Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #653: Just the Driveway

Posted on December 10, 2025 by tommykramer

Over the years, one technique has constantly come up – how to get into a subject quickly and concisely.

I can’t count the number of air talents I’ve worked with who are really good at almost everything, but can’t “grab” the listener well because it just takes them too long to get to the point.

Here’s a visual for you…

We don’t have time, on the other end of the radio to drive down your street, wave at the neighbors, notice the new speed limit sign, get to your house, then drive up the driveway to the door, then go in.

We DO have time to start at the entrance of your driveway, and go on from there.

So get used to that self-editing, and you can reach the goal that always makes the difference: getting the listener’s attention in 10 to 15 seconds.
Try it out loud, before you do it on the air, and you’ll be surprised at how little time it takes.

Example:
(Station’s name, your name, song back-sell), then: “Bet you’ve done this. We come up the driveway to the house the other day, go in through the kitchen door ‘cause we’re carrying grocery sacks, and blam; the bottom falls out of one of them!”

There we are, right in that kitchen together – in 13 seconds.

The longer the “intro”, the weaker the story, first of all. But more importantly, your “storyboard” is shorter. In movie terms, we see the credits, then we’re seeing ourselves in whatever scenario it is. When I was taking film classes in college, there was a professor, Ed Luck, who absolutely infused us with not wasting time getting to the plot. We watched Alfred Hitchcock movies and John Huston films as examples: we’d see (1) the city, then (2) a certain building, then (3) a window in that building, then (4) into the room inside, in a four-shot montage that only took a few seconds, and then we were hurled into a situation.

Another example: think of how quickly the first Star Wars movie jumped you into the plot. Ships, storm troopers, Darth Vader, off we go……

LEARN. I promise you, this will make you the one who doesn’t use 200 words to get into the “meat” of the Subject. And you’ll make everyone else seem like they can’t get to the point and can’t shut up.

– – – – – – –
Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2025 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #652: ‘Survivor’ and Connection

Posted on December 8, 2025 by tommykramer

Note: Since I totally forgot to post a tip last week (I plead Christmastime madness), I’m doing two this week. Here you go…

One of the reasons I still watch “Survivor” on TV is because of how it defines connecting with the audience.
Every contestant has a story. One of the ones in its current season (#49) is a guy whose father has been diagnosed with glaucoma.
He and his dad have watched the show together since he was a kid.

His father will be blind by the end of this season’s shows. So this will be the last season he’ll be ABLE to watch.

His son said, “I just want to make my dad proud.”

I immediately thought of my father, who’s gone now.
So did millions of other people. THAT’S CONNECTING.

Question for you: Is there any element of your show that connects on that level? If not, why not? Any competent air talent can just throw together a listenable show. But you need some emotional “touchstone” to be great.

As I always say, “Crack your chest open and show us what’s in there.”

– – – – – – –
Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2025 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #651: The Importance of Timing

Posted on November 26, 2025 by tommykramer

There’s a good lesson to learn from the World Series. Or the Super Bowl. Or the NBA Playoffs.
They all have one thing in common: It’s about doing the right things.
But not just that. It’s doing the right things at the right TIME.

It’s the same, in any music format, for what you say on the air when you make a comment. First, did you cut off the very end of that last word in the song’s vocal? Is that because you’re too anxious to talk? (Would you do that if you were the emcee for that artist’s live show? Chances are, the crowd would boo you, and the artist would never want you to be the emcee again.)

Patience.
Timing.
A sense of rhythm.
These things are essential to a great air talent.

– – – – – – –
Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2025 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #650: The Non-Competitive Pitch

Posted on November 19, 2025 by tommykramer

If you’re not familiar with baseball pitcher David Cone, here’s a cool fact:

On July 18, 1999, he threw a perfect game (that’s 27 batters in a row,no hits, no walks, no runs, no errors). Pretty cool.
But even more notable was that it was “Yogi Berra Day” at Yankee Stadium, with Yogi and the pitcher of the only perfect game in World Series history, Don Larson, in attendance. (Yogi was the catcher in that 1956 game.)

David Cone is now an excellent baseball analyst. And one of his terms really stuck with me; what he calls a “non-competitive pitch” – a “waste pitch” that a pitcher will sometimes throw that’s out of the strike zone. It doesn’t make the batter do anything. No adjustments need to be made. No fielders move to field it. No baserunners try to advance on it.

As it applies to radio…it’s kind of the same when you do a break that’s just some “click bait” thing that you’ve added a punch line to.
SO predictable.

Nobody goes, “Oh wow, I’ve never heard that before.”

You have to search for what matters to your listener today. Don’t settle for anything less than that. It cheapens the whole listening experience.

