Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #491: Where Stories Are Born

Posted on November 2, 2022 by tommykramer

In the last tip, I wrote about getting away from Information and concentrating on Storytelling. That tip and this one grew out of an email conversation my associate John Frost and I had with the PD of a station we both work with. Let me share it with you…

It’s kind of like John Lennon wrote in “With a Little Help From My Friends” — “What do you see when you turn out the light?” was his question. For our purposes, it’s simply, “What do you see?”

When we’re in the grocery store, watching someone pick out a tomato with one hand while she holds her child’s stroller with the other. Or just staring out the window, and we see a leaf fall that signals the season changing. Or getting an email or text from an old friend you haven’t heard from in a long time. What catches our attention is the starting place. That’s where a story is born. Baseball great Yogi Berra said it best: “You can observe a lot by watching.”

I believe, and I’m sure Frost agrees, that telling stories is the most important ingredient in radio.
The next tip will be about how to put a story together.

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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 #490: Information is Not a Story

Posted on October 26, 2022 by tommykramer

Information and Stories are totally different. Yes, we use information in the telling of a story, but in coaching talent on storytelling, I’ve often found that they often do one or more of these three things:

(1) overshoot, trying to dress up so-called stories from Facebook or the internet that the listener may not care about at all,
(2) choose “stories” that are too full of factoids and details, or
(3) invent not-quite-plausible scenarios as a way to get in a line they thought of and were determined to use.

So here’s the deal:

Everything you and the listener have in common has a story behind it, and new stories get added to that memory pile every day – if you’re smart enough to capitalize on them.

“Just the facts, ma’am” is a police report. What happened, and the emotion(s) generated by that = a story.

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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 #489: The Invisible Mic

Posted on October 19, 2022 by tommykramer

This tip was birthed by a comment from Randy Fox of KSBJ in Houston. (If you’re not familiar with them, suffice it to say that it’s easily one of the Top 3 stations in the Contemporary Christion Music format, with a huge, devoted audience.)

During a recent session, Randy pinpointed a real strength of Morgan Smith, who does afternoons, saying “She makes the microphone invisible.”

What a nice compliment. That intimacy, where it just feels like a friend is talking to you, is – to me – essential, if you want to be a great talent.

Share something, sure, and if you’re excited, show that. But don’t try to be “bigger” or louder than a normal, animated conversation. Make the mic disappear.

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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 #488: The Biggest, but Simplest Content Thought

Posted on October 12, 2022 by tommykramer

Let’s make this easy, and get to the real core of how to be a terrific air talent.

Your job is to share what you see about, and what you feel about the things you have in common with the listener.

Everything else is just nuts and bolts. If you don’t have the ability to zero in on what matters most to the listener, then you need to run, not walk, to your PD and find out who your target listener is.

When you can visualize what’s going on in the listener’s life, you can be relevant and worth listening to. If you can’t, and just talk about what interests you, then you’re a disposable commodity, not a “must listen” talent. Even worse is the real “show about nothing” (Seinfeld’s show wasn’t really that; it was a show about what that generation was like in the 1990s.) When you’re just talking about “click bait” stuff you see online or on social media, you’re just another drone.

If you settle for that, you’re turning your back on what will make you stand out. And you’re helping to make radio boring.

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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 #487: Jokes Aren’t Funny

Posted on October 5, 2022 by tommykramer

Radio has changed quite a bit over the last 20 years. Social media, instant access to information through your cell phone, nine thousand channels and video streaming sources have changed subject matter and how it’s delivered.

But radio is still capable of being the most personal medium there is. However, if I had to choose one thing to tell you, it would be “Jokes aren’t funny anymore.”

It’s hard to try to be funny when comedy is so readily available. Turn on the TV and you can almost always find Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, Modern Family…and the list goes on forever. There are clips of every comic ever born on You Tube, too.

So, don’t do “jokes”. Do LIFE. What makes people laugh is always just what they can see themselves doing, or someone they know. People are just flat out funny – whether they mean to be or not. Once in Dallas when rain was pouring down, my morning show partner Rick “The Beamer” Robertson and I used “Singin’ in the Rain” instead of the Weather jingle bed to do the forecast over, and at the end, we broke into song.

A few minutes later, his mother called, and said, “Rick, you’re funny, honey; you really are…but let Tommy do the singing!”

Rick reacted like an eight-year old, “Aww, mom…”

Now THAT was funny.

