We were lucky to catch up with Tim and Lindsay Ellis recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Tim and Lindsay, thanks for joining us today. Can you recount a story of an unexpected problem you’ve faced along the way?
[Let’s just say….things will not always be as they seem when it comes to owning a business and being business owners. We believe it’s the attitude of “making it work” no matter what, that elevates one in the face of adversity. From the start of our journey, we have had an uphill battle with our station’s tower signal. A quarter million-dollar investment to reverse our said issues isn’t exactly a walk in the park for small business owner. Instead of hiding behind an ongoing issue, between engineering obstacles and financials, we own the situation we are in and talk openly regarding our signal with listeners as well as prospective and active advertisers. Instead of allowing defeat in our business, and to ourselves personally, we’ve became about ‘flipping the script”. What that means is we are constantly telling the story of our role in business to the audiences of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and Ontario, and beyond. We hold ourselves to the standards of fostering a culture in business of being truly “community focused, community oriented,” engaged with small business owners, local events and offering a morning show that is focused on highlighting new businesses, non-profit fundraisers, local events and beyond. You’ll see our brand and personalities constantly attending and supporting …..We believe this culture gains the respect of fellow community members and prospective clients as two of our communities biggest cheerleaders. As station owners, we’ve embraced and cheerlead around “selling a culture, rather than a frequency,” meaning we want our clients and listeners to be a part of the experience with us, rather than just selling airtime for commercials. This is how we work to overcome some of the signal issues we are faced with. Moreover, just like the rest of the world, it was March of 2020 that rocked us to the core. Being young business owners, and being in the field of media, it was one of the scariest moments we went through. What’s the first thing businesses are going to stop when the world shuts down? Their advertising! What does a radio station do, that thrives on selling airtime, when all that money is taken away? We panic, for five minutes, then we get real! As husband and wife, and this being our main source of income, we had to become wartime generals. It was truly a moment of fight or flight. Live or die! We chose to fight and live. It was time to get creative and breakdown the walls of how “radio” is supposed to be done. Once we settled things down and got our composure, the first thing we set out to do was to help local small businesses in our community and created a, “buy now, pay later,” advertising program. We knew the one thing local businesses needed to do was to keep their message front and center and let people know they were still open and what protocols they had to follow. We allowed our marketing clients to advertise through the pandemic, with the promise they would pay their bill once the world came back together. If we take care of our community, our community will take care of us.
Once we knew we were doing what we could to help our local business owners, it was on to the next step. Taking the power of the microphone and connecting people at a time we were told we could not be together. And not just the power of the local microphone, but leveraging the fact that we stream 24/7, so can be heard anywhere in the United States and across the world.
Our first step was to create a, “You Be The Program Director” show. Thursday nights, for one hour, listeners could purchase a show of their own. Yes, purchase. We had to find creative ways to make money as well during this difficult time. The listener who bought the hour show could program an entire hour of music, no matter the format or genre of song, as long as it was radio edit friendly. Which, of course, is a huge risk and “No-No” in radio from a programming stance. With those songs they got to tell stories of friends and family and do long distance shoutouts to the loved ones they could not be with. Think Casey Kasem long distance dedication, Covid edition, with our on-air DJ reading all the stories. This went over extremely well, with many of the shows being very emotional to the friends and family they were reaching out to. We have since morphed this experience into a more intimate and live version where the people join our morning show, in studio. And this version is FREE to our listeners who want to be a part of our, “You Be The DJ,” program.
Another idea we had was from a program one of the main TV networks aired where they put on a free concert for people to watch from home. From that we created the “Soo-Lebrity Livingroom Concert.” Using Zoom, we created a slate of local talent that joined us for a show that we promoted for people to join us on the Zoom channel, and we also ran it live on the radio station. For one evening we created an event of live music, and other creative entertainment, for our local community to tune in and enjoy. The idea was to give an evening of reprieve from everything going on. We also leveraged the event as a fundraiser for our local animal shelter to raise food and items needed.
