Category Archives: Radio coaching tip

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #528: Go, Stop, Go – A Voice Tracking Tip

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There are so many voice trackers these days, and if you’re in that world you know that it’s hard to keep improving if you’re not on the air in real time and don’t get any feedback that you can trust. Here’s a simple system I recommend that’ll improve your work and keep you sharp. It’s “go, stop, go.”

Go. Record an hour of breaks.

Stop. Listen back to them, all in a row. The whole hour’s worth of breaks. You’ll pick up on whether you sound repetitive, or if you fall into bad habits like always going down in pitch at the end of a sentence, or sounding like you’re talking – but not necessarily like you’re actually talking TO someone. Recut whatever needs to be better.

Go. Now go forward and cut the next hour.

Rinse and repeat. Do an hour, listen; do an hour, listen. Don’t just cut all of it in one lump and plop it into the system thinking that you “got it”.

An added advantage is that taking that little break after cutting each hour’s worth of audio will refresh you. That’ll help you sound better, too.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2023 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #527: Surprise Me

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Like most people, I listen to the radio at some point every day. I hear promos. I hear commercials. I hear songs. I hear people trying to sound cheerful. I hear people trying to be funny.

What I all-too-rarely hear is something that actually surprises me.
Gee, I wish that wasn’t true. Surprises are great.

I want Surprises. I loathe The Obvious. And I’m not alone. People want companionship. They want entertainment. They want pertinent information. (We’ve all heard the voice-tracked Talent that’s really cheerful while a tornado is headed our way.)

Don’t fall for the “This is good enough” trap. “Good enough”…never is.
SURPRISE ME.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2023 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #526: Trying to Orchestrate the Reaction

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Lately, with Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, etc. I heard several stations trying to orchestrate the reaction to a giveaway for those days, saying things like “You’re gonna like it!”

How do you know? (You don’t. After all, one person’s “great” prize is another person’s “yard sale” junk.)

Besides coming across as just trying a little too hard to generate excitement, you’re also telling me (the Listener) what to think; what to feel. This will always fail with a large portion of listeners, because a LOT of people – wait for it – like to make up their own minds.

The easy cure is to tell me that you think I’m going to like it. “I think you’ll really like it” is what you’d tell a friend – if you wanted to stay that person’s friend. Telling a person what you think their reaction should be can erode a friendship pretty quickly.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2023 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #525: Hubie Brown and Your Dollar

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The great NBA coach Hubie Brown, also a master “color man” for NBA games for years, has this great saying, “He gives you his dollar.” (Think Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Steph Curry, etc.)

That means the player gives you everything he has every game, a “dollar” rather than, say, 40 cents.

I’ve helped many stations in the search for air talent over the years, and that ingredient is always what we look for. I feel that a good talent who doesn’t give it a full-out effort every day is cheating the station – and himself/herself.

All the “flash” in the world can’t make up for a lazy work ethic. Give it your “dollar” every break, every hour, every day you’re on the air. You never know when someone who could change the course of your career might be listening.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2023 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #524: A. I. versus Your Demo

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Well, it’s here. A station in Portland has an A. I. (artificial intelligence) “air talent”. A sign of things to come? Well, as the renowned football coach Bill Parcels used to say, “Let’s not get out the anointing oil just yet.”

When a station needs a new talent, your demo will possibly land you the job. But obviously, it’s now possible that a faceless nonperson might get it instead. So think about how you come across on your demo.

Two thoughts for you: Editing. And Personality.

If you can’t edit your demo well, it won’t carry much impact. And if you have Personality out front, you’ve got a great shot to not lose out to a robot voice.

And (note: editorial) any station thinking about using an A. I. “jock” is basically just taking the cheap way out and doesn’t deserve listeners. Period. Shame on them.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2023 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #523: Did You Get Noticed Today?

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Times have changed. Local stations often don’t sound local. Syndicated shows tend to talk about generic subjects because they can’t be specific to a certain city or state. Huge radio companies are so weak in coaching the talent that many air talents have never had a coaching session.

