...and wants our small business to advertise on a local radio station. He mentions the station and Clear Channel in the same sentence, as if it were a good thing. I almost retched when I heard CC mentioned, but he managed to get me to set up an appointment for Tuesday to meet him and hear his rates.

There's no way we could afford to advertise on radio, even if we were to advertise w/ CC, so it's all moot- I'm just gonna waste the guy's time. But I could use this opportunity to air my grievances about that huge, stinkin' monopoly.

What would you say, given the opportunity?

fp

tell him you want howard stern to do the voice over and that you want the music bed to be the dixie chicks

OMG CAN U GET CHAD KROEGER'S AUTOGRAPH?!!??

That would be one way, or if you really want to waste his time, play dumb and have him re-explain the rates umpteen times, then say, "Okay, let me see if I got this right..." and relay them wrong back to him.

Then give the impression you have a good chunk of advertising budget to play with and make him think big. Just go whole hog to get him salivating, then slowly start paring back until you get to virtually nothing.

Sales reps here [newspaper] love it when you start talking about a half page or more, getting all excited then slowly start changing your mind and trying different scenarios so you end up with a 2-inch ad that costs $50.

that salesman did his job. you're going in for the appointment.

In a way, yeah. But he's coming to our store, and we have nada to lose but a few minutes. Can always learn from these experiences.

fp

The guy's just doing his job. He's just some lowly rep who's trying to earn a living and could care less about Clear Channel.

Why don't you ask him instead for names of the BIG honchos? Email addresses, etc. Then, you can start sending your gripes to them.