Another creative way we were able to make some money, while helping parents who were stuck at home and now being teachers, was creating a Zoom story time, thus the creation of “Radio Reads with Timmy E.” We sold the idea to a local bookstore, who supplied us with the books we read, and we in turn promoted to the parents if they enjoyed the books we were sharing, they could purchase them at the local bookstore. For one hour each weekday, for one hour, parents could follow the Zoom link, put their kids in front of the computer and have them enjoy the story time, while the parents got a bit of a break to do what they wanted to.
But of all the rabbits we had to pull out of a hat to get through the pandemic, the biggest one was one that came from the two of us sitting around the house one afternoon, and the conversation went something like this. “Hey what if we did two things we love to do and did them live on the air! You mean we drink beer and play music? Yup!” OK…. There was a little more thought than that, but it was basically that simple. Once again, we knew we wanted to use the power of the microphone, the power of music, and the power of social media, and create one big party, and from that was the birth of our, “Radio Happy Hour Live Request Party.” We wanted to bring back the old days of radio when listeners would call and talk to the DJ, request a song, send out dedications, and it would be played. We also wanted to bring people together in a social setting at a time when we could not hang out in bars. The concept was so simple, yet so powerful, and little did we know the impact we were about to have.
For ten weeks straight, on Friday evenings beginning at 5pm and running until 8pm, we went live from our studios, and on our Facebook Page. We would take requests from our listeners via our personal cell phones, call into our studio lines, and through our Facebook Page. The entire three hours of the show were all requests from our listeners and viewers. We would go live through Facebook and give our viewers a “backstage pass” to all the shenanigans going on behind the scenes. We would chat with them through video, and they would chat with each other through the stream as well. It became a regular Friday night hangout, where our live video feeds would go on peoples large-screen-Tv’s, and they would listen to us through their radio as well. It literally turned into a virtual Happy Hour and grew into something we had no idea was coming our way. Listeners would share with us pictures of them setting up for the party, and pictures from during their party. Within a couple of weeks, we realized we had created something everyone needed to have in a time when we couldn’t physically be together.
On top of the social and fun side of our Radio Happy Hour Live Request Party, we also had to get creative with how we could continue to make money as a business. So, each week we teamed up with a restaurant/bar, and a local cab company to promote us getting home safely as we partied like rockstars during our shows. Afterall, weren’t we all drinking a lot more during that time? With the restaurant/bars we would team up with, they would have special meals and canned or growler drinks ready for pickup and to go. We would encourage our listeners and viewers to go to the selected location each week and get their dinners and drinks to go for our Happy Hour. Again, we knew we were on to something when the owners would tell us they had to bring on extra workers to keep up with the rush they would get prior to the party.
If we are being honest, as scary and crazy as the pandemic was, looking back on it, it was truly a special time for us. We proved to ourselves what we could do. That we could be faced with adversity, and pivot, and work our tails off, and survive. It’s a time we look back on and can be extremely proud.
As the pandemic started to wind down, and places were opening back up, businesses were faced with a worker shortage. It was something we never had to deal with as we had the most amazing staff that stayed with us and worked through it all. But we watched local businesses all around us suffering from staff shortages and we wanted to help. That’s when we decided to create a morning show segment called, “Hire-A-Thon.” We took a day of our morning show and dedicated it to all local businesses who wanted to be a part of it. We sent out a call to action and invited anyone who wanted to come on the morning show for a fifteen to twenty-minute interview to talk and discuss what positions they had open at their respective organizations or business, and what they could offer perspective employees. This was offered free of charge. It was a great success as we filled the entire morning with interviews, and the gratitude that was shared with reminded us again, we were doing the right thing for our community.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
We are Tim and Lindsay Ellis. Husband and wife team, who own a radio station in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, Eagle 95.1. We are proud and hang our hat on the fact that we are the last locally owned media business in our community who happily spend our days alongside each other, shoulder to shoulder in business. Both holding on-air positions, as well as marketing positions, operations, programming, events, and promotions. It’s just us, our small but mighty staff and one radio station, fighting the big media conglomerations. (Lindsay) Our evolution as husband-and-wife radio station owners is very layered, but the greatest part of our story is having met working for competing radio stations. Tim worked across the street from competitors to the station we now own and I, Lindsay, worked for Eagle 95.1. Otherwise known as the dirty pigeon back in those days! I’ve never had a “cookie cutter” journey to my now career path, but can remember stating as a child, “how cool it would be to work in radio someday.” I’ve always viewed those nugget statements as foreshadowing what would later become my path. Fast forward from 2012, the evolution of our meeting, to 2015 and starting out lives together, to 2018. The year we joked about becoming radio station owners. What started out as a daydreaming conversation with my husband of “what if we owned a radio station one day,” quickly became a reality I’m not sure either of us were ready for in our transition to ownership.
