Really? The Personal ScLoHo | The Genuine ScLoHo aka Scott Howard

Random Birthday Week Thoughts

by Scott Howard | Dec 8, 2024 | Really? The Personal ScLoHo, Uncategorized

Time to share a few personal thoughts and reflections.

(When I started writing online, it was a blog called ScLoHo’s Really? . It was a personal blog that a few years later combined with a business oriented blog and created this website.)

It’s Sunday morning December 8th, 2024 and on the 11th I turn 65 years old.

Most days I don’t feel like I’m that old, but I’m not sure what I expected to feel like at this age.

Health wise, I’m doing fine. Nothing seriously wrong that I’m aware of that has crept up on me as I age.

A few years ago, a friend of mine, Larry Merino, who served as one of the pastors at our church gave me some advice about getting older.

Larry is 6 years older than me.

I was leading an outreach group of volunteers from our church to participate in the Great American Clean-up in the Frances Slocum Neighborhood in Ft. Wayne. I’d been participating in this event for a few years and this particular year I was suffering from allergies. We had around 30+ volunteers this day and we gathered at Klug Park. I grew up across the street from Klug Park and now Larry lived across the street from the same park.

After giving everyone instructions including addresses that could use our help, Larry prayed for the volunteers and then called me to join him on his porch while the rest went to work. Larry told me to look and see all the younger people who were there and they could do the physical labor. As we get older, our roles in life change to that of mentoring, teaching and leading. I mostly took his advice that day, and enjoyed his fellowship, friendship and the couple cups of coffee. I also did stay involved as I drove around to the various addresses to make sure everyone had what they needed and assisted in that manner.

That was over ten years ago, I was just 54 at the time, but there have been a couple of times that I’ve realized my age compared to others.

Back in 2001, I was working as a thermoformer operator for a local plastics company and started noticing that the new people they were hiring were closer to my kids age than my age. The job was fast-paced and demanding and each day I had a crew of 2 to 6 material handlers that were responsible for correctly inspecting and packing what we produced. When it was break time, we didn’t shut the production line down, I simply would take over, usually doing the work of two or three for 20 minutes. I used my ability to to the work of two or three as a reason for not slowing the line down when they complained it was too fast. If I can keep up, you can too were the words they heard from me often.

Later in life, as I reflected on some of the differences between myself and others, I noticed a certain drive and ambition that others pointed out was part of my make-up. Others have it too, but there are plenty of people who don’t.

Another time I noticed my age was one of the first times I was invited to speak to a university class and I realized that the examples I was using in my presentation were people that the college students never heard of because they were 25 years younger than me. Oops. I’ve learned that lesson. I still speak to college and university classes about once or twice a year, but refrain from being the really old guy!

What are some things I would tell my younger self if I could go back in time?

Some of the same things I tell people now.

Encourage people.

Appreciate people.

Tell them that you notice their effort.

You don’t have it have life figured out yet. Some of the best people on this planet are the ones that continue to be curious and explore.

Don’t waste your time, but also slow down and enjoy life and the things and people around you.

Instead of living in fear, chart your course and be willing to take some calculated chances.

Listen more, talk less.

Not everything will last, Some only last for a season and that’s okay.

Seek advice from both the old and the young.

You can start over.

Here’s how I know this.

At age 22 I met a woman that was just 21 and in less than 6 months we were married. That marriage produced 3 great kids. While that marriage ended after 13 years, we decided to keep the friendship going as both of us remarried and our family circle grew. Admittedly, being friends at first wasn’t easy, but for the love of our kids, we learned.

At age 42, I married again and we’ve grown from being parents and step-parents to having grandkids too in the mix.

I’ve changed jobs and careers a few times. Currently I just completed my 11th year at Federated Media doing what I started doing in 2013 as an advertising sales and marketing consultant. However I also spent nearly 4 years in management overseeing the sales team at WOWO and a couple of our other radio stations. Last year I returned to doing the sales instead of managing the sales team again and it’s good to be back in this role.

It’s fun to see how my kids and step-kids lives have evolved too. The youngest is married and Mom to four boys, the oldest lives near us and his two sons are exemplary. Those are my step-kids and they are both married to exceptional people.

In-between are my three kids who are also driven but balanced. Work, Family, Personal, it all comes together if you allow it. Actually you have to do more than allow it, you have to seek it and pursue it.

I’m extremely proud of Tiffany, Josh and Rachael. Two of three have reached 40 and I’m blessed to have good and growing relationships with them, their partners and kids.

My wife and I have been together for nearly 25 years now and have created a life that is supportive and in-sync despite having some very different interests, we also have a lot in common. BTW, it helps to have different interests, otherwise you might be boring to your partner.

