Category Archives: Focus

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #466: Be Like a Great Song

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When you’re really focused – clear on what you want to do – you have a chance to be great. When you’re not quite sure, or just “winging it” this break, your odds diminish.

The best programmers make it where you know the objective, which should be first, to keep the listener with you. (When someone tunes out, that’s a misfire.) And then, hopefully, make the listener want to come back tomorrow for more.

Like a great song. You want to hear it again.

You lose your ego, and you gain confidence, when you do the right things right.

So don’t even think about your voice, forget trying to “sell” things, and just share. What you and I have in common today is the real subject matter. The rest is maintenance and branding. (But do those well, too.)

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2022 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #463: What you WILL have to do versus NOW

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Don’t get so obsessed with what you know you’re going to have to do later. Stay in this moment. Do what you have to do NOW first. Clear your mind to do a good job with it.

More breaks are ruined (or made lackluster) by a lack of clarity than almost anything else.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2022 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #461: A Lesson from Kenny Wayne Shepherd

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A few weeks ago, I went to Dallas and sat in on guitar at the House of Blues for a couple of songs with my dear friend Kenny Wayne Shepherd.

Kenny is an amazing blues guitarist. I’ve known him since he was five years old, and first started showing him some things about guitar when he was seven.

Kenny talked about that experience as he introduced me, and said “He even showed me the principles, like the real foundation of what’s important about playing.”

Not just “licks” or running scales. Not WHAT to do so much as WHY you do it.
The same as radio. You go from ‘just another voice quacking’ to someone the listener bonds with because of WHY you do what you do. People FEEL more than they hear.

And as Kenny Wayne Shepherd shows his audience every night he plays, expertise is fine (and he’s brilliant), but the emotion behind it is what counts.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2022 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #421: Proximity, and what it Means for you

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It’s probably only natural to not want to be coached. But the air talents I’ve encountered who feel that way (at first) are usually the ones who just don’t see past trying to be funny, or think that “trending” in social media is a goal. (It’s not. Connecting with the Listener is.) And those things will come as a byproduct of your skills improving.

I’ve always seen coaching – at least the way I do it – as being like an acting coach working with actors, and most of the things I teach come from an acting or writing background, in addition to decades of radio experience. We start with the radio stuff – how to do the “basics” (giving the station’s name, artist info, time, etc.), then, when that’s really solid and varied, it’s all about the Art.

So here’s a lesson: Proximity is the decider of delivery.

Think about it. Where you “see” the listener being determines how you say something. If you see me just a couple of feet away from you in my car, that’s one thing. If you picture me as 10 feet away in an office full of noise, that’s different. Or maybe you picture me driving in traffic with my head on a swivel, trying not to get killed by some clod with his ear buds in, yakking on the phone while he eats a breakfast burrito. (You may need to talk louder.)

If you don’t know, make it up. Give yourself a proximity “setting” that fits what you’re going to talk about. All of a sudden, you’re not just another ‘voice saying words’ in the background. You’re talking to me. Every great talent – and every great station – has this ingredient.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2021 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #412: Friend, not Audience

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Radio is full of people talking to an audience.

This is a mistake, because we say things differently, more casually, when we’re just talking to a good friend. We repeat points unnecessarily, use language that’s a little too “formal”, and sound just a little distant, when we talk to more than one person.

There is very little space between you and the listener. You’re in my car, two feet away.

ALWAYS say things like you’re talking to ME – a friend – instead of a group of people. Radio is at its best when it’s one-on-one.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2021 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #411: The Prime Directive for Content

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The Prime Directive was the guiding ‘mission statement’ in Star Trek.

Here’s ours, in music radio:

Whatever you want to say needs to be as good as your best song.
If it’s not, why are you saying it?

This manifests in two ways – Subject matter, and Delivery.

Subject matter should be top of mind, and you want the listener to be able to easily see himself/herself in that situation.

Delivery: “as good as your best song” can be in the WAY that you say something. Sounding like you actually care (with some degree of emotional engagement). Painting a good word picture. Or simply being a good companion to the music, rather than an interruption.

Unless I’m working with you, I can’t tell which of these you need to work on. But I’ll bet there is one.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2021 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #382 – Memories and Shared Experiences

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When you do something on the air that makes the listener think “Me too,” you hit the jackpot. Memories and shared experiences aren’t just about what happened and when it happened. They’re about the Emotions that people feel when they go (or went) through them.

This is why “interesting” isn’t the same as “relevant”.

When you tap into Emotions, you gain DEPTH.

Most of the subpar shows are just about things, data, facts, and “fluff” srories. These are almost always boring. But when an emotion is called up, people “lean in” with their ears.

Emotions are the goal of everything that we do.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2020 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #373 – Funny Isn’t the Goal

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We all want to be entertaining on the air. But “funny” isn’t the only thing that entertains. And for that matter, “punch line” humor is dead, anyway.
It’s the UNEXPECTED remark that cracks people up. But great vocabulary, the ability to paint a picture, and vulnerability are all ingredients of “entertaining”, too. Think “A Christmas Story” about the kid and the B. B. gun. (God bless you, Jean Shepherd, for writing that.)

In coaching hundreds of Personality morning shows, I think these may be two of the main things I’ve learned:

1. Step One is never just to try and be funny. Step One is to be Relevant. THAT’S ALWAYS THE GOAL. Then – and only then – should you turn your sense of humor and your personality traits into something to do on the air. But if the listener can’t see himself/herself in it, then it’s just another deejay telling a joke. Ho hum. (You know, I can just click Amazon Prime on my phone or iPad and see Jim Gaffigan. He’s funnier than you.)

2. You can’t MAKE someone funny. (Partner, caller, etc.) But that can actually work, and become humorous if you put it in the right context. Use your imagination. Instead of going for a joke, go for a funny REACTION.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2020 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #368 -Mean It

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When you open that mic, the most important thing to do is what seems like the easiest one: MEAN IT.

But this is actually very difficult to do without some training. If you sound even the slightest bit insincere, or like you’re just serving up information with no real emotional investment in it…well, that’s why everyone’s impression of an air talent is that kind of pukey, surface-level-but-no-deeper “announcer guy” (or vapid nitwit).

ESPECIALLY if you’ve been blessed with an exceptional voice, remember that Emotions top “a great voice” every time. If you sound like you actually MEAN what you’re saying, your listener will feel it. If you don’t, in baseball terminology you “just fouled one off your own foot.” A lack of credibility is never anyone’s first choice.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2020 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #348 – Don’t Get Too Far Off the Subject

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As you develop your storytelling skills, be wary of getting too far off the subject.

I recall a Yankees vs. Twins baseball game a couple of seasons ago. The difference between the Yankees broadcast team (all of whom are excellent) and the Minnesota Twins broadcasters was never more evident than when a Twins announcer – during an inning – talked ad nauseum to a lady with a bird refuge. ???

I was dumbfounded. It served no purpose whatsoever. A way off target “human interest” interview that went nowhere and had me shouting at the TV. The only thing I could think to ask her that would have been relevant to baseball is “Remember when Randy Johnson exploded that seagull?”

(You Tube it if you haven’t seen it.)

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2020 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.