Category Archives: Overview

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #631: Cool, not Cruel

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There was a time when it was in vogue to be overly audacious, tricking people with prank phone calls, embarrassing people, making fun of them, etc.

I thought it really sucked, because to me, it seemed kind of cruel. I didn’t – and still don’t – get why it would be okay to demean the listener, or use that person as a “prop” for something that you wouldn’t do to a friend or coworker.

Stupid games, like getting someone to try and talk about something for a given amount of time while avoiding saying “Uh,” for example, seemed to me like squirting the listener in the face with a water pistol

But, as Bob Dylan sang, “Things Have Changed.”

You know what stands out now?
Kindness. A feeling that’s celebratory – not just phony cheering, but making us feel that you’re really glad to talk to that caller. That you’re glad they took that time to call in, you’re glad that they got their ‘moment’ on the radio, you’re glad that you were able to give them a prize. We can’t hear enough of that.

Drop the “I’m cooler than you” stuff, and you’ll actually BE cool.

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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 #629: Listening to Yourself, and Why It’s Important

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Shockingly, many, many times over the years, I’ve found that an alarming number of air talents never, or hardly ever, listen to their own shows.

Here’s why it’s important: You need to hear yourself as others hear you. That’s how we improve.

If you simply listen while you’re checking your email, or updating your social media, you’ll subconsciously hear when you sound rushed, or like you don’t really care about something, or if you make grammatical errors that undermine the points you’re trying to make.

Listening to your own show just once a week can and will make a dramatic difference in how sharp you stay, or how quickly you change a weak area.

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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 #627: Think About the Other End of the Radio

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It’s easy to think of radio as a one-way conversation. Hopefully, you get interest, even feedback from listeners, but that’s not how the process begins.

We should start by putting ourselves in the shoes of the listener – and what the likely reaction would be on the other end of the radio; the listener’s end.

Thinking people automatically care about what you’re saying is what makes for lame radio. Sometimes, they don’t. It’s YOUR job to “quality control” what you’re going to do when that mic opens, and to deliver something worth hearing each break you do.

Purpose. A goal. Having one in mind shapes everything that follows.

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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 #626: FIRST, Be of Service to the Listener

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Sometimes I hear a station that seems to go overboard on trying to be “personality-driven”.

OF COURSE we want to entertain, but the first thought should be about being of service to the listener.

This could simply be in the form of a weather warning, or a traffic update. Keeping people up to date on what matters to them, or what could affect their lives, is our primary responsibility.

Entertain? Sure. Please! But, as much as you can, be of SERVICE to the Listener. If you start there, and keep this simple concept in mind, you’ll be on the right track.

When you MATTER to the Listener, adding other elements to that becomes almost effortless-sounding.

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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 #607: The Main Reason (besides the Music) that People Listen to You

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If you play a song I love, I’ll listen.

But, when you get into Content, if you can’t reveal something that you and I have in common, I’m not going to listen to you very long.

It’s sort of like dating someone you’re head-over-heels for, but they just kind of like you. That’s not the basis for a great relationship.

Here’s how we bond:

What do you feel about something that’s on my mind, too?

If there’s some sort of “secret” to being great on the air, that’s it. It sounds simple, and it is, to a degree. But of course, the next step is how you put that Content on the air.

That’s why I keep sharing these tips, to lead you through this ongoing challenge. If nothing else, maybe you’ll put just a little more thought into what you’re doing. And that’ll be good for both you and the listener.

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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 #602: We All Sound Alike…Until We Don’t

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It’s always been an issue, but it’s even more pronounced today, with “cookie cutter” formats so prevalent.

The sad truth is that to most people, most air talents sound pretty much alike. A bit loud, a lot of gab, sort of “announcer-ish,” usually just pretty much what we’ve always heard and gotten used to.

Digest this thought, please. We all sound alike – until we don’t.
Here’s the question: What makes you different?

If you don’t know, find out. If you can’t hear that you sound typical, get a coach. Remember that the point is to be YOURSELF, not just another “voice saying words.”

NO ONE will notice you until you do.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2024 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #593: The Biggest Mistake McDonald’s Ever Made, and What You Can Learn From It

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If you’re old enough, you remember the ad campaign McDonald’s used with a slogan, backed up by a beautiful jingle: “You deserve a break today…at McDonald’s.”

That simple statement of BEING OF SERVICE to you – giving you a “time out” from having to go home and slog through cooking a meal – was, to me, the simplest and most effective Strategy they ever had. And suddenly, after years of imprinting that thought in the customer’s brain, they went on to some mindless fodder like “I’m Lovin’ It.” (Gee, thanks for the mid-bite review.)

