. Good content and useful information on your blog will help connect you to your customers. Someone with great information can’t be all bad.
6. Monitor your employee behavior on line. The NFL and colleges monitor their athletes Facebook page. Set some employee guidelines for online behavior. Anything you post on Facebook can and will be used against you in a court of law.

Where did I hear that before?

A humble Roney thanked listeners for the outpouring of support after being sidelined… it meant a great deal to Al & his family.

The first caller… Ed!

Paul Vandenburgh announced today that Al Roney has been hired to host the afternoon program beginning on Monday, June 21^st. Roney will host the Monday thru Friday shift from 2 to 6pm each afternoon. He will broadcast from the WGDJ TALK 1300 studios located in the Times Union Center in Albany.

Roney is a market veteran who has covered the Capital District for over a decade. He is not only a well known talk show host but has also been an established newscaster and traffic reporter in the region. He most recently served as a talk show host and newscaster at WGY and before that was a newscaster at 590 WROW.

“Al brings a strong news talk background to TALK1300”, said WGDJ President and General Manager Paul Vandenburgh. “Al and I worked together in the past and to obtain someone of his talent and background is a major plus for us, our listeners and the Capital District.”  “He will be driving the agenda in the Capital District every afternoon on the ride home and will deliver a strong product.”

Roney will begin on Monday June 21^st.

Is It Wrong To Give  Customers What They Want?

“Please give me sausage and peppers, but hold the sausage.”  This is what I cheerily asked the server behind the counter at the Villa Fresh Italian Restaurant at the Albany International Airport.

“If you want peppers you will have to have the sausage with the peppers, she replies.”

“You can save the sausage for someone else, I say, I know sausage is more expensive so you’re actually making money.” I thought it was a great argument.  Furthermore I continue, I’ve gotten just the peppers before, your boss makes it for me.

It didn’t seem to faze her because she repeated again; you have to take the sausage. This time she added, that’s the rules; I don’t make the rules, I just follow them.

I wasn’t trying to be obstinate; I just didn’t want the sausage. Actually I wanted the peppers, sauce, onions without the sausage. I thought the argument was logical, keep the sausage. I suggested she break the rules.

She went on to continue with her own interesting argument. If someone saw her giving me the peppers, they might want the same thing which would leave her short peppers for the next customer.  The next person might want just sausage and then she would eventually be short sausage.  Of course this is a problem for her but the customers would love it. It’s called personalization; customers want what they want.

Then I began to wonder; would she be fired for pleasing the customers and not following the rules? A friend of mine said he and his wife were the last ones in a restaurant when the wait staff started vacuuming around them. This is an old trick used by mothers, who want their kids to get out of bed, and wait staff who want their customers to leave. My friend asked if she might stop a minute so they could finish eating, although he realized it was late and they were the last customers. The wait staff said she would ask the boss if it was okay to stop vacuuming.  When she returned she said the boss said it was okay. Did he not trust her enough to decide when she should and should not vacuum? It’s sounding like my pepper story.

Would my server be fired for dishing out too many peppers? Maybe that’s why she said no. Would she run out of peppers and now have another problem?

Now we have another issue; should you listen to your customers? Will they send you on a wild goose chase? Should you change your menu because the customers says so? Maybe you don’t have enough room for all the new dishes.

Starbucks had an issue years ago about the addition of skim milk lattés. The owner, Shultz did not believe Starbucks  should be serving skim milk lattés, no matter how many suggestions he received from his store managers. In his mind it just wasn’t right. Until he witnessed a customer leaving the store because she couldn’t get a skim milk latté did he change the rules.

Listening to your customers may lead to ideas for new products. If it doesn’t require a lot of preparation or money, why not please them?

I used to ask for a McDonald burger and hold the burger. This used to cause the server anxiety—what did I really want and how much should they charge? Since then McDonalds has changed the menu, they call it a ‘veggie.’ I’m still having trouble getting my onions, relish, sauerkraut, hold the hot dog, but this is more of a language problem.

I guess I’m just spoiled; the franchise owner of the Villa always gave me my ‘just peppers.’ His answer, if you just want peppers you should have peppers.  Makes sense to me.

Click HERE for a special message from Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings.

“Please share it with as many people you know so we properly honor and recognize those who are still with us as well as those who are gone.”

Dr. Winter notes… “And we must never forget that, no matter what the press says, no matter what our administration does or does not do, and most importantly, no matter what our political affiliation or slant, we must remember what made us great and how important it is to thank those who got us here.”

What is a Vet?

Author: Unknown

What is a Vet?

Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye.

Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg, or perhaps another sort of inner steel… the soul’s alloy forged in the refinery of adversity.

Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem.

You can’t tell a vet just by looking.

What is a vet?

He’s the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn’t run out of fuel.

He’s the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38^th parallel.

She (or he) is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.

He’s the POW who went away one person and came back another… or didn’t come back at all.

He’s the Quantico drill instructor who had never seen combat, but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other’s backs.

He’s the parade-riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.

He’s the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.

He’s the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean’s sunless deep.

He’s the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket, palsied now and aggravatingly slow, who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wished all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.

He’s an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being, a person who offered some of his life’s most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.

He’s a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he’s nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known.

So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say, “Thank you!” That’s all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded.

Two little words that mean a lot, “Thank you!”

It’s the soldier, sailor, marine and airman, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press.

It’s the soldier, sailor, marine and airman, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.

It is the soldier, sailor, marine and airman, who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protestor to burn the flag.