In the two previous Frost Advisories here and here I have shared a few brief ideas of how we can learn from the Turning Point USA movement created by Charlie Kirk. This week I’ll dig a little deeper on one of those ideas.

#2: Do your homework. Prepare.

Charlie would set up a tent on college campuses and engage in dialogue or debate under a tent with a sign that read, “Ask me anything!” Charlie believed that “when people stop talking, really bad stuff starts.” Charlie was always prepared.

Good radio stations aren’t good by accident. They must be designed to be good. That takes preparation.

Just this past week I coached a morning show that planned their show on a group Google document. It included what they were going to talk about (the WHAT), and color coding for the emotion of the topic (the HOW).

I suggested the next step is to connect that emotion to a brand value, like compassion, forgiveness, or friendship. This tool allowed not only preparing the emotional range of the hour, but also how it corresponded to the emotion range to that same hour the next day. After all, listening patterns tend to line up with the daily routine.

Here’s a nifty checklist of the warning signs that a radio station that isn’t prepared:

The talent talks too much. Rambling is always a byproduct of lack of preparation. One doesn’t weave in traffic if they know where they’re going.

Lack of emotional range. A station must be prepared to design in “from laughter to tears” dynamic range. Lack of preparation results in sameness of sound. (See Frost Advisory #164-Your Station Is Like A Song). I first learned this programming Smooth Jazz, where everything sounds like a saxophone… unless it doesn’t.

Promos sound like someone is reading a phone book; no emotion, no story, all data, data, data. (I recently heard a promo for a concert tour that included what year it is. I’m not making this up, as Dave Barry would say!)

Great radio stations are a result of hard work. Bad radio stations are a result of lack of preparation.