Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #564: How to Make a Subject Work on the Air

I coach show prep and Content constantly. One of the questions I get asked about most is, “How do I make a subject work on the air?” Sometimes it’s a good idea, but that air talent just can’t seem to find the “connective tissue” that really clicks with the audience.

So, a couple of simple guidelines about Content:

1. Keep in mind that if it’s not Relevant, it WON’T work. I’m listening for the things that apply to my life, today. Period. A story about “Growing wheat on Mars” is of no relevance to me. (I’m hesitant to even get on a plane these days. Someone might decide to open the door at 25,000 feet.)

2. But if it IS relevant, simply tap into an Emotion that we have in common about it, and it WILL work. Every time.

It’s a drag hearing emotionless conversation or a lame attempt at trying to make something matter just because you thought of a punch line.

Answer this question and you’ll be on the right track: “How does it affect me (as a listener)?”

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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 #563: Talk About People’s Feelings

Years ago at a radio gathering in Nashville, a dear friend and outstanding morning show talent and I did a Content seminar.

My friend had himself drifted a bit himself, doing old creaky bits like “This Day in History” and “Stupid Criminal Stories”.

…until I started coaching him. In the seminar, we talked about dropping stuff like that, and being more real-life and specific to his area, when a person in the audience asked what was wrong with trying to get a little humor out of something like “This Day in History”.

I explained that it’s “empty calories” in diet-speak, because it doesn’t really tell us anything about you. And since it’s just factoids, there’s no connection between you and the listener doing stuff like that.

Then I said, “You need to be talking to the woman who’s in the grocery store and has a hundred dollars…but the bill just rang up as 120 dollars, so she’s having to take some things out of the shopping cart, and she’s embarrassed.”

Talk about what people FEEL. It cannot fail. You’ll be a star.
Yes, there are techniques involved, but I’ve seen this work for literally hundreds of people that I’ve coached.

What do you have to lose by throwing away stock bits that don’t mean anything to anyone now? Crack your chest open and let us see what’s in there.

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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 #560: Overcoming Low Expectations

My dear friend Beau Weaver, Voice Actor extraordinaire, recently expressed some interesting thoughts about today’s radio.
One of the things he said was that most young people he talks to think of a deejay as that person who mixes music at a club. Younger demos don’t care much about radio; they care more about podcasts and You Tube influencers. Radio, as usual, gets little respect.

So okay, how do you change this impression? How do you avoid being thought of as less than we were a decade or two ago?

It’s simple: be about the Listener’s life. (And yours.)

Lots of air talents are quick to talk about their lives. But remember that you…come second. The listener’s life is the springboard; your story is the complimentary piece. Most stations seem to get this order wrong. “I – me – my” is the language of the self-obsessed “all about me” people that we would avoid in daily life.

The minute I found this principle in my own career, everything after that was easy. So I’m passing it on to you – free. Now the question is whether or not you’ll do it.

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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 #558: Now and Then – A Lesson from the Beatles

Right at the end of 2023, an amazing thing happened. The great movie director Peter Jackson got with Giles Martin, son of the Beatles’ producer George Martin, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr, and using ‘computer learning’, salvaged a John Lennon demo of a song called “Now and Then”.

It became a massive hit (#1 in England, 54 years after their last #1, and the same type of reception all over the world). And the video Jackson created was remarkable. Using today’s technology, it “placed” John Lennon and George Harrison alongside Paul and Ringo, and truly felt like a new Beatles song, with a message that resonated everywhere — how we miss those that we love, and how much they affect our lives.

But it also fleshed out an interesting phenomenon. Thousands of people, from 76 years old, to people 7 years old, went online or made You Tube comments about how much the Beatles changed their lives.

The reason: When you move people emotionally, when they feel like someone else is feeling the same things they’re going through, that’s when they bond with you.

I talk all the time about finding the core Emotion of a Subject, and making sure that nothing you do on the air LACKS an emotion of some sort. The Beatles – almost 60 years after we first heard them – made that case.

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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 #556: Your Show is a Movie

In the last tip, I said “Your show really is a movie without the camera.”

After you get past learning “the basics”, then develop a real Personality on the air, you’ll hopefully reach a stage in your career where the ego disappears and you actually just get in a zone where it’s almost impossible to have a bad show.

But I believe it requires getting outside of radio, mentally, and seeing each “Content” break you do as a little movie (without the camera).

What do I, as a listener, FEEL when you talk about something?
Great movies operate on an emotional plane. Example: ‘Star Wars’ wasn’t really about special effects. It was a space western, focused on good and evil. And two of the best decisions that George Lucas made were (1) picking Alec Guinness to play Obi-wan Kenobi, and (2) getting James Earl Jones to do the voice of Darth Vader. Because they’re great actors, and just their voices alone define what their characters are all about, and where the plot line is.