One last thought ran through my mind before I hit the publish button.

15 years ago, my wife threw a surprise birthday party for my 50th. It was at our home and in attendance were friends and family including my son Josh who had just turned 25 the month before. I had a moment of reflection that evening too.

I mentioned how here I was 50, Josh was half my age and I was amazed at how the past 25 years had been since he was born, not just my life but everyone’s life. I also mentioned how I was enthusiastically anticipating how the next 25 years would turn out. We’re not there yet, and perhaps I’ve got another 25 years on this planet.

We shall see…

A Few Personal Thoughts for August 2025

by Scott Howard | Aug 1, 2024 | Really? The Personal ScLoHo

It’s the first day of August 2024 as I write these words of an extra article on this website that is a personal reflection, marking a moment in time as we enter the final 5 months of the year. Usually, most of my articles are related to Media, Marketing and Personal Insights. This one is just the last without any Media and Marketing stuff, sort of like what I used to do before I launched this website in 2011 and these writings were being published on my ScLoHo Really? blog. Also there is no podcast episode for this article.

Most days I don’t wake up to an alarm clock, unless I really have to be up earlier than normal. I wake up naturally between 5 and 7am at the latest. Today, I was out the door at 7am with a goal of enjoying the morning time before work and taking in some of the Sights Of The City.

The reason I capitalized Sights Of The City is that is the title of a series of Facebook posts I’ve been sharing deliberately since last summer. These posts feature a picture I’ve snapped with my phone and often there is no explanation just a pic. Some people comment and some try and guess where the picture was taken if it’s an unfamiliar shot. The City happens to be where I’ve lived for the last 26 year, Fort Wayne Indiana.

Usually when I leave my home I swing by the nearest Taco Bell where I get a breakfast burrito for a buck fifty and a large Diet Dew, but they changed their hours from opening at 6:30 to 8am so that means I have some extra time beforehand. Today I visited a few spots in town to take some more pictures and soak up the sunshine, plus get a little walking exercise along with the numerous others doing their early morning jogs and dog walks.

Before I was doing the Sights Of The City, I had another routine of grabbing my Taco Bell breakfast and heading to a park with water and posting those photos each day. That was particularly helpful for my mental health during 2020.

As you recall, starting in March 2020, Indiana was shut down as a preventative measure to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus. Like many of you, I was now working from home so to get out in the morning before jumping into my workday, was a great way to start my weekdays.

I’ve also noticed over the years that I enjoy spending a little bit of time around water. I don’t need or want to live on a lake or river, but the opportunity to make a stop in my day to sit for a bit by a body of water is refreshing to me.

2020 was also a transition year for me. Our company had some management changes that included my boss and friend Ben, to be promoted from General Sales Manager of WOWO radio, to VP/General Manager of Federated Media Fort Wayne. With Ben’s promotion, he needed to replace himself as General Sales Manager and in mid-February 2020, I took over as the GSM for WOWO. Now instead of being one of 5 members of the WOWO advertising sales team, I was the leader, manager and coach of my former teammates which requires a very different skill set and revision of the application of my talents. Fortunately, our company has an ongoing training and support system for this, but due to the pandemic restrictions, even that was upended as we adjusted to a video/virtual world instead of in-person meetings.

I served as General Sales Manager for close to 4 years including adding 3 more stations on an interim basis for the final year. Me and my team were responsible for around 70% of the revenue for our Fort Wayne operations. Deciding who was going to be on my sales team was one of the most important duties. With WOWO, after a few months, I decided to let one of our underperforming sales persons go. He was in his 4th year but performing as a Sophomore, not a Senior to put it in academic terms. I was willing to help him get on track but he decided to refuse my help.

That was H. During my management years, I also added and subtracted M.; W.; B.; G.; T; R.; T.; M, H. That’s 10 people. Two were hired by someone else and started the same week I took over in management. Two of them quit on their own. Two of them I hired for the radio station the Bear last summer (and one of those is still there). Another in that list actually quit after I left management.

Despite helping two of my WOWO Sales Team reach new heights, we were starting to miss team budgets because of not having enough of the right players on our team. When I moved to management, my role selling diminished. The year before I moved to management, I won our company award for Account Executive of the Year and then spent the next couple of years transitioning nearly all of my accounts to others so I could focus on helping my team, not competing with my team.

In 4th quarter 2023 I stepped back from management and back to active sales on the WOWO Advertising Sales team. We hired back a long time former Federated Media sales manager who initially took over the stations I was Interim General Sales Manager of, and then he also took over GSM duties for WOWO too.

