So, there he was on national TV.  A man who has been described by some as impulsive, combative, and egocentric.

But there he was.  And Tuesday night he had millions of us in tears.

“Trump became president of the United States in that moment.  Period.”
~CNN contributor Van Jones

“The most stirring moment of Trump’s speech – and his presidency – came when he spoke directly to Carryn Owens, the widow of Navy Chief William ‘Ryan’ Owens, who was killed in the military raid in Yemen that Trump ordered shortly after taking office.

“Trump led a 2-minute, 11-second standing ovation as Carryn Owens stood, crying and clasping her hands.”

So… what can we radio folks learn from this?

In your news they are not “consumers,” “taxpayers,” or “citizens,” they are real people who spend real money on real stuff.  And sometimes they are just scraping by.

In your traffic reports they are not “motorists,” they are real people who have real jobs and have to get to work and school on time.  And sometimes they are late.

In your promos they are not “contestants,” they are real people whose lives might be made just be a little bit better because they relate to your station.  But sometimes the line is busy.

Here’s the big idea:

Beginning tomorrow exorcise all generic references to real people.

Instead, go tell the important story…

“Focus on the one, not the many.”
~Mother Theresa

It was an innocent enough question, I thought.

Do people you run across seem to know about the station?  The lady hired to drive the station van around the city all day long responded, “No.  They think I’m selling fish.”

We’re consumed with ourselves.  Everyone we know knows our station. “The Curse of Knowledge” puts us in a position where we can’t even comprehend what it is like to NOT know what we know.  It’s that “imagine the world without the color blue” thing.  We can’t.

“Almost no one visits your restaurant, almost no one buys your bestselling book, almost no one watches the Tonight Show…

We think we’re designing and selling to everyone, but that doesn’t match reality…

Growth comes from person-to-person communication, from the powerful standards of ‘people like us.’  And it comes from activating people who are ready to be activated.”
~Seth Godin

I know of a radio station that achieved an historic #1 ranking in Women 25-54 in part by an influx of quarter hours from new people in the ratings panel.  Those weren’t new listeners mind you, they were just new panelists.  In other words, they weren’t listeners that we manipulated, they were already fans ready to be activated.  And they were fans for a reason.  They were fans because that station mattered to them.

We can’t adjust our tactics in an effort to manipulate our listeners into changing their lifestyle for one more quarter hour.  They don’t even know what a quarter hour is, AND they think we’re selling fish.

You can’t manipulate your way to number one.  There are no short cuts.

You have to do things that matter.

It caught my eye.  That silver convertible with the gizmo that makes the top disappear into the trunk.  Kinda cool, thought a certain mid-life crisis male.

Then I saw a blue one of the same model, then a red one a few days later, then another silver one just like it.  All of a sudden I was seeing them everywhere.  They weren’t relevant until they were.

My friend Eddie needed to get a passport photo for a sudden trip.  He went online and found a place way on the other side of town.  It was quite a drive but he was running out of time.

On his way back to his house he drove past the small shopping center near his house.  He happened to look over and saw the sign in the window of the Merle’s Camera Shop that read, “Passport photos here.”  It had been there all the time but he hadn’t noticed.  It wasn’t relevant… until it was.

“It’s funny how our minds are attuned to filter out almost everything except what’s relevant to us.  We can be in a crowded ballroom buzzing with people and still hear our own name.  It gets our attention and pulls us in.

It’s a good lesson for radio talent.  If you’re talking about what’s relevant to the listener, you’ll draw them in.  If you’re talking about what’s irrelevant to the listener they’ll never hear you at all.  That’s why there are so few true personalities, they’re too busy talking about what’s trending instead of what they have in common with the listener.”
~Alan Mason

Here’s the problem.  Every programmer and air talent nod their heads in agreement that their radio station should be relevant, all the while airing another ubiquitous Impossible Question (“Belly button lint originated in which remote tribal village in the Amazon?”), another traffic report about traffic I’m not in, or another tidbit about what celebrity said what at the Grammy’s/Oscars/Golden Globes.

We throw a bunch of stuff at the wall without using the precise filter of relevance.

Start with the listener and work back.  What does she care about RIGHT NOW?

Take it from Merle.  It’s not relevant until it is.

We can all remember the first time someone said, “I love you.”  (We can also painfully remember each time someone didn’t).

