This may be the simplest Frost Advisory you’ve ever read. But simplest doesn’t mean easiest.

I’ve learned that every bad radio station has three things in common:

1. They take too long to do stuff
2. The stuff they do isn’t very interesting or meaningful
3. They take too long to do stuff

I reckon’ you see this played out in your radio station every day.

That meeting you just went to will inevitably result in doing more stuff.

That music meeting? You’ll play more stuff.

That promotions meetings? You’ll do more stuff.

And your station will begin to sound busier and busier. The listener calls this CLUTTER.

Our systems are set up to habitually add more stuff, but we seldom talk about taking stuff away. Like barnacles on a ship our radio station begins to slow to a one share. (That’s fewer people hearing our stuff that takes too long).

“Google, Amazon, and Apple are among the strongest brands of the last decade… Their brand success can be directly tied to simplicity – to making life simpler for their users, that is. They also adhere to simplicity rules to define their brand experiences.”

Fast Company

Here’s a simple idea:

Make everything 10% shorter.

Make all talk breaks 10% shorter. Make all promos, all liners, all promotions, all newscasts, all traffic reports 10% shorter.

Then mark on your calendar in six months and do it again, because those dastardly barnacles will be back and everything will be 10% longer without anyone noticing. Except your listeners.

The last paragraph to this Frost Advisory was supposed to go here. But I deleted to make it 10% shorter.