Tommy Kramer Coaching Tip #499: The Faceless Name

Posted on December 28, 2022 by tommykramer

In the old days, we got listener reaction on the phone. But now, with social media, a lot of input comes from Facebook, etc.

The result is hearing “Jim says…” or “Samantha said…”
Faceless names.
I know nine people named Jim. Which one is he?
I’ve known three women named Samantha. Is this one of them? Is this the one that dumped me for that idiot that played quarterback in High School?
More importantly, did someone named Jim or Samantha actually respond, or are you just making a name up to give the impression that someone posted something about what you said?

I don’t even get the point of mentioning a name. Why not just tell us what was said?

But okay, here’s a cure – give the person’s name and city or area. “Jim from Plano” tells someone in Dallas where Jim’s from. It also says “We’re your station” to Jim, and everyone else in that area. Simple. Now, instead of just a name floating by like a balloon, we have some firmament. And we get a chance to have that name serve a purpose by being connective.

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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 #498: When Repetition is Good, and When it’s Not

Posted on December 21, 2022 by tommykramer

Radio is all about telling stories. But I keep hearing people repeat things all the time on the air. What a drag.

IF you repeat something because you’re pounding a point home, that’s okay. (It was a huge part of George Carlin’s act. Chris Rock does this to good effect, too.) And repeating things is a good tool to use if you’re talking to a 3-year old.

But repeating something just because you’ve forgotten that you already said it, is NOT okay.

As anyone who took a first-year Speech class in college knows, unconscious repetition is a bad habit. Saying things ONCE is the best and most efficient way of telling a story.

Tighten it up. You might – dare I suggest this – actually rehearse it beforehand, instead of just fiddling around hoping it all just magically works out somehow.

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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 #497: Not Sounding Like a Moron, Part 1 – The Echo

Posted on December 14, 2022 by tommykramer

Little things matter, because the listener is continuously forming an opinion of you as he or she listens.

One overlooked deejay thing is what I call “The Echo” – where you say the title of a song the last thing out of your mouth, then the song begins by singing that title. “Why would that matter?” you may ask. Well, that could send the message to the listener that you somehow didn’t know how the song began, or maybe you forgot – otherwise, you wouldn’t have put it back-to-back with the vocal repeating what you said.

Centuries ago at KNUS in Dallas, various members of the air staff would get together casually and listen to airchecks of each other. It was good-natured; we all liked each other. When the “echo” thing came up once, I stopped the audio and said to my friend, “That kind of makes you sound like a moron.”
He replied, “I wouldn’t say that.”
I teased, “I know YOU wouldn’t say that, but…” – and we all burst into laughter. But then we all agreed that we would consciously avoid “the Echo”. It became one of dozens of “rules” we formed in order to not sound like every other ‘asleep at the wheel’ station.

We all did things a certain way. Or avoided doing certain things as a group. I truly believe that tiny threads of connection among an air staff will inevitably end up being a zillion tiny threads of connection with the listeners. A great talent or station is like that cool club you want to be a part of. That’s the way we felt, and all the members of that staff tried to instill that vibe throughout their radio careers. (Oh, and fyi, KNUS became the first FM station to be #1 in a major market.)

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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 #496: Turning Print Words into Spoken Words

Posted on December 7, 2022 by tommykramer

As air talents, we get handed some pretty unwieldy things to put on the air sometimes. Even with the best of intentions, sometimes a contest or promotion is written up as awkward sentences that no human would ever say to a friend in a real-life conversation.

So let me help you with two thoughts – one from the great voice acting coach Marice Tobias, and the other from the amazing British character actor Charles Laughton. Here they are, in reverse order:

The starting place is to take the copy and figure out that one word in each sentence that matters the most. Laughton said that you hit that word and just toss the others out there. This is really important. “Announcer”-types and bad disc jockeys try to “hit” too many words, so it comes out hype-y and unnatural.

And Marice Tobias uses the thought of just “noticing” a word, rather than “inflecting” it. That’s a very cool way to look at it. More subtle.