We are created to be known.  From the early playground experiences of “mommy, mommy, look at me,” to the moment you discovered the pretty girl knew your name.

“To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial.  To be known and not loved is our greatest fear.  But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God.  It is what we need more than anything.”
~Timothy Keller

Being known means we’re valued, seen as special.  Being known validates who were are, that we have worth.

Hallmark knows this.

Valentine’s Day cards are even grouped into “known” sections labeled “For my husband,” “For my wife,” “For my daughter… son…”

When we can get past the radio stuff perhaps we’ll discover that our format, at the highest “self-transcendence” level, is about being known.  Maybe people don’t tune to our format because of what we are, maybe they do because of who they are.

What if this Valentine’s Day programming lesson taught us that… instead of focusing on all the radio stuff listeners don’t really care about, we focused on affirming our listeners in the most important aspects of their lives.

Known for being a good mom.

Known for being a good kid.*

A good husband.  A good neighbor.  A good friend.

(*That’s what Family Name Game™ is all about).

“I’m pretty sure we never outgrow the need to be reassured, to be reminded we matter enough for someone to be there for us.  In fact, the older we get (the more we’ve been rejected, disappointed, abandoned and deserted), the more we long for someone, anyone, to do what they said they’d do, keep faith with us and honestly care about our well-being.

People remember when you catch them and when you don’t.”
~Mark Beeson

Our format is either a bunch of songs that people don’t know by artists they’ve never heard of…

or…

…it is a format of songs and stories about the most important things in our lives.

The former results in a station with a one share.  The latter results in a station that is a market leader.

Seth Godin says…

“One way the tribe identifies is through the observance of a holiday, of a group custom, of the thing we all do together that proves we are in sync.  People thrive on mass celebration, but as our culture has fragmented, these universal observances are harder to find…

Halloween and the Super Bowl are the new secular holidays, the group-mania events that prove we’re able to stay in sync…

(It’s a) chance for all of us to talk about the same thing at the same time.  This is part of what it means to belong.”

This is a part of what it means to belong.

If programmers in our format understood the power of being a part of a group talking about the same thing at the same time, our format would be transformed.

“Your customers and your employees want to feel what it feels to do what other people are doing.  Not everyone, just the people they identify with… because hanging out with people you care about (even if it’s just to eat junk food and talk about how bad the commercials are) is almost always worth doing.”

Recently I was with a well-known leadership guru who shared his organization’s mantra for creating a culture of excellence.  He distilled everything down to what he described as three basic ideas.

1. Make it better
2. Make it better
3. Make it better

He stressed that it is more than just a pithy way of emphasizing his organization’s desire for improvement.  It was their way of empowering every person in the organization to look for tangible ways to make their part of the process, from idea to execution, better today than it was yesterday.

So, what would this look like in the key areas of programming?

Music
Make it better by only playing songs listeners love.  Weed out the so-so and ones without broad consensus.  Unfamiliar new songs must be exposed carefully and enough that listeners can become familiar with them.

Talent
Make it better by delivering what Mark Ramsey describes as “what they hired you for.”  Meet expectations. Be relevant and interesting (in that order).  Program directors can help by assessing a talent’s “batting average,” and helping them increase it over time.

Promotions
Make it better by focusing promotions on the needs and benefits of the listeners.   Ask ‘Why should they care?’  Make it better by designing in your station’s brand values.  (Of course, your station has to actually have brand values.  See Frost Advisory #238—Celebrate What You Value.)

Service Elements (such as news, weather, and traffic)
Make it better by remembering all non-music elements are an interruption and must add value to the listener’s experience.  Information is either relevant or it’s not.  As my friend Dean O’Neal says “there is nothing more irrelevant than a traffic report for traffic you’re not in.”

“When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur. Don’t look for the quick, big improvement.  Seek the small improvement one day at a time.  That’s the only way it happens – and when it happens, it lasts.”
~Legendary coach John Wooden

*Photo from a get-together of Chick-fil-A‘s best customers at The Hatch in Atlanta to talk about how to make it better.

We don’t strive for exceptional.

Our nature is to be ordinary.

Exceptional is “forming an exception or rare instance; unusual; extraordinary”.
~Dictionary.com

The problem with being exceptional is not that we don’t know what it is.  The problem with being exceptional is that it goes against our nature.