A couple of big benefits for me is I’m not responsible for anyone other than myself again. Instead of looking at spreadsheets and coaching our sales team, I get to spend my time working for my clients on my schedule. Previously I had at least 9 weekly internal meetings, some weeks that ballooned up to 12. For someone that is used to setting my own schedule in the office, that’s a lot of office time.

I used to brag to friends that there are only two hours a week that I needed to be at the office, and now that I’m back in active sales, that’s mostly true again. Which leaves me with time to visit the various Sights Of The City, or a park with water, or take time off when needed.

Most weeks I am done by 3pm Friday because that’s the deadline for getting ads scheduled for the following Monday. I’m usually putting in around 50 hours a week starting Sunday afternoons and some late evenings but most weekends start Friday around 4 and include all of Saturday as non-work time.

My wife and I have taken two long weekend vacations this year and I’ve got another trip planned for the end of this month to spend time with family because despite the fact I enjoy my work, it’s family I value above that, and while we can do video and voice, nothing beats a few hours in-person.

Speaking of family, both my wife and I have had daughters move out of state this year. All of our 5 kids are from our first marriages, I had three, she had two and there are at least 11 grandkids ranging in age from preschool to in the Navy. As an only child, I find it amazing that we have all this family!

I know that there is a whole lot of political news and international conflicts and all kinds of other things that take up space in all of our lives right now, but keeping ourselves centered is key to daily life.

Everyone of you and us have something going on in our lives “below the surface” that isn’t public. For that reason alone, give others a little slack and grace. And give yourself some grace too.

The 64 year old ScLoHo has a lot more insight and perspective than I did when I was 32. There are a lot less big, life changing moments that we go thru than we think as we are going thru them. There are a lot of little, life changing moments, and you and I get to have a lot more say in how our lives play out than we probably realize. Spend your time on this planet wisely and that includes living a balanced life. I get to serve as a volunteer again with some non-profits like I did before I was in management, perhaps that’s something you could do to? The most recent was being a tech volunteer at our church running camera and powerpoints during some of the services this summer. Other ways I serve are to use my professional experience in media and marketing and apply it to some non-profits that need my expertise. The last couple of years I’ve resumed being a special guest speaker at area colleges and universities.

You have talents and abilities that you can give away too.

Even if you don’t sign up for anything, there are people around you that could use a friend, or at least a friendly ear. Not always to be their problem solver, but just to listen as they verbalize what’s going on and as they talk, they actually figure out their own solutions. Can you do that?

How Do YOU Give?

by Scott Howard | Jun 10, 2024 | Really? The Personal ScLoHo, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

Marketing is more than advertising and your brand is more than your logo.

Despite the rise of A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) it’s people that make everything happen still in one degree or another.

The people in your organization interact with others and how ever that occurs, it matters.

Perception is reality in many cases.

One way to create a positive perception is to give of yourself.

Sure, money is nice but you have more valuable resources than just money that you can give.

You have talents, skills, wisdom and experience and if you have some time to share you can make a difference.

I’m going to share my story but it’s only an example of what might be possible for you. This is not about “how great Scott is”.

April 2003 was the month that I returned to radio fulltime in Fort Wayne, Indiana in a role that I had not done before in Indiana… advertising sales and marketing consulting.

Eight years with one group of stations, followed by 3 different jobs in succession that I stuck with 10 months each before joining Federated Media at the end of 2013.

In 2020, I stepped into management and then at the end of 2023, returned to sales.

As a way to balance my life, one of the things I’ve done is to give of my time to organizations that I could help. Returning to sales last year gave me control over my time again that I had lost a bit of while in management.

I’ve served on a couple of boards of non-profits, marketing committees of others and leadership roles outside of my paid work. I’ve had the opportunity to speak to students at several colleges and universities too. Last fall when my position changed and I found myself out in public more, it was fun to meet up with many old friends and acquaintances that I hadn’t seen much of since Covid. Sometimes, it’s simply seeing a need and stepping up to help. Sometimes it’s being available when someone needs help or an ear to bounce an idea off of.

I guess what i’m saying is that you and I have the same 168 hours a week and we get to choose how to spend the hours and minutes of our lives. You and your team need a healthy life balance and perhaps one way to achieve that balance is to do what I’ve learned works for my life and simply give of yourself. Be open to serve and have an impact. Not for the recognition, but because you are needed.

Does this inspire you to evaluate the way you spend your time? I’d like to hear your story. Drop me a note to Scott@ScLoHo.net

Once in a Lifetime Eclipse

by Scott Howard | Apr 29, 2024 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Really? The Personal ScLoHo, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

It’s been a few weeks but on April 8th millions of us in the United States were in the path of a solar eclipse.