You see, the thing is, people want to be acknowledged, to have worth, to be seen as more than just another customer in the drive-through line buying a fish sandwich.

So, ask yourself if your station is Being Of Service to your listeners. And then ask yourself if what you’re saying on the air or in your Imaging makes that clear.

You should want to make the listener (or the customer, if you were McDonald’s) feel like your first thought is to make their life better.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2024 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #592: A Lesson You Can Learn from Steve Martin

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Content is definitely what I get asked about most in sessions and in radio seminars. And since it takes a long time to get people who haven’t seen how easy it is to catch on, many times I give them an overview – a lesson I learned from watching the great comic and actor Steve Martin over the years.

I met Steve once, in about 1971, when a radio trade paper called The Bob Hamilton Radio Report was a hot sheet. Bob and I were friends, and he wanted to put together a convention with about 300 guests from radio all over the country – PDs, air talent, etc. Speakers were selected (among them were then a youthful Buzz Bennett, Bill Young from KILT in Houston, and as best as I can recall, Mike McCormick, known for programming WLS in Chicago). They had a roundtable discussion, followed by a Q & A period, then did air check sessions afterword, where even if you were a bumpkin from Louisiana (like me), you could get some feedback from these smart and accomplished Program Directors.
For entertainment beforehand, I had a friendly relationship with The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and asked them if they could open the seminar. They did, and brought a (then unknown to me) comic named Steve Martin as their opening act. (Steve’s manager was the brother of a member of the band, by the way.)

To say the least, Steve knocked it out of the park. 300 radio guys, laughing our heads off.

As I watched Martin’s career develop, I noticed something that I’ve always wholly believed in. You’ve probably seen it, too.

Every single time Steve Martin has been a guest on a late-night show, or hosted something like an Award show, there’s always been SOMETHING GOING ON.
Whether it was reciting his own notes on his appearances on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (“August 3rd. Jokes killed. Audience was great. Ed was friendly. Johnny was…’sluggish’…”), or trying to throw a pencil through the imaginary glass windows behind David Letterman’s desk – missing each time, cutting to commercial, then coming back to 100 pencils stuck EVERYWHERE (even on a camera lens!), Steve always had something surprising to do.

And you came to know that about him. Something was coming. Guaranteed. You didn’t know what it would be, or when it would happen, but you just knew it WOULD come. (And it still does.)

So here’s the lesson: There always needs to be something going on. That’s how you COMPEL people to listen to you. Just “a voice reading words” won’t do. Yes, inform me. That’s part of the job. But always ENTERTAIN me, too.

This is a lot of what I coach. Ask yourself if this is that the kind of help you’re getting. If not, you need a different coach. (However, I don’t think Steve Martin is available.)

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2024 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #589: A Link in the Chain

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Early in my career, working at a 50,00 watt Top 40 giant, KEEL in Shreveport, Louisiana, I got a huge break.

Although I was probably the weakest air talent on the staff, my PD made me Music Director. (I’m a musician. That helps.)

All of a sudden, I had WORTH. I controlled the music we played. It was important. I became a link in the chain of terrific jocks we had.

Knowing that my boss had confidence in me, even though I was raw and untrained on the air, spurred me on to learn as much as I could from then on. (That led to the highest ratings in Shreveport history, #1 ratings in both Houston and Dallas, and being inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame. And later, to my now 25-year career as a Talent Coach.)

If you’re a Program Director, consider this. The minute someone feels like a link in the chain, the chain gets even stronger.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2024 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #587: Short Breaks MATTER

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In a session recently with an air talent on a station my partner John Frost and I both work with, we discussed something “under the radar” for most people on the air. As Frosty put it, “Most air talents think only the longer breaks matter because ‘I get to prepare those.’”

John and I were fortunate in that early in our careers, we had a wonderful mentor named Howard Clark, who showed us what could be done in a short break. Because short breaks matter too. (This became a real strength for each of us, and a staple of what we teach.) Howard could do a killer, genuinely funny line in seven seconds or less. You listened more closely, because you never knew when Howard would say something that would crack you up – or at least, make you pay attention.

Since you probably never heard of Howard Clark, here’s the lesson:
(1) A clever line doesn’t always need a lengthy setup.
(2) Just your tone of voice can connect with the listener. It’s the mindless “read” that simply passes by unnoticed.

My thought? Until you master the art of having short breaks be an opportunity to inform or entertain, you’re not a complete air talent.

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Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2024 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.