Batched Out: Death of A.M. Radio

It’s a Thursday morning, and I’m waiting for Mike to arrive at HQ for our chat. At about 8 past 11, I start circling the office, worried he might have gotten lost. 

Instead, I hear a new, warm voice flood our halls, filling the space with excited chatter. It turns out, Mike had arrived on time. But we weren’t going to start without him greeting everybody first.

That’s just the kind of guy Mike is. Friendly, earnest, and full of life.

When we finally sit down, he tells me, “I’m an open book. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” And he starts from the beginning—about how he started following his dad’s footsteps in furniture manufacturing. But the biggest risk he took was leaving that world.

“I don’t want to be under the umbrella of my father. I wanted to kind of branch out and do my own thing.”

His first big solo step was in the radio business.

“I got into radio advertising. I had no idea what I was doing. It was for KFWB radio, which is the AM news station. They’re no longer in existence today—one of the many things I lost.” All was going well, until FM stole the scene and Mike was laid off.

He was back to the drawing board yet again.

“So then I had a bunch of weird jobs. Because I’m trying to find my way.”

One of those jobs was working for a fraudulent loan company that was later raided by the FBI, but we don’t have to get into that.

Everything changed for Mike with just one phone call in 2012. “I had, a buddy of mine say ‘you’ve got to get into the credit card business. I’m going to recruit you.’”

Next thing he knows, he starts working with an ISO based in Phoenix (we won’t name names). “You had to prove yourself. It was like a probational period thing. And it was insane.”

He found himself on the road with his boss as part of his training, only to realize:

“This guy is my boss, and he can’t close a deal.”

That wasn’t the only red flag. Mike was being micro-managed. Hard.

“Even though you’re acting as a 1099, you’re technically a W-2, so they control you. They were getting 85% of my earnings and I was getting 15.” He stuck it out, but things didn’t get better until Justin Volrath came into the picture.

Mike says he’ll never forget the day Justin called and they met at Starbucks. “The rest is history.”

After years of poor treatment, Mike found that PayCompass actually prioritized his growth and well-being. PayCompass hasn’t just been a partner, but a network of lifelong friendships for Mike.

“I feel welcome here. It’s a family, and I don’t know any other company that does that.” Mike joined the #AgentFirst revolution, and according to him,

“It’s so good that I’m really pissed I wasted the years. But I call it getting my chops, you know?”

Now, Mike has the freedom to focus on what really matters: family time, concerts, and Magic the Gathering.