what we do, and wanted an honest relationship with a local media entity and its community, and how we help their business every day with local goodwill and commerce.
I was extremely fortunate. I had a โcommunityโ long before there was such a thing as a โweb community.โ You and I were โlinked inโ before it was a website. You were probably โfollowingโ me on the radio long before you were on Twitter. And we defined what โfriendshipโ meant before there was a Facebook and a โlikeโ button.
From my childhood in Dundalk, we mightโve gone to school together. Or watched Orioles or Colts or Blast or Terps or Skipjacks games. Or I mightโve dated your friend back in the day or did business with your neighbor or we drank beer together in some East Baltimore basement in the 1980s.
If youโre here now, itโs probably because Iโve earned your trust (especially if youโve read this far). And thatโs not easy to do in 2014. In the new web universe, itโs called โearned media.โ
I call it the #BmorePositive effect of โSmalltimore.โ
And over the years the partnerships and relationships that Iโve formed with high-integrity athletes and people like Brian Billick, Joe Flacco, Dennis Pitta, Rex Ryan, Mike Nolan, Mike Flynn, Brendan Ayanbadejo, Brandon Stokley and Jameel McClain and the three years of nationally syndicated radio have brought so many amazing people into my life whoโve given me an outlet to do not only good radio, but to also do good deeds. I will be featuring many of them in the coming weeks and months in a new feature called, โMy Favorite People.โ
I hope you know how appreciative I am that you all have joined me in this journey, and I canโt wait to continue to be a part of those special WNST sports moments moving forward.
Weโre going to be doing things a bit differently starting on Tuesday, September 2nd here at WNST.net and on our radio dial at AM 1570. I believe you will love the โnewโ WNST. Iโm building it for you so that youโll want to listen every day and support our many local sponsors.
The only way that WNST has stayed in business and continued to further our legacy heading into our 17th year is by keeping our local business and community partners happy and providing them with good value. If I couldnโt sell Bud Light for John Daue at Winner Distributing, printers for my dear friend Joe Enoch, pizza for the Romiti family at Squireโs in Dundalk, gym memberships for the folks at Planet Fitness and cars for Jerryโs Toyota, WNST would have ceased to exist a long time before Paul King wasnโt on Facebook. My lessons learned on the street as a kid doing a little radio show on an AM station in 1992 taught me very early in my career that you were only worth what you could sell for somebody else as far as being a local media โstar.โ
Many former employees believed that they worked โfor Nestorโ when in reality weโve all worked for the businesses who sponsored us, believed in us and trusted us to put their most important asset โ their name โ next to mine and our hosts at WNST over the years.
As โNasty Nestor,โ I built a foundation of helping local businesses. My success spawned the ability to feed other peopleโs families and thatโs a great feeling for someone who yearns a sense of significance. My Pop worked in a steel mill from the time he was 40 until he died in 1992 and I had somehow become a โjob creatorโ (at least thatโs what the Republicans would call it).
In the end, I only really answer to him and his legacy. My Pop would very, very proud of โNasty Nestorโ and what youโve helped me build over the years.
Peruse this website and everything that you call โan adโ is what keeps our families fed at WNST. And itโs our job as a media entity to make sure these businesses earn your loyalty and patronage.
I could go on and on and on about the bonds that Iโve built and the business owners that Iโve developed deep, professional, personal and eternal friendships with over the years. I love and appreciate each and every one of them and look forward to continuing those relationships in the coming years and serving them with the best and most active Baltimore sports radio station and web and social community in the marketplace.
Like every other media entity in America, weโve been through tough times over the past decade as the world went from newspaper to blogs, from transistor radios to iPods, from television to YouTube and from lined notebooks to iPads. Weโve also seen many local business partners go through turbulent times and some didnโt make it through the economic storm of 2008 through 2011.
One of my awesome friends and partners, a serial entrepreneur, always says: โIf you want to make something in life that truly matters โ make a payroll!โ
In other words, create some opportunity for others so that youโll feel the gratification of creating a greater community and feed more families through your abundance.
I have done that for 16 years and Iโve given well over 1,000 people a chance to make a name for themselves