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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 #486: The Phone Rings

Posted on September 28, 2022 by tommykramer

To a degree, acting is part of what we do. I talk a lot about this in coaching sessions, and give an example of a bad actor versus a good actor:

The bad actor “shades” toward the desk as he talks, knowing that the phone is going to ring.
The good actor just says what he has to say, and the stupid phone interrupts him.

When you’re on the radio, the “visual” is created by the listener. But what you say and the way you sound paints the picture, too. Be more than just “a voice saying words” or reading something off a computer screen. Give me something genuine.

– – – – – – –
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 #485: The Phonies versus The Realies

Posted on September 21, 2022 by tommykramer

There are things everywhere that apply to what we do. For me, one of those was a line from an old “Peanuts” comic strip when the cantankerous Lucy turned to Charlie Brown after something had happened and said, “It’s getting hard to tell the phonies from the realies.”

That’s a quirky line, but honestly, in radio, it’s not that hard. So, with apologies in advance for using the old-fashioned “he” pronoun, here’s a checklist:

The Phony tells you what to think. {“You’ll like this…”)
The Realie tells you what he thinks.

The Phony “pushes” a little too much.
The Realie has better technique and lets the mic do the heavy lifting.

The Phony does material that he thinks is funny or entertaining. The Realie does material that he believes the LISTENER will find funny or entertaining.

Start with the listener and work back to the Control room as the beginning of your process. Then just talk to that person.
Always give 100%, but don’t try too hard. Let me decide, one listen at a time, that you’re the best choice. If you need help, ask your PD, or work with a valid talent coach.

The goal is to be the best version of you.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #484: The Biggest Skill

Posted on September 15, 2022 by tommykramer

The best air talents I’ve ever heard, regardless of age, format, etc. all have one thing in common. And I think it’s the “biggest” skill a person can develop.

They’re concise. They always seem to get a point across in fewer words than someone else would use.

Yes, this does apply to Talk radio, too. This isn’t about the length of a break (or a segment).
It’s simply been my observation that the person that ‘cuts to the chase’ is the one that gets quoted. And remembered.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #483: Everything You Say…

Posted on September 7, 2022 by tommykramer

This may be an uncomfortable thought, but everything you say reveals something about you – whether you want it to or not.

If you’re in touch with the reason TO say it, you have a good chance of its being received as genuine, and digested by the listener as something worth hearing. If you’re not, and you’re just “trying to get done with it,” that will be felt by the listener, too.

I had a morning team once that insisted on prerecording every break they did into the Voxpro device they used for phone calls, and then playing it back on the air a few minutes later EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE SITTING IN THE CONTROL ROOM and could have done it live.

That, of course, is silly. I’m not knocking voice tracking, but that’s a different animal. I’m talking about being right there in the room and still choosing to be one step removed from live performance. Their excuse was, “We want it to be perfect,” which, of course, is unattainable, and made them sound just a little unnatural.
And obviously, their saying that to me revealed a lot about them, whether they meant it to or not.

Real people flub words, breathe, and don’t “announce” when they ask you to pass the salt.
As a talent, never fear stepping into the spotlight and delivering. That’s why you got into radio in the first place, because you can do that. So be you, and be right here, right now, working without a net. Even mistakes reveal something about you.

Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #482: Don’t Hide

Posted on August 31, 2022 by tommykramer

Here’s a little story for you…

When I was Corporate Talent Coach for Paxson Radio, part of my job was to listen to airchecks that were sent in. We had 47 stations, and wanted real Talent in every position.

One guy followed up his aircheck with a phone call, and asked my opinion. I told him that most of what I had heard had been stock ‘bits’ – Trivia contests, ‘News of the Weird’ type of stuff, some forced-sounding laughter. Sensing that he was a little shaken, I added, “Look, here’s the thing. After hearing this, I don’t know who you are. You’re hiding behind ‘bits’ so much that I don’t have a sense of what your outlook on life is, what your values are, what your opinions are – things that we might connect on if I did.”

So…ask yourself if you’re still trying to invent new things, or just settling for the same ol’ same ol’. Is your show consistent (which is fine), or has it crossed the line into being predictable (which is death)? Do you offer insights, give opinions? Did I learn anything about you today? Or did you just “perform” some more?

In the end, the ‘bits’ are rarely what’s remembered. It’s WHO YOU ARE that sinks in. As I’ve said a million times, at some point you’re going to have to crack your chest open and show us what’s in there.