Category Archives: Radio coaching tip

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #657: One New Feature

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One of the things I always challenge morning shows to do as a new year begins is to come up with one new “feature” for the show.

This means dropping one old one.

One of the definitions of a feature is “Something offered as a special attraction.”
SPECIAL attraction. Not just something you start doing, but something you draw attention to.

Here are a few keys:

• It has to be focused. (Know your target listener. Aim for the bulls-eye.)
• You should have several examples in mind of how it’ll unfold before you ever air it.
• Think about a produced intro to make it stand out. (But make it short. A big buildup can backfire on you.)
• Think of how each “episode” ends first. THEN think of how to start it.

If you get into the habit of letting older bits go, and replacing them with new ones, you’ll probably put a little more distance between you and your competitors.

– – – – – – –
Tommy Kramer
Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (mobile)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2026 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #656: Kids

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If you accept the old saying that “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” then it’s my firm belief that the way to a woman’s heart (on the air) is through her kids.

So if you target women, trust that even if she doesn’t have kids, someone else in her family does, or at least one of her closest friends does. And, everyone has a story to tell; it’s “common ground subject” #1.

In my own on-air career, I found countless ways to involve kids – like having a different kid do each phrase of “The Night Before Christmas” and then editing it together, or a montage of kids doing one line each of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” (for opening day of our Triple-A team in my hometown). And now, all these years later, I’m still helping talent come up with more ideas in our coaching sessions. “Kids Only” contests, “What your kids want for Christmas,” etc. You talk to her about her kids, or even better, put them on the air, and you’ve broken through in a way that no contrived joke or aggressive approach can.

Kids. (In the words of the sixties group Jefferson Airplane, “Bless their pointed little heads.”)

– – – – – – –
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 #655: Faith and Hope

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It seems appropriate as we head toward the end of 2025 to offer this tip:

The world runs on Faith and Hope.

Either one of those will do, but both of them together is what everybody wants.
So – in the coaching process, and in the learning process, you have to have faith that you’re going to get better. And you have to hope that this next step will get you up that talent staircase to where you’re really a top-level performer.

Another year of coaching passes, and I wish everyone reading this a great next year.

– – – – – – –
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 #653: Just the Driveway

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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 #651: The Importance of Timing

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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 #649: There’s Only One Choice

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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

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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?

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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
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 #646: The Giant Stop Sign to Pay Attention To

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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
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 #645: More “Reveals”

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