– – – – – – –
Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2025 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #649: There’s Only One Choice

Posted on November 12, 2025 by tommykramer

Master Marketing gurus Al Ries and Jack Trout say that “every race becomes a two-horse race.” McDonald’s versus Burger King, for instance. Coke versus Pepsi in the Cola wars. Rawlings and Spalding instantly come to mind if you want a baseball glove. Chocolate versus Vanilla. You get the idea.

But in that “two-horse” race, only one gets chosen as your favorite.
In the NFL, with 32 teams, you really only pick one to root for.
Same in baseball teams, car brands, beer, etc.

This is why I don’t like lists: “Here are three things to remember…”
I’m only going to remember one – the one that matters most to me.

So remember this. There’s only ONE thing that’s going to grab me, as a listener. FOCUS.

– – – – – – –
Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2025 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #648: Two Talk Tips

Posted on November 5, 2025 by tommykramer

Some people say that 99% of the tips I write are for MusicRadio stations. That’s true, but I’ve worked with a LOT of Talk stations, too, and I can’t even count how many individual Talk Radio air talents. Two of my main “rules” are actually the same as in MusicRadio. Talk is just a different format, in terms of how much time you have to talk.

But…

1. You still have to edit yourself, so your points are concise and targeted.*

2. You should put things in STATEMENT form instead of asking Questions – especially avoiding those “Right?” types of rhetorical questions that sound needy and unsure of yourself. Statements get phone calls, pro or con. But Questions, because they’re insipid or typical, tend to get insipid or typical responses.

*By trying to say things in as few words as possible, you’ll end up saying more things that MATTER.

– – – – – – –
Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2025 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #647: What Do You Want Them to Say?

Posted on October 29, 2025 by tommykramer

My smart friend and associate John Frost posted a tip recently titled “What do we want them to say?” using baseball as an example.

Specifically, the opening of Petco Park, home of the San Diego Padres. The question was “What do we want fans to say when they are leaving the ballpark?

The answer was – regardless of whether the Padres won or lost – “I want to come back and bring a friend.”

Now apply that to radio. What we should want people to say is “I want to come back and listen again tomorrow.”

NOTE: You should always want the listener to either stay with you some more today, or come back tomorrow to listen again. If you don’t have that, you have nothing.

NOTHING.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #646: The Giant Stop Sign to Pay Attention To

Posted on October 23, 2025 by tommykramer

This is a recurring theme that I’ve dealt with before, but it seems to be metastasizing…again. It’s this thing; this all too typical “tease”….

“Listen up – this is something you’ll want to hear.”

No. I already don’t want to hear it.

Unfortunately, I see and hear this a lot now. Ugh. Remember my rule: Stop telling people what they’re supposed to like or what they’re supposed to think.

In the example above “Listen up – this is important…” would work FAR better. It’s about the ‘thing’, not about trying to “guide” my feelings.

Words are what we do. Use them stupidly or unknowingly, and you lose people. Shape what you say so it doesn’t treat people like cattle, and you’ll be much more successful. (And the air talents who DON’T think about this technique will become the ones that people don’t want to listen to.)

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #645: More “Reveals”

Posted on October 15, 2025 by tommykramer

After you get to a certain stage in your career where you’re confident in what you’re doing, you have a certain “flavor” that you bring to the show – and it’s working; you’re successful – how you get even better is when you show more dimensions.

For example, maybe your show “plays dumb” a little bit, but actually gets very smart at times.
Or maybe it’s the opposite: Maybe you’re kind of cerebral, your humor is a little harder to reach, but when it does click, you make people laugh – but then at times you can be ‘down to earth’ stupid, too.

Whatever. The point is, showing more of who you are (and why) always works.

Example: David Letterman loved dogs, because they were more loving and caring and fun than many of his guests. That explained a LOT. And we knew it; we felt it.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #644: They Own the Cameras

Posted on October 8, 2025 by tommykramer

Years ago, the great comedian Norm MacDonald was fired from doing the “Weekend Update” on Saturday Night Live. It was because one of the higher-ups at NBC was friends with O. J. Simpson, and he demanded that Norm stop doing jokes about the ex-football player and accused murderer.

After that, Norm was on Late Night with David Letterman, wondering and griping a bit about getting fired. But Norm also quoted something that Letterman had told him about the bosses of network TV – “They own the cameras.”

I believe it would be a good idea to keep this in mind – NOT about your boss, but instead, about the Listeners.

Because THEY “own the cameras.” They decide whether to listen to you or not. So try not to drift too far into your own personal agendas if you know you’ll be going against their directives. You can still do plenty of Content that “works around the fringes” of whatever you think is relevant – but without forcing a decision that will affect your career in a negative way.