In business, they call it "stopping the bleeding." It not only refers to getting out of the red and into the black, it more broadly refers to HALTING anything and everything that is hurting your station.
If your station in hurting. Forget grand schemes of sounding great, having plenty of funds and growing. YEP. Forget it. Right now, that is going to get in the way and actually HURT your growth. (I will explain shortly how "planning" on growth can HURT your station- unless there are some steps you take first.
SO, if you can admit you are hurting, get ready to fix it fast. NOT overhauling or getting on the fast track BUT getting out of the "slippery slope" syndrom you are stuck in.
1) STOP. Yep. STOP all plans. All promotions. All planned activities, Halt. Cease. Freeze. Why? Because the way out of your mess is NOT to do MORE. Before you do ANYTHING else. Especially anything NEW, you need to take a hard, brutal look at everything you are doing. If you are hurting, then what you are doing is not working. How will MORE if it make things better? So declare a moratorium on adding anything new.
2) Plan on Doing LESS. Yep. LESS. Why is it everytime somebody wants to make a station better, they start thinking of things to ADD, more things to do etc. I am consulting with a station in a mid size market. I told them that this would be the year of LESS. And we began immediately cutting back on plans for events, new programming features, etc. We instead took EVERYTHING to the chopping block. Fewer short features, fewer community events, of course, fewer songs, fewer items on the website.
3) BACK TO QUALITY. After cutting and slashing everything we could, it began to allow the staff a little more time, some more margin. They were less overwhelmed with endless tasks, production, planning etc. THEN we begin to implement something they have not had time for in years: QUALITY! By doing LESS, they had more time to add more quality production to FEWER events- rather than airing sloppy bits that were just thrown together.
4) Another advantage to doing LESS: On the air, there is MUCH more focus on the fewer more important items. Rather than announcers hapazardly reading 10 to 15 PSAs and promos, they had only a handful. This allows for a cleaner, more coherent sound overall. It works.
5) Fewer of what? Less of What? OK- specifics: First, we only focus on about 4 or 5 PSAs at a time. And at most one or two station events at a time. No more. (See my article on "Evernote" as a way of keeping a succinct list of items that your staff is focusing on.
6) Imaging features. Many stations have several different imaging voices. (including station announcers doing some imaging features.) Stop it. NO announcer voices on imaging features. Pick a male and a female voiceover talent for your imaging and THAT is it.
7) Fewer spots, features and recorded items. Do you HAVE to run news? No. Do you HAVE to have a long weather forecast? I could go on and on. But YOU know your station. Pull out a legal pad and start hacking. Do the painful surgery. Keep ONLY what you absoluty need to. SHORTER announcer breaks. Less talk. Less of everything means MORE quality focus on what is left.
8) RESULT: You will notice a cleaner, smoother, less cluttered air sound. It will be easier to listen. AND listeners will find fewer reasons to click the dial. DON'T focus on getting more listeners! Focus on PLEASING the listeners you have now! And they will be most pleased with a cleaner, smoother, more focused sound. This starts with two words: STOP and LESS. Start with that. AFTER you have done that, THEN I will suggest some things to ADD. But that must NOT happen until you have cleaned house in a big way.
If your station in hurting. Forget grand schemes of sounding great, having plenty of funds and growing. YEP. Forget it. Right now, that is going to get in the way and actually HURT your growth. (I will explain shortly how "planning" on growth can HURT your station- unless there are some steps you take first.
SO, if you can admit you are hurting, get ready to fix it fast. NOT overhauling or getting on the fast track BUT getting out of the "slippery slope" syndrom you are stuck in.
1) STOP. Yep. STOP all plans. All promotions. All planned activities, Halt. Cease. Freeze. Why? Because the way out of your mess is NOT to do MORE. Before you do ANYTHING else. Especially anything NEW, you need to take a hard, brutal look at everything you are doing. If you are hurting, then what you are doing is not working. How will MORE if it make things better? So declare a moratorium on adding anything new.
2) Plan on Doing LESS. Yep. LESS. Why is it everytime somebody wants to make a station better, they start thinking of things to ADD, more things to do etc. I am consulting with a station in a mid size market. I told them that this would be the year of LESS. And we began immediately cutting back on plans for events, new programming features, etc. We instead took EVERYTHING to the chopping block. Fewer short features, fewer community events, of course, fewer songs, fewer items on the website.
3) BACK TO QUALITY. After cutting and slashing everything we could, it began to allow the staff a little more time, some more margin. They were less overwhelmed with endless tasks, production, planning etc. THEN we begin to implement something they have not had time for in years: QUALITY! By doing LESS, they had more time to add more quality production to FEWER events- rather than airing sloppy bits that were just thrown together.
4) Another advantage to doing LESS: On the air, there is MUCH more focus on the fewer more important items. Rather than announcers hapazardly reading 10 to 15 PSAs and promos, they had only a handful. This allows for a cleaner, more coherent sound overall. It works.
5) Fewer of what? Less of What? OK- specifics: First, we only focus on about 4 or 5 PSAs at a time. And at most one or two station events at a time. No more. (See my article on "Evernote" as a way of keeping a succinct list of items that your staff is focusing on.
6) Imaging features. Many stations have several different imaging voices. (including station announcers doing some imaging features.) Stop it. NO announcer voices on imaging features. Pick a male and a female voiceover talent for your imaging and THAT is it.
7) Fewer spots, features and recorded items. Do you HAVE to run news? No. Do you HAVE to have a long weather forecast? I could go on and on. But YOU know your station. Pull out a legal pad and start hacking. Do the painful surgery. Keep ONLY what you absoluty need to. SHORTER announcer breaks. Less talk. Less of everything means MORE quality focus on what is left.
8) RESULT: You will notice a cleaner, smoother, less cluttered air sound. It will be easier to listen. AND listeners will find fewer reasons to click the dial. DON'T focus on getting more listeners! Focus on PLEASING the listeners you have now! And they will be most pleased with a cleaner, smoother, more focused sound. This starts with two words: STOP and LESS. Start with that. AFTER you have done that, THEN I will suggest some things to ADD. But that must NOT happen until you have cleaned house in a big way.
-Rick McConnell
