Ken: Balancing home and work life is a common challenge with a lot of business owners that I talk with that always put in the extra time, go the extra distance, that are completely determined to reach their goals. It takes dedication and a real commitment to make something like this happen. If you were talking to someone that’s just starting out in a business like yours, maybe in the radio advertising field, what’s the one thing you’d say they have to get just right to really succeed?
Savvy: I would say be open to learning and that’s in every sense of the word. That means that you learn from your clients, you learn from your mistakes, and hopefully you learn from a good school or a good tutor or somebody who’s going to teach you how to do all the technical equipment. Always be learning. You have to be open to learning and open to criticism, open to change. That’s a big thing too. You can’t be afraid. You have to be able to be flexible and like clay, you can’t be rigid. You can’t draw lines in the sand because your business has to be able to grow. You need, like I said, flexibility and that’s how to do it.
Ken: You mentioned also, you’ve got to make some of those mistakes to learn from them. Is there a big mistake that you see new people in the industry making when they’re first starting out?
Savvy: Yeah, you can’t be arrogant at all in the field; especially not if you’re a DJ coming in. That’s a fun thing to talk about if you’re a host or DJ like I am also as well as an advertising agency. When you come in really arrogant, people that have been in the industry awhile will shut that down really fast and you won’t last very long because they will not deal with that.
Ken: You’ve been successful especially in the last 2 years with the rapid growth of your business. What kind of mindset does someone need to be successful like you in your industry?
Savvy: You have to be really, really, really strong. It really does take a lot of strength of character. It is about having faith when you don’t know what’s on the other side and just going for it. And putting your whole heart into it and going full bore into it just with the hope that your hard work is going to pay off and that you’re going to succeed. Like I said, you just have to keep positive and believe it’s going to get better because it is so hard at the beginning. In my case, it was especially difficult as a single mom. You have to be really committed to it. Just keep going and be driven.
Ken: Are there a couple of questions that people starting out in this industry really have to ask themselves and answer about growing their business to succeed?
Savvy: You have to be willing to sacrifice most of the nights of your week. With a schedule like mine, you have to socialize hardly at all. This is just my personal experience. I don’t even get on Facebook that much. I don’t really even go out. I just work and I’m a full time mom. I don’t even watch TV unless I have maybe some real downtime. I might have a really slow day and I’m done with my work and I’ve followed up with some of my clients and I actually have a little bit of time. That’s really great when that happens, but that is the exception and you have to be in the mindset that pretty much you can forget a personal or social life when you’re as hardcore driven about it as I am.
I live, eat, and breathe it. When I’m going to bed at night I’m thinking of campaign improvement. I’m not thinking of what I watched on TV. I’m thinking of, “I haven’t heard from that client in a while. I hope everything’s okay.” This is my thoughts when I go to bed, but that has to be in place for the backbone of the company. It has to. I’m spreading seeds right now that are growing and I’m completely great with that role. Everybody I bring into Radio Luv is part of my family. That’s everybody from the hosts, our advertisers who are 100% the most important part of our company. It’s the people that trust us with their money. They trust us to handle their campaigns.
It’s an honor for me to do that. It’s incumbent on me to make sure and deliver not only an adequate campaign, but the best campaign possible. To me, besides being a mom, that’s my best reward at the end of the day.
Ken: What’s the one thing you can attribute your success to more than anything else?
Savvy: I would say luck, but when it gets down to it, it’s really determination.
Ken: I’ve heard luck is what happens when opportunity meet preparedness.
Savvy: Exactly. The Motley Crue thing is luck. I happened to meet somebody that’s best friends with Nikki Sixx; This gentleman owns 1313 records. I met him through a friend of mine and he was aware of my radio career. I interviewed him and then Nikki Sixx heard my work and really liked it, so I’m going to be helping them out later when they get done touring in 2016. That’s exactly what you’re talking about with where preparedness meets opportunity.