My journey (Tim) into radio started in my junior year of high school in Sault Ste. Marie. Not knowing what I wanted to do after Highschool, I met with my guidance counselor. She asked me what I loved, and I told her music. She reminded me that I was always the one who was asked to read in class by my teachers. So what if we took your love of music, and ability to share the spoken word, and put those two together….. we have radio. That was it! I was on my path to becoming a radio DJ. After getting my degree in Broadcasting and Cinematic Arts from Central Michigan University, I was off and running. Well more like staggering and crawling, looking for a job! But I was blessed to find a job in my own hometown, which I love and always wanted to call home as an adult. I first started working at Today’s Hits 99.5 Yes FM, and from there held every on-air position possible, and eventually working my way into management. After twenty years with that station, and a few others, I was offered a job at the competitors, and the timing was right, so I jumped into the morning show position at Eagle 95.1 . A few years later, we were offered the opportunity to become owners of the radio station and we took a leap of faith, and here we are….. what the hell did we do? In all seriousness it’s been the most stressful and most rewarding thing at the same time. Life is amazing.
The most amazing thing about our business and industry is the ability to be creative. We are both creative people, and this is the perfect outlet. From creating promotions and parties, to creative effective marketing campaigns that help our local businesses. The idea of marketing can be foreign and scary to many small business owners. And being able to sit down with them, hear their vision and hopes, and from there we create a marketing campaign that highlights those, its an amazing moment to see it all come together for them, and when they realize and see it as well.
The other part that is very near and dear to us, is the ability to use the power of our microphone to help promote events and people in our area. We have a responsibility to our community and the people who live here, to make sure they are informed of what is going on and happening in our own backyard. We have always said, if we take care of our community, they will take care of us. We are all in this crazy life together, let’s work together to make it the best we can.
Any advice for managing a team?
The term, “small and mighty” could not describe our small staff, more perfectly. We are fortunate to have the team we have, and that’s exactly what we are….. a team. We like to think of our roles in business as one of leadership versus management. It’s always been important to us to be the “bosses” we always wanted to work for. We are very open with our staff, we don’t always know everything and want them to feel comfortable coming to us with ideas, and issues. We always say, radio is, “baptism by fire.” Meaning, let’s jump in, feet first, together, and see what happens. This goes for on-air and marketing. However, as honest as we are to our employees that our doors are open and they can always come talk to us, we also make it very clear they must do something as well. If they come to us with an issue or a problem, do not come to us just to complain. For any issue they bring, come up with three ways they feel the issue can be remedied, then we can talk about it. This is something that was taught to us very early in our radio career, and something we very much believe in. It’s a two-way street, and we are all shoulder-to-shoulder making this machine move forward with success. A seasoned fellow-business owner also once shared with us words he leads with, – “someone has to steer the ship, but we are a team at the end of the day.” There is not a day which goes by where we don’t recognize that we couldn’t do what we do in business without the support, talent and hard work our staff put in. We try to foster a workplace and atmosphere of openness, creativity, and fun. All while holding respect as individuals and professionals.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
Together we are a force field of endless creativity, coupled with Tim’s long-standing experience both on-air and with the technicalities of the programming side of radio. Our ability to collectively create engaging on-air programs, promotions, events, and activities for our community’s entertainment is something we truly hang our hats on with setting us apart from our competition, but with also building rapport with prospective clients. We also stay laser focused on being “Community Oriented – Community Focused,” while building a culture for our listeners, bringing back that “old-school” feel of radio where our listener’s feel a connection and relationship with us and our on-air personalities. On the other side of the coin, we are also not afraid to color outside of the lines and break the “rules” of radio when it feels right to create something for our listeners.
Putting the community first, and the listeners first, has always been our guiding light.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.eagleradio951.com
- Instagram: @eagleradio951
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EagleRadio951
Image Credits
Main Photo – Ali Cotton