Here in Indiana, the main event was shortly after 3pm as the moon blocked the light from the sun for a few minutes.

Where I live, Ft. Wayne, Indiana, we were in the 99.9% of total blackout and I was going to attend a rooftop viewing party locally.

However a few days before, my daughter who lives in Colorado told me she and her husband and kids were making the trek back home to witness it first hand and they were going to a rural spot south of Ft. Wayne where her in-laws lived and could we join them?

Yes was the answer and like many others we made a drive to see the world go dark in the middle of the afternoon.

It was a cool experience and likely the last solar eclipse I will witness first hand in my lifetime considering the next one for where I live is in 2099 and I’d be well over 100 years+ old.

There were plenty of crazy people predicting the 2nd coming of Jesus, or the rapture, or other things that most of us ignored. For the most part, this was an event for the masses without any political division or any other of the things that can divide people.

Instead, it was a day where all people could enjoy the same thing without a lot of spin. Oh there was a lot of hype and some news organizations went overboard warning people to be prepared for the worst.

But it really was nothing more than a natural, predictable occurrence that was available for anyone to witness first hand either in person like we did or on screens like many others did.

And that my friends, was a refreshing change from the multiple divisions this world seems to foster.

I’ll toss in a marketing tidbit… Be honest about how you promote things in your business. Once in a Lifetime can only occur once every 75 years or so. And remember the old adage of Underpromise and Overdeliver. This year’s eclipse was like that for me and hopefully you too.

No Quick Fix

by Scott Howard | Apr 8, 2024 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Really? The Personal ScLoHo, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

One of the concerns that I sometimes hear when talking to a business owner about investing in an advertising campaign is how long it will take to get results.

Or a variation is the opposite…

Can we handle all the business we get if we start advertising with your radio station?

My friends, there is usually no quick fix.

Advertising is usually not like a faucet that you turn on and customers come rushing out to buy what you have right away.

It takes time.

How much time?

Depends on how many ads you place and how often they air and a few other important factors.

However to the untrained, it might seem like things are closer than they really are.

Last month my wife and I took a trip to Washington DC to see the Cherry Blossoms and sightsee and along with a memorable trip, I’ve also got material for a few blogposts and podcast episodes.

The first day of our arrival, after checking in to our hotel and enjoying dinner at a local Irish pub, we decided to walk over to the Capitol Building which I knew was about 3 or 4 blocks away. We could see it from the Irish pub.

Then we glanced over towards the Washington Monument and decided to hike thru the National Mall to the Monument where there were more Cherry Trees and it was my intention to continue to the Jefferson Memorial.

However as we started the first part of our journey it was getting dusk and our perception of distance and the time it would take was off. We did make it to the Washington Monument, but there was no way we were going to continue that night all the way to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial on foot on Friday night.

A couple days later, with some pre-planning, I made arrangements for us to get a tour of the major sites of Washington DC that included transportation and from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in the daylight that Sunday, we could see much more clearly the big picture of how far we were from the Washington Monument and the Capitol Building.

The lessons we learned about quick fixes:

Plan ahead
Understand the journey
Know when to regroup and find a different method
Dress appropriate for the journey

Those same lessons apply to marketing your business, even the last one about dressing appropriately.

Want help? Contact me.

Reintroducing ScLoHo

by Scott Howard | Mar 4, 2024 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Really? The Personal ScLoHo, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Last week, when I was recording the podcast version of my weekly update I mentioned briefly what a ScLoHo is. Today, that is the focus of both this article and podcast episode.

If this is the very first time you’ve listened to the Scott Howard Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing Podcast, welcome aboard. If it’s the first time you’ve read an article I’ve published on this website, come on in.

Today I’m reintroducing myself, Scott Howard also known as ScLoHo.

I’ve been podcasting nearly every week since March 2017, so this is the beginning of my eighth year hosting a podcast.

I also checked my blogging history and I launched my first blog in 2004, 20 years ago.

The ScLoHo nickname began even before that as an email address because there are many Scott Howard’s out there and I needed something unique.

ScLoHo is a mash-up using the first two letters of my first name, Scott, first two letters of my middle name, Louis, and first two letters of my last name, Howard.

When you take those 6 letters and try and pronounce them, it becomes two syllables because there are only two vowels. Sclo (Sclow)- Ho (Hoe).

In 2004, I launched a couple of blogs, one was a personal blog, the other a media and marketing blog using Google’s old Blogger.com platform and eventually launched a few more blogs, all of them under the ScLoHo online persona. At one point, for a couple of years, I was posting over 30 times a week on all of these blogs and this was not my fulltime job. I was working for a group of radio stations from 2003 thru 2011 and blogging was just an unpaid side passion.

