Make hay while the sun shines

Take advantage of a temporary opportunity

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is to make hay while the sun shines. When
you've got a good opportunity, you can shift your normal

(00:25):
processes a little, not too much, but some, so you've
got enough metaphorical hey to last the winter. Today's tip
was inspired by an episode of Before Breakfast that you
will hear soon, in which I interview Tracy Davidson, the

(00:45):
co anchor of Philadelphia's NBC ten four o'clock and five
o'clock newscasts. She mentions in our upcoming interview that currently,
as in during the fall of what is an election year,
her station is running three and a half minute ad
breaks versus the normal two and a half minutes. The

(01:07):
reason for this is that Pennsylvania, where Tracy and I
both live, is a swing state in America's presidential elections.
We also have a competitive senate race in some others.
There is just a huge market for TV ads right now,
so her station is making hay while the sun shines.

(01:29):
Of course, there is a limit to this. You can't
make hay twenty four hours a day over the summer,
and likewise, people would stop watching the news if the
ads were thirty minutes long, leaving no time for watching Tracy.
But an extra minute per ad break increases revenue during
this narrow stretch of time, when the revenue is there

(01:53):
to be had. I think this is smart, and there
might be applications in other fields. Maybe your organization planned
to hire five new college grads for your office this year,
but you've got a really, really good crop of applicants.
Is there a good reason not to make an extra

(02:15):
offer or too, Perhaps if budgets are really tight, but
entry level folks are probably relatively cheap, and they might
be able to take on a lot. If the opportunity
is there, it might be wise to expand a little
more than you thought you would. You can make Hay

(02:37):
well the sun shines. My university actually expanded the size
of their incoming classes a while ago because they realized
that they were turning down a lot of really good applicants.
When there is no difference between the last one hundred
people you took and the first one hundred people you rejected,

(03:00):
maybe you can build in some more space or acquire
some more buildings and bring them in I think this
philosophy can also apply to something like exercise. Some days
you just do the basics. But if you are out
for a run and you're feeling really good and the

(03:21):
sun is shining, maybe you go for a little further
than you planned. Not much more, but a little. You
can seize the opportunity. Again, there's no need to go
overboard with thirty minute ad breaks or hiring one hundred
people when you meant to hire five. But when conditions
are good, sometimes we can deviate a bit from the

(03:45):
plan in order to seize the opportunity. Come mid November,
all those political ads will be gone. It's good to
make the revenue when you can. In the meantime, this Laura,
thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of

(04:05):
our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've
got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a

(04:28):
production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
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