Our default is always playing those extra songs that our listeners don’t know and don’t love, not the discipline of just playing the ones they love and tune to us for.

Our default is always talking too much, not the precision of “just the right amount.”

Our default is always “any time, any city,” not “right here, right now.”

Our default is always fluff, not being meaningful.

Our default is always formal, not being natural and conversational.

Our default is always bland, not surprise and delight.

The trouble is…

…great radio is hard work.

The easiest thing is never the best thing.

“You get what you accept.

If we accept a high standard, we will be rewarded with results consistent with that standard.  If we accept that other people can talk over us, and detract from our message, then we will not be heard.  If we only accept a best effort, then we will receive exactly that – no less.”
~Chris Oliver

“Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself.”
~Donald Miller, “Blue Like Jazz”

Think about the things you love.

I love the guitar because my high school buddies Kenny and Wally loved the guitar.

I love Mexican food because I’m a Texan.  It’s the law.

I first loved baseball because my dad loved baseball.  In fact, when you ask someone how they became a baseball fan they usually respond by talking about someone they love.  There is no better example than following last year’s World Series when Cubs’ fans wrote the names of loved ones on the brick wall at Wrigley Field.  Curious, isn’t it?

Everyone listens to your station because they love something else.  So every effort to make them love our features and sweepers misses the point.  It’s like trying to convince a baseball fan to love a team because the pitcher’s mound is 60 feet 6 inches away from home plate.

“Write because you love the reader.  Never write to prove your point.  Write to remind the reader they have infinite value.”
~Donald Miller

People love your radio station because they love something else.  When you figure that out, just stand back and watch people begin to love your station.

Go ahead.  Ask them.

Everyone, of course, will say that ‘yes’ their radio station is interesting.

“Where men are strong, women are good looking, and all children are above average.”
~Garrison Keiller

Then why is it that your own staff, the folks that are supposed to care the most, don’t listen at their desks.  Why is it that you don’t hear the station playing in the hallways?  Why are we “the team” not rooting for our own cause?

The program director of one of the best-known Christian radio stations in America looked out his office window at the parking lot and said to me, “I don’t see one bumper sticker for our station.”

(Go look out at yours. I’ll wait).

If your station is SO interesting why is it that your fanniest of fans listens fewer than 3 days per week?  That’s half as many times as you go to your mailbox.

Your station really isn’t all that interesting, you know.  But maybe it can be.

How?

We have to bridge the gap.  We have to risk taking all that radio stuff we do and connecting it to the listener’s life in ways that are meaningful and relevant.

We have to do stuff and say stuff and be stuff that matters.

It’s really the only choice we have.  Our future success will not come from our mattering less.

Have you seen that Facebook thing?  That thing where they take a year’s worth of your posts and create a montage of what you’ve posted the most.

Well now…

From what I’ve seen that would be mainly pictures of food, Chewbacca Mom, and anti-Hillary anti-Trump rants.  (At least the ridiculing of Mariah Carey’s lip syncing will have to wait until the 2017 montage).

Seems to me that if there is ANY format that ought to do something that matters it is the CCM format.

“So much more important than being heard is having something worth saying.”
~Erwin McManus

Now, don’t get me wrong I am not suggesting that stations should have less playtime and laughter.  They can be key ways that friendships are formed, don’tcha know.

But if that’s all you do then that’s all you are.  And you’re no different than the stations up and down the dial.

Successful stations understand and embrace what makes them meaningful and preferable.  They then demonstrate those values in ways that resonate emotionally with their listeners.

Researcher Jon Coleman observes, “I think that PPM may have caused radio programmers to become slaves to the ‘in the moment’ and lose track of what really builds ratings… (It’s) is not (about) eliminating every possible tune out, but rather offering emotion-evoking reasons people can love the station.  When people like or love a station they tune into it every day or even several times a day… People don’t come back to a station tomorrow because of a reduced tune out today.”

To paraphrase Francis Chan, this New Year our greatest fear should not be just of failure in the ratings but of succeeding at having a radio station that doesn’t really matter.

Thanks to my talented friend Carol Ellingson at Z88.3 in Orlando who created the mosaic using the Instagram website https://2016bestnine.com/.  Carol is a “wow”maker.