BRX Pro Tip: Have You Tried a Community Partner Program?
Stone Payton: And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, today’s question, have you tried a community partner program?
Lee Kantor: Yeah, at Business RadioX a lot of our studio partners have implemented a community partner program with great success, and this is another example of our community coming up with something that really helps everybody in the community because everybody in the community can benefit from starting a community partner program. And this is a great way for our studio partners to offer people in their community that might not be ready for their own show or series right now, but they want to stay connected and they want to benefit from the halo effect of being connected to Business RadioX. So they support the mission and they want to, you know, just join the community in some manner.
Lee Kantor: So, some of the deliverables in this program that our studio partners have been implementing could be logos on the wall of a studio, host reads on certain shows, presence on the website or in the newsletters. This gets more people invested in the studio. It gets more ambassadors in the community rooting for you and helping you succeed. It’s a win, win, win all around. You’re not diluting the value of a sponsorship, but you’re just creating more ways for people to get involved and actually spend money with you to show their involvement in tangible terms by creating value for them, by being part of your studio in some manner.
Lee Kantor: So, a community partner program is a great thing to think about no matter what your business is, but especially if you’re a Business RadioX studio partner, a community partner program can really help accelerate your growth and make a big difference in your community.
Stone Payton: So, the answer to this question for me personally is a resounding yes. And our community partner program here in Cherokee County, here in – county here in Georgia is called Main Street Warriors. And when I first started it, I wanted to emulate some of the things that our most successful studio partners were doing. But I also wanted it to have a Stone flavor, so I didn’t call it a community partner program. I called it a small business initiative. But the frame I had around it, which was not untrue, it was, look, we’re doing this for the people for whom our typical fee structure is a little out of reach, and it’s a way to serve the small businesses around town and retail and B2C. All of which was true. And I got a little success with that.
Stone Payton: But then when I decided, you know what, why don’t you quit reinventing the wheel and frame it as a community partner program? And I discovered very quickly that small businesses around town like the idea of being a community partner a lot more than they like the idea of being a small business. They couldn’t afford the regular thing.
Stone Payton: So that was a hard-won lesson, but it made all the difference in the world. So yes, huge fan, huge proponent of a community partner program, and it’s working extremely well in several of our markets, including right here in Cherokee County.
