Category Archives: Content key

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #481: What You Say vs. What I Feel

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Get this: it’s not about what you say. It’s about what it makes me feel. I, the listener, will make up my mind pretty quickly about this. Information is fine, but unless I feel something about it, it’s just not relevant.

You have a choice when you open the mic. You can scatter words all over the place, but unless it fires up a pilot light inside the listener, it’s just ‘blah – blah – blah.’

If I feel entertained, that’s good. If I feel like you’re someone I might like to be friends with, that’s even better. But if I only feel like you’re using “filler” stories and material that I can’t identify with, then it’s pretty much a strikeout.

A final thought — if you’re funny, it’ll show. But if you try too hard to be thought of as funny, that’ll show, too. So if you can resist the “I want to be funny” agenda, and meld the selection of meaningful, relevant Content with a natural-sounding delivery, you have a chance to become truly great.

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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 #476: THE 2 Content Guidelines

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All great air talents know this. But the road from good to great is a little muddy sometimes. So here’s an easy “sifting” tip — the only two real Content guidelines:

1. Hopefully, what you’re talking about is something that the listener cares about.

2. But it should at LEAST be something that the listener has an interest in. Has. Already.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:
If it’s not in one of those categories, why are you doing it?
Why put yourself in the “trained seal” arena with your Content? If you’re just “performing” prep sheet stuff, you’re not as good as you could be by focusing your Content selection process.

It’s very hard to get someone’s attention if it’s just something you find interesting, or even worse, if it sounds like you’re trying to force me to have an interest in it. When I don’t care, I don’t care. And while silly is sometimes fun, it can also just be silly. (It’s about context. It still begins with one of the two categories.)

Look around you. What about where you are and what you see do you have in common with the listener? Talk about that. Add your personality. Simple.

Great shows aren’t cookie cutters. They’re INDIVIDUAL.

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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 #469: An Action Plan for When Disastrous News Hits

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The shootings in Uvalde, Texas last week at Robb Elementary School were undoubtedly a tragedy, but they were also was a moment of truth for your radio station and your show.

Basically, you had two choices:

(1) Pick a specific topic inside the story (gun control, mental illness treatment, etc.) and then seek listener feedback, or
(2) Avoid a “topic” sound, and simply go with something like “We all saw the News, we know what happened, let’s talk about what we’re feeling today.”

The first is the most standard, has some options, and will (did) get solid reaction. The second is more intimate, and can help avoid having it all turning political.

Each will work, or a mix of the two (in different hours) will work, but I would lean toward the second strategy. By dropping from “radio” to a more direct approach to the Emotions we all were feeling is the deeper end of the pool.

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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 #465: “Topics” are just Springboards

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Topics are just springboards to reveal emotions. (Please read that sentence again.)

These thoughts will help you:

1. If you’re just talking about a subject, but I’m not in that picture, it won’t work well.

2. If it is about the Subject and about me (the listener) but not about YOU, too, you’re still missing an ingredient.

3. And anything that doesn’t have a clear emotion at the center of it is just fodder.

This is why all great Content comes from what’s around you that you and your listener have in common or can identify with, and feel something about. Otherwise, it’s just a “topic” – which I consider to be basically the same as drain cleaner.

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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 $455: How to Get Into Something

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How you get into a subject is the first great skill. When you can get to the point easily and concisely, you have a better chance to get the listener to join you.

For years, people have been taught the “headline” mentality, which is a decent thing to keep in mind, but that can also work against sounding conversational.

Keep these thoughts in mind…

1. You have about twenty seconds to “tether” the subject to the listener. Don’t rush, but don’t waste words, either.

2. Start with the Subject first, or start with the Listener first, instead of starting with yourself. Your show is about us, not just about you.

3. You want the listener to be able “see” himself/herself in whatever situation you’re describing.

Refine this one skill and you’ll have a lot fewer ‘swings and misses’ with your Content.

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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 #454: The Real “Gold” – a Content Tip

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The thing I work with on the most with practically everyone I coach is Content. It’s difficult to know what works, because you can’t count on accurate feedback from the phone lines. So here’s the simplest way I can explain it:

Anything you have in common with the listener that leads to some sort of emotional “reveal” is gold.

Now read that again. No prep sheet item, no social media posting that lacks those two key ingredients – what you have IN COMMON with the listener, and an Emotion being revealed – will work as well without them.

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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 $452: Any idiot…

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The great Larry Ryan in Shreveport, Louisiana, was my first true radio mentor. In our first aircheck session, he stopped the tape and said, “Any idiot can sit there and intro songs…”

That empowered me to DO something on the air. (Larry would keep saying it until you did.)

To update this: Any idiot can read a social media post. I can read Facebook or look at Instagram, etc. without you. What else have you got? What’s something personal you can share with me that we have in common? Use YOUR life…OUR lives.

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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 #447: The Touchstone Factor

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A touchstone is something that serves as a conduit between two people. It connects them. I touch this end, you touch that end.

Content on the air is exactly the same – or it fails. If something you talk about is something I can identify with, or see myself doing, that “touchstone” is a winner.

So ask yourself this question: Why would you talk about something that’s only about you?

If I’m not in the picture (as a listener), you’re not going to be very successful.

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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 #443: The 3 Questions

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(This is a companion piece to Tip #24, “The 5 Subjects.”)

With any piece of Content, ask yourself these three questions:

1. Why is this on? “Because it’ll be funny” shouldn’t be the primary reason. Lots of shows are fairly funny at times, but aren’t really connective or transformative.

2. Where am I going with it? Think of an Ending FIRST, then figure out how to start it, and then how to shape it. This doesn’t kill spontaneity; it clarifies it and cleans it up. When you know where you’re going, you go in more of a straight line.

3. What does this mean to the listener – TODAY? If something you say actually resonates with me, I’m more likely to come back and listen to you again. But if it’s just generic “any day” Content, or flimsy jokes based on “click bait” postings, you’re probably not going to have much of an audience.

You earn the listener’s attention one connection at a time.

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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 $442: Be More Than Just a Playlist

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Since there are so many places to get the music now, you have to be more than just a playlist.

COMPANIONSHIP (especially in the car) is still really important.
PERSONALITY should be mandatory in EVERY daypart.
There should be “something going on” ALL the time, in every hour of the show – both “station things” and your own Content.

What you have in common with the Listener is what binds you together. If you’re generic, you’re invisible.

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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.