Think about this as you put something on the air. For instance, as you edit a phone call (or take one live), where’s that place that you’d get out, if this were a movie? I hear so many calls where the air talent just won’t take that first “exit”, and apparently can’t keep from summarizing or editorializing or playing psychologist. (Which poisons what we just heard.)

Really think about how you frame Content. First, select a camera angle and identify what emotion is at the core. Think about how to ENGAGE the listener. Shape the vocabulary. Decide if you want to use some music under it. (Hint: it should “cradle” what’s being said). Have a definite ending in mind.

When your show is like a little movie we watch every day, you won’t have to worry about your ratings.

If you haven’t gotten to this level yet, get a coach. (I actually know of one you could use. )

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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 #555: Finding the Core of a Topic

Okay, let’s go to work on why a topic (if we must use that word) clicks on the air, or just falls kind of flat.

Case in point, a husband-and-wife afternoon show I’ve coached for several years. They have lots of chemistry and a good sense of who the listener is, but like everyone, they need a little reminder now and then.

Our last session focused on thinking about subject matter in an artistic way; how to really bring something to life. Remember, the whole idea is to actually ENGAGE the Listener.

Here’s what I sent them in a session recap:

The other day, you got into a thing with this: So many times, we have inanimate objects that we decide to give them a name…”
Okay, that’s true, but why do I care? The reason is simple – that wording lacks a core Emotion.

But “We give names to the things we LOVE, like our cars…” is stronger, because it plugs into the emotional side of the brain, rather than just the intellectual side.

You’ll find that the starting place for prepping something is to find its Emotional “center”. It’ll frame the story, and shape the wording for you.

Yes, I know, I dwell on this a lot. But it’s the difference between a “blah” movie and a great movie that you wouldn’t mind seeing again.

And your show is really a movie without the camera.

More on that in the next tip.

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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 #553: The More Intimate, the Better

One of the things that keeps coming up in my coaching sessions is this imaginary concept that you want to spread a wide blanket over your Content, keeping it accessible to the masses. “Broad” Subject headings, not too personal, is the way a lot of stations sound. I can’t name any right this moment, because they’re too generic to remember.

Here’s what’s actually true: the more intimate your Content is, the more people you attract.

You’ll find that the things that upset you or bug you the most, just like the things that lift your heart the most, are the most universal. It’s when we get “one size fits all” in our thinking that we lose the most one-on-one connections.

There’s a reason that Apple lets you label your purchases. I just got new AirPods, in their little charging unit WITH MY NAME ON IT.

Just another reason why Apple is so successful. You never feel like you’re just a name and a credit card to them.

Your show should be YOUR show. People don’t respond as well to just “a” show.

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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 #552: The 3 Technique

If you need a good example of how NOT to bring more people into the fold, Sports broadcasting is it.

The other day, I watched an NFL game, and the “color” commentator said, “They’ve got a linebacker there playing three-technique…”
Huh? What does that mean? The average viewer (or listener) has NO CLUE. Apparently, it means that some linebacker either has three legs, or just ordered three pizzas from Dominoes.

I’d bet that nobody knows what “three technique” means except defensive coordinators or died-in-the-wool superfans.

So, instead of being an idiot, try this: think of the listener as being AT LEAST as smart as you are, but NOT necessarily as informed as you are.

Make it easy for me. It’s either that, or you’re constantly talking over people’s heads. Guess which works 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 #550: Open the Door a Little Bit Wider

The best way to build a larger and more loyal audience is to open the door a little bit wider each day. The message is a simple one: “Come on in. Here’s what you and I have in common.”

There are certain techniques I coach in order to avoid people thinking all you do is talk about yourself, but the bottom line Is you want to do this every day. If I don’t learn something today about you that I can relate to, there’s really no connection. Anyone can just select something to talk about, then add a punch line. But that’s not necessarily revealing.

And to REVEAL…is to Connect.

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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 #547: The Attention Span of a Hummingbird

Radio isn’t the same as 20 years ago – or even 10 years ago. It can’t be. There are so many other entertainment options, from wasting hours reading nameless, faceless people’s comments on social media to a gazillion channels on TV, You Tube, etc.

Radio listeners today have the attention span of a hummingbird. A couple of minutes (or less) and “click” – off they go.

This is why, as an air talent, you need to do something compelling or entertaining NOW. If there’s nothing going on for a few minutes, the listener is gone. The average “listen” is now less than 20 minutes, and people want to be engaged – or you’re dead in the water.

If you’re a PD, you’d better be encouraging everyone to be a full-blown Personality. This doesn’t necessarily mean trying to be funny. CONNECTING with the listener is what works. What do you and I have in common? Talk about that.

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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.