For the last several weeks I’ve been digging into the most common challenges radio stations face in becoming successful. Now it’s time to count down the final four. Drum roll, please.

#4 – Inside thinking

We go to a restaurant. We instantly see what needs to be changed. The people at the restaurant can’t see it at all.

We check into a hotel. We instantly see that the very doors to enter the lobby are too cumbersome for anyone with luggage! Well, who in the world would bring luggage to a hotel?

When my daughter Carly was younger we would be out together and someone would inevitably say, “You look so much alike.” What a stranger could see instantly we struggled to see at all.

So it is for your radio station.

There are important things about your station you’ll be the last to see because you’re simply too close to it.

The importance of perceptual research or trusted outside counsel cannot be overstated. If you have neither, consider this idea.

Last week I was with my new friend David Salyers, head marketing guy at Chick-fil-A, and regular contributor to Keep The Faith. While showing us around The Hatch (the entire building devoted to hatching new ideas) he shared numerous remarkable concepts that drive their success!

The Hatch includes a mock up restaurant where they attempt to address “Points of Pain”; where the customer must overcome an inconvenience or an irritant to have a satisfying experience. What a great idea, I thought!

What are your station’s “Points of Pain”?

Is it the unfamiliar music you play that keeps your listener from hearing their favorites? (Everyone’s favorite radio station is the station that plays their favorite music).

Is it endless deejay banter that interrupts and interferes with their enjoyment of the music?

If you’re lacking an objective outside perspective on your station, consider asking your listeners.

After all, the only place to read the label is from outside the bottle.

It was a remarkable thing to see!

Hundreds of millionaire athletes willingly giving up a tool of their trade and replacing it with something that on any other day, in any other circumstance, would subject them to ridicule and harassment from their teammates and fans.

They wore pink.

Sunday was a special Mother’s Day at ballparks across the country as Major League Baseball joined forces to raise money for breast cancer research. The players demonstrated their support by wearing pink wrist bands and using pink bats. Some wore pink batting helmets and pink caps. In Milwaukee they Pinked Out their ballpark using social media to direct fans to turn over a card on their seat at a specific moment during the game! #PinkOutMillerPark

If someone had tried to get major league ballplayers to wear pink just for the sake of wearing pink the players would have laughed at the idea.

But wearing pink, the tactic, wasn’t the point. Mom was the point. Something bigger was the point. That something bigger is called strategy. Strategy is what drives emotion.

What’s “the idea” behind your radio station? Can that idea form a story that people want to be a part of?

Or are you trying to force your listeners use a pink bat?

I’m told that these weekly Frost Advisories are the most widely read programming thing around in the format these days. My guess is that this one will top them all as people see their own situation and secretly pass along to their teammates with a “See, I told you so!”

Buckle your seat belt!

#10 – Success is never defined

It’s easy to think yourself successful as long as that remains vague and without form.

“One reason we’re able to believe that we’re better-than-average leaders and drivers and spouses and team players (and radio stations) is that we’re defining those terms in ways that flatter us. The ambiguity in terms like “leader” or “team player” enables our illusion. That’s why it’s so much harder for us to fancy ourselves better-than-average pole vaulters.” Chip and Dan Heath, “Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard.”

#9 – Lack of vision

This year is the same as last year is the same as next year. If you don’t know where you’re going any road will lead you there.

“Vision without action is a dream. Action without vision is simply passing the time. Action with Vision is making a positive difference.” Jack Welch

#8 – Fear of change

We crave familiarity. We’ll even borrow someone else’s if necessary. “What do you like here?” we ask at a new restaurant. The most familiar is always the status quo, which is deadly for change.

“The unsuccessful person is burdened by learning, and prefers to walk down familiar paths. Their distaste for learning stunts their growth and limits their influence.” – John Maxwell

Stay tuned next week for more.