If a person is lucky, listens intently, and keeps an open mind, they will have many mentors in their lifetime. These mentors are not necessarily with you for the long haul. It’s possible but they rarely are. More likely, they are people who appear unexpectedly, pass along what you need to know when you need to know it, and then disappear.
So it was with my encounter with broadcasting icon, Art Linkletter. News of his recent death rewound my memory thirty-years and stopped at a scene back stage of the Nashville Municipal Auditorium. I’m sitting in one of two folding chairs set up for a television interview taping. Sitting in the other chair, California tan, sandy hair trimmed conservatively, sporting a familiar smile, totally relaxed, sat one of my boyhood idols.
As a kid I spent my afternoons glued to the radio listening to Art Linkletter with the wide-eyed idolization with which other kids listened to the baseball exploits of Stan Musial. I craved being a part of that universe that he, Arthur Godfrey, Steve Allen, Jack Paar and others inhabited. His programs, People Are Funny and House Party, first on radio and later on television, provided perfect vehicles for his unscripted, whimsical manner of talking to ordinary people.
Linkletter stood out from the rest. Unlike most interviewers, he never interviewed celebrities. Always ordinary people. He always stopped just short of crossing the line between kidding and humiliating. He was a master at the craft of eliciting natural uninhibited responses from plain folks. At his core, Art Linkletter had the qualities of a first-rate salesman.
Linkletter is in town to speak to a room full of business executives. He’s with me to promote a new product manufactured by a company for whom he is a spokesperson. I host of a local mid-day television program.
Up close, I see why people respond so openly to him. Trust. His total persona—his facial expressions, the way he uses his hands, his body language gives one the feeling that you can absolutely trust him—the quintessential salesperson with an unmistakable glint in his eye, the sparkle of a person who is happy doing what they are doing. He has confidence devoid of arrogance; energy sans anxiety. He emits a Ronald Reagan-like message saying, “I enjoy being me.” The opening lines of Emerson’s treatise on the qualities of a successful person came to mind: “To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children.”
As we wait for the count-down, he asks, “Are you preparing for your security?”
I know that Art Linkletter is one of the wealthiest people in the entertainment industry by virtue of his remarkable business and marketing acumen. That’s why business executives pay big bucks to hear him speak.
“Not as I should,” I reply. “I’d appreciate any advice.”
“Sure,” he says in a way that indicates he’s glad I asked. He inches closer to me. “See, I figured out a long time ago that people who do what we do have a short shelf life unless we prepare ourselves.”
“Only you do it on a grander scale that I do it, Mr. Linkletter.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he says. “The basics are the same. I learned them when I was making fifty dollars a week. The most important lesson is the one most people in our profession either never learn or don’t want to learn.
“And the lesson is…?”
“Never forget how we get on the air and who keeps us on the air. Business people put up the money. They bet on us. So we should always respect the advertisers. A lot of people on the air seem to resent the advertisers, treat them with distain as if they were a necessary evil. Can you believe that? By respecting my advertisers, several have included me into quite lucrative business opportunities that I would never have had the chance to get in to.”
He was correct. Most air personalities set up a wall between themselves and the sponsors of their programs. They behave as if they are anointed by God and the advertisers commiserate with Satan.
After allowing me a few seconds to absorb the first lesson, he continued.
“With the first lesson in mind, try to own a piece, if not all, of the programs you are involved in. Form your own company and sell the advertising yourself. Take a smaller salary if necessary in lieu of a piece of the action. Think of your program as your business rather than your job.”
We finish, stand, and shake hands. He says, “remember, Teddy, they call what we do show business. Too many of us emphasize the first word and neglect the second. Treat the show as a business and you’ll be okay.”
Six years later I formed my own production company and created Teddy Bart’s Round Table. A unique aspect of the program was the manner with which sponsor messages were included into the program. They were treated as part of the format rather than separate—one of the major reasons why the show lasted for over twenty years on radio and television. A lesson learned well from a few minutes with Art Linkletter |
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