CCM Coaching Tip #12: Learn From Steve Jobs

by Tommy Kramer, Kramer Media

There are a lot of things we can learn from really successful people and corporations. Steve Jobs and Apple are certainly a good study, so consider this.

In a meeting once, Jobs reportedly looked at the people in the room and said, "Here's what we should be thinking: What would be cool? What would be fun? And what would benefit the life of the customer?"

He was funneling them away from what COULDN'T be done, cost analysis, limitations, and anything that didn't directly make the Apple customer's life better.

In radio, and most particularly in Contemporary Christian radio, our goals should be the same:

What would be cool?

We don't want to sound square, and left behind in the last century. If you're not thinking about the NEXT generation of listeners, you're going to be scrambling to be relevant in a very few years. Don't sound like their parents. Sound like them. Use real words.

What would be fun?

So many CCM stations don't seem to have much of a fun factor at all. They seem to take everything SO seriously that genuine, snot-bubble laughter is completely missing from the product. It doesn't make sense that a station playing songs with the greatest message ever told should sound so joyless.

What would Benefit the life of the Listener?

A lot of stations' Imaging seems to only be about the station, with the Listener simply the person we're telling that we're closer to God than she is. It's not INTENDED to be that way, of course, but the copy is poorly written, so that's how it comes across. And an Imaging piece that plays between songs shouldn't be a paragraph; it should just be a thought, with your name attached to it, so you keep good forward flow. "Stop/start/stop/start" is the opposite of Momentum.