So let’s start your process with a basic question: Did you get noticed today?
And while we’re going there, if you missed work today, did any listeners notice?

Every day, you have a chance to carve out the same kind of career as a Paul Harvey or Howard Stern or Bobby Bones or anyone else you want to name. So…who are you? What’s your brand of humor? What emotions do you show on the air? And most importantly, what do you have in common with me (the listener)?

I tell people all the time to “crack your chest open and show us what’s in there.” THAT is how you get noticed.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2023 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #522: Radio versus Social Media

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It’s come to my attention that a lot of people actually take Twitter, Facebook, or other social media comments seriously. Imagine that – someone you don’t know makes a comment, and you actually care. I knew this day would come when they took the cocaine out of Coca-Cola. (According to Facebook.)

I shudder to think – well, I don’t actually shudder; to do that, I’d have to stand up, and I can’t type very well standing up. Anyway, I’ll ask Siri to remind me to imagine shuddering at the notion of a generation of people who have a real need for some sort of validation from strangers.

Okay, done mock-shuddering now. All that came to me was, “Bless their pointed little heads.”

Seriously, if you actually find yourself paying a little too much attention to “social”, remember this: most people don’t have 20,000 Twitter followers, but if you’re on the air in a large market, you probably do have 20,000 listeners at any given moment. VOICES are almost always going to be far more powerful than mere ‘postings’.

Celebrate that! Do the best you can, every day. Ignore any negative comment from someone who’s not your boss or your coach. And to quote the Dean of Science Fiction writers, Robert Heinlein, “Be who you are. And be it in style.”

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2023 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #521: Go in a Straight Line

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What separates a “shaggy dog” story from one that entices a person to listen is whether or not it goes in a straight line.

Too many “side references” stall the story out and put it in neutral as far as the plot goes. In real life conversations, people may listen. But on the air, a minute is a long time. (Want to argue the point? Hold your breath for one minute, starting right…now.)

There’s also the danger of sounding like you’re interrupting your own thought. This is a weird habit, because at that point you’re just trying to sort out in your own mind how to tell the story. I don’t have time to listen to that.

You need to be prepared and make the story march at a decent pace, but also be mindful of when a pause is needed. We do want to sound as natural as possible, but we owe the listener being expedient, too.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2023 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #519: Bits That Should Be Buried Forever

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It’s incredible to me that we still hear ‘bits’ on the air that were stale 25 years ago. Here are some examples of the type of stuff I’m talking about:

This Day in History.
No one cares. Especially the younger demographic. Millenials don’t remember past last Thursday.

“Stupid Criminal” Stories.
Again, why does this matter? How is it top of mind? (And we all have the internet, you know.)

Trivia games.
Dead, dead, dead. I can ask Siri and get the answer in three seconds. It’s not 1980 anymore.

The “uhm” Game.
I always thought this one was stupid – because it makes the contestant sound stupid. Why would you want to do that? My wife tells me that most women hate being made a fool of.

Obviously, there are quite a few others that I didn’t mention, but the message is the same: think of something new, something fun, something yours. But most importantly in terms of performance, do something that makes the listener feel like you’re actually looking to connect with him/her, instead of just filling time. Bad bits use listeners as props. Good content is always about relevance and connection.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2023 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #516: The Same Note

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It’s only natural that I get a lot of inquiries about how to break into the Voice Acting world. Several years ago, after a seminar, a guy asked if I would listen to some of his work. He was a very good talent, but listening to his demo, I noticed something. I told him, “If I were playing the notes on a keyboard that you hit with your voice, you always seem to end sentences on the exact same note, and it almost always goes down in pitch.”

He was surprised by this, and said he had never noticed that before.

Going down in pitch repeatedly can make you sound predictable, or even bored. You should (of course) VARY your deliveries. And I also believe that thinking about it in a musical context can add a dimension.

Tip: I always picture the person – the ONE person – that I’m talking to. That seems to ‘shape’ the delivery, and helps avoid the “same note” thing.

It’s called Voice ACTING for a reason.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2023 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.