Following these two simple guidelines will turn “print words” into spoken words that are more comfortable and genuine-sounding. The goal is to inject natural emotion and purposefulness into the copy.

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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 #495: The Value of Nonsense

Posted on November 30, 2022 by tommykramer

Here’s a question for you: When’s the last time you did something nonsensical on the air?

I love radio, but most stations I hear nowadays are SO BORING. A bunch of people reading crap off a computer screen. Where’s the creativity in that?

Howard Clark, one of my first and greatest mentors, used to build in goofiness to his show. Howard would quote the lyrics of a song, for instance, like “I never felt more like singin’ the blues” – over a completely different song!

Howard once came out of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” with “…the amazing Funkel brothers, Simon and Gar…”

After starting a song on the wrong speed (back when we used turntables to play records), Howard would simply say, “Every move…carefully planned” as he slowly reset the speed.

Howard personified that ingredient of my never quite knowing what he would say when the mic opened. A reason to listen more closely. And people did.

SURPRISE someone today. Surprise yourself. Take a chance. Jump into the pool without checking to see if there’s any water. People will notice.

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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 #494: Listening to Yourself

Posted on November 23, 2022 by tommykramer

It’s absolutely stunning to see how few people listen to their own air work.

Back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, we had “skimmer” cassettes that started recording when the mic went on, and then stopped recording when the mic went off. It was a ‘given’ that I’d take the cassette of that day’s show and listen to it as I drove home from work.

It’s even easier now. You can do it on your phone by just logging into the system.
But very few people do. More than once, I’ve asked someone how often they listen to their show, and all I get at first is a blank stare. Some people NEVER listen to themselves! And as a result, ancient, boring habits remain on the air, the spirit of “How could I have done this better?” doesn’t even exist, and the talent stands still in terms of development.

It’s why I use audio in almost every session, because if you won’t listen to your show without being prompted to do so, I make sure that you hear what I believe you need to hear – both things that need work (or need to be jettisoned entirely) and things that are really good. (Pointing out what you do best is a huge part of my coaching process.)

So, after reading this, some questions:
Is this tip going to make anything different?
Or are you just going to keep on believing that everything’s okay? (Your PD may feel differently.)
And finally, if you don’t care enough to listen to yourself, why should anyone else?

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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 #493: A Simple Guide to Connecting with the Listener

Posted on November 16, 2022 by tommykramer

Each coaching session I do gets a short written recap afterward. I keep it simple, and often include an example from that person’s air work.

Recently, a talent talked about the dreary weather forecast, and noted that it made some people crabby. Then she paused…and added, “Okay, it makes me crabby.”

I sent this in her recap:

Very nice, Sarah. 👏

Opening up and sharing your quirks and foibles will always work. Even if people don’t feel the same way you do, they’ll weigh your feelings against theirs, and that in itself is connection.

Feel free to keep that up.

Hopefully this tip will serve two purposes: (1) it shows how easy it is to pull someone a step closer to you when you’re on the air, and (2) it should take away any fear you have of coaching. That small, but highly connective moment might have gone unnoticed. But to me, it’s the germ of the whole purpose of being on the air – to CONNECT with the Listener.

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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 #492: How to Bake a Story

Posted on November 9, 2022 by tommykramer

The promise was that this tip would be about how to put a story together. But my wife watches a lot of cooking shows, so that’s why it has that title.

Here’s how you do it…three steps to lay out.

1. Here’s a person in a situation. YOU decide which person’s “camera angle” you want to use. Is it the guy in the car wreck who’s pinned in his car? Or is it the person who pulls him from it? Is it you?

2. This is what happened, based on that point of view. Be visual, not too info or statistic-driven.

3. This is what that FELT like. Again, you can put yourself in whichever person’s shoes you want. It’s the Emotion that frames what you’ll say.

Stories don’t have to be long, either. Some of the best ones are very brief. True example:
The other day, my wife checked the Weather Channel app on her phone and said “The highest chance of rain we have is five percent.”

I said, “Ever?”

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.

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.