Monthly Archives: October 2025

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.

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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 #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.)

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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 #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.

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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 #644: They Own the Cameras

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Years ago, the great comedian Norm MacDonald was fired from doing the “Weekend Update” on Saturday Night Live. It was because one of the higher-ups at NBC was friends with O. J. Simpson, and he demanded that Norm stop doing jokes about the ex-football player and accused murderer.

After that, Norm was on Late Night with David Letterman, wondering and griping a bit about getting fired. But Norm also quoted something that Letterman had told him about the bosses of network TV – “They own the cameras.”

I believe it would be a good idea to keep this in mind – NOT about your boss, but instead, about the Listeners.

Because THEY “own the cameras.” They decide whether to listen to you or not. So try not to drift too far into your own personal agendas if you know you’ll be going against their directives. You can still do plenty of Content that “works around the fringes” of whatever you think is relevant – but without forcing a decision that will affect your career in a negative way.

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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 #643: Every Good Player Knows…

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Major league baseball runs a commercial during a change of innings that says, “Every good player knows the value of a coach.” And that’s true, but I think the opposite is true, too – every good coach knows the value of a great player.

A lot of good coaching is just staying out of the way, or just gently carving at the edges of things – because…they’re good. They don’t need a lot of, “This is how we do this.” In radio/TV/Voice acting, it’s more about “This plays to your strengths more,” or “It’s better if you stop here instead of adding one more thing.”

Coaching is a two-way street. Hard to do on your own.

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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.