However, the ScLoHo name became pretty well known both locally and online. I have used ScLoHo as a Twitter or X handle, along with nearly all my other social media profiles. My personal email is @ScLoHo.net; I own the ScLoHo.com and .net domains and basically it use to be if you Googled ScLoHo, you’d find me.

Interestingly there were some people who knew me as ScLoHo and others who only knew me as Scott. In the summer of 2010, I was walking at the Tincaps baseball game, taking a lab around the stadium, when a group of friends from an advertising agency saw me and shouted my name. Except, some yelled ScLoHo, and the others shouted Scott.

In 2011, I left radio for 10 months and worked for a website development company where a friend of my challenged me to merge the two and launched the ScottHoward.me website. The dot me domain was not due to my ego, it’s because both the dot com and dot net domains were taken by other Scott Howard’s.

I imported over a thousand stories to this website from my blogs and eventually scaled down my updates from several a day to one a day to once a week. The only time I’ve done less than a weekly update was a few months in 2022 and 2023 when my duties at the radio stations as a sales manager overseeing 4 stations and 8 salespeople needed my attention more than this. At the time, I also figured after 300 podcasts and over 1500 articles, I pretty much had shared everything there was to know and media and marketing. I did monthly updates. My focus was to help my team grow and to take the spotlight off me and on them.

However at the end of last summer, things changed. I decided to step back from management and rehire myself as a member of the WOWO radio sales team. With that change, I decided to return to weekly updates and to get back out in the community again instead of behind the scenes like I had been doing for nearly 4 years as a manager.

What’s my backstory? Well first of all I never wanted to do sales.

In high school, my first venture into radio was on the air. After graduation, I was on the air at radio stations full time in Marion and Kokomo Indiana and then returned to my hometown of Fort Wayne and was on the air at WMEE. WMEE has always been owned by Federated Media and in the 1980’s WOWO was our competition, owned by another company. WOWO was the big dog, the radio station that had the highest ratings and most listeners for decades. However in the early 80’s I was part of the WMEE air team that finally beat WOWO and became the most listened to radio station according to the ratings.

Next stop was back to Kokomo and Indianapolis before taking my growing family to Detroit. Up until I moved to Michigan at the ripe old age of 26 with 10 years of on-air experience, I had only voiced radio commercials, but never wrote and produced advertising campaigns. The company I joined in Detroit was different and awakened a curiosity in me to figure out how to communicate and motivate people with a radio commercial to spend their money with a particular business. I learned how to create ad campaigns that were distinct and unique, and most importantly, created top of mind awareness of a business so that consumers would eventually need them, those businesses were already Top Of Mind.

While in Detroit at Crawford Broadcasting and station WMUZ, I grew our production department, did a stint as fill-in host and eventually hosted the morning show for awhile and also took my first advertising sales position.

In my mid-30’s, we moved my family back to Indiana, I returned to working on the radio at WFWI in Fort Wayne and then took a hiatus and worked outside of media. Finally in 2003, it was back to radio full-time for good, all most. Eight and a half successful years with a group of Ft. Wayne radio stations, followed by full time at a website development company, another radio station and as the Social Media Guru for a multimillion dollar eCommerce company and then back to Federated Media in 2013.

Nearly 30 years between my first time with Fed Med as a WMEE Disc Jockey to my current position on the WOWO Sales Team. I also spent close to 4 years as the General Sales Manager of WOWO and a year on an interim basis as sales manager of 3 other stations.

I’ve been a guest speaker with Huntington University a couple of times, Ivy Tech Fort Wayne, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne and this year will be making my second appearance speaking at Trine University.

I’ve worked with over a hundred companies and organizations and consulted around a thousand in both formal and casual settings to help them become better with their media, marketing, public relations and internal sales and marketing. Just in my 10+ years with WOWO have won a few achievement awards, called Feddies for Federated Media and even my own website won a best of contest by a competing media outlet. Awards are nice, but what really motivates me is to have the opportunity to help others and share the wisdom and knowledge I’ve picked up over the last few decades and I’m continuing to learn as a life-long student.

Teaching, Training, Motivating and Encouraging has been a lot of what I do. Helping people make wise spending decisions with their advertising and marketing is my bread and butter. Being a dad, husband and grandparent keeps me grounded as well as my Christian faith.

There’s a philosophy about marketing and advertising that I call using Human Relationship Principles that I’ll review in the near future, but for now, you now know a lot more about this Scott Howard aka ScLoHo then you did 10